Lu Guang Ming had pestered Xie Jia Hua for two years, using every trick from swindling and coaxing to insinuation and probing, stopping at nothing. In total, he had taken four slaps, two beatings, and countless scoldings, yet he had still failed to get anywhere near Inspector Xie’s body. This time, he had unintentionally sacrificed his butt and actually achieved miraculous results, hearing Inspector Xie say the strange words “call me” when even he himself had never expected it. However hard Inspector Xie’s mouth was, his heart was just as soft. If this were ancient times, after one night of spring passion, Young Master Xie might have come to his door with a black face to propose marriage and “take responsibility” for this yellow-flower Miss Lu.
Elio’s Notes: “Yellow-flower maiden” comes from the Chinese idiom 黄花闺女, meaning an unmarried young woman or virgin maiden. Here, it is used jokingly to feminize Lu Guang Ming as someone whose “virtue” has been ruined and whom Xie Jia Hua should “take responsibility” for.
What kind of person was Lu Guang Ming, who took a mile when given an inch and climbed right up the pole once he caught the snake? Since Xie Jia Hua said “call me,” he very obediently called Xie Jia Hua three times in one week. On the weekend night, after Xie Jia Hua drove out late at night for the third time to dig him out of a garbage heap, he finally could bear it no longer and flew into a rage. “You’re way too hateful, aren’t you?! Why are there people coming to beat you up every single day?!”
“There weren’t this many before. I’ve just been a little unlucky lately.” Lu Guang Ming blinked. His ankle was injured, and he limped and hopped along. Xie Jia Hua supported him toward his car, asking as they walked, “What case have you been investigating lately? Who did you offend?”
“ICAC secret.” Lu Guang Ming blinked slyly. “If Inspector Xie cares about me, lend me your informant.”
“Get lost!”
…
Xie Jia Hua forcibly dragged Lu Guang Ming to the hospital to have his foot treated. The doctor wrapped Lu Guang Ming’s foot into a rice dumpling. With a slipper dangling from his rice-dumpling foot, Lu Guang Ming hopped like a squirrel into Xie Jia Hua’s car. The car left the hospital, passed by the ICAC, and headed toward the bustling downtown district.
“Eh? You’re going the wrong way. This isn’t the direction of my home.”
“With your foot injured like that, how are you going home? How are you going up and down the stairs? What if someone attacks you again?”
Lu Guang Ming blinked blankly. “Then where are we going now?”
“To my place,” Xie Jia Hua said irritably.
Lu Guang Ming froze for a moment, then said with a grin, “Inspector Xie really is full of love.”
Xie Jia Hua’s teeth ached and his head hurt. The young master-like manner Lu Guang Ming had displayed in the hospital was still vivid before his eyes—fruit had to be cut into cubes, tea had to be seventy percent hot, he needed a soft towel for wiping his body, and even washing his face required XX-brand skincare soap specifically for gay men. Xie Jia Hua knew he had found himself a huge trouble, and he made extremely heavy mental preparations!
Unexpectedly, once Lu Guang Ming arrived at his home this time, his temperament changed completely. Standing at his doorway, he only obediently let out one small sigh of admiration. “Wow, your place is really big.”
Then he quietly shrank into a corner of the sofa, holding a cup with both hands while drinking hot water and staring blankly into space, eyes watching his nose, nose watching his heart, looking as though he would not disturb the homeowner’s life in the slightest.
Xie Jia Hua helped him to the bathroom and wiped him down. Lu Guang Ming sat serenely on the edge of the bathtub, carefully lifting his injured leg, allowing Xie Jia Hua to scrub him here and there without resisting, making trouble, or taking the chance to press close to Xie Jia Hua’s ear and blow hot air at him. After this peaceful bath was finished, Xie Jia Hua helped him onto the bed, and he even made a fake show of politeness, saying that since he was a guest, he ought to sleep on the sofa. Before he could finish being polite, Inspector Xie shoved him into the quilt without allowing any refusal.
Lu Guang Ming pinched the corner of the quilt with two claws, half his face flushed red from the bathroom steam as he said in a tiny voice, “I’ve never slept in such a comfortable big bed before. No one has ever taken care of me like this. You’re so nice. Thank you.”
Xie Jia Hua’s teeth ached terribly. With a wooden face, he gave an “mm” through his nose and turned off the light.
He had worked up a thin layer of sweat from exhaustion. Gently closing the bedroom door, he went to the bathroom to wash up. Under the showerhead, he vigorously rubbed at the goosebumps on his arms—all of them provoked by Lu Guang Ming’s affected, coquettish “You’re so nice. Thank you” just now. Lu Guang Ming was not that old to begin with, and he had been born with a clever baby face; when he pretended to be obedient and acted cute, it was unspeakably horrifying.
