CHAPTER 5: REUNION

The alarm went off at six in the morning. Xu Qinghe turned over sleepily, grabbed the pillow next to her and took a deep breath from it.

All of a sudden, she opened her eyes, her face somewhat dull. She looked around the room helplessly, then blankly stared at the pillow that she clutched in her hand for a long time before sniffing it. As if she wanted to confirm whether Ji Zizhong slept here or not last night.

“Awake?” Ji Zizhong saw Xu Qinghe sniffing her pillow as soon as she pushed the door open. She couldn’t help laughing at this scene — however, she suddenly thought of something else.

It was the case record of Xu Qinghe subduing gangsters. There were many of these records. In the videos, Xu Qinghe rushed up to face the gangsters, much taller than her, lifted her legs, threw punches, blocked the blow, and wrestled with the gangsters. Even with the blurry and shaky video quality, one could see Xu Qinghe’s gallant and valiant appearance.

She was so beautiful — so brave — so powerful — so outstanding. And all that made Ji Zizhong want to crush her — drag her down from the clouds — make her tumble into the mud — make her struggle and suffer in front of her — make her want to escape, yet she wouldn’t be able to.

Ji Zizhong’s tongue licked her upper teeth without batting an eyelid.

She had just restrained her emotions, and now it seemed like she was getting excited again?!

“Where have you been?” Xu Qinghe looked at her with a sleepy face one usually had when waking up. Even her tone was milky, as if she acted like a spoiled kid.

“Buying breakfast.” Showing a soft smile, Ji Zizhong lifted the bag she was carrying: “Put on your clothes first.”

“Or else I might not be able to hold back.” Ji Zizhong raised her eyebrows, and her gaze deepened slightly.

Xu Qinghe just sat on the bed with the quilt loosely covering her hips. Her naked upper body bathed in the morning sun rays that passed through the curtains — it was as white as buttermilk — and with her sleepy face, some evil desires would emerge even more.

“Oh.” Xu Qinghe stared blankly and pulled up the quilt sleepily to cover herself only as an afterthought. She frowned a bit confusedly and asked: “You went to buy breakfast so early?”

“And last night, we clearly did it–” …quite a lot. A civilian officer like Ji Zizhong was actually physically fitter than her — a frontline criminal police officer?!

No.
Xu Qinghe suddenly bit her lower lip, realizing that something was wrong.

She recalled kissing Ji Zizhong’s body yesterday. Ji Zizhong’s abs were even a bit stronger than hers. Still, when Ji Zizhong first transferred to the police department last month, she read her physical fitness test report. Ji Zizhong’s score was just slightly above average.

Xu Qinghe looked at her with a complicated expression, but the latter just shook her head with a smile, as if she could see through Xu Qinghe’s thoughts: “I’m just used to waking up early. The owners of the breakfast stall know of my habit.”

While retracting her eyes, Xu Qinghe rubbed her forehead, and thoughtfully put a question mark on it.

After a brief trip to the police station to clock in and collect their clothes and equipment, the two women headed for the secretary’s house, ready to investigate the situation.

Before the morning rush hour, the golden sun broke through the clouds, gleamed on the ground and dyed the sky brightly and beautifully.

At this moment, she could hear Ji Zizhong’s gentle voice: “It’s a good day today.”

“Don’t be so nervous. The weather’s so good, what’s not to be happy about?” Ji Zizhong squinted her eyes against the sun, as if she was comforting both Xu Qinghe and herself. Sunlight shone on her face, softening her face’s outline vaguely.

“Hm.” Xu Qinghe retracted her gaze, followed her line-of-sight to look at the magnificent horizon in the front, and smiled.

Today was a beautiful day, and tomorrow the weather was sure to be good as well.

It didn’t take long for the two to arrive at the secretary’s house. It was a very exquisite small villa, hidden in thick vegetation. Even if one didn’t know much about real estate, one could tell at a glance that the land here was worth a fortune.

