He stayed by Xie Jia Hua’s bed for the entire afternoon. At first, he even made a show of tucking Xie Jia Hua’s quilt in and smoothing his hair. An hour later, he began yawning nonstop, slumping in the chair as he rubbed his eyes and stretched, bored out of his mind as he looked all around. When he truly had nothing else to do, he dug Xie Jia Hua’s hand out from under the quilt and turned it over and over to look at it.
“Look, he has seven whorls on his fingers.” As Lu Guang Ming counted, he even chattered away to Qin Hao, who was also sitting by the bed.
Qin Hao sat upright in the chair, straight as a pine, silent and solemn. He glanced at him without saying a word.
The wrist Lu Guang Ming had previously had twisted by him was still aching faintly even now, so he did not dare make sarcastic remarks to his face. He could only secretly grumble in his heart, Heh, one look and you can tell he’s a Little Sweet Potato trained by Xie the Big Sweet Potato. That stiff face is exactly the same, like he’s been locked in a stove and roasted black.
Speaking of being roasted black, he noticed again that there was still some dirt and ash by Xie Jia Hua’s temple that had not been cleaned off. So he patted around on himself and pulled out the handkerchief Xie Jia Hua had “given” him, pinched it in his fingers, and carefully wiped Xie Jia Hua’s face bit by bit.
Qin Hao, who witnessed everything, could not help furrowing his brows.
Lu Guang Ming was wiping with great seriousness when he suddenly noticed Qin Hao’s heated, sharp gaze. With a pure and innocent face, he looked back at Qin Hao, narrowed his eyes, and smiled. “It’s a little dirty, so I’m wiping it.”
“…” Qin Hao silently turned his gaze elsewhere.
After a while, the person in charge of the Major Crimes Unit came to understand the details of the case and called Qin Hao away. Lu Guang Ming was left alone guarding the hospital room, and he finally seized the chance to grope Xie Jia Hua from head to toe, putting his hands all over him and taking outrageous advantage. Xie Jia Hua was touched until he began having nightmares, his brows knitting tighter and tighter, and then his breathing suddenly grew heavy and his eyelids snapped open.
Lu Guang Ming, who had been pinching his earlobe for fun, was so frightened that he sprang away and fled a good distance. Seeing that Xie Jia Hua was still dazed and motionless, only then did he clutch his chest and edge closer, pretending to be innocent. “Hi, hi? Can you hear me?”
He hurriedly pressed the call bell for the nurse. The doctor rushed over and performed an examination. Before long, Qin Hao and Xie Jia Hua’s cousin, Xie Jia Bao, also hurried back, and the three of them surrounded Xie Jia Hua together. From the corner of his eye, Lu Guang Ming saw that two buttons on Xie Jia Hua’s shirt were still undone, leaving his chest wide open, and could not help coughing lightly as he guiltily and quietly took a step back.
However, the awakened Xie Jia Hua still locked onto him with one glance! His face pale, he glared at Lu Guang Ming without letting go!
Xie Jia Bao said anxiously, “Brother A’Hua, you—you don’t recognize him? He’s from the ICAC. He said he’s your friend and has been here looking after you all afternoon…”
Of course Xie Jia Hua recognized him. He drove both Xie Jia Bao and Lu Guang Ming out, leaving only Qin Hao behind to ask questions. Lu Guang Ming shamelessly lingered outside and refused to leave, seizing the chance to coax a few more words out of foolish Xie Jia Bao. Not long after, Qin Hao came out of the room and called Lu Guang Ming in.
Lu Guang Ming entered the hospital room in considerable disbelief. “You actually want to see me?” Could it be that he had discovered he had been groped?
Xie Jia Hua paid no attention at all to the cleavage his chest was currently showing. Instead, he placed a photograph in front of him and said coldly, “Explain.”
Lu Guang Ming was sincerely at a loss. “Explain what?”
“Was this taken by you? What does this matter have to do with you? Or are you the mastermind behind it?” Xie Jia Hua said angrily.
Full of confusion, Lu Guang Ming picked up the photograph and looked at it carefully. The photo was a candid shot of Xie Jia Hua and the undercover Qin Hao meeting in the disco, and even Lu Guang Ming was stunned when he saw it. This really did look too much like the night he had peeped at the two of them meeting in the disco. But he had never taken any photos. What mastermind? Behind the scenes… Ah! This had to be A’San’s doing!
He Chu San did not know that Lu Guang Ming had seen Xie Jia Hua and Qin Hao meeting in the disco that night, so this should be friendly fire. But after thinking it over, that night, he had not seen any other suspicious people at the scene apart from himself, either. This photograph could not be real. He studied the photograph even more carefully and finally discovered the clue—sure enough, this was a fake photograph that had been cropped and composited.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Xie Jia Hua raising a pillow to hit him, and he quickly raised both hands. “Inspector Xie! Wrongly accusing a good person is against the law!”
Xie Jia Hua still looked furious, his entire face clearly written with, What kind of good person are you?
Lu Guang Ming held the photo up before Xie Jia Hua’s eyes. “Look carefully. This photo is fake. Someone cut out your side profile and pasted it onto the body of the person drinking with that undercover little brother of yours, then rephotographed and processed it. Maybe because both photos were taken in a bar or disco, the lighting looks about the same in terms of brightness and darkness. But if you look carefully at your own face, the direction of one shadow is different. Think about it. If I had taken it, would I need to go to all this extra trouble?”
He did everything he could to reveal a pure and innocent expression. Xie Jia Hua clutched the pillow in one hand and snatched the photograph with the other, examining it carefully. In the end, he went from furious resentment to half-belief, half-doubt. “How did you know I was hospitalized?”
“I was at the explosion scene. I was eavesdropping on your police force’s internal broadcast.”
