Xie Qingcheng dragged the ashtray toward himself. Then, he plucked the cigarette from his chapped lips and tapped off the ash. “Indeed, it’s not necessary.”
“But, you know, looking at you right now, there are a few things I can’t help thinking about.”
“Like what?”
Zheng Jingfeng sighed deeply. “I’m reminded of when you were little…”
Xie Qingcheng said nothing.
“When I first met you, you were still in elementary school. Your mom had caught a cold that day, so you decided to come to the cafeteria all on your own to get her food.” Zheng Jingfeng’s steely eyes misted over with softness at his reminiscence. “Your mom loved egg drop soup with tomato. You weren’t very tall back then, so you couldn’t reach the ladle when you stood next to that big pot of soup. When I saw you, I went over to help… When you looked up to thank me, there was no need for an introduction—I knew right away, the moment I saw your eyes, that you were Zhou Muying and Xie Ping’s kid. After that, you’d often come to the bureau to do your homework. When you were tired, you’d drape your mom or dad’s jacket over your shoulders and take a nap at the table while you waited for them to finish their work. I’ve met a lot of the kids from our unit, but you were the quietest and most mature of them all.”
Zheng Jingfeng exhaled a ring of smoke and tilted his head back, following it with his eyes.
“Later on, I couldn’t help but be curious. I asked your dad, ‘How did you teach your kid to be so well-behaved?’ He laughed and said to me that no one told you what to do. That was just your personality. I didn’t believe him, I just thought Lao-Xie was showing off, so I ran over to ask you—I don’t know if you still remember, but back then, I asked you how you were so impressive… You showed me your prize from a martial arts competition that you had just won that day,” the old captain said. “And then you told me…
“You wanted to be a police officer.”
At the same time, Xie Qingcheng said, “I wanted to be a police officer.”
The two of them fell into silence.
After a while, Zheng Jingfeng said, “At that age, most children only have vague ideas when you ask them about their dreams for the future. But not you—as soon as I saw the light in your eyes, I knew that you were serious. You were probably sure about it since you were little, so you always lived more solemnly than other kids your age because of that concrete goal.”
Xie Qingcheng finished smoking his cigarette and lit another one.
Zheng Jingfeng said, “You shouldn’t smoke so much.”
“It’s fine. You can continue.”
Zheng Jingfeng sighed. “But no matter how calm and cool-headed you were back then, you still seemed like a normal person. When I look at you now, really—I’m worried about you. An ordinary person wouldn’t be able to bottle up their emotions so tightly. It’d drive them crazy. Xiao-Xie, there’s really no need for you to be so tense.”
“I don’t feel tense, nor do I feel tired,” Xie Qingcheng said. “You don’t have to come up with weaknesses for me. I’m already very used to my current state. Weakness is for women; it’s not a problem I have.”
That annoyed Zheng Jingfeng so much his head began to hurt. He pointed at him. “That’s such a sexist way of thinking. You really ought to fix that. It’s a good thing the female colleagues in our unit aren’t here—if they were, no matter how handsome you are, they’d all roll their eyes at you, and I daresay you’d deserve it. More power to them! What kind of outdated nonsense are you spouting?!”
These kinds of things didn’t matter to Xie Qingcheng. He fiddled with the cigarette’s filter paper. “Enough small talk, Captain Zheng. Let’s get to the more important matters at hand.”
“What exactly are you saying isn’t important?” Zheng Jingfeng glared at him. “Let me ask you this: Is your life unimportant? Are those outrageous videos that were projected onto the broadcasting tower unimportant? You haven’t checked your phone—they’re having a real field day online. You sure are something, Xie Qingcheng, to have pissed off that criminal organization so badly that they went out of their way to stream your video free of charge. You tell me, does that count as important? Also, you and your little friend were both inside the archives when it was about to explode—yes, I believe that things happened the way you two described, but do you really expect the people further up the chain of command to accept it? Do you really think things work that way? You’ll need to be questioned, and so will your little friend. Does that count as important? And another thing, you—”
“How are his injuries?” Xie Qingcheng interrupted Captain Zheng’s torrential tirade.
Lao-Zheng started in surprise. Since he’d entered the room, this was the first question Xie Qingcheng had asked that sounded slightly human.
Xie Qingcheng felt guilty about He Yu.
He very rarely entertained feelings of guilt over anyone, much less someone significantly younger than him. To put it harshly, there were times when Xie Qingcheng looked at these youngsters and felt as though they didn’t seem all that much like living, breathing creatures.
That wasn’t to say that he didn’t treat them like human beings. Rather, he simply didn’t attach much importance to how they felt about him.
He Yu was no exception.
Even though Xie Qingcheng had interacted with him for so many years—from when He Yu was seven until he turned fourteen, Xie Qingcheng had been the He family’s personal physician—he had never placed He Yu on the same level as himself, nor had he ever considered him someone he could speak to casually or treat as an equal.
He had always told He Yu what to do, and apart from unilaterally giving instructions, he had never sought to obtain anything from He Yu. More importantly, he’d never thought that there was anything he could possibly get from such a youth.
Now Xie Qingcheng had realized for the first time that He Yu had already grown up; that he possessed emotions and personal desires that he couldn’t disregard.