Under the caregiver uncle’s meticulous care, Lu Guang Ming passed several hospitalized days surrounded by fragrant waves of bad breath. Xie Jia Hua avoided him as if avoiding the plague; not only did he never appear in the hospital again, he would not even answer Lu Guang Ming’s harassing calls.
Lu Guang Ming persisted in harassing Xie Jia Hua for two days and two nights, making sure that as long as his eyes were open, Inspector Xie would not have a peaceful time. Finally, on the morning of the third day, he received Inspector Xie’s response—his phone number had been blocked.
“Ah! Bastard!” Lu Guang Ming was so angry he bit the pillow. He should never have believed that someone surnamed Xie had a conscience! The son of a yellow weasel was naturally the sort who stole eggs and did not wipe his mouth afterward!
With rage attacking his heart, even the urine he passed came out bright yellow. That afternoon, Lu Guang Ming trembled as he came out of the bathroom, walking back toward the hospital room with his legs spread, cursing Inspector Xie with little straw dolls in his heart as he walked. By chance, he heard a sentence drift through the air: “Bed B12?”
Lu Guang Ming’s ears immediately perked up. B12 was precisely his bed number.
The young nurse at the front desk flipped through the medical record and patiently explained Bed B12’s condition to the person on the other end of the phone. “…Don’t worry, he’s recovering very well. The doctor said he can be discharged in two days. Eh? Mr. Lu, why are you out? Perfect timing, your friend called to ask about your condition. You can talk to him yourself…”
Lu Guang Ming quickly stepped forward, took the phone, and drew out a long, “Hellooo.”
“Beep—”
A busy tone came from the other end. The call had already been hung up before he even answered.
“Hehehe.” Lu Guang Ming cheerfully stuck up his butt and limped back to the hospital room—what friends did he have? He had been hospitalized for several days, and not a single person had come to see him. Other than that two-faced bastard Xie Jia Hua, who else could have made this call?
…
Once Investigator Lu’s mood improved, his butt healed swiftly, and he was discharged the very next day. He stuck up his butt and knelt on a chair as he worked overtime for several days, making up all the work he had fallen behind on. That evening, he handed in his work report and hummed a little tune as he entered the elevator. Several colleagues inside the elevator glanced sideways at him with frowns, but he was feeling so pleased that he did not care at all.
“Look at him. He must be plotting something bad again. I really don’t understand why Chief Xu would keep someone like that,” someone in the elevator said the moment he left.
Hearing the slander behind him, Lu Guang Ming curved his brows and eyes in a smile, not caring in the slightest. He went out and boarded a tram, swaying all the way to the police station where Xie Jia Hua was stationed. Mingling among a pile of gangsters who had been arrested for group fighting, he easily slipped into Xie Jia Hua’s office amid the clamor and noise.
Xie Jia Hua had originally been sitting in his chair reading a report. The moment he saw Lu Guang Ming’s figure, he stood up and frowned. “What are you doing here!”
Lu Guang Ming stopped in the middle of closing the door. He simply pulled it half open instead and said with a smiling face, “Why can’t I come?”
“You…” Xie Jia Hua hesitated for a moment. “You were discharged?”
Lu Guang Ming sat down on his desk in one motion. “When I was discharged, does Inspector Xie not know? Haven’t you been calling the young nurse once a day?” He turned his head and glanced outside the door, deliberately raising his voice. “The young nurse was very concerned about me. Every day she cursed that rapist… mmph, mmph, mmph!”
Xie Jia Hua lunged forward and clamped a hand over his mouth, kicking the office door shut along the way. “What exactly are you here for?!”
Lu Guang Ming blinked against his palm, signaling for him to let go. “To come see you, and collect a debt while I’m at it.”
Xie Jia Hua endured and endured. “I wronged you in that matter. What do you want?”
“Have you been investigating Xiao Qi Hall recently? Lend me your informant inside Xiao Qi Hall.”
“Dream on!”
“Hehe. So there really is an informant?”
