“How beautiful…” Looking at the face barely larger than a palm, Wenwen softly exclaimed. She glanced up, looking in Xu Xingchun’s direction again.
He seemed not to hear, his fingertips tapping on the steering wheel as he continued driving.
Wenwen thought to herself: Was that focused expression just now only my imagination…
“Hm, what?” Xu Tao had just started speaking when he received a phone call. His brow furrowed more and more as he listened. After hanging up, he leaned forward and said seriously to Xu Xingchun in the driver’s seat, “Someone just met up near the train station. Should we go check it out later?”
Xu Xingchun asked, “What time?”
“Around 5 PM.” After checking his phone, Xu Tao reported a location name.
The car turned a corner, heading towards the hotel near the west station.
The intern, who had been listless just moments ago, perked up excitedly at this news. “Are we going to stake it out? This would be my first real field assignment!”
“You and Wenwen will drive the car back later,” Xu Xingchun said, pinching the bridge of his nose, unmoved by the intern’s enthusiasm.
Deflated by his cold demeanor, the intern felt a bit disappointed. “Ah… we’re not going?”
Xu Tao stretched lazily and asked teasingly, “What, you want to tag along?”
“I do!”
“Can you and Wenwen work with us dressed like that?”
“Is that… not okay?”
Xu Tao asked rhetorically, “Besides group activities, when have you seen our team wear uniforms on duty?”
Seeing the intern’s look of sudden realization, Xu Tao casually added, “In this line of work, you need to use your head more. Live up to the uniform you’re wearing, otherwise you won’t even know how you died.”
Due to the special nature of narcotics enforcement, they often had to pursue suspects across provinces. They usually had to hide their identities, so they rarely wore uniforms in public and generally didn’t carry firearms.
Speaking of this, Xu Tao reminisced about an incident, “You guys don’t know, but there was an accident before. A photo of Captain Xu got posted online, and people even sent in love letters. I heard from those who like to surf the web that Captain Xu almost made it onto some ‘Hottest Civilian Hunks’ ranking. It was mainly because we didn’t communicate well with the news agency, and his side profile or full face got released. Although the bureau later had all the contacts removed, it still caused some impact. Haven’t you noticed that Captain Xu hasn’t been on field assignments at the branch lately?”
Wenwen indeed didn’t know about this and worry crept onto her face. She covered her mouth, “So that’s what happened. Is it that serious?”
Xu Tao shrugged, raising an eyebrow, “Yeah, what did you think? Drug dealers watch the news too, they remember faces and license plates. There’s too much fancy stuff nowadays. Remember, any photos of us that appear online must be pixelated.”
The intern was dumbfounded, casting an admiring glance at Xu Xingchun.
The night wasn’t too dark, the light ethereal and hazy. Even in the shadows, his profile still held a hint of elegance.
No wonder his photo could cause such a stir online…
Xu Tao was quite talkative, and once he started, he rattled on non-stop. He mainly talked about his past glorious history, one story after another, bewildering the two inexperienced rookies so much their hearts almost skipped a beat.
After he finished speaking, the intern fell into deep thought. After a moment of silence, he asked, “Has Captain Xu also been through such difficult experiences?”
Young men’s thoughts are usually easy to guess.
Under his gaze, Xu Xingchun didn’t have any particularly special reaction. He just asked, “What’s considered difficult?”
He had always been rather calm by nature, and everyone was used to it.
Xu Tao took out a cigarette pack, shook out a cigarette, and then pressed the lighter. After taking a couple of puffs, he lowered the car window, “Don’t be fooled by how quiet and unassuming your Captain Xu looks now, like some aloof male god untouched by worldly dust. When he was having shootouts with drug dealers, you were still in middle school.”
“Shootouts with drug dealers?! Isn’t that really dangerous?” Wenwen’s mind couldn’t quite process it, unable to imagine Xu Xingchun in such intense moments. She didn’t know what to say, “Aren’t you afraid of dying?”
“Of course we’re afraid,” Xu Tao laughed. “But no matter how dangerous, someone has to do it.”
Twice he had guns pointed at his head by drug dealers. If that finger had moved just a little, he would have been honored long ago. But after going through so much, by now, he had somewhat of a detached view of life and death.
There was no other reason.
He just remembered what the old principal said when he first entered the police academy.
They became police officers.
This profession was inherently secretive and glorious.
Living up to the uniform they wore.
After sending Wenwen and the intern away, they kept watch in the urban area until 10 PM. The suspects moved locations, so they drove to stake out the entrance of a budget hotel.
A chubby guy couldn’t hold out anymore and felt a bit hungry, so he went down to buy a sweet potato from a street vendor. Sitting in the car peeling it, he was moved to tears by the smell of food. After taking two big bites, he looked up with shining eyes and asked, “Brother Chun, do you want some? It’s still hot.”
“Nonsense!” Someone next to him said exasperatedly, “You know the Captain has a cleanliness obsession and you still deliberately ask. Just eat it yourself!”
The chubby guy chuckled.
They don’t usually work together, only teaming up for certain missions. It was just last August when the Narcotics Unit of the Shen City Public Security Bureau formed a special task force, drawing personnel from various precincts to solve a major case supervised by the Ministry of Public Security. When things get busy, they have to track down leads, stake out locations, and interrogate drug dealers like this every day.
