Cheng Zheng turned around and took out his medicine box, pointing a finger outside, “Let’s go!”
It was only slightly more than 10 steps from his room to their room…
As Xiang Wan walked back to her room, her face and ears were already flushed red and her throat was dry.
This was because she suddenly thought of something.
Were the rooms in this little hotel soundproof?
Bai Muchuan was still the same when she left, lying lazily on the bed. He did not seem to be at all concerned about the wound on his arm.
At the very least, he was not that concerned about himself, unlike Xiang Wan…
He glanced at Cheng Zheng quietly.
Cheng Zheng also glanced at him without uttering a word.
He walked to the bed and started to remove the old dressing for Bai Muchuan. After that, he disinfected and applied for some medicine before dressing up his wound… From the beginning till the end, he said nothing. That cold and stern look of his made Xiang Wan, who was standing aside, felt at a loss; whereas Bai Muchuan did not seem to mind it at all.
She felt like she was standing at a junction with piercing cold wind coming from the two men who were similar to “air-conditioners”.
“Done.” Cheng Zheng packed up his stuff and was preparing to leave.
“Thank you.” Bai Muchuan said neither warm nor cold towards him.
“Mm!” Cheng Zheng walked a few steps before stopping.
He did not turn back, as if he was talking to the door.
“Do take more care of yourself, things are different now.”
After a short pause, he looked at Xiang Wan from the corner of his eye. “Even if you don’t care about yourself, you need to spare a thought for Xiang Wan.”
Hur! Bai Muchuan laughed. “Do you have the right to say that?”
A battle between them was about to start again!
Xiang Wan felt her scalp going numb just from hearing that.
Sir Little Bai was always courteous to others, except for Cheng Zheng. It was like he had snatched his territory; every time he saw Cheng Zheng, he would usually be mean toward him.
Xiang Wan noticed that Cheng Zheng’s expression darkened. She did not want them to fight and quickly tried to prevent it from happening.
“It’s getting late. Captain Cheng, we’ve troubled you. Please have a good rest!”
Her method was actually fine.
However, not one of them appreciated her effort.
Cheng Zheng walked away just like that.
Immediately after he left, Bai Muchuan asked with an unhappy expression, “Did you think that I’m being unreasonable and was picking on him?”
“…”
What was he thinking?
Xiang Wan smiled and examined his wound carefully. “I don’t know about the bad blood between you and Captain Cheng. I only know that it’s not nice to fight in the middle of the night. What if others heard it?”
Bai Muchuan did not reply. He drew his arm back slowly and looked away.
“Xiang Wan…”
“Yeah?”
“Have you ever trusted someone wholeheartedly?”
Trusting someone wholeheartedly? What kind of trust is that? she thought.
Xiang Wan mulled over it for a moment. “Yes. You…”
Her words made Bai Muchuan satisfied.
He turned his head and looked into Xiang Wan’s bright eyes, before slowly turning away to look at the heater. “If I were to betray you… No, if you got betrayed and abandoned by someone you have trusted wholeheartedly in a thorough manner, will you hate him?”
“…”
Xiang Wan couldn’t answer.
However, from his words, she could somehow deduce something from it.
“Is that person… Cheng Zheng?”
She was curious.
She was craving for an answer!
Nevertheless, Bai Muchuan only puffed a sigh after gazing at her for a long time.
“It’s not him; I’m just making a metaphor. Little Xiang Wan, we should go to bed! Tomorrow, after all the things here are done, we’ll go back to Nanmu!”
“…”
Xiang Wan pretended to be irritated.
“You’re being very annoying! You didn’t want to tell me…”
“…” Bai Muchuan suddenly cracked up and got up to take her hand. “We can study this problem slowly, but tonight is not the right time.”
Wasn’t that her words?
Hurhur, he used her words against her.
Wonderful, Sir Little Bai!
Xiang Wan chuckled and let him pull her onto the bed.
“Oh, if that’s the case, what is suitable to talk about tonight?”