Wait… pretended to be obedient and acted cute?
Xie Jia Hua’s vigilance immediately rose. Dripping wet, he walked out of the steam and padded barefoot and soundlessly back to the living room to take a look—the bedroom door was open, the study door was also open, and Lu Guang Ming was sticking up his butt, his injured foot raised, kneeling on the chair in Xie Jia Hua’s study in an extremely twisted posture, studying the boot-up password to his computer.
“Lu—Guang—Ming—!!”
“Don’t hit me, don’t hit me. My foot hurts, my foot hurts. My butt hurts too. Don’t forget you caused that…”
“Get out—!”
“With my foot injured like this, how am I supposed to get out? How am I supposed to go up and down the stairs? What if someone attacks me again?”
…
Xie Jia Hua fought with Lu Guang Ming three times a day. Once in the morning, once at night, and if he got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and ran into him, they still had to battle another round. During the day, he listened to gangsters deny everything a hundred different ways at the police station, and at night, he drove to the ICAC to pick up Lu Guang Ming, only to come home and be subjected to Lu Guang Ming’s unreasonable pestering. He added two heavy locks to the study door, yet they still could not withstand Lu Guang Ming prying and wrenching at them. He could not win an argument, and he could not bring himself to hit him. It was like picking up an injured stray cat from a garbage heap, one that was both bad-tempered and cunning; it ate his food, slept in his home, and still spent all day pissing all over the house. Just when he grabbed the wildcat by the scruff of the neck and was about to smack it, the other party reminded him he was abusing animals.
“I treat you so well. I even wash your underwear every day to repay you. I’m practically the legendary snail girl of ancient times.” Lu Guang Ming was still moved by his own righteousness.
Elio’s Notes: “Snail Girl” refers to the folk-tale figure 田螺姑娘, a magical girl who secretly does housework to repay kindness. Here, Lu Guang Ming jokingly compares himself to her because he washes Xie Jia Hua’s underwear.
“You are not allowed to touch my underwear!!!”
“The police and ICAC are one loving family. Yours is mine, and mine is still mine. It’s all for the sake of investigating cases, so why doesn’t Inspector Xie share whatever informants or clues he has?”
“Don’t even think about it!!!”
“Look, the two of us live under one roof, eat at the same table, and even work overtime together at night. We have such tacit understanding. Why don’t we conveniently sleep in the same bed too and make our fuck-buddy relationship a reality?”
“Shut up!!!”
…
At lunchtime in the police station, everyone seized every second to gnaw on sandwiches at their own seats. Inspector Xie’s office was empty.
“Where’s Boss? I brought him a hamburger,” one subordinate said, looking around everywhere.
“The boxing room,” another subordinate said. “Lately, he’s been training his body and doesn’t eat hamburgers. Hurry up and change it for a chicken breast salad.”
“Boss keeps going ‘ha! ha!’ in there whenever he has free time these past few days. He looks really pent-up. Hey, B-Zai, you have so many pretty female cousins. Why haven’t you introduced one to Boss?”
“Wow, don’t look at Boss and think he’s skinny. The hard stuff on his arms is all real goods. He’s broken two sandbags in the training room these past few days! When he takes off his clothes, that body of muscle is scary, okay? What girl would dare get near him?”
“But Boss really does look very pent-up. So pitiful. Hey, you junior sisters over there, why doesn’t one of you make a sacrifice? Become our boss’s little wife? Look how handsome our boss is.”
“He is handsome, truly handsome,” the junior female colleagues from the neighboring team said. “And fierce, truly fierce. It’s enough to keep him in the office as eye candy.”
Xie “Supreme Fossil-Grade Bachelor” Jia Hua knew nothing at all of everyone’s great praise for him and was still in the boxing room, drenched in sweat as he beat the sandbag.
…
That afternoon, he went as usual to pick up Lu Guang Ming from work. He arrived a little earlier than usual and saw Lu Guang Ming getting out of an ICAC car together with several colleagues. Student Xiao Lu rushed ahead of everyone to chase after his superior and hand over documents, feet carrying the wind, walking as if flying.
“…”
After Lu Guang Ming finished handing over the documents, he accidentally caught sight of Xie Jia Hua’s car, and at once, his foot went “lame” again. He hurriedly pushed aside the colleagues blocking his way and hopped over to the front of the car. “Inspector Xie! Why are you so early today?”
“Your foot is healed?” Xie Jia Hua’s face was dark.
“How could it be?!” Lu Guang Ming sighed exaggeratedly. “Isn’t it still wrapped in gauze? You just took me to change the dressing yesterday!”
