Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 64

Chapter 64: A Certain Day, Mouth to Mouth

At three in the afternoon, the scorching sun had retreated. Qin Luo was being held tightly. Shen Yiyi’s fingers were pressing hard through her pajamas, like a child.

Qin Luo recalled through her breathing. The cold air from the air conditioner and the watermelon guarded the taste of youth. It was the hot kiss she had inhaled, the thirty-five years she had exhaled.

“Did you have a nightmare?” she asked in a low voice.

Shen Yiyi’s hair was tangled in front of Qin Luo’s neck. The images in her mind were slowly dissipating. She didn’t want to answer about the nightmare and changed the subject.

“What time is it?”

Qin Luo lifted Shen Yiyi’s left hand, which was resting on her pillow, and glanced at her watch. “It’s past three in the afternoon.”

Three o’clock…

Shen Yiyi smiled wryly. She had been in this dream for several hours, but she still couldn’t remember anything. “Let’s lie down for a while longer…”

The weak voice made Qin Luo’s heart ache. She stroked her hair. “Okay, then let’s lie down for a while.”

The silence and the outdoor unit of the air conditioner drew a long tail in the room. Qin Luo patted Shen Yiyi’s back. The sun had not yet set, and Shen’s father was not yet home. Both of them were awake, but Qin Luo did not dare to ask.

It was Shen Yiyi who spoke first.

But she was not asking about their adult relationship, but: “Why were you hiding at Guo Rui’s house?”

Qin Luo said softly, “I have nowhere else to go.”

As long as she didn’t turn off her phone, there would be an endless stream of work messages for her. Qin Luo didn’t want to hear any news about Logos, even if Logos was falling apart. So she could only hide in Guo Rui’s house like a refugee.

Guo Rui’s place was like a safe house.

After Shen Yiyi had left, Guo Rui had a special place in her heart. The two of them shared a common memory, but Qin Luo couldn’t say what it specifically represented. After all, words could not express it, but words could represent a person.

“Then why didn’t you go back to your mom’s?” Shen Yiyi asked with her head buried.

To be honest, Qin Luo didn’t know why either. She didn’t think Jiang Yan’s house was a safe harbor. She had never had any hope for her mother.

Even if she were hit by a car and was on the verge of death today, Qin Luo would definitely not call Jiang Yan.

In her heart, Jiang Yan was not a character who could solve problems, and neither was Liu Jia… Thinking about it this way, neither was Shen Yiyi.

Qin Luo thought for a moment. She would probably only call her lawyer and then wait for death in the remaining time, or find a place to hide. She was an immigrant enthusiast, uprooting herself from this soil and planting herself in other corners.

Qin Luo smiled and asked back, “Don’t you also not like to go home?”

“That’s true.” Shen Yiyi agreed with Qin Luo. “But at least I’m safe when I don’t go home. You’re playing the disappearing act.”

“It’s not disappearing if no one contacts you.” The hand that was stroking her hair moved to her waist, her tone calm. “I think if it weren’t for Liu Jia contacting you, you wouldn’t have known that I was missing, just like…”

Just like everything that had been missing in the past sixteen years, it would just lie there quietly.

“Just like… my mom doesn’t even know that I’m missing.”

Shen Yiyi patted Qin Luo’s back. “Then why did you want to hide?”

“Because I have nothing to do.” Qin Luo smiled wryly again. Her shoulders would shake when she smiled, making the person in her arms tremble with her. “Being a middle-aged person with nothing to do is scary.”

Shen Yiyi let go and pushed Qin Luo away, poking her head out from her arms. “Is the company’s business not a business? Is the production’s business not a business?”

“Those things are just work to me now. Work is a way to make money, not a way of life.”

Before Qin Luo had hidden herself, she had treated those jobs as an indispensable way of life. Her career ambition and original intention were the driving force of her life, the vitality in her blood.

But a storm had driven her out of that mold. She was forced to look back and was surprised to find that she was a perfectly replicated animal.

Thirty-five, a prime-aged person with economic ability, relatively free sexual rights, and the status to command employees. But she had lost Room 19.

Sitting in the room in silence, her identity labels bloomed in the darkness: she was a writer, a daughter, a boss, a friend, a supporter, or a little bean who had lost love. Qin Luo breathed slowly in her loneliness. She carefully searched for a goal in her childhood, but she suddenly didn’t know what she had wanted. It seemed that she could only follow the rules and walk forward.

These were… her thoughts before she had had a hot kiss with Shen Yiyi.

“But I’m much better now.” Qin Luo didn’t want to break the embrace. She held Shen Yiyi back in her arms. “As long as you’re here, it seems I have something to do again.”

Cooking at home, taking people to work. Writing in the morning, thinking about recipes in the afternoon, being a domestic helper who didn’t have to worry about the disturbances of society, without needing achievements to decorate her life.

Maybe this kind of life would be good, Qin Luo thought, but she couldn’t be sure.

“I…” Shen Yiyi was squeezed in her arms and stammered, “I… what can I do to help you? We just…”

Alright, they had soberly done some things that adults love to do.

Shen Yiyi recalled that kiss. She couldn’t deny that she had also fallen and been addicted to that chaos, as if she had swallowed a ball of sweet fire that had slid down her esophagus into her chest, and her heartbeat had been injected with new vitality.

In these past few years, Shen Yiyi had rarely blamed herself.

She didn’t blame herself for not being able to find the killer, for the shadow following her. But she also couldn’t just let it go and let it scatter with the wind. She could only let the hatred linger quietly, grow slowly, like an ugly scar proliferating in her body.

