Love Me if You Dare: Pristine Darkness

In this world, the only thing which Luo Lang could not bear to witness at this time was Jian Yao’s grief.

At the beginning of this period of time, Jian Yao was completely beside herself, constantly in a daze, and everyone could see this. Luo Lang made the rounds of the hospital, Jian Yao’s apartment, and the station several times a day, almost daily. It wasn’t as if he was doing anything special. He simply brought her nutritious meals, gave her information, ferried her to and from work, and even passed on any news which he had gleaned about Bo Jinyan. He was so meticulous that any onlookers who did not know them assumed that he was Jian Yao’s husband.

Moreover, at that time, Jian Yao was totally indifferent to everything and everyone. Fang Qing suspected that she did not care a jot about Luo Lang’s existence.

However, Fang Qing cared.

That f**ker Bo Jinyan was so badly hurt, and left in secrecy. Luo Lang was constantly circling around Jian Yao from dawn to dusk; what did he mean by it?

Thus, one day, at the ground floor of Jian Yao’s apartment block, when Luo Lang once again visited Jian Yao with some fruits, he was pulled out of his car by Fang Qing who had been ‘keeping watch’ for a long time, and roughly pinned against the wall.

“Luo Lang, right? You, this so called ‘fellow townsperson’, you’re paying so much special attention to someone else’s wife – aren’t you being too diligent?” Whenever Fang Qing turned fierce, it was quite scary. His voice was so cold it sent chills down one’s spine, and his face looked like a demon’s. Not a few hoodlums had been left quaking in their boots as a result.

Even though Luo Lang was being restrained by Fang Qing, he made no attempt to defend himself, and his entire face flushed. In a perfectly calm voice, he said, “Team Leader Fang, I think you are in error. I care for Jian Yao as a friend does, in the same way that you care for her. I have no improper intentions towards her.”

Fang Qing was stumped for words. Unexpectedly, this joker seemed to be rather open, and on the level.

However, how could he possibly so easily accept a man’s one-sided statement? That day, Fang Qing still sent Luo Lang packing, and remarked, “Haha, whether you’re being honest or treacherous . . . let’s wait and see.”

However, as the saying goes, it takes time to know a person. Later, Fang Qing gradually discovered that Luo Lang’s interactions with Jian Yao were not so cut and dried.

Although he cared about Jian Yao, he never overstepped his boundaries, not even by half a step. He constantly called Jian Yao to eat with him, and ignored their previous animosity to call Fang Qing as well, while laughingly disregarding Fang Qing’s cold attitude and close scrutiny. He regularly provided their team with legal information and treated the other criminal investigators as warmly as he treated Jian Yao. Occasionally, if it was on the way, he would give Jian Yao a ride, but never at night, and he also never stayed long. Once, when Jian Yao was meeting her younger sister, Jian Xuan, she had given in to her moodiness and drunk too much. Luo Lang had run into her by chance, and he called Fang Qing to arrange for a female police officer to escort her home. He almost scrupulously toed the line of proper behaviour when it came to interactions with Jian Yao.

Fang Qing felt that Luo Lang seemed to have no improper intentions towards Jian Yao.

Taking a step back to consider the situation, even if he did, he was clearly repressing his feelings, and refusing to even let a hint of them be displayed. Based on this point, Fang Qing was able to view Luo Lang in a more favourable light.

And, thus, gradually, the three of them got to know each other.

Once, Fang Qing asked Jian Yao, half-jokingly, “What do you think of Luo Lang?”

She replied, “He is a very magnanimous person, with clear-cut and open objectives. I can sense that he befriended me out of kindness.”

Fang Qing nodded.

Then, he heard Jian Yao continue in a flat tone, “Bo Jinyan is not here. If I feel that someone is fishy, even if something is just a little off, I won’t make friends with that person.”

Thus, Fang Qing came to realise even more clearly: in this world, whose heart is not just like a mirror? It’s just that what each person sees reflected in the mirror is themselves*, that’s all.

*T/N that is, each person has his or her own way of seeing things.

In time, the three of them got to know each other better, and they actually had a lot to talk about, so they became truly good friends.

The smell of barbecued meat, mixed with alcohol, drifted into their noses. However, Luo Lang’s nose was unexpectedly sensitive. He sniffed twice before asking, “Why do I smell medicine? Who’s been hurt?”

Jian Yao smiled faintly as she replied, “It’s me. It’s a minor injury, nothing serious.”

Fang Qing tsked and said, “This nose is sooooooo incredible.”

Luo Lang ignored him and carried on drinking.  He then quietly shifted all the remaining wine under the table so that the bottles were between his feet.

Fang Qing saw this and laughed without saying anything.

If one could say that Fang Qing, at this point, was someone Jian Yao regarded as an uncle, then Luo Lang would undoubtedly be her elder brother. The two of them had a tacit understanding to protect her, and this was in some way the basis of the rapport between the two older men.

Fang Qing blew out some smoke and jokingly asked, “Why aren’t you bringing your little girlfriend over?”

Luo Lang laughed and said, “She normally eats western food and drinks red wine, she’s not used to crayfish and barbecued meat from a roadside stall. Why would I bring her here?” He gave as good as he got when he teased Fang Qing in retaliation, “What about your girlfriend who’s like your shadow? Weren’t you going strong previously? Why haven’t we ever seen you bring her out? Is it inconvenient to be dating a big star?”

Previously, when he had been seriously injured, Jin Xiaozhe had charged into the Army Hospital and put the entire city into an uproar.

Fang Qing spat out a piece of crayfish shell and replied coolly, “What do you want to bring her up for? We’ve broken up.”

Jian Yao patted his shoulder.

Luo Lang’s expression turned grave. “My apologies. I never thought this would happen to you guys.”

Fang Qing smiled fleetingly before replying, “Your girlfriend doesn’t want to accompany you to drink beer and eat barbecued meat. My woman, finally, could no longer bear with my life as a criminal investigator. She said she was afraid to wake up one day to find that I had already kicked the bucket.”

   ——

When Jian Yao returned home that night, it was already very late.

Such a big apartment, empty and quiet.

As per usual, she washed up, changed into her pajamas, and read for a bit at the bedside. Later, she turned off the lights and lay on the bed.

Outside the window, the clouds were thick and there was no starlight. She lay down for a while, then got up again, and went into the study.

She had kept the study the way it was before. Bo Jinyan’s books and files were placed in a corner, and Jian Yao had arranged them neatly. She took out a book, sat in front of the window and read by the light of the lamp for a while.

Then, she looked up at the white board next to the wall.

That was the board Bo Jinyan normally used. At this time, the surface had been wiped clean, but there was a number in the upper right corner.

341.

Jian Yao got up and walked over to the board, rubbed off the ‘1’ and changed it to ‘2’.

Suddenly, her heart clenched in a spasm of pain, and her eyes prickled. However, she bowed her head and endured it.

He would come back.

He said he would come back.

What she had to do, was to wait for months, even years, steadfastly. That was all.

However, when would he once again appear before his wife?

It’s not that he cannot be found.

Although he had An Yan with him, it would be very easy for him to vanish without trace. However, if she actually asked the criminal investigators to look for them, it wasn’t a sure thing that they would evade discovery.

But, Jian Yao did not try to look for them.

The wind did not have to ask when it could return. Her blind master sleuth would one day find the road that would lead him home.

Jian Yao looked up and