Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 65p1

Chapter 65 p1: Someone Died

Qin Luo helped Shen Qinwen with dinner, standing on the side to pick vegetables and wash them. She was surprised that she still remembered the placement of the firewood, rice, oil, and salt, and that she could find a new garbage bag in the drawer after throwing out the trash.

But Shen Yiyi didn’t care what was for dinner. She was rummaging through boxes and cabinets in the storage room, looking for old newspapers, and only stopped when the food was on the table.

Shen Qinwen was still enthusiastic about Qin Luo, putting all kinds of dishes into her bowl. He didn’t stop talking the whole meal.

First, he asked about Qin Luo’s work, and then about her family.

After learning that Qin Luo was not married, he let out his third sigh of the night. “What are you all busy with?”

If this question had been asked on her own podcast channel, Qin Luo would have directly cursed into the microphone for a minute. But now she chewed slowly and said with a smile, “People in this life just don’t know what they should be busy with.”

Fortunately, Shen Qinwen did not say that women should get married.

He said, “You’re right. Look at me, I’ve been busy until this age, and I seem to have nothing.”

“You’re all working in the same city. Remember to support each other.”

“It’s fine if Shen Yiyi doesn’t come back, but you have to remember to come and see me when you’re back in Fengjiang.” Shen Qinwen hadn’t had a single glass of wine, but he had said a lot of nice things all night.

Near the end of dinner, Shen Yiyi finally opened her mouth to ask him, “Where are the old newspapers from before?”

“What old newspapers?”

Shen Yiyi put down her chopsticks and wiped her hands with a wet wipe. “The ones you left behind before.”

“Your grandmother said she wanted to read them, so I took them to her house.”

“Can she still read newspapers in her condition?”

“The old lady is in good health. Remember to go and see her when you leave.”

“I have to go back to work.”

“You still have to go and see her even if you have to work.”

Shen Yiyi was reluctant. “I don’t have time today. Maybe next month.”

Shen Qinwen couldn’t persuade her and waved his hand with a frown. “Do as you please.”

The father and daughter were arguing. Qin Luo ate the rice in her bowl. By the time she had finished the last mouthful of soup, the father and daughter had also stopped talking.

Before they left, Shen’s father saw them off downstairs and walked around the sports car three times, then told them to drive slowly on the way back. And Shen Yiyi sat in the driver’s seat, rolled down the window, and told him to go back and rest.

It was not completely dark yet, and the lights in the complex were not on. The old acquaintances who had come out for a walk would greet Shen Yiyi when they saw her. Shen’s father immediately shifted his enthusiasm and chatted with the neighbors about their family matters. Seeing the opportunity, Shen Yiyi stepped on the gas.

This kind of daily life was a nude color to Qin Luo, a semi-transparent vacuum. She was reluctant to look in the rearview mirror, until the light from the Shen family’s window became a small dot and disappeared around the corner.

“Are you going to Guo Rui’s to get your things?”

“No need.”

“Then I’ll go straight to the highway.”

Qin Luo leaned back in her seat. “Okay.”

The car began to speed up after entering the toll station. Qin Luo leaned back in her seat and mustered the courage to look at her work messages from the past few days.

Shang Yi had not sent her a message since that day. Instead, it was Zhan Luo who would ask about her situation on WeChat every day and forward the relevant activities of the reading group. Qin Luo didn’t want to pay attention to the public opinion online. She didn’t even have to think about it. The comment section was definitely a mess. But fortunately, she didn’t have to manage her social media accounts herself, which meant that the negative comments couldn’t hurt her for the time being.

But Liu Jia…

Besides sending her a few advertising cooperation plans, she hadn’t said anything else.

“Did Liu Jia call you?” Qin Luo asked in a low voice.

“Yes.”

“What did she say?” Qin Luo was curious.

Shen Yiyi held the steering wheel with both hands and said without any pretense, “She said you’re not in a good state… and asked me to take you back.”

Qin Luo nodded without a word. Her shirt hadn’t been changed in two days and was wrinkled. She reached out and tugged at the wrinkles, trying to smooth them out.

“About work…” Shen Yiyi glanced at Qin Luo’s expression. “I might not be able to help you with your work difficulties, but life has to go on, right? Hiding won’t solve the problem.”

Qin Luo stopped what she was doing and turned to her side.

“Yes, Director Shen is right.”

Hiding won’t solve the problem. What about them?

Qin Luo asked with a smile, “Will you hide from me in the future?”

Shen Yiyi thought for a moment and said in a muffled voice, “No.”

But her “no” had many prerequisites. “But I hope you won’t pull this rope too tight. I can’t give you a definite answer right now.”

“Which rope?”

“The one on us.”

“What answer?”

“The answer about the future.”

