Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 73

Chapter 73: Just an Appendix

The Huaiyang cuisine had gone bad in the conference room.

After their rich boss had answered the phone, her expression was serious, the situation tense. She had turned and left without a word.

This had forced the front desk to call Zhan Luo.

Two minutes later, Qin Luo, who had just gotten into a taxi, received a call from her assistant.

“Sister Qin, are you not going to the meeting tonight?”

“Little Zhan, I have to go to the hospital. Please bring the car over after you get off work.”

Zhan Luo had just come out of the underground garage. Hearing “hospital,” he pressed the elevator button again, preparing to get the car, but then he heard his boss say,

“You don’t have to come in a hurry. I’ll send you the address later.”

Zhan Luo asked, “Then Director Qin… tonight’s meeting, should I move it to tomorrow night?”

Qin Luo said tiredly, “Don’t wait for me. You guys can go ahead.”

“We’ll have it ourselves?”

Zhan Luo was at a loss. The reading group’s celebration was a public welfare event, involving various stakeholders and the overall layout of Logos. How could a few young people and volunteers on the team make the decisions? How could they dare?

“Or we can wait until you’re free. I’ll let them know.”

“Zhan Luo.” Qin Luo’s voice was deep. “If you can’t even handle this, I can replace you now.”

…

“Okay.” Zhan Luo bowed respectfully in the air. “I’ll take care of it right—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Qin Luo had hung up.

Qin Luo had not taken a ride-sharing car in a long time. The smell of sweat mixed with the cold air was like cilantro that had been fermenting for eighty days. She had no choice but to roll down the window, but then she was hit in the face by the hot wind.

She was not used to this smell. It reminded her of the crowded storage room at home. Her dad always liked to pile the fish buckets there. During the plum rain season, the smell of fish and mold would intertwine and grow, and finally, it would escape the storage room and circulate to every corner of the house.

Right now, she wanted to smell something sweet to cover up this human stench.

The car stopped at the hospital entrance. Qin Luo followed the address sent in the text message and found the inpatient department. Before she got close, she saw someone greeting her downstairs.

Qin Luo had not seen Xu Tao in about seventeen years.

The man in front of her was all wrinkles, his hair sparse, with an air of decline. He had no relation to the man who had grabbed her dad’s collar back then. Qin Luo had searched for a long time for a shadow of him, and had only been able to forcibly match him by his accent.

“Qin Luo! I didn’t expect you to come so quickly.”

He did not dare to get close to the exquisite woman in front of him. She did not look like a small-town girl, and her clothes looked expensive. He could only rub his hands back and forth, his already tense expression becoming even more constrained.

“Qin Luo, I’m really sorry to trouble you. Not only did we trouble you to help find a surgeon for Sui’er, but now we have to trouble you to take care of Yiyi. But I’m really at my wit’s end. She won’t let me tell her dad about this, and her aunt and I are so busy with Sui’er that we can’t get away.”

“Uncle, it’s fine,” Qin Luo said. “Yiyi and I are classmates. You also helped my family back then. It’s what I should do.”

Xu Tao waved his hand. “No, no, no. This is really a trouble for you. Classmates shouldn’t help like this—”

Qin Luo said anxiously, “Uncle, let’s not talk about this for now. Let’s go and see Yiyi first. Didn’t she just have surgery?”

“Right! Let’s go up first.”

Xu Tao led Qin Luo to the fifth floor of the inpatient department. It was evening, and it was just dinnertime. The inpatient department was a mess. There were patients lying on stretchers in the corridor who had no beds, and the water room was crowded with people. The crowdedness of the Shanghai medical care was like a vegetable market at six in the morning.

Xu Tao’s pace was hurried, but he stopped at the door of the ward.

“You knew Uncle Shen’s temper when you were a child. He dotes on Yiyi. So you must not let her father know about the hospitalization.”

Qin Luo glanced into the ward. In the corner of the six-person room, Shen Yiyi was wearing a hospital gown and had her eyes closed. She didn’t know if she was asleep or pretending to be.

“Okay.”

“I heard her say that her roommate is moving out for graduate school. After she’s discharged, she’ll be alone. I’m really not at ease, so I thought of calling you.”

“I’ll discuss it with her and have her move in with me.” After saying this, Qin Luo also felt it was ridiculous. “But she might not want to trouble me.”

Xu Tao said with a tired face, “She’s been independent since she was a child. She doesn’t listen to anything her family says. Her dad has persuaded her many times to go back to Fengjiang to work, but she insisted on taking the exam in Shanghai. Too much obsession can sometimes be harmful!”

Qin Luo’s soul had already flown away with her gaze.

She reached out and pushed the door, interrupting him softly, “Uncle Xu, let’s talk about this when we have a chance. Let me go in and see her first!”

Qin Luo couldn’t hold it in anymore and pushed open the ward door after she had finished speaking.

This might be the turning point in the script. In narrative theory, when a story develops to a critical moment, some life-threatening external challenges will usually occur. Screenwriters will usually call such plots a “crisis.”

A crisis plays a turning and buffering role in the character’s transformation. It can even create suspense and tighten the narrative rhythm.

Qin Luo felt that God must have seen her unwillingness and was preparing to add a dramatic twist at the climax, to make her the lucky one and get a happy ending.

Or maybe… she really couldn’t let go.

So she had rushed over as soon as she had received the call, completely forgetting what she had said about them not being able to have any other relationship besides being strangers.

“Shen Yiyi.”

It was not her uncle who spoke, but Qin Luo. This had scared Shen Yiyi.