“It’s a technical problem…” Bai Muchuan furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at her seriously with his gleaming eyes. “I couldn’t figure it out… Did I really… Mm… Got in?”
“Ahhhhhh!” Xiang Wan hammered him at the shoulders.
“We should continue to put out the fire!”
…
The next morning, the town was still snowing.
News of the explosion over at Wen Xin Nunnery had already spread throughout Nanmu.
Although the snow was very heavy, it didn’t stop the locals from gathering to take a look at the scene.
That day, there were more visitors in town than usual.
The crowd gathered and talked about Wen Xin Nunnery.
The police cordoned off the only path to the nunnery.
As there were concerns of remaining bombs around the area, they did not allow any visitors to go up the mountain.
Hence, in a place that was already backward, many guesses and imaginary stories spread…
When Xiang Wan woke up in the morning, her wound felt much better.
Bai Muchuan had left the hotel when she woke up.
The ones on duty told her that both Bai Muchuan and Quan Shaoteng had gone up the mountains to take care of the aftermath.
Xiang Wan stood on the balcony on the second floor to look at the street. In the snowy weather, there were several funeral vans driving along the street coming from Nanmu City.
To be able to reach this town at this hour, they must have set off a day earlier.
Comrades in the Civil Affairs Department did not have it easy either.
Xiang Wan smiled and went downstairs when she saw Cheng Zheng talking to Hassan.
There was snow on his shoulders; perhaps he might have just arrived at the hotel.
In this case, he was in charge of logistics support of this special task force team, ensuring things were in order.
Xiang Wan knew that support work was actually tough although backend work was usually inconspicuous.
From the grinning face of the hotel owner, Hassan must have paid the room charges Quan Shaoteng had owed.
Moreover, as Hassan could converse with the owner in their native language, the owner was very warm towards him.
When the owner saw Xiang Wan downstairs, he attended to her warmly as well. “Elder sister, you must be hungry. Your breakfast has been kept warm in the stove. Please take a seat, I’ll get your food right away…”
The owner’s level of proficiency in Mandarin was not that good.
However, the word Xiang Wan could make out very clearly was “Elder sister!”
She still felt uncomfortable by the way he addressed her.
However…
Ah, so be it! There was nothing she could do.
She said her thanks with a smile and walked slowly to a table.
Cheng Zheng swept a glance at her leg. “Is your leg alright?”
Xiang Wan shook her head. “It’s fine.”
There was still a little pain.
Nonetheless, she did not want to be treated like a handicap just because of a little pain she was experiencing.
As everyone was still busy with work, she felt awkward to stay inside her room and do nothing…
Cheng Zheng puffed a sigh. “We’ll have to go to the hospital again to change the medicine!”
Uh! Xiang Wan was hesitating, but before she could reply, his brows crumpled together to form an agitated frown.
“Don’t try to mimic Bai Muchuan. He’s as stubborn as a mule!”
Xiang Wan gave a defeated look at him as she sighed. “…”
Frankly, Cheng Zheng rarely expressed his emotions as directly and openly like this.
By commenting on Bai Muchuan so directly, she could conclude that Cheng Zheng was livid with anger.
Thinking of what happened last night, Xiang Wan showed a friendly smile and finally agreed in an awkward manner.
“Alright then, I’ll go there later!”
“I’ll accompany you!”
After that, Cheng Zheng added after thinking for a moment, “The thing that one should not do is to ignore their health!”
Was he going to start preaching again?
“Mm.” Xiang Wan was uncomfortable, but she controlled herself and tried to change the topic.
“Is there internet in this town?”
“There is, but the connection is not good.”
As long as there was internet, even if the connection was bad, that would be good for her.
Xiang Wan’s mobile phone was already spoilt when she was at Wuming Village.
After giving it a thought, she looked at Cheng Zheng with some hope in her eyes.
“Captain Cheng, can I borrow your mobile phone?”
Cheng Zheng was surprised by her request and did not answer immediately.
Xiang Wan knew her request was a little intrusive, but she really needed a mobile phone.
For instance, she wanted to let her readers know why she couldn’t update.