“He’s just an executive secretary, but he’s actually so rich. I guess his hands aren’t so clean either. It’s good that we’re investigating him.” Xu Qinghe looked around the villa to define his circumstances.

Ji Zizhong closed the car door and walked over: “You should know K’s habit, right?”

The people K killed were all suspects who stayed in the grey area. They did all sorts of evil things, but the law couldn’t reach them because of collusion. The police got a headache from them for a while, and with each case, they had to deal with forces from all sides, adding more complexity and pressure every time.

The corners of Xu Qinghe’s lips twitched, smiling unhappily: “What about me then? What evil deeds did I do to deserve their revenge like this?”

She even snorted a bit harshly: “K doesn’t think they’re some kind of justice ambassador, do they? Protecting justice by killing people? Ridiculous.”

“Usually the motives of such killers are hard to guess,” Ji Zizhong shook her head and pointed out persuasively: “Maybe K is just plain bad, who knows? Let’s go, let’s not waste any time.”

Xu Qinghe walked up and pressed the doorbell, but no one answered for a long time. The cicadas were buzzing behind her, one after another in the thick woods, and an inexplicable feeling of fear followed the song of cicadas and struck Xu Qinghe’s heart.

“Ji Zizhong, do you think they’ll–” Xu Qinghe pressed the doorbell annoyingly and was just about to turn around to find Ji Zizhong when her eyes were suddenly covered by a pair of strong hands.

Xu Qinghe woke up from her dream as if she’d been in an endless nightmare. Yet, when she opened her eyes, she desperately found out that she had escaped one nightmare, just to fall into another one.

“Finally awake?” a familiar voice rang dully in her own ears: “We meet again, Officer Xu.”

K’s hand stroked her cheek. Her slightly rough fingers slid over her skin and gently caressed it. Even though she couldn’t see, Xu Qinghe could feel K’s gaze right in front of her. As soon as she woke up, the cold chill ran down her spine, as if it’d envelop her body.

“The wounds healed quite quickly. Looks like I had used the right amount of force and didn’t disfigure you,” K laughed lightly, and her fingertips stroked deep across Xu Qinghe’s cheek. With smoothly trimmed nails K scraped her wounds, causing the stabbing pain to reawaken Xu Qinghe’s memories from last time.

All the painful memories flooded back, making Xu Qinghe’s eyes widen in the dark. Her lips shivered uncontrollably, even her shoulders kept trembling with fright, as if she was helplessly reliving her trauma in fear. She unconsciously started to struggle but was snapped back to reality by K’s dull voice.

“Move around all you want. I don’t mind giving you another slap.”

“What the hell…did you…do to them?” Xu Qinghe choked a few times before she could slowly find back her voice. K’s hand loosely clasped right below her chin, faintly threatening her. Every finger that touched her neck seemingly reminded Xu Qinghe of their last encounter.

Xu Qinghe’s terrified look greatly pleased K. She stared at her bloodless lips, and a satisfied smile arose. Then she loosened her grip around her neck, lifted her chin, and pressed her thumb on Xu Qinghe’s lower lip to rub it slowly: “To who? The one you came with, or the secretary?”

Her fingers pried open Xu Qinghe’s lips and probed inside, like teasing some small animal. She teased Xu Qinghe’s soft lips like she couldn’t get enough of them and stirred Xu Qinghe’s drool to uncontrollably ooze down her chin: “That officer is tied up in another room. I’m gonna clean her up later. As for the secretary…”

K’s eyes looked like they were filled with laughter. She pressed two fingers on Xu Qinghe’s tongue, squinted at her face, and forced her to look up. The pink and soft tongue couldn’t escape her fingers, so she moved closer to kiss her on the corner of her lips in a good mood. She slowly told her the facts: “The secretary is already dead.”