“…”
Xie Jia Hua darkened his face and said nothing. Lu Guang Ming found his reaction amusing, and bad intentions immediately arose. He tugged at the hem of Xie Jia Hua’s clothes and began acting obedient. “Just lend him to me for a bit, Inspector Xie.”
“…”
“Jia Hua? A’Hua?” Lu Guang Ming still felt it was not nauseating enough and changed the way he addressed him to tease him. “A’Ward…”
Before he had even finished saying this last address, Xie Jia Hua shoved him to the floor with one slap! With a thud! His butt, which had only just gotten better after a few days, suffered again! Lu Guang Ming hurt so much his heart clenched, and just as he wrinkled up his face and was about to cry pain, he looked up and saw Xie Jia Hua’s iron-blue expression. He was truly enraged.
“What was that for?” Lu Guang Ming said as he crookedly climbed up by himself. “I was just joking with you.”
“Get out,” Xie Jia Hua said, his face iron-blue.
Lu Guang Ming bared his teeth in a smile. “Dream on.”
…
“Boss,” a young officer hurriedly pushed open the office door, “that bastard finally gave us some ‘material.’ Come listen together… Wow!” What he saw was his boss, iron-faced, pushing out a handsome young man in a suit and leather shoes, while that handsome young man clung tightly to his boss’s waist and refused to let go.
“You owe me. Don’t even think about throwing me aside!” the handsome young man even shouted through bared teeth.
The young officer stared, dumbfounded. “Wow, Boss, he’s a guy. No matter how long you’ve been single, you don’t have to be that desperate, right?”
“Shut up! Get out!” Xie Jia Hua roared.
The young officer ducked his head and went out. Before closing the door, he even poked his head back in. “Then hurry up and come, Boss. Everyone’s waiting for you.”
“Shut up!!”
Once the door closed, Xie Jia Hua finally tore Lu Guang Ming off him like a dog-skin plaster. Both of them were panting from the struggle. Lu Guang Ming did not have much strength, but he had youth on his side, and after a short while, he recovered his stamina and wanted to pounce again. Xie Jia Hua took a step back and said angrily, “Stop fooling around. I still have work. Be careful, or I’ll charge you with obstructing official duties.”
“Wow, I’m so scared,” Lu Guang Ming said. “I came here today for work too. Be careful, or I’ll charge you with refusing to cooperate with an ICAC investigation and maliciously detaining an ICAC officer.”
“You’re simply being completely unreasonable!” Xie Jia Hua was so angry his head spun.
“Who told you to eat and run!” Lu Guang Ming said, righteous and confident.
“You! I…” Xie Jia Hua practically wished he could chop off his useless second brother with one knife—of all people to poke, why did it have to poke this nemesis! He shouted that classic line of virtuous women in prime-time dramas: “Don’t come over! You heard just now. I still have a prisoner to interrogate. I’ll talk to you after the interrogation.”
Lu Guang Ming stood in the center of the room with his hands on his hips and smiled in triumph. “Fine. I’ll wait for Inspector Xie to come back and slowly, slowly talk.”
Xie Jia Hua turned to leave with a dark face, but after thinking about it, he still felt uneasy, so he deliberately turned back to the desk and locked all his drawers right in front of Lu Guang Ming—this kid had ill intentions and acted without restraint. Maybe he had come to sneak a look at information; Xie Jia Hua could not fall for this kid’s trick of luring the tiger away from the mountain!
After locking the drawers, this always-victorious inspector gave Lu Guang Ming one resentful glare, then fled as though flying before Lu Guang Ming could grab the hem of his clothes.
…
Holding a bellyful of anger, Xie Jia Hua entered the interrogation room with murderous energy all over him, and in a few moves frightened the suspect into honestly giving a statement. When he came out of the interrogation room, his head ached and his face burned, so he even went specially to wash his face. He sighed at the mirror, resigned himself to his fate, and returned to his office to “slowly talk” with Lu Guang Ming.
But Lu Guang Ming was no longer there.
Xie Jia Hua looked at his watch doubtfully. Only one hour had passed. Lu Guang Ming, who like him had long been in a profession that required staking places out, should not have been so lacking in patience.