For instance, she wanted to know if her current moderator, Yuan Qianqian, was safe and sound?
For instance, at least she should give her mom a call to let her know that she was alive and kicking. Her mom might have been so worried about her…
All these were pressing issues.
If Cheng Zheng did not want to lend his phone to her, she would not be pushy about it, either.
“I want to apply for leave, so my readers know what is happening. I also wanted to call my mom. If it’s not convenient, then forget it…”
“It’s convenient.” Cheng Zheng took out his phone with some hesitation.
He unlocked the screen and handed it over to Xiang Wan slowly.
“Go ahead!”
“Okay, thank you so much!” Xiang Wan took it in delight.
When one borrowed another’s mobile phone, it was basic respect to not look at what was inside their phone.
Xiang Wan called up her mom first and talked for a while. Since the signal there was not that good, there were intermittent disruptions. She told her mom to not worry about her and hung up the phone…
The internet connection turned out to be quite bad. Cheng Zheng did not have Wen Quan’s Mobile App installed on his phone; thus, she couldn’t log in and apply for leave.
What she could do was to get on QQ to look for her moderators who would, in turn, inform her readers.
Cheng Zheng’s QQ account was logged in. She managed to get into the app without any loading time.
She felt that it was inappropriate for her to use Cheng Zheng’s QQ account to look for her moderators. Therefore, she wanted to log out Cheng Zheng’s account so she could log into hers…
An accidental slide of her finger activated the current active app windows Cheng Zheng had opened.
There was a picture app that revealed a picture…
The person on that picture…
It was a picture of a lovely girl who looked dashing in her police uniform. It was a smiling selfie of herself.
Xiang Wan remembered when she had taken that selfie. She also knew that she had posted this picture in her WeChat Moments.
It was just that she did not expect Cheng Zheng to save this picture into his mobile phone.
As it was an active window, that meant he could be looking at her picture earlier…
Xiang Wan looked up and Cheng Zheng was looking at her.
For a moment, she felt like there was fire on her cheeks…
Cheng Zheng turned around and took out his medicine box, pointing a finger outside, “Let’s go!”
It was only slightly more than 10 steps from his room to their room…
As Xiang Wan walked back to her room, her face and ears were already flushed red and her throat was dry.
This was because she suddenly thought of something.
Were the rooms in this little hotel soundproof?
Bai Muchuan was still the same when she left, lying lazily on the bed. He did not seem to be at all concerned about the wound on his arm.
At the very least, he was not that concerned about himself, unlike Xiang Wan…
He glanced at Cheng Zheng quietly.
Cheng Zheng also glanced at him without uttering a word.
He walked to the bed and started to remove the old dressing for Bai Muchuan. After that, he disinfected and applied for some medicine before dressing up his wound… From the beginning till the end, he said nothing. That cold and stern look of his made Xiang Wan, who was standing aside, felt at a loss; whereas Bai Muchuan did not seem to mind it at all.
She felt like she was standing at a junction with piercing cold wind coming from the two men who were similar to “air-conditioners”.
“Done.” Cheng Zheng packed up his stuff and was preparing to leave.
“Thank you.” Bai Muchuan said neither warm nor cold towards him.
“Mm!” Cheng Zheng walked a few steps before stopping.
He did not turn back, as if he was talking to the door.
“Do take more care of yourself, things are different now.”
After a short pause, he looked at Xiang Wan from the corner of his eye. “Even if you don’t care about yourself, you need to spare a thought for Xiang Wan.”
Hur! Bai Muchuan laughed. “Do you have the right to say that?”
A battle between them was about to start again!
Xiang Wan felt her scalp going numb just from hearing that.
Sir Little Bai was always courteous to others, except for Cheng Zheng. It was like he had snatched his territory; every time he saw Cheng Zheng, he would usually be mean toward him.
Xiang Wan noticed that Cheng Zheng’s expression darkened. She did not want them to fight and quickly tried to prevent it from happening.
“It’s getting late. Captain Cheng, we’ve troubled you. Please have a good rest!”