Past 1 or 2 AM, those on stakeout were getting tired. Waiting in the darkness, Xu Xingchun lowered the car window a bit to let in some cold air. Xu Tao yawned, wiping away the moisture from the corner of his eye. Just as he put his hand down, he caught sight of something and quickly turned his head, “Look at the entrance, they seem to be coming out.”
This made everyone in the car alert.
Xu Xingchun picked up the radio, his eyes fixed on the situation over there without blinking. He quietly notified the other two cars.
The chubby guy slowly stopped chewing and tossed aside the unfinished sweet potato.
Two people, young in build, a man and a woman. They stood at the entrance discussing for a while. The woman called a taxi, while the man got into a Passat.
A message came through the radio: “Confirmed, the man has goods in his car. Arrest him directly.”
The man was very alert and quickly noticed something was off with the vehicles behind him. A flash of ferocity crossed his eyes as he stepped on the gas and began to accelerate madly.
Following behind, Xu Xingchun remained relatively calm and composed. “Fasten your seatbelts.”
The chubby guy, seeing his cold expression, felt a bit scared and quickly pulled over his seatbelt.
In the next few minutes, the various sudden braking forces almost made the chubby guy throw up all the sweet potato he had just eaten. The piercing horns and screeching brakes rose and fell. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it a life-and-death speed chase in the early morning streets. The Passat in front was forcibly stopped by Xu Xingchun, its front bumper smashed to pieces.
The young man trying to abandon the car and escape was subdued against the car door, his arm twisted behind his back. Xu Xingchun held him down with one hand, twisting his wrist and putting on handcuffs. Lifting his coat, they found a loaded gun in the inner layer.
The people who caught up behind brought police dogs, which picked up traces at the trunk. It was packaged in two layers of black plastic bags.
They caught him red-handed.
The interrogation wasn’t finished until 5 AM.
Coming out of the interrogation room, Xu Tao first casually greeted Xu Xingchun, then asked, “What time is it?”
Xu Xingchun sat on a chair in the hallway, checking his phone, “Almost 6.”
He just sat there quietly. In the dark night, weariness showed through his calmness. He was just spacing out, surprisingly not smoking. Xu Tao was surprised, “Oh, you’re really quitting smoking?”
Xu Xingchun licked his lips and nodded.
“Alright.” Xu Tao raised his hand and patted his shoulder, “We’ve been busy all night, go home and rest first. We’ll continue the interrogation tomorrow.”
The streets were empty, with unmelted white snow. At this hour, rain started falling pitter-patter, and the yellowish street lights were still not extinguished.
The car drove all the way home, just parking in the garage. After turning off the engine and pushing open the car door, Xu Xingchun sat in the driver’s seat and received a phone call.
It was Fu Xueli.
“Where are you?”
He lowered his head, “Just got home.”
There were tire tracks on the ground. In his ear, he heard her exclaim, “Working so late again…”
He wasn’t sure if she was in Vancouver or Paris. The rain fell quietly, and Xu Xingchun calculated the time difference in his mind.
“Do you miss me?…” Her voice sounded a bit uncertain, “It’s raining here too.”
“I can hear it,” his voice was raspy and very gentle.
She asked fiercely, “What are you smiling about?”
“Mm… I miss you.”
Xu Xingchun took off his wet coat and went up the stairs from the entrance. He walked very slowly, one step at a time.
“You really miss me?” Fu Xueli asked.
“Mm.”
She couldn’t suppress her laughter, lowering her voice, “Then turn around.”
Xu Xingchun was stunned. He had been too absorbed. His footsteps faltered. Just as he turned around, he was unexpectedly embraced from behind.
Fu Xueli saw that he didn’t move and looked up, “Hey, were you really scared?”
Feeling how cold Xu Xingchun’s body was, like a snowman, she was a bit dissatisfied. She looked up and grumbled, “Don’t you know to wear more clothes?”
She couldn’t say anything more. He held her chin and sealed her lips with his. All words and longing melted in this heavy rain.
The two embraced and kissed for who knows how long before entering the door.
Fu Xueli’s legs were weak. She sat on the chair by the door waiting for Xu Xingchun to help her take off her shoes, while complaining in a low voice: “Do you know, just now when I was waiting for you, my feet went numb from squatting. And it was so cold.”
Actually, she had waited outside Xu Xingchun’s apartment for nearly two hours, guessing he must have been busy. During that time, she wasn’t particularly impatient. For her, the time spent waiting for Xu Xingchun was never too hard to endure.
“Want me to rub them for you?” Xu Xingchun knelt on one knee in front of Fu Xueli, putting the shoes he had taken off to the side, and looked up.
Their eyes met.
His gaze made her heart flutter. Fu Xueli raised her hand to cover Xu Xingchun’s eyes, “Don’t look at me like that, I can’t control myself.”
He pulled down her hand. Xu Xingchun stood up, raised his wrist to take off his watch, then asked, “Are you done talking?”
Fu Xueli couldn’t go on. She pointed at her lips, her eyes moist, and said softly, “Kiss me here.”
The next second, she was lifted up by the waist.
Before she could cry out in surprise, her lips were sealed. Her hands hung around his neck as Xu Xingchun’s tongue parted her lips, “Hold onto me, don’t let go.”
Kissing like this… was really too much.
They both lost a bit of control. Fu Xueli was thrown onto the bed, her mind still in a daze.
He had just stood by the bed, watching her unbuckle his belt… it was really sexy.
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