Chapter 21
Chapter 21 Chapter 21: Want a Hug?
“Stop the car.”
Without considering at all the possibility that the person beside him might drag him down, Simple Green spoke while unfastening his seatbelt. The moment the buckle popped open, the engine just happened to shut off.
He Facing Wind’s driving skills were excellent. Even a sudden brake did not cause any scraping. He even took advantage of a gap to “drift” into a parking spot, avoiding the consequence of getting a ticket from traffic police.
After finishing all this, he quickly followed the other person and hurried after the young man, asking: “Wha…?”
A hand swiftly covered He Facing Wind’s mouth.
Perhaps finding him too noisy, the young man directly chose a physical mute button. The palm covering his mouth was cold and soft—a sensation completely opposite to the young man’s outward appearance.
[Blood… DNA…]
[How…?]
The voice became intermittent, as if it was about to fall outside the reception range.
Making a calm judgment, Simple Green decisively ran in the direction they had come from. As expected, the conversation in his ear became clear again:
“Since it’s already done, if the host doesn’t kill her, all previous efforts will be wasted.”
“Don’t you understand?! There’s blood between her teeth! Mine!”
“The original body has no criminal record. The host does not need to worry.”
The world returned to silence.
Simple Green could even imagine the transmigrator hovering a knife above the girl, hesitating.
“Left,” he said after weaving through several residential buildings. Raising his hand to indicate, he explained in a half-whisper that was partly real, partly fake: “I think I heard someone crying.”
He Facing Wind followed Simple Green’s gaze. A little farther ahead was a desolate, abandoned children’s park, overgrown with weeds. It was hard to imagine anyone going there at night except scavengers.
But he still chose to trust Simple Green, even though he could not hear anything except their breathing.
“Follow me,” he also whispered back, lightening his steps. “Don’t make a sound.”
[Don’t be afraid, there’s no one nearby. Host, hurry and do it.]
[Damn it, I…]
Save her, or capture the transmigrator he hated and loathed in the act.
Between weighing the pros and cons, Simple Green chose the former without hesitation.
A thumb-sized portable alarm in his suit pocket was pressed. A sharp “beep-beep-beep” screamed out, its piercing sound slicing through the entire night sky in an instant.
[Damn! Someone’s here!]
[Is it the police? Did he see me?]
Along with the transmigrator’s uncontrollable panic, Simple Green forcefully grabbed He Facing Wind’s sleeve. Their clothes fluttered as they rushed headlong into the park where the sound was coming from.
Slides, swings, merry-go-rounds… the faded, color-peeled equipment stood silently, bathed in moonlight, casting large patches of strange, distorted shadows.
The earthy smell of vegetation filled the air, mixed with a faint trace of rust.
He Facing Wind’s expression immediately turned grave.
It was blood.
The gaze moved forward.
In the sandpit used for building castles, a girl curled up into a ball was desperately clutching her neck with her hands. Her limbs were gradually losing strength, and her face—blurred by tears and bloodstains—was none other than Curly Peach, the girl who had said goodnight in the livestream not long ago.
“Do you know how to bandage?” He Facing Wind asked while skillfully bypassing another set of chaotic footprints that had not yet been processed in the sandpit, already making an emergency call.
His pure black coat fell to the ground. Simple Green quickly tore open the hem of his shirt: “You go after the person.”
Most of the stab had been deflected—likely because the killer had been frightened by the increasingly close alarms—but because the weapon was extremely sharp, the girl’s flesh was still cruelly sliced open, gushing out streams of vivid crimson moisture.
The moment his fingertips touched it, Simple Green’s stomach began to spasm.
He did not have obsessive cleanliness, nor did he faint at the sight of blood. However, the shadow of memory from when he was six was too deep. This gradually shifting, warm-to-cold sticky sensation was something he truly could not forget, nor ignore.
“Save…” Even though she was in extreme pain, the girl still struggled to speak, her voice like the cry of a young beast. “Save…”
Her skin was pale as paper, yet her pupils were dark and deep. Having just escaped death from the hands of a tall and strong attacker, she should have been afraid of this strange young man who appeared suddenly in the middle of the night—lifeless like a corpse—but instead, from his orderly movements, she sensed a trace of gentleness and safety.
“It’s okay.”
Whether he was comforting her or himself, Simple Green opened his lips and calmly repeated:
“It’s okay.”
Fifteen minutes later.
He Facing Wind found Simple Green at the very edge of the crowd, wrapped in a blanket.
Since they had met, he had never seen him so disheveled—his bangs were damp with sweat, his cheeks stained with a few smudged red marks, and the coat soaked in blood and sand lay discarded at his feet, clearly no longer intended to be worn.
According to Captain Yan, once the ambulance arrived, this man had rushed into a corner and vomited uncontrollably until he was dizzy and weak. Curly Peach’s condition had been too urgent, so they did not force him to go with them.
Familiar with the routine, He Facing Wind took a bottle of water from the police car storage compartment, opened the cap, and handed it to Simple Green.
Having not eaten dinner, Simple Green had nothing to vomit out, which only made him feel worse. His weakened arms could not lift properly, but in the next moment, He Facing Wind seemed to notice his awkwardness and thoughtfully brought the bottle mouth to his lips, tilting it slightly before stepping aside.
After rinsing three times in a row, Simple Green finally felt a bit better.
The alarm had drawn too much attention, and later the ambulance had arrived with blaring sirens. Many residents in the surrounding buildings turned on their lights to look over from afar, and even men and women in slippers came downstairs trying to join the excitement, only to be stopped by the quickly set-up cordon.