Her method was actually fine.
However, not one of them appreciated her effort.
Cheng Zheng walked away just like that.
Immediately after he left, Bai Muchuan asked with an unhappy expression, “Did you think that I’m being unreasonable and was picking on him?”
“…”
What was he thinking?
Xiang Wan smiled and examined his wound carefully. “I don’t know about the bad blood between you and Captain Cheng. I only know that it’s not nice to fight in the middle of the night. What if others heard it?”
Bai Muchuan did not reply. He drew his arm back slowly and looked away.
“Xiang Wan…”
“Yeah?”
“Have you ever trusted someone wholeheartedly?”
Trusting someone wholeheartedly? What kind of trust is that? she thought.
Xiang Wan mulled over it for a moment. “Yes. You…”
Her words made Bai Muchuan satisfied.
He turned his head and looked into Xiang Wan’s bright eyes, before slowly turning away to look at the heater. “If I were to betray you… No, if you got betrayed and abandoned by someone you have trusted wholeheartedly in a thorough manner, will you hate him?”
“…”
Xiang Wan couldn’t answer.
However, from his words, she could somehow deduce something from it.
“Is that person… Cheng Zheng?”
She was curious.
She was craving for an answer!
Nevertheless, Bai Muchuan only puffed a sigh after gazing at her for a long time.
“It’s not him; I’m just making a metaphor. Little Xiang Wan, we should go to bed! Tomorrow, after all the things here are done, we’ll go back to Nanmu!”
“…”
Xiang Wan pretended to be irritated.
“You’re being very annoying! You didn’t want to tell me…”
“…” Bai Muchuan suddenly cracked up and got up to take her hand. “We can study this problem slowly, but tonight is not the right time.”
Wasn’t that her words?
Hurhur, he used her words against her.
Wonderful, Sir Little Bai!
Xiang Wan chuckled and let him pull her onto the bed.
“Oh, if that’s the case, what is suitable to talk about tonight?”
“It’s a technical problem…” Bai Muchuan furrowed his eyebrows as he looked at her seriously with his gleaming eyes. “I couldn’t figure it out… Did I really… Mm… Got in?”
“Ahhhhhh!” Xiang Wan hammered him at the shoulders.
“We should continue to put out the fire!”
…
The next morning, the town was still snowing.
News of the explosion over at Wen Xin Nunnery had already spread throughout Nanmu.
Although the snow was very heavy, it didn’t stop the locals from gathering to take a look at the scene.
That day, there were more visitors in town than usual.
The crowd gathered and talked about Wen Xin Nunnery.
The police cordoned off the only path to the nunnery.
As there were concerns of remaining bombs around the area, they did not allow any visitors to go up the mountain.
Hence, in a place that was already backward, many guesses and imaginary stories spread…
When Xiang Wan woke up in the morning, her wound felt much better.
Bai Muchuan had left the hotel when she woke up.
The ones on duty told her that both Bai Muchuan and Quan Shaoteng had gone up the mountains to take care of the aftermath.
Xiang Wan stood on the balcony on the second floor to look at the street. In the snowy weather, there were several funeral vans driving along the street coming from Nanmu City.
To be able to reach this town at this hour, they must have set off a day earlier.
Comrades in the Civil Affairs Department did not have it easy either.
Xiang Wan smiled and went downstairs when she saw Cheng Zheng talking to Hassan.
There was snow on his shoulders; perhaps he might have just arrived at the hotel.
In this case, he was in charge of logistics support of this special task force team, ensuring things were in order.
Xiang Wan knew that support work was actually tough although backend work was usually inconspicuous.
From the grinning face of the hotel owner, Hassan must have paid the room charges Quan Shaoteng had owed.
Moreover, as Hassan could converse with the owner in their native language, the owner was very warm towards him.
When the owner saw Xiang Wan downstairs, he attended to her warmly as well. “Elder sister, you must be hungry. Your breakfast has been kept warm in the stove. Please take a seat, I’ll get your food right away…”
The owner’s level of proficiency in Mandarin was not that good.