As soon as the word dead fell, Xu Qinghe looked like she became agitated immediately. She twisted her body in fear and turned her head like crazy, trying her best to avoid K’s touch. Her soft black hair got messed up as she shook her head, spreading out on the spotlessly white bed — the contrast was so strong that it was a fearsome sight.

K stood still with gloomy eyes. Though, an indescribable irritation emerged in her heart. She had initially just tied Xu Qinghe’s hands behind her back on the bed before. However, it seemed that her little toy was a bit too disobedient, so she might as well discipline her a little bit.

She easily held the person in place and pulled the rope tied around Xu Qinghe’s wrists with one hand. Before Xu Qinghe could struggle, cold metal handcuffs were already snapped firmly around her wrists. After that, she hung them at the bedhead and in one fluent motion, she forced Xu Qinghe’s arms apart and locked them at both sides.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t dare to kill you, huh?” K suppressed the malice in her eyes, covered Xu Qinghe’s face with her hand, pressed her head straight into the pillow and said with a bone-chilling voice: “The secretary’s head is at the door. If you like, I can get it for you to see.”

Xu Qinghe was pinned right beneath her. Her shoulders twitched, and her wrists bumped at the handcuffs that were locked at the wooden bedhead, causing a muffled thud. Tears stained the hand that was pressed against her cheek, making it dripping wet.

K was no longer just a vicious serial killer to her. Even more, K was her nightmare she couldn’t even escape from. In just a blink of an eye, the fortress she had worked so hard to build was smashed into pieces. Every inch of dignity and courage she had left shattered at this moment. All she wanted to do was escape.

“Don’t–… I–I’m sorry…” Xu Qinghe closed her eyes. Tears of humiliation kept rolling down as she heard herself stumbling over her words, begging her killer for forgiveness.

I’m sorry, Dad, I’m sorry, I can’t.

She tightly shut her eyes and allowed herself to fall into the deep pitch-black abyss of despair.

“Wanna know how the secretary died?” K leaned down and stuck out her tongue to lick away Xu Qinghe’s tears on her cheeks. Her hand reached for Xu Qinghe’s chest and unfastened the buttons one by one. Her low voice slowly reached Xu Qinghe’s ears, making her hair stand on end.

The police uniform was ripped open and exposed Xu Qinghe’s delicate, fair skin that was covered by her jacket. Xu Qinghe’s chest shivered with her sobbing, causing her beautiful collarbones to move up and down. The owner of this body knew nothing of it.

K clicked her tongue lightly.

The dignified police uniform wrapped closely around her body. Xu Qinghe’s face was blushing red, her eyes were bound tightly with black cloth, and her hands were shackled to the bedhead with metal handcuffs. No matter how you looked at it, her appearance was pathetic, like being at the mercy of a king.

Glancing at the small, dark object not far away, K’s hand caressed Xu Qinghe’s wrist, and her fingertips finally rested on the silver metal handcuffs. K lowered her eyes to look at the girl beneath her. The tip of her nose rubbed against Xu Qinghe’s nasal bridge in a seemingly intimate manner. She chuckled lowly: “Don’t struggle too much later, Officer Xu.”

The author has something to say:

Five days in a row now. Is this like me? This is not like me at all…!

Xu Qinghe mentioned “Dad” many times now. This “Dad” must be quite important, hehe (trying to spoil the drama)

I want to ask you how you’ll spend May Day. Travelling? Lying at home? I feel that there’ll be a lot of people going out and play XD

If you like it, please collect, vote, comment, and praise. Thank you.

The translator has something to say:

I’m not sure if I should skip the author’s notes that are not relevant to the story at all.

Also I’ve been sick in bed but I’ll try to work on ch6 asap, at least when my eyes are less teary and my head stops hurting orz. Everyone stay healthy!

I’ve seen people are confused about MC’s dad… Without spoiling too much, I will say he’s relevant to the plot. Not the kind of disgusting trope “I slept with your father” though Dx Generally, I try to avoid as much het as possible in the stuff I read/tl.