Not wanting to be photographed, Simple Green deliberately sat at the exit of the slide, in the shadows. Hidden behind the elephant structure missing its ears, he seemed as if he could melt into the darkness at any moment.
Forensics colleagues came and went. Zhou Shan and Wang Lai were busy dispersing the crowd. Only He Facing Wind remained steady as a mountain, squatting on one knee, using wet tissues to wipe his face for him.
Under normal circumstances, Simple Green would have avoided this. But right now he was too dizzy from vomiting to move.
“The footprints were cut off, the person wasn’t caught,” He Facing Wind said as he changed to a fresh tissue again. Lifting the blanket slightly, he reached in and grabbed Simple Green’s index finger. “The killer probably ran the moment they heard the alarm. But don’t worry, I’ve already told Captain Yan to check nearby surveillance. They won’t get away.”
Simple Green froze.
He rarely engaged in friendly physical contact with others.
Tucking the dirty tissue behind his back, he easily guessed what He Facing Wind was thinking: the other party probably thought he was faint from blood and wanted to distract him, secretly cleaning his hand inside the blanket.
The unfamiliar body temperature was far higher than his own—so hot it was almost burning. The fingers were long and straight, with a thin layer of callus at the tiger’s mouth, likely left from gun training.
With vision obstructed, his sense of touch became sharper. It felt as if electricity ran across his back, or ants were crawling over it. Instinctively, Simple Green tried to pull his hand back—but he could not.
When a tiger falls, even dogs bully it.
He Facing Wind gently patted the back of his hand in reassurance, looking down with seriousness: “Behave.”
As if by some strange impulse, the dried blood on his fingertips no longer made Simple Green feel nauseous. Instead, what replaced it was an inexplicable itch—the urge to punch someone.
But he had no strength.
The exhaustion accumulated from days and nights of reversed sleep schedules surged and broke through after Curly Peach was rescued. If the crime scene had not felt so unsafe, Simple Green might have collapsed straight into sleep.
Forcing himself to ignore He Facing Wind’s moving hand beneath the blanket, he reminded him: “Curly Peach had blood at the corner of her mouth.”
“She might have bitten the killer.”
“Captain Yan mentioned it when he called. The little girl is quite brave.” Suddenly remembering something, He Facing Wind paused for two seconds and tilted his head up. “By the way, Captain Yan asked why we appeared here together.”
“I said it was a date.”
Simple Green: …
Killing was against the law.
He closed his eyes tightly and thought to himself that he should have long anticipated how improper this person was outside of cases.
“At one in the morning, you and me, driving around,” He Facing Wind’s fox-like eyes drooped innocently. “A date is the most reasonable explanation.”
Seeing the other party choked into silence, he smoothly counterattacked: “Otherwise, how would you explain it to Captain Yan?”
Unexpectedly, Simple Green was already prepared:
“Tarot cards.”
He Facing Wind: ?
“I used tarot cards to predict that there might be a blood incident on Baisha Street.” He spoke calmly, his nonsense completely natural. “Any problem?”
This was a method he had thought of earlier when he was sitting alone here—using mysticism to cover the secret of the transmigrator and the system. It could neither be proven nor disproven.
Given the cultural background of Country Huaxia, if the police insisted on an explanation, this was undoubtedly the most absurd yet most easily accepted answer.
He Facing Wind shook his head and chuckled softly: “A blend of East and West. Quite a trendy way of speaking.”
Simple Green: “Any objections?”
After all, he had never read professional books like The Book of Changes. A hastily made excuse naturally had to be something relatively simple to be reliable.
He Facing Wind shook his head again: “Why didn’t you say it in the car?”
Simple Green: “Seeing is believing. I was afraid you’d think I was crazy.”
Suddenly encountering it all, and then abruptly getting into his car and explaining the case, plus a potential victim who might be attacked at any moment—the pressure piled up layer by layer, leaving him no chance to calmly think about how to lie.
Only then did He Facing Wind finally nod: “So Mr. Simple Green cares that much about my opinion.”
As the man spoke, the little finger on Simple Green’s left hand was gently wiped again, and only then did he realize the other party was still holding his hand.
“Let go,” he said softly.
But there was little threat in it—only a rare hint of weakness.
“Discard after use,” He Facing Wind sighed meaningfully as he put the bloodstained tissue into an opaque bag. He stood up and extended an arm. “Let’s go. I’ll take you home.”
Simple Green: “The statement…”
“The statement can be done tomorrow. But if Mr. Simple Green doesn’t rest soon, he might really drop dead from overwork.” Noticing the young man still hadn’t taken his arm, He Facing Wind extended it again and raised an eyebrow. “Or… do you want a hug?”
Before the man could lean in and wrap around him, Simple Green took the initiative to hold onto his forearm.
Fingers that had been soaked in blood were now clean and neat, tightly gripping a dark-toned coat. The contrast between the two made even the faint bruises inside the sleeve seem clearly visible.
Wang Lai, catching sight of two familiar figures out of the corner of his eye: “…Old Zhou.”
“I think I’m hallucinating from exhaustion.”
How could He Fox possibly be walking so close to Simple Boss? So intimately pressed together, far below the normal range of social distance.
What was even more fatal was that the two of them actually looked kind of compatible?
“Mr. Simple must be feeling unwell,” Zhou Shan said while quickly taking photos for evidence, glancing back briefly. “He was vomiting pretty badly earlier.”
Unwell.
Yes, unwell.
Convinced that he had finally found the correct interpretation of the scene before him, Wang Lai let out a long breath and thought that once this case was over, he absolutely had to take He Fox to a temple to burn some incense.
Simple Boss’s romantic entanglements—
Not just anyone could handle them.