Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 37

Chapter 37: The Pure Moon

That Mid-Autumn Festival night, Qin Luo had a quiet reunion dinner.

She wasn’t reunited with anyone, but her ears were finally free from the bickering of family matters, the gossip of neighbors, and the comparisons and calculations.

Only the quiet enjoyment of the food.

“Qin Luo, eat more. There’s still mooncake later.” Shen Qinwen pointed his chopsticks at the chicken wings. “I just knew there was a reason I made an extra dish of cola chicken wings today.”

Qin Luo was amused. “Okay, Uncle.”

Shen Yiyi stuffed a mouthful of rice into her mouth, swallowed, and then made an excuse for her dad’s cooking. “You’ll know when you taste it. It’s not particularly good.”

Qin Luo didn’t want to be a wet blanket. She picked up a chicken wing and took a bite.

Well, it was indeed a bit bland.

But she still smiled brightly. “Uncle’s cooking is delicious!”

Shen Qinwen was praised and puffed out his chest, coughing, his face full of pride.

Ever since his wife had passed away, the atmosphere at home had always been icy. No one praised him, no one joked. The distance between him and Shen Yiyi was not just a wall, but an entire psychological world.

Since his daughter had started high school, she had always been a cold observer of everything. The communication between the father and daughter was minimal.

Shen Qinwen felt that the gap between them was not caused by gender.

In the years he had been raising Shen Yiyi, he had never seen himself as a father, but as a parent.

He had knitted the sweater Shen Yiyi was wearing, he had chosen her underwear at the mall, and he had taught her about physiology. But he had always been like an outsider, facing a copper wall and an iron barrier, unable to squeeze in.

Qin Luo was completely different from his daughter.

She was soft, like scattered spots of light that could warmly fill the bottom of one’s heart.

Abundant.

Shen Qinwen felt that this word was a better way to describe Qin Luo.

Qin Luo was what he had imagined his daughter to be. She would smile sweetly, be nervous and scared, rely on him, and even act coquettishly to get something she wanted.

Shen Qinwen asked, “Qin Luo, you’ll be divided into classes after the winter vacation. Are you going to study arts or sciences?”

Qin Luo bit her chopsticks. “I’m not sure yet. My family will probably decide.”

Shen Qinwen picked up a peanut. “Why should your family decide? Whether you study arts or sciences is related to your future ideals and career direction. You should decide for yourself.”

Qin Luo felt full. She put down her chopsticks. “I haven’t started thinking about it yet.”

Seeing this, Shen Yiyi looked up and interrupted her dad. “I want to eat mooncake. Dad, can you get the mooncakes?”

“Oh, oh, okay~” As Shen Qinwen stood up, he pointed to the digestive tablets on the table. “I specially bought you digestive tablets so you can eat mooncakes.”

Her father left, leaving only the two girls sitting at the corner of the table.

Shen Yiyi took a napkin and wiped the table, saying quietly, “My dad has a point. Your future is your own. Your family can’t decide for you.”

“What are you going to study?” Qin Luo turned to look at her.

“Sciences.”

Actually, before a person makes a decision, they will have their own judgment. Emotion is the best measuring stick.

Excitement and disappointment depend on the chances of success.

Qin Luo felt a sense of emptiness in her heart.

So she knew what she wanted to study. She had goals, she had a future. But the momentary disappointment had made her see herself clearly.

Shen Yiyi was like a pair of glasses, restoring her vision once again.

“I want to study arts.”

Shen Yiyi nodded and folded the napkin, placing it next to the water glass. “Your handwriting is very beautiful.”

Qin Luo was surprised. “You can recognize my handwriting?”

Shen Yiyi nodded and traced on her sweatpants with her hand. “You write in the Slender Gold style. You’re the only one in the class who writes in that style.”

“You’ve observed my handwriting?” The thought of the other person staring at her writing made Qin Luo’s ears turn pink. “My… my handwriting is not good.”

“It’s clearly very good.” Shen Yiyi’s finger stopped on her thigh, then she tucked it between her legs. After a long pause, she asked, “What happened to your shoulder?”

The topic shifted from praising her handwriting to asking about her wound. Qin Luo came back to her senses. “Huh? You mean my wound?”

She tilted her head to look at her shoulder and suddenly realized that she was wearing Shen Yiyi’s clothes. The white sweater had her scent on it, and even her gaze was on her shoulder.

Qin Luo’s ears turned even redder.

“It’s just that my family was arguing, and I accidentally got hurt.”

Shen Yiyi nodded thoughtfully, then asked again, “Why were they arguing?”

Why?

Qin Luo searched her mind for a reason. She couldn’t seem to find a precise answer. The reasons for their arguments were always trivial, about the seasoning used in cooking, who had borrowed money and not returned it, gambling, smoking… Her father couldn’t stand her mother’s sighs, and her mother was dissatisfied with the small salary her father brought home. It seemed that every three sentences, one would have a double meaning, and they only saw each other’s dirty faces.

Qin Luo said with disappointment, “A lot of small things, trivial things. I don’t understand either.”

From Qin Luo’s eyes, Shen Yiyi could see that her mother had also been beautiful once. She asked curiously, “If you’re staying at my house tonight, won’t your mom be worried?”

Qin Luo shook her head and said with certainty, “No, she probably won’t be too worried. We’re not that close.”

“Not close?” Shen Yiyi raised an eyebrow, her body swaying slightly, as if she were interested in this topic. “Why?”

Qin Luo used a smile to hide her embarrassment, the kind of embarrassment of being loved by a father and therefore unable to understand parents who were not close. “Hahahahahaha, you can think of me as a left-behind child.”

Left-behind.