“…”
The more Xie Jia Hua thought about it, the more he felt that Lu Guang Ming exchanging looks with the doctor during the dressing change yesterday had been suspicious. With a wooden face, he sank into thought. Lu Guang Ming took the chance to open the car door and sit inside. “Let’s go. Shall we have roast goose tonight?”
“…”
Xie Jia Hua really did call to order roast goose.
Neither of them knew how to cook, nor did they have time to cook. These past two weeks, when they occasionally ate at home, it was either takeaway or takeaway. Although Xie Jia Hua was fierce toward Lu Guang Ming, he never shorted him on food and drink. Whatever Lu Guang Ming said he wanted for each meal, that was what they ate, and Lu Guang Ming shamelessly freeloaded meals from him without ever mentioning the word “money.”
Not only did he not pay, once full and warm, lustful thoughts arose. After finishing the roast goose, he followed Xie Jia Hua into the study, sat on Xie Jia Hua’s desk as usual, and pestered him with endless chirping.
“Inspector Xie, no matter how nice you are to me, it’s useless. A debt owed must be repaid. Let me top you once, and we’ll be even. If the ‘cooperation’ is pleasant, we can even become long-term fuck buddies. How convenient.”
Xie Jia Hua’s expression did not change as he held an English-language criminal psychology manual and read it. The more he read, the more he felt that the fellow surnamed Lu had antisocial tendencies and borderline personality disorder due to a lack of love in childhood, and was both hypocritical and perverted. He ought to be locked up in a psychiatric hospital as soon as possible and have done with it.
“Why are you so old-fashioned? Life is short, so you should enjoy yourself in time. Even if you don’t enjoy yourself, you still ought to resolve normal physiological needs, right? Calculate it yourself, how many years has it been since you’ve had copulation? I’m talking about intercourse between two people, not you and your hand.” As Lu Guang Ming chattered, he secretly reached his hand toward the desk drawer, only for Xie Jia Hua to slap it away.
So he took the opportunity to touch Xie Jia Hua instead. “Look how big you’ve trained your chest. Without anyone touching it, how lonely…”
“Smack!”
Xie Jia Hua slapped his hand away even harder and gifted him an icy glare.
Lu Guang Ming had been stabbed by his glare hundreds and thousands of times and was utterly impervious to blades and spears. Grinning, he was about to tease him again when the brick phone suddenly rang in the living room. Xie Jia Hua shoved Lu Guang Ming away and went out to answer the phone.
It was a colleague from another district calling. The person who had previously beaten Lu Guang Ming and caused his ankle sprain had been seen clearly by a witness, and a sketch had been made and sent out in an assistance notice. While handling another intentional injury case, colleagues from another district had identified the same suspect through the sketch and confirmed the suspect’s identity.
“Has he been arrested?” Xie Jia Hua asked.
“We’re just about to set off to arrest him. But right now, he’s at XX Nightclub in Tsim Sha Tsui East, in your jurisdiction, so we’d like to ask you to send some men over first to control him in case he gets wind of it and runs.”
“All right. I’ll go personally right away.”
Xie Jia Hua hung up the phone and changed clothes and shoes. Lu Guang Ming cheerfully hopped after him. “I’m going too, to see which bastard it is.”
“Isn’t your foot ‘not healed’?” Xie Jia Hua glanced sideways at him.
Lu Guang Ming quickly made a choice between “my foot isn’t healed” and “I’m going too,” immediately clutching his knee and leaning crookedly against the wall. “Ah, right. It suddenly hurts a little…”
“…” Xie Jia Hua cursed FUCK in his heart and slammed the door as he left.
…
At two in the morning, Xie Jia Hua returned from outside after arresting and interrogating the suspect, utterly exhausted. The bedroom light had already been turned off, and Lu Guang Ming was curled into a small ball beneath the quilt, snoring softly. Xie Jia Hua gently pushed open the door and glanced at him, then, too lazy even to take off his clothes, took a blanket out from the cabinet, collapsed back onto the sofa, and slept.
When he slept until the faint light of dawn, he was awakened by rustling movement on his body. Frowning, he opened his eyes and saw Lu Guang Ming draped in a blanket, riding on top of him with an incomparably wicked smile.
Puzzled, Xie Jia Hua lifted his head to look—his own hands had been cuffed above his head, and even the clothes on his body had been pulled up, hanging loosely from his wrists.
“Inspector Xie, you’ve trained your chest muscles pretty well. They feel really good.” Lu Guang Ming curved his brows and eyes wickedly. “As the saying goes: what goes around comes around. Inspector Xie has been wise all your life, but did you expect this moment?”
Leave a Reply