Shen Yiyi had laid all her cards on the table. Qin Luo didn’t dare to pull the rope too tight. She changed the subject. “Do you have to go back to work tonight?”

Shen Yiyi looked at the car’s screen. It would be 10:30 at night when they got back to Shanghai. There should be no one in the lab.

“I’m not going.”

Qin Luo said, “Okay,” and then turned her head away.

The car was quiet. Qin Luo replied to a few work messages, especially from the production. The internal creative art department was in a hurry to connect with her and had sent dozens of messages in one day. Qin Luo had thought she could let it go. After all, there were several screenwriters in the main creative team, but when it came to making a decision, she still had to be the one to decide.

Among the hundreds of messages, there was also a greeting from the assistant director. The other had asked about her condition with a great deal of distance and had expressed his concern.

Sister Ni had also sent a message, telling her that the aftercare team sent by Logos had already settled the wages, and the municipal government had also sent people to distribute the public welfare subsidies.

Just then, the driving Shen Yiyi also asked about this matter. “I haven’t asked you yet. Have they caught that supplier?”

“Yes, they’ve caught him. The lawyer didn’t get any other details.”

“Then did you encounter any other difficulties at work?”

Qin Luo’s eyes were fixed on the road ahead. “Do you want to hear?”

“If you want to talk, I’ll listen.” Shen Yiyi shrugged. “Anyway, there’s nothing else to do now.”

Qin Luo crossed her arms, her tone cold. “I don’t know where to start.”

“You can start wherever you want.”

“Then I might have to start from my first book…” The corners of Qin Luo’s mouth lifted slightly.

Shen Yiyi adjusted her listening posture and nodded in agreement. “Yes, my dad told me that your first book won an award.”

“I’m ashamed to say.” Qin Luo tried hard to recall that creative period. “At that time, I was helping my teacher, writing a serial for a literary magazine. My dad was sick at the time, and I didn’t have time to write. But the editor of the magazine told me that as long as I updated it regularly until the end, they could give me an eighty-thousand-yuan manuscript fee. I compromised for the money. And then you know what happened?”

Shen Yiyi didn’t speak.

“This magazine was very popular, and the feedback for this novel was also very good. So it was moved to the main serial section. Later, the manuscript fee was raised to one hundred thousand. I wrote from my junior year of college to my second year of graduate school, and I only finished it quickly when my dad was in his late stages.”

It was this one hundred thousand yuan that had made Qin Luo realize that she could control her father who was lying in a hospital bed, that she no longer had to hide her disgust, and that she didn’t even have to feel guilty about his incurable illness. She had asked a roommate to help her contact the doctor, she had discussed the medical report with the doctor, and she had even given her father the death notice.

It was only then that she understood that money was the only way to change each other’s positions.

So later, she had published one book after another, and the money had grown more and more. Even for things like the New Year, Qin Luo could decide whether to stay or go.

She remembered that one year, Jiang Yan had come to Nanjing to see her. She was busy with a book signing and had no time to clean her house. When she got home, Jiang Yan had already made dinner. Qin Luo, in a camisole, looked at the coffee table. On the table were her sleeping pills, cigarettes and a lighter, and even a few cute-looking self-sufficiency tools, as well as the beer cans left in the trash can from a party.

Qin Luo did not feel a single bit of fear. She was sure that Jiang Yan would not ask anything.

Jiang Yan would only say, “It’s good that you like this kind of life.”

And she would only smile and say, “Yes, everyone has their own life.”

From then on, she would offer a helping hand to everyone who needed it, besides the aid recipients of the reading group, there was also the Liu Jia who was driven crazy by work.

But just by taking out some money, she could see Liu Jia crying her eyes out because she had a safe and stable single space.

Financial independence solved all the troubles of survival. Of course, with financial ability, you could also be a rich and brave sycophant.

“Achievements are built up like this. You think you’re an artistic creator and can bring a lot of thought to people. But after participating in many reading groups, I gradually discovered that… thinking can only produce hatred. After all, when I’ve already achieved a certain achievement, what I say will be taken for granted. Is it because of economic reasons that you can’t get out of a predicament? Maybe in essence, it is.”

Qin Luo had never talked so much with Shen Yiyi at once. She wouldn’t even do it in an interview.

But today was a special day.

Today, her liking had been acknowledged, and the other had made her a grand promise: she would try to find the answer to the future.

So Qin Luo thought of calmly narrating everything that had happened to her over the years, whether it was good, twisted, or worth showing off. In any case, it was a kind of narcissistic expression in the early stages of love. She hurriedly opened herself up to the other, hoping that the other could feel it, hoping that the other would laugh at these stories, or cry with her.

“You asked me why I went to find Guo Rui.”

“Because she’s doing very well now.”

“Like a normal person who has recovered. So I want to know how she got through it.”

“Guo Rui always talks about you.”