However, the word Xiang Wan could make out very clearly was “Elder sister!”
She still felt uncomfortable by the way he addressed her.
However…
Ah, so be it! There was nothing she could do.
She said her thanks with a smile and walked slowly to a table.
Cheng Zheng swept a glance at her leg. “Is your leg alright?”
Xiang Wan shook her head. “It’s fine.”
There was still a little pain.
Nonetheless, she did not want to be treated like a handicap just because of a little pain she was experiencing.
As everyone was still busy with work, she felt awkward to stay inside her room and do nothing…
Cheng Zheng puffed a sigh. “We’ll have to go to the hospital again to change the medicine!”
Uh! Xiang Wan was hesitating, but before she could reply, his brows crumpled together to form an agitated frown.
“Don’t try to mimic Bai Muchuan. He’s as stubborn as a mule!”
Xiang Wan gave a defeated look at him as she sighed. “…”
Frankly, Cheng Zheng rarely expressed his emotions as directly and openly like this.
By commenting on Bai Muchuan so directly, she could conclude that Cheng Zheng was livid with anger.
Thinking of what happened last night, Xiang Wan showed a friendly smile and finally agreed in an awkward manner.
“Alright then, I’ll go there later!”
“I’ll accompany you!”
After that, Cheng Zheng added after thinking for a moment, “The thing that one should not do is to ignore their health!”
Was he going to start preaching again?
“Mm.” Xiang Wan was uncomfortable, but she controlled herself and tried to change the topic.
“Is there internet in this town?”
“There is, but the connection is not good.”
As long as there was internet, even if the connection was bad, that would be good for her.
Xiang Wan’s mobile phone was already spoilt when she was at Wuming Village.
After giving it a thought, she looked at Cheng Zheng with some hope in her eyes.
“Captain Cheng, can I borrow your mobile phone?”
Cheng Zheng was surprised by her request and did not answer immediately.
Xiang Wan knew her request was a little intrusive, but she really needed a mobile phone.
For instance, she wanted to let her readers know why she couldn’t update.
For instance, she wanted to know if her current moderator, Yuan Qianqian, was safe and sound?
For instance, at least she should give her mom a call to let her know that she was alive and kicking. Her mom might have been so worried about her…
All these were pressing issues.
If Cheng Zheng did not want to lend his phone to her, she would not be pushy about it, either.
“I want to apply for leave, so my readers know what is happening. I also wanted to call my mom. If it’s not convenient, then forget it…”
“It’s convenient.” Cheng Zheng took out his phone with some hesitation.
He unlocked the screen and handed it over to Xiang Wan slowly.
“Go ahead!”
“Okay, thank you so much!” Xiang Wan took it in delight.
When one borrowed another’s mobile phone, it was basic respect to not look at what was inside their phone.
Xiang Wan called up her mom first and talked for a while. Since the signal there was not that good, there were intermittent disruptions. She told her mom to not worry about her and hung up the phone…
The internet connection turned out to be quite bad. Cheng Zheng did not have Wen Quan’s Mobile App installed on his phone; thus, she couldn’t log in and apply for leave.
What she could do was to get on QQ to look for her moderators who would, in turn, inform her readers.
Cheng Zheng’s QQ account was logged in. She managed to get into the app without any loading time.
She felt that it was inappropriate for her to use Cheng Zheng’s QQ account to look for her moderators. Therefore, she wanted to log out Cheng Zheng’s account so she could log into hers…
An accidental slide of her finger activated the current active app windows Cheng Zheng had opened.
There was a picture app that revealed a picture…
The person on that picture…
It was a picture of a lovely girl who looked dashing in her police uniform. It was a smiling selfie of herself.
Xiang Wan remembered when she had taken that selfie. She also knew that she had posted this picture in her WeChat Moments.
It was just that she did not expect Cheng Zheng to save this picture into his mobile phone.
As it was an active window, that meant he could be looking at her picture earlier…
Xiang Wan looked up and Cheng Zheng was looking at her.
For a moment, she felt like there was fire on her cheeks…
