Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 86

Chapter 86: Can I Kiss You?

It was Shen Yiyi who left her seat first.

She didn’t wait for Lin Puping to finish eating, grabbed her examination bag, and turned to leave. She didn’t look back as she walked out of the restaurant. Lin Puping hurriedly paid and ran to catch up with the director.

Hearing the footsteps fade away, Qin Luo put down her chopsticks. “I’m full.”

How could she not be full?

Who would have thought that her white moonlight would be in the small restaurant she had carefully chosen? You Ning couldn’t even eat just now.

She peeked at Qin Luo.

Qin Luo took a napkin and wiped her mouth, then looked down at her phone, as if nothing had happened.

But clearly, Qin Luo had seen Dr. Shen as soon as she had entered, and had even greeted the forensic assistant…

You Ning broke the ice. “Qin Luo, you saw her just now, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then do you want to…”

“No need.”

Qin Luo paused, then said calmly, “Aren’t we going to your place? If you’re full, we can go too.”

You Ning felt uneasy. “I admit that I was being a little deliberate just now, so I don’t want to force you… We just came here to eat. It’s my fault for choosing this place—”

Qin Luo stood up and just said, “Let’s go.”

The streets were quiet in the early morning. There were no cars, and the temperature was suitable for a walk. On a road, You Ning stared at the traffic lights, and Qin Luo stared at the crosswalk, in silence.

There was no desire to talk.

Qin Luo’s chest was stuffy, and her vision was blank. She had been prepared to stop, but she had unexpectedly seen Shen Yiyi. There was desire, and there was emotion.

But her impulse had been cut in half, and had turned into a three-second gamble.

The red light came on. Qin Luo stepped on the crosswalk and asked softly, “Do you like to make bets with yourself?”

“What do you mean?”

“Bet on anything.” Qin Luo jumped over the white striped line. “When I was a child and was bored, I would always make strange bets with myself. Bet that I couldn’t step on the cracks in the bricks, and if I did, I would have bad luck. Bet that I could run home from the alley in ten seconds, and if I couldn’t, I would be caught. I would also bet that the apple peel wouldn’t break, and…”

Qin Luo’s foot slipped, and the tip of her shoe landed right on the line.

“Bet that after you succeed, others will definitely admire you.”

Gamblers will eventually be caught.

You Ning stopped first. There was a figure by the bushes at the entrance of the complex. The light was dim in the early morning, and she couldn’t see the outline clearly, but she had a premonition that it was Shen Yiyi.

There is no fair competition in love. It’s all about first come, first served. Of course, squeezing someone out also counts.

So she turned her back to Qin Luo and blocked her path. “We just finished eating. Why don’t we take a walk first before we go up?”

Qin Luo looked at her watch. It was already one in the morning. “Aren’t you going to the set tomorrow morning?”

You Ning knew that she couldn’t block Qin Luo’s line of sight, so she had to act coquettishly. “I just want to spend a little more time with you.”

Qin Luo looked up, over You Ning’s shoulder, and after a three-second pause, she said,

“Okay.”

The two turned and walked further and further away from the bushes, until they reached another entrance to the complex.

You Ning swiped her card, and Qin Luo opened her mouth. “You saw her just now, so it was on purpose again?”

Her little trick was discovered. You Ning’s hand trembled. “Are you angry?”

The building was not old. It used Japanese property management, a standard Japanese-style garden. Around the corner was a small path of green pines. The two of them walked one behind the other, in silence.

Qin Luo did not answer the last question. You Ning cared. She was afraid that this little bit of selfishness would affect her impression. She wanted to maintain a decent image for the time being.

“I’m sorry.”

Qin Luo held her bag with both hands and dodged a branch. “You don’t have to say that. Since I turned and walked with you, it means I’ve already made a decision.”

“What decision?”

Qin Luo’s voice was not loud. “The decision to let her go.”

You Ning couldn’t figure out Qin Luo. A single, faint decision could separate her emotions and give a light and airy ending to the past. She had heard that authors could always detach themselves from their stories quickly. She hoped she could do it.

You Ning led the way to the unit entrance. “I have a question.”

“Yes, go ahead.”

“What is Hitting a Rock really about?”

She had probably run into a ghost.

Lin Puping was sitting in the police car, holding a Coke bottle, and watching Director Shen standing under a tree, motionless. He watched as Miss Qin and the beautiful woman walked away from her, and she was still standing there like a telephone pole.

“Director! We still have to go to the funeral home.” He shouted from across the road.

Shen Yiyi came back to her senses, strode across the red light, and opened the car door.

“Let’s go.”

The analysis meeting in the afternoon was held at the crime scene. With the advancement of technical assistance, there were very few on-site reconstruction analysis meetings for the police. For their criminal investigation team, the average number of re-examinations for a murder case was only 3, and the criminal tech team had already been to this live stream case six times.

From two in the afternoon, he had been moving boxes with the field team for three hours. Then he had had a meeting at 7 until the early morning. Now, after eating, he still had to go for an autopsy. He was really exhausted.

He took out a drink from his pocket and handed it to Shen Yiyi. “Director, Red Bull.”

“You can have it.”

After the director had spoken, she fell silent. She did not test his knowledge, did not arrange any work, and did not even look at the 3D dynamic of the body on the way.

Halfway through the drive, he took the initiative to speak. “Director, did you have a fight with Miss Qin?”

Shen Yiyi came back to her senses, took out her tablet from her bag, opened the work software, and started to cut the dynamic image.

“Why don’t you test me on something?” Lin Puping couldn’t stand this stagnant low pressure. “Or I can give you a summary of this afternoon’s analysis meeting?”

