Too close.
An inexplicable heat crept up Zhou Jin’s face.
She and Jiang Hansheng had gone well beyond kissing — they had been as intimate as two people could be — yet right now, seeing his dark eyes and faintly flushed lips up close like this, his black bathrobe making his face look all the more pale and striking—
Zhou Jin’s heart was picking up speed, beat by beat.
She knew that even such a fine set of features was, when it came to Jiang Hansheng, one of his more unremarkable qualities. It was his gentleness, his intelligence, that were the most captivating — and often the most impossible to resist.
She wanted to kiss him.
The thought had barely surfaced before even Zhou Jin herself was a little startled by it. The words “what are you letting yourself get carried away thinking about” hadn’t even finished their loop in her mind when, right in front of her, Jiang Hansheng tilted his face ever so slightly to the side.
With perfect composure, he closed his eyes, and said: “That’s not enough. I want a kiss too.”
What a remarkable coincidence.
Without a second thought, Zhou Jin wrapped her arms around his shoulders and, on instinct, pressed her lips to Jiang Hansheng’s cheek.
When the two of them had kissed before, it had always edged endlessly toward desire — but this was different. This kiss was so ambiguous, so light, so delicate that it left room for only one thing to be expressed:
Pure affection.
After just that one kiss, Zhou Jin pulled back. Her eyes were bright and clear, curved like crescents of a moon.
She said with a teasing lilt: “Thank you, Teacher Jiang. I’d like to buy a membership card — I’ll come find you to wash my hair again next time.”
Jiang Hansheng couldn’t help but laugh. He leaned down and gathered Zhou Jin into his arms, closed his eyes, and pressed a kiss to her hair.
“Come back anytime.”
---
…
The following evening, Zhou Jin rented a car and drove Jiang Hansheng around the lower districts of the city.
The sky grew darker by degrees. Huaisha had passed through its stifling hot season, and the night air was clean and cool, drifting across Zhou Jin’s face, lifting the ends of her hair.
The car moved slowly. In the passenger seat, Jiang Hansheng was characteristically quiet and still, and not a single sound stirred inside the vehicle.
Zhou Jin’s thoughts drifted. She realized it had been a long time since she’d done street-level patrol work.
Back in her early days at the grassroots police station, her job had been to patrol and maintain order across the jurisdiction. Beyond the endless work and the bone-deep exhaustion of a schedule turned upside down, there wasn’t much that had left a deep impression on her.
If anything, it was further back — many, many years ago — that she remembered something like “patrolling.” It was when she was studying at Jingzhou Police University, and she’d had an experience of a similar kind.
Jiang Cheng was three years her senior and had graduated early. After graduating, Jiang Cheng had gone to work at a grassroots police station in Jingzhou, and was run ragged from the very first day. The two of them barely had time to go on dates, let alone call each other.
Jiang Cheng was frequently on night patrol, and whenever Zhou Jin had a free moment, she’d make the long journey across mountains and rivers just to keep him company during his shift.
It was, of course, against the rules, and Zhou Jin wouldn’t disrupt things for too long — she’d board the patrol at whatever stretch of road Jiang Cheng was responsible for, bringing him a late-night snack, along with one for his colleague.
His colleague would tease Jiang Cheng mercilessly each time, then very tactfully step out of the vehicle, which was how Zhou Jin and Jiang Cheng would steal their ten-odd minutes of couple’s time.
This kind of life had gone on for two years before it ended. Looking back on it now, Zhou Jin couldn’t quite fathom how she’d had that much energy in her.
She had loved Jiang Cheng with everything she had, and Jiang Cheng had poured everything he had into work.
As she grew older, Zhou Jin gradually came to understand what lay beneath Jiang Cheng’s relentless drive — a deep longing for the future. He had wanted desperately to live well on his own terms, without depending on anyone else’s charity, without owing anyone anything.
He was proud. He was determined. He kept a mental record of every debt he owed to the Zhou Family, down to the last line.
And so he needed money — a great deal of money — but a police officer’s salary could never satisfy that hunger.
Was that why he had fallen in with He Wu, Qi Yan, and that crowd? Even to the point of being willing to pull the trigger on Yao Weihai and “Hidden Edge”?
She didn’t believe it.
Yet in the face of the evidence, her disbelief felt more like an excuse she had made up to console herself.
“Zhou Jin?”
Zhou Jin snapped back to herself and instinctively hit the brakes. The tires screamed against the pavement.
Zhou Jin gripped the steering wheel, her eyes flying to Jiang Hansheng in the passenger seat. “Are you all right?”
Jiang Hansheng looked somewhat startled. “Did I frighten you?”
Zhou Jin’s chest flooded with guilt. She knocked her forehead lightly against the steering wheel and said with a groan of self-reproach: “I’m sorry — I got distracted just now.”
Jiang Hansheng patted her on the back, and said with a mild smile: “Let me drive.”
Zhou Jin shook her head. “No, it’s fine. Let’s get out and walk for a bit.”
Jiang Hansheng said: “All right.”
In the time Zhou Jin had been lost in thought, her eyes had still been wandering here and there, and she seemed to have spotted something. She drove the car back and pulled up along the side of the road.
Here stretched a long street — not quite deserted, not quite bustling. Looking down it, you could see small stalls dotted along the roadside here and there: some selling toys, some selling street food. On both sides, storefronts hung glowing neon signs in every color, and not far off stood a hair salon, a red-blue-white barber’s pole rotating slowly in the doorway.
Jiang Hansheng stopped in front of a small pushcart stall. The cart had a rack from which hung all manner of toys, and tied to the front of the cart were hydrogen balloons in cartoon shapes.
The stall-keeper was a kindly-looking elderly man, currently twisting a balloon animal into the shape of a small dog.
Jiang Hansheng was extraordinarily handsome, with a personality that ran cool and detached — somewhat otherworldly, in a sense — and with his tailored suit, standing in a place like this, he looked rather out of place.
Yet he was watching the old man twist the balloon dog with complete and genuine interest.
Zhou Jin found it a little funny. She nudged him: “Do you want to buy one?”
To her surprise, Jiang Hansheng didn’t refuse. He said straightforwardly: “Sure.”
Zhou Jin paid, then asked what color he wanted. Jiang Hansheng pointed at the half-finished “little dog” in the old man’s hands. “That one will do.”
The old man smiled as he worked, and asked: “Is this for a child at home, or for yourself?”
Jiang Hansheng: “…”
He glanced sideways at Zhou Jin beside him.
Zhou Jin pressed a hand to her lips and gave a small cough, her face going a little red. She said hastily: “I saw a convenience store over there — I’m going to grab some water.”
Jiang Hansheng said: “All right.”