In all these years, she was indeed tired. Especially when she saw Qin Luo, this feeling of fatigue would intensify.

“I… I…” Shen Yiyi couldn’t imitate Qin Luo’s use of words. She could only use her refusal and then improve on it.

“I don’t think I’m a very good partner. I’m quite selfish, and I don’t have that much time to deal with feelings. If we get together just because we kissed, it would be quite irresponsible to this relationship. What if… we find out that we’re not suitable after we’ve been dating? Wouldn’t we not even be able to be friends anymore?”

Hmm… pouring cold water, but at least it wasn’t the cold water of the Arctic Ocean.

Qin Luo held her tightly and asked directly, “Do you like me?”

“Maybe.”

Shen Yiyi never went against her conscience, but she hesitated, so she had to add, “But this kind of liking is a relative liking. I’m not sure of its extent, and I can’t guarantee that it won’t make you sad.”

After all, it had existed at eighteen.

It was just that she was too young at that time and had a lot to do. Her determination to cut off the shadow with her own hands was greater than an ordinary relationship.

Was Qin Luo important? For the her who had wanted to find the killer back then, she was clearly not that important.

The eighteen-year-old Qin Luo was like a cup of hot cocoa. A sip was sweet, and holding it in your hands in the summer and winter would also produce a special temperature. But if you drank too much, it would be cloyingly sweet, and it would make your mouth dry and your head spin.

Shen Yiyi couldn’t guarantee that a hot kiss could take away these thoughts. What if she and Qin Luo repeated the same mistakes?

“I do like you.” Shen Yiyi emphasized repeatedly, “But I really don’t know how to be in a relationship, and I don’t have that thought for the time being…”

Shen Yiyi said a long string of words, but Qin Luo only heard those few “likes.”

I like you.

The feedback she hadn’t gotten in school had been like a thin needle hidden in a corner, pricking her from time to time, and her heart would tremble slightly, not very painfully.

Before, she could only vaguely murmur. Now, she could finally say it out loud.

Having a liking was enough. The body’s response was the most direct expression. Even if they couldn’t go on in the future, and a fierce battle broke out, and they ended up never speaking to each other again, it would still be considered a love with all her heart.

As long as you’ve loved, it’s not a waste.

Qin Luo couldn’t help but lean in, her lips lightly brushing against the side of Shen Yiyi’s face, and even boldly kissing her by the ear. “Since I still like you after so many years, and you also have feelings for me, why don’t we give it a try? Don’t think about anything else. Maybe I’m even worse at being in a relationship than you are.”

“…” Shen Yiyi’s neck shrank as if she had been electrocuted, and her shoulders trembled. She pressed her hands against Qin Luo’s collarbone. “Qin Luo, my ear is very itchy.”

Her breath tickled the side of her neck. Her skin became a fulcrum, supporting the other’s wet kiss, which flowed toward her, majestic and scorching, soaking her.

Qin Luo always had two hundred ways to soak her, and she was determined to find the itchiest spot. “Is it here?”

“Or here?” The ring slid across her pajamas, and a cold sensation ran down the side of her waist. Then the elastic band that had been tied before bed was untied again.

Weren’t they just talking about Qin Luo’s work? How did her pants end up on her knees? Had Qin Luo’s fingers touched her tears? If the last layer of her lower body was not saved, would she have to ask Qin Luo to wash her hands?

“Wait… my ear is really itchy.”

The problem in Shen Yiyi’s head would appear and disappear with the itching by her ear, but she couldn’t control her thoughts. Her reason was as blurry as 360p, and her desire was as high-definition as 1080p. The signal provided by Qin Luo was extremely unstable, and she could only wander in agony. “Alright… this is also itchy.”

Qin Luo was a service-oriented person. She knew that Shen Yiyi had mysophobia, and she also knew that if she got out of bed to wash her hands, she would definitely calm down when she came back.

It was not easy to light a fire in the daytime. Qin Luo decided not to use the hand with the ring. She had used mouthwash before bed.

This mouth, besides kissing Shen Yiyi, had not done anything else.

So…

“What are you doing?” By the time Shen Yiyi had reacted, Qin Luo was already kneeling on the bed. She held the other’s face and looked at the end of the bed in astonishment. “Huh?”

“Don’t you want to?”

“What?!” Shen Yiyi hadn’t come back to her senses yet. She held her face and wanted to pull the person back to her side. “This is not very good…”

Qin Luo said generously, “I can help you.”

Click—

Just as Qin Luo was resting her chin on her knees, seeking Shen Yiyi’s consent, and the last line of defense had fallen below her hips, the door lock suddenly clicked.

Qin Luo had almost forgotten. This was the Shen family’s house, not her lonely river view room… The water of the Arctic Ocean was not as cold as the pit of her stomach at this moment.

She withdrew her hand and quickly covered the person under her with the blanket.

But Shen Yiyi, she had been secretly changing into shorts to sleep in the winter. Her movements of getting dressed were skilled, and she unhurriedly cleaned up the mess that Qin Luo had made.

Shen Qinwen tiptoed into the kitchen with the groceries. As he passed the bedroom door, his footsteps were particularly clear. Qin Luo and Shen Yiyi were lying on their backs with a distance between them, their hands on their stomachs, their faces cold.

Seeing Qin Luo’s detached look, Shen Yiyi sat up in bed and buttoned her pajamas one by one. “After dinner, let’s drive back.”

“Go back and continue?”

“Yes, go back and continue working.”