“…” Xie Jia Hua raised the pillow again.
“Hey, don’t, don’t,” Lu Guang Ming hurriedly said, then muttered a long explanation to clear his own name. “I went there to handle proper business. I suspected Cui Dong Dong went to Hao Cheng Qing’s former residence to retrieve Xiao Qi Hall’s Dragon Head ledgers. Otherwise, there was no reason for her to hurry there after being searched for. I originally wanted to sneak over and take a look, but who knew that as soon as I arrived, I would see you get blown away…”
While he was at it, he even lectured Xie Jia Hua a couple of sentences. “You tell me, you’re not young anymore. How can you be so impulsive when doing things? You didn’t even check before charging inside.”
Xie Jia Hua silently raised the pillow again, his face growing darker and darker. Lu Guang Ming was very tactful, immediately oiling the soles of his feet and slipping toward the door. “Fine, fine, I won’t say anymore. I only came to see whether you were all right. Since you’re fine, I’ll leave on my own now.”
He shut the door at a sprint and fled into the corridor. As he pressed the elevator button, he secretly laughed to himself, still feeling that Xie Jia Hua was extremely cute.
…
But romantic entanglements were all minor matters. Once he stepped out of the elevator, proper business was still more important. He returned the black-market rental car, went back to the ICAC, and worked alone until late at night. At three in the morning, he stepped beneath the starlight and returned to that shabby little room of his. After washing up, he burrowed into the quilt in his usual way and curled into a ball. Then he thought of Xie Jia Hua again.
That bastard Big Sweet Potato. After getting the secretly taken photo, his first reaction really had been to suspect him after all.
Although it was understandable, he still felt a tiny bit hurt.
Am I that bad? he thought aggrievedly while hugging his pillow. After thinking for a while, he then gave a smug cold laugh. I am that bad. Hmph, hmph, hmph.
Just like that, as if he had a split personality, he hugged his pillow and tossed and turned. By the time dawn’s faint light arrived, he still could not sleep. Seeing that the alarm clock on the desk already showed six o’clock, he thought of Xie Jia Hua in the hospital.
Hehehe. Now it was your turn to be hospitalized, poor Inspector Xie. At your age, you do not even have someone at home to warm your bed. When you’re sick, who will take care of you? Hire a caregiver again? What can you eat when you wake up in the morning?
As he thought and thought, his heart grew increasingly compassionate, so he simply threw off the quilt and got out of bed. He washed, dressed, and groomed himself with great seriousness, spraying his entire head with the only bottle of mousse he had with a “tss, tss,” then carefully combing his hair in front of the mirror until every strand shone. Then, with great kindness, he went out to buy breakfast for Inspector Xie.
…
He sat in the café and studied the menu for a very long time, only to discover that he did not know what Xie Jia Hua liked to eat. During those few days he had freeloaded at Xie Jia Hua’s home, Xie Jia Hua had prioritized him, the “patient,” in all matters of food and drink. He himself had wanted nothing at all; whatever food was brought before him was the same, as long as it filled his stomach.
Now that Lu Guang Ming thought back on it, Xie Jia Hua really had done everything he could to take care of him during that week or so: picking him up from and dropping him off at work every day, bringing all the meals right in front of him, helping him wash up at night, and when they went out, even bending down to put on his shoes for him. From time to time, Lu Guang Ming angered him so badly he nearly burst a blood vessel, but he still forcibly endured and never mistreated him.
“The Big Sweet Potato is a good Sweet Potato,” Lu Guang Ming thought with his chin propped on his hand as he looked at the menu. “How pitiful, no one dotes on him. I’ll just reluctantly be a little nice to him.”
So he simply gritted his teeth, pulled the only large bill out of his wallet, and bought three different breakfasts all at once—surely one of them would be something Xie Jia Hua liked—and stuffed a lunch box full to the brim.
Worried that the food would get cold, he walked swiftly all the way, jogging out of the elevator with the lunch box in hand until he arrived at the hospital room door. The door was not fully shut. He gently poked it open with his finger and heard Xie Jia Hua inside speaking on the phone in a perfectly serious manner. “I want to contact Interpol’s Thailand branch and apply to obtain information related to a drug lord called ‘Golden Maitreya’…”
Even after being blown up and bedridden, he still had not forgotten to investigate the case. He truly was worthy of being Inspector Xie.
Lu Guang Ming tactfully waited at the door and did not go in to disturb him. Not long after, Xie Jia Hua finished the call. Turning his head and finding Lu Guang Ming standing at the door, his face immediately darkened.
“What are you doing here again?” Xie Jia Hua said impatiently as he sat back on the bed.
“I saw you were here alone with no one taking care of you,” Lu Guang Ming said with a beaming smile, lifting the lunch box in his hands. “So I brought you breakfast.”
Xie Jia Hua opened his mouth slightly, but before he could say a complete sentence, Lu Guang Ming’s whole body suddenly tilted to the side as he was squeezed aside by a group of young men and women flooding in from behind him. The cramped hospital room was instantly packed so tightly that not even water could get through.
“Boss!” “Boss, we came to see you!” “Boss! Are you okay? Yesterday we were afraid of disturbing your rest, so we didn’t come over. We only dared come bring you breakfast after daybreak!” “There are pan-fried buns, rice noodle rolls, pineapple buns, milk, coffee…” “And congee my mom made for you!” “That idiot B-Zai even bought you a hamburger. Can a patient eat a hamburger?!” “Why can’t a patient eat a hamburger?!”
In the surging tide of people, Lu Guang Ming stared blankly for a while. Then his eyes curved, and he smiled faintly, though even he himself did not know what he was smiling about.
He carefully placed that ordinary, simple plastic lunch box on the small cabinet by the door, then tactfully turned and left.
Leave a Reply