Only then did Shen Yiyi react a little. “Really?”

Qin Luo nodded. “We’re both very curious. What exactly happened that day that made you rush into the men’s restroom with a knife… Do you know how scared I was at that time?”

Qin Luo wanted to know the answer.

“I’ve forgotten what happened.” Shen Yiyi bit her lower lip and thought for a long time. “I’ve even forgotten that person’s name.”

“Han Cheng.”

“Oh, right, Han Cheng.” Shen Yiyi yawned. “At that time, I just felt that it was a pity for Guo Rui. Her grades had slipped so badly. If she continued to be pestered, her future would definitely be ruined. The only way to deal with that kind of person was with violence. You guys didn’t look like you could fight him.”

“Weren’t you afraid of them at that time?”

“There was nothing to be afraid of. I thought, at worst, we’ll all die together.”

…

Qin Luo looked at Shen Yiyi’s profile. She had a transparent and cold appearance, and her words also had a world-weary tone. She changed the subject. “You still remember that Guo Rui’s grades were good?”

“I still remember that Wang Jiao’s grades were very good,” Shen Yiyi snorted.

“What about me?”

Hearing Qin Luo’s tone turn cold, Shen Yiyi turned to look at her. “You? What’s wrong?”

Qin Luo raised an eyebrow and adjusted her glasses. “What do you remember about me?”

“…”

Shen Yiyi swallowed. “Do you want to hear the truth?”

Qin Luo’s eyes were fixed on her, and she pushed up her glasses again.

“Very thin, didn’t talk much, and tall.” Shen Yiyi turned on her turn signal and smoothly overtook a car on the highway. “Later, I thought you were very righteous.”

“That’s it?”

Shen Yiyi quickly added, “The handwriting on the blackboard newspaper was very beautiful. Every time I entered the classroom and saw the back blackboard, I could look at it for a long time.”

Qin Luo pursed her lips and continued to talk. “Then why did you help me with my studies later?”

Shen Yiyi shrugged. “Because I thought you could do better. Your essays were so well-written. How could you be held back by math? I actually really disliked our head teacher at that time. He said that girls were naturally not good at math, which led some girls to simply find an excuse not to study.”

Qin Luo was amused. “I didn’t realize that such a cold person like you had the heart of a bodhisattva.”

“How am I cold?” Shen Yiyi was not convinced.

“You were very cold when you told me not to contact you anymore in high school.”

…

Shen Yiyi was choked and had no way to refute.

“You were so arrogant back then.” Qin Luo joked, opening up the past on this trip back to Shanghai. She wanted to pull out the trapped herself. “You wouldn’t say an extra word to me, and you would pretend not to see me when you saw me. You even stopped going to evening self-study just to avoid going home at the same time as me.”

At that time, their ambiguity was like a dissolving piece of fat. The grease had overflowed in the spring. Qin Luo felt that she was surrounded by expectations, and she was working hard every day to get into the same city.

Qin Luo became curious again. “Were you sad at that time?”

The car slowed down.

Shen Yiyi said, “I’ve forgotten. I was probably sad.”

There was a legitimate reason for their separation at that time. She explained, “My grades had slipped a lot at that time.”

Although in Qin Luo’s eyes at that time, Shen Yiyi had only dropped from the first place in the grade to the sixth, for Shen Yiyi, it was a serious mistake of dropping ten places in the city.

Even Shen Qinwen had noticed the change in her.

She had started to stay up late to read extracurricular books, and she would be reluctant to get out of bed in the morning. Studying was no longer the only thing she could do. She would want to be lazy and find time to rest.

So when she saw her grades, her first reaction was that she had to stop.

Stop that excessive sense of ease.

She needed to walk out of the beautiful dream of being able to live a happy life just by getting into the same city and return to the pain of being entangled by the shadow. Before she caught the killer, she had to stay in that prison forever.

So she must have been sad when they separated.

It was just that the pain was different for everyone, and the way it was stored was different. She had faced worse separations, so she didn’t feel it that strongly.

Shen Yiyi didn’t want to think about that withdrawal reaction. She held the steering wheel and said, “It’s all in the past.”

Yes, it was in the past.

But would the past repeat itself? Who knew? Qin Luo smiled. “That’s true.”

On the way, the two of them no longer touched on topics related to Fengjiang and talked about the reading group. Then the car drove downstairs to Qin Luo’s house.

“Are you sleeping at my place?”

Shen Yiyi shook her head. “I’m going back to return the car to my roommate.”

“Then the day after tomorrow…?”

Shen Yiyi said politely, “I’ll go to the production by myself. It’s too much trouble for you to make a detour.”

Qin Luo took a deep breath. It seemed that even a kiss didn’t make much of a difference from before. She nodded, closed the car door, and waved, letting her go.

***