Ever since she had been hospitalized, her battle with the shadow had not stopped. First, the hospital gown was not disposable, which had been bothering her until now. And then there was the old man in the next bed who had laryngitis and would swallow the phlegm that had reached his mouth every day. And she had to endure that public restroom, and her uncle would always mess up the medical records on the bedside table.

So when Qin Luo’s voice appeared like this, she was not surprised at all. Maybe her spirit was calling for help. She was about to be killed by her mysophobia in the ward.

Seeing Shen Yiyi frown, Qin Luo knew she was not asleep.

So she said in a low voice again, “Shen Yiyi, I know you’re not asleep.”

You stinking thing! Do you have to tell me if I’m asleep or not?! Don’t I know myself? Shen Yiyi was very annoyed. The three holes in her abdomen were aching as if they were leaking.

The small scalpel that could easily cut open a belly was now being experienced on her own body. But the more her skin hurt, the more her heart ached, making her want to cry. So what were the words that her mother had said to her while enduring the intense pain and dying?

It was Xu Tao who couldn’t hold it in anymore and directly patted his niece’s arm. “Yiyi, your classmate is here to take care of you. Don’t sleep anymore.”

Shen Yiyi was so startled she wanted to dodge, but her movement was a little too violent, which caused the incision on her abdomen to pull at her nerves.

“Hiss—”

Taking a breath of cold air with disinfectant, Shen Yiyi finally saw the beautiful woman in front of her clearly. It was the shadow-slaying hero who had wanted to break off all ties with her three days ago.

But because the hospital environment was too bad, the shadow was indestructible. The shadow-slaying hero’s name had not been able to kill it.

Shen Yiyi said in shock, “What the hell?”

She had seen a ghost: the shadow was still there? Why was Qin Luo here? Who had called her? It was over. After three holes were opened in her body, even Qin Luo couldn’t stand it anymore!

Qin Luo was still gentle in front of Xu Tao.

Although she was very dissatisfied with Shen Yiyi’s haggard appearance.

Her slender shoulders were supporting an ill-fitting hospital gown. There was an IV needle in her arm, and a bruise on her wrist. She was not wearing socks, and she was not covered with a blanket even though the air conditioning was so cold. And why was the collar of the hospital gown so big?

Her collarbone was so obvious.

“What’s going on? Do you have to work so hard that you end up in the hospital?”

Shen Yiyi glanced at her uncle. “…Acute appendicitis.”

Qin Luo wanted to put down her bag, but she found that the bedside table was as messy as a chicken coop. She had to tidy it up first to make room for her bag. “Uncle Xu has to take care of Xu Sui. I’ll take care of you tonight.”

Shen Yiyi was so scared she waved her hand. “No need!! I’m being discharged tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Qin Luo weighed the thermos, poured a glass of hot water for Shen Yiyi, and then pursed her lips to test the temperature. She held it to her mouth. “Okay, I’ll leave tomorrow.”

“No—”

Qin Luo didn’t want to listen and forced her to drink the water. “No need to thank me. It’s what I should do.”

Xu Tao looked at his watch. “Qin Luo, I’m much more at ease with you here. I have to go down and check on Sui Sui. I’ll leave this to you.”

Qin Luo sat firmly on the stool. “Don’t worry, Uncle.”

After he left, Qin Luo held the cup and sat by the hospital bed in silence.

The ward was noisy. This family member was peeling an apple for his wife, that old lady was calling for a nurse, and there were also the sounds of snoring like firecrackers and coughing up phlegm.

Only their corner was like an examination hall.

“You were prone to appendicitis in high school. Your dad thought you had poor digestion. I didn’t expect you to be able to endure it until now.”

“…”

“You’re a forensic pathologist, so you’re also a medical student, right? Isn’t the appendix a superfluous organ?”

“…”

“Why did you drag it out until now?”

Shen Yiyi turned her head away. “It doesn’t happen often.”

“Is it that you can put everything else aside, but not work?” Qin Luo saw the laptop bag on the bedside table, with documents tucked into the outer layer. “So amazing? How are you only a deputy director?”

The unfamiliar Qin Luo was so good at being sarcastic.

Shen Yiyi turned her head back. “I’m fine now. You can go.”

“At least we’re friends who have kissed. It’s reasonable for me to take care of you.” Qin Luo held the blanket and covered Shen Yiyi. “When you’re discharged, we’ll be strangers again.”

The only part of Shen Yiyi that could move at this moment, her head, turned in another direction.

When there is a grudge in the heart, the eyes will lose focus. But it could also be due to severe insomnia recently and excessive fatigue.

Qin Luo was not as life-cherishing as Shen Yiyi. She never took care of her health. Besides going to the beauty salon for maintenance at regular intervals, her body basically relied on overdrafting in advance. Her eyelids were sore, and the smell of disinfectant made her want to cry.

The person in front of her was not very cute anymore.

Qin Luo took off her glasses, took out a cloth from her bag, and wiped them quietly. Then she put them back on and looked at Shen Yiyi again.

She didn’t know if she was dizzy or if her eyes were playing tricks on her, but she felt that Shen Yiyi had been getting thinner and thinner in the two months since they had reunited.

Her nose was higher, higher than the ones that those influencers had gotten done.

She was right to scold herself. People are really despicable. Seeing her haggard appearance, she felt a sense of pity, thinking that if only she could be the one to crush her, and not some acute appendicitis.

“Since you’re being discharged tomorrow, and we’re going to be strangers, why don’t you tell me the truth?”

Qin Luo rested her hands on her knees. “Are you thinking of getting married in the future?”

If that were the case, Qin Luo would not pester her. After all, everyone has their own ambitions.

“Or do you think I’m not rich enough, not considerate enough, not understanding enough of you?”

Qin Luo really couldn’t think of any other reason. “Or is there someone else in your heart?”