“I want to be alone for a while.”

“…”

Her fingers were scratching on the screen, the muscle fiber animation layers peeling off until the bone was exposed. But her movements did not stop, simply to divert her attention.

“You looked at each other, but she turned and walked away.”

Shen Yiyi knew what Qin Luo’s turning away meant.

She had also turned and walked away like that back then, and not just once. She had turned away on the playground, in the corridor of the dean’s office, on the way home, and at the graduation ceremony. At that time, Qin Luo’s back as she looked at her was probably also like this, not knowing what to expect, but wanting to wait, helpless.

She knew that this was not Qin Luo’s revenge.

It was an answer.

If she turned and walked away, she would not be able to turn back.

Shen Yiyi looked up. The suburban trees were constantly flashing past her eyes. It was as if when she had gotten on the train to leave home back then, the scenery outside the window had also been the same. Now, she had been in a foreign land for more than a decade, with no home and no peace of mind. She didn’t care where she was, and she didn’t care who was left beside her. Then what was she plotting?

Was it worth it to seek an answer that could not be changed? Or, if she cut off Qin Luo here, would it have an impact on her future life? If she went back to eighteen now, would she make the most rational judgment? And if she couldn’t, would she still have a chance to change…

The tablet screen went dark. When she looked down, Shen Yiyi saw her own expression.

A face that resembled her mother’s. Was she crying or laughing at herself?

Shen Yiyi took out her phone, found her father’s WeChat conversation, and after a long time, typed a sentence.

“Dad, I’ve been thinking about buying a house recently.”

“The layout is very good, and the decoration is also nice.” Qin Luo changed into disposable slippers and looked around. “It’s indeed a very Japanese-style design.”

You Ning quickly walked to the living room, tidied up the clothes that had been thrown around on the sofa, and threw the snacks on the table into the trash. “Haha, Japanese style is indeed the selling point of this property. There are a lot of foreign owners in the complex, but it’s very quiet.”

A sliding floor-to-ceiling door, with a super large balcony.

Through the glass, Qin Luo could see the tall building on the other side of the river. It was still lit in the early morning, like a few stars.

“Have a seat.” You Ning patted the sofa. “I’ll go get you some water.”

It was clear that this house was originally meant for her mother to live in. The decoration was classical and elegant, but after You Ning had taken over, everything had become messy.

There was a hat hanging on the feng shui stone in the entryway, and the antique screen was covered in hooks, with all kinds of photography equipment hanging on them.

On the way in.

Bicycles, snowboards, tennis rackets. Piled up here and there.

Qin Luo asked with confusion, “Do you often live in Shanghai?”

You Ning came over with two glasses of water and sat down on the sofa. “There are a lot of events in Shanghai. I might live here for a few months a year.”

Qin Luo was neither interested nor curious. She picked up her water glass and took a sip, and the conversation ended there.

On the sofa, Qin Luo crossed her legs, and You Ning sat on her side, the two of them very close.

Ambiguity cannot be created by words, but by atmosphere.

You Ning did not want the atmosphere to be silent. “You didn’t finish just now. Hitting a Rock was written by you in high school by accident. The inspiration for the story was that you always liked to kick rocks. What happened after that?”

She had a strong obsession with the answer. She wanted to know where the gap between her and the white moonlight was, and whether she would win.

Qin Luo leaned back. Half of her childhood memories were painful. She was reluctant to talk about them, but the story was a vision, a brave tide of her heart.

“Creation has a purpose, but its direction is without purpose.” It was rare for her to want to talk today, to see if she could be captured. Qin Luo was also curious. Without desire, without emotion, would an impulse be generated by being seen? And if so, did it mean that in the past ten years, she had never really captured Shen Yiyi?

“The female protagonist’s paraplegia is a physical limitation, but meeting love is an opportunity for her to re-encounter beauty. She has verified countless times whether falling in love is the right time. People always like to gamble, and they also love to verify.”

Qin Luo glanced sideways. Under the light, You Ning was looking at her sincerely.

She said slowly, “I was very young when I wrote it. My writing was childish, and there were many things I didn’t understand. So I had to let the female protagonist verify it for me. At that time, I was quite confused about writing about love. I thought that adults always said that love could overcome obstacles, so why could life always cut off love? Looking at it now, Hitting a Rock is probably about the dialectic of love and suffering, and under the abandonment, the absurd nature of humans accidentally falling into the world.”

You Ning asked, “Then are you writing about fate?”

Qin Luo shook her head and smiled naturally. “How could I have thought so far at eighteen? What fate? It’s all just the dog-blood drama of love and hate.”

Great. It has nothing to do with fate.

You Ning also smiled. “I knew it. It’s about the suffering of life.”

Qin Luo said thoughtfully, “To hit, I understand it as the meaning of repetition and persistence. A rock is suffering, it is the solidification of cognition, it is the self. Whatever the reader thinks it is, it is.”

You Ning turned slightly, and her tone also became gentle. “Whatever. Anyway, I was right.”

“What was right?”

Qin Luo could feel You Ning’s approach. Then her arm was raised, and her palm cupped the side of her face.

“I’ve also made strange little bets.”

Her volume was weak, and between her breaths, there was only an ambiguous atmosphere. You Ning leaned in, her nose almost touching her nose, her fingertips brushing away Qin Luo’s scattered hair. The back of the sofa blocked her escape.

If she kissed her, and the other did not push her away.

Then the white moonlight would have lost completely. On this day next year, there would be no small path to turn back on, no verification of love. She would film a romantic short film for Qin Luo to commemorate their anniversary.

Her eyes fell on her lips. She held the bet protectively.

“Can I kiss you?”