The swaying Shen Yiyi froze, speechless.

Just then, Shen Qinwen came out of the kitchen with a plate. “What kind of filling does Qin Luo like? I bought coconut and egg yolk, and also this popular one recently… what’s it called, taro paste. I don’t know which one you like?”

Actually, Shen Qinwen had been eavesdropping in the kitchen for a long time.

He had heard his daughter take the initiative to talk, to explore things other than studying. He had even caught a glimpse of his daughter’s unusual small movements, her whole body exuding a lively cuteness.

He hadn’t wanted to interrupt at first, but when he heard the words “left-behind child,” he knew he had to come out and interrupt.

He was not just doing it for Qin Luo.

He was also doing it for his daughter.

In a way, they were both left-behind. They had both been forgotten, abandoned. Their childhoods had been trapped in a cold fog.

Shen Yiyi took the plate and let Qin Luo choose first, pointing out the flavors for her.

Qin Luo chose the most common flavor.

Shen Yiyi also chose the most common flavor and took a bite. “The coconut is very sweet.”

A mooncake was cut into three pieces. Shen Qinwen took the last piece of coconut and put it in his mouth.

After he swallowed, he said, “After you finish the mooncake, you can go to your room and chat. I’ll call you when the fireworks start, or you can watch TV. Remember to take the digestive tablets later, so you don’t get indigestion.”

Shen Yiyi said, “Oh.”

After finishing the mooncake, Shen Yiyi sat on her chair in a daze. Seeing that Shen’s father was clearing the dishes, Qin Luo stood up to help. Shen’s father and she went back and forth, and then he said that Shen Yiyi could help.

Shen Yiyi let out a breath. She cursed inwardly that sometimes it was really not good to be too observant. It would secretly drag in people who wanted to be lazy. Qin Luo hadn’t let her rest for even half a moment.

She reluctantly picked up a plate and poked Qin Luo with her arm. “Go wash your hands. The restroom is over there.”

***

Qin Luo stood at the sink, washing her hands, rubbing her palms and the backs of her hands carefully.

She was a sensitive person. During the military training at the beginning of the school year, she had discovered that Shen Yiyi had mysophobia, and a very serious case of it.

Shen Yiyi would rather die of thirst than drink a classmate’s water. She wouldn’t wipe her sweat with her clothes. Whenever there was a break, she would stay far away from the crowd. And when she was near a male classmate, she would dry heave without any attempt to hide it, and then cover her nose and mouth with her hand.

As she washed her hands, Qin Luo observed the structure of the restroom.

The decoration was high-end, the area around the toilet was clean, and all the items were neatly arranged. It didn’t look like only a father and daughter lived there, but there were only two towels on the towel rack, and only two toothbrush cups.

Hmm…

You rarely heard any gossip about Shen Yiyi’s family at school. The teachers and students only knew that her father was a university professor and had a good relationship with the principal, so the teachers paid special attention to her.

Even a person with a thousand-mile ear like Liu Jia couldn’t find out any other stories about Shen Yiyi.

Could it be that Shen Yiyi was from a single-parent family?

Qin Luo didn’t want to make wild guesses. She rinsed her hands, and just as she turned around, she happened to run into Shen Yiyi coming in to wash her hands.

She stepped to the right, and Shen Yiyi stepped to the left.

As they moved, the distance between them grew even closer.

Shen Yiyi looked up, her gaze landing on Qin Luo’s ear. For some reason, her mind was filled with the Slender Gold style on the test paper, the two characters of Qin Luo with perfect spacing.

A strange figure also appeared in her mind. It was probably because of the family matters that Qin Luo hadn’t finished talking about that she had become curious about her mother. Why had Qin Luo left her parents and moved into her house, especially on the Mid-Autumn Festival, a day when families should be reunited?

Qin Luo’s path was blocked, so she could only step back. “I’m done washing.”

Shen Yiyi didn’t answer her and quietly turned on the faucet.

The two didn’t watch TV. Qin Luo followed Shen Yiyi back to her room.

Shen Yiyi sat on the edge of the bed and gave the chair to Qin Luo.

They sat facing each other in silence. Shen Yiyi really couldn’t find a suitable topic. She knew that Qin Luo’s studies were average, so it would be impolite to talk about grades. But she didn’t want to hear about school gossip. Besides, she was just not interested in people, not that she had no emotional intelligence.

“Did you practice that font yourself?” She could only talk about something the other person was good at.

“Yes, I bought a copybook and practiced.” Qin Luo answered whatever she was asked.

Shen Yiyi nodded, then fell silent again.

Qin Luo was also at a loss, so she had to turn her head to look out the window. The iron bars of the security window couldn’t block the Mid-Autumn moon. It looked flawless, with a faint glow, so full it was scary.

Seeing that she was admiring the moon, Shen Yiyi also looked at the moon.

“It’s very round.”

“Indeed.”

Shen Yiyi looked for two seconds, then looked down at Qin Luo’s ill-fitting slippers. After a long time, she asked, “Do you miss your mom when she’s not at home?”

Qin Luo turned back.

She saw the emptiness in Shen Yiyi’s eyes.

“I did at first, but then I got used to it. Now it feels a little strange.”

After Qin Luo finished speaking, she wanted to ask, “What about you?”

But fortunately, she noticed the blurry and stiff expression on Shen Yiyi’s face, as if she were covering up some kind of mourning, a catastrophic sadness.

Qin Luo didn’t know where her regret came from, but she felt a deep empathy. Along with the other’s mourning, she admired a moon that could not be reunited.

She couldn’t help but want to save her, to make her smile, to let her release the anger from the podium again.

“Besides being big, there’s nothing beautiful about the moon.”