He searched around for Lu Guang Ming, then carefully checked his drawers and found no signs of them having been pried open. Finally, his suspicious gaze landed next door—that was the office of his old superior, Deputy Superintendent Liu, who had gone out in the afternoon because something had come up.
He walked over quietly and pushed Deputy Superintendent Liu’s office door, discovering that the other man had forgotten to lock it. He stuck his head in to look and saw that the office was empty.
…
At noon the next day, Lu Guang Ming had lunch at the cha chaan teng downstairs from the ICAC building and was just starting to feel drowsy from the meal, yawning as he walked toward the ICAC. When he reached a small alley by the roadside, someone suddenly grabbed him and dragged him inside!
Lu Guang Ming instinctively raised his elbow to resist, only for the other person to restrain both his arms with ease and press him hard against the wall as though cuffing a criminal. Just as he opened his mouth to shout, his mouth was covered—the warm palm carried a faint scent of blood and gunpowder.
Lu Guang Ming stopped shouting and calmly lifted his eyes to look at the other man. Xie Jia Hua had one hand clenched into a fist and had originally been about to punch him in the lower abdomen, but once his fist reached Lu Guang Ming, he could not bring himself to strike. His arm swerved, and the punch landed on the wall instead, raising a cloud of dust.
Lu Guang Ming struggled free from his palm and smiled cheekily. “What a rare guest, Inspector Xie. You actually came to find me yourself?”
“What did you steal from Deputy Superintendent Liu’s office?” Xie Jia Hua said angrily.
Lu Guang Ming blinked. “What is Inspector Xie talking about? I don’t understand.”
“Stop pretending! You left only yesterday, and this morning, your ICAC people took Deputy Superintendent Liu away! Did you steal some ‘material’ from the police station yesterday?!”
“I didn’t,” Lu Guang Ming said with an innocent face. “Deputy Superintendent Liu’s case isn’t my responsibility at all. I know nothing about it. Besides, since Deputy Superintendent Liu was taken away, that means there are facts of corruption involving him. Aren’t you someone who hates evil like an enemy and despises corruption and perversion of the law the most? What are you angry about?”
“I’ve worked with Deputy Superintendent Liu for five years. He’s absolutely not that kind of person!” Xie Jia Hua said angrily.
“If not now, then perhaps before?” Lu Guang Ming gave a scoff and mocked, “Your Deputy Superintendent Liu is almost fifty this year, isn’t he? Among people of his generation, how many are clean? Even that deputy commissioner father of yours…”
Before he could finish speaking, Xie Jia Hua’s fist had already stopped right by his face. Lu Guang Ming did not dodge or retreat. The fist, already streaked with blood, slammed into the wall again!
Lu Guang Ming glanced sideways at the wall dust beside his head. “Hehehe. Inspector Xie has a guilty conscience, so you can’t bring yourself to hit me?”
Xie Jia Hua’s eyes burned like torches, roasting back and forth over his face several times. In the end, he withdrew his fist. “Lu Guang Ming, in this world, there is nothing you cannot use. I find you extremely detestable. What happened that night was only an accident. I wronged you. You can hit me, or you can report me, but don’t think of using me again to hurt anyone!”
Facing his loathing and ferocious gaze, Lu Guang Ming paused for quite a while before suddenly lifting the corners of his mouth in a faint smile, delight spilling from his curved brows and eyes. “Inspector Xie, you really are interesting. Really cute.”
He wrapped both arms around Xie Jia Hua’s waist. “All those things you said—I don’t want any of them. All I want is…”
He leaned in and softly said one sentence by Xie Jia Hua’s ear. Before he could reveal the wicked smile he thought he had, Xie Jia Hua flung out a large hand and pushed him far away again! Xie Jia Hua’s face was black as charcoal, and after glaring at him in disbelief, he turned and left as if avoiding the plague before Lu Guang Ming could say the next line.
“Are you agreeing or not? If you agree, then we’re even.”
“I don’t want to see you again! Get lost!”
Futile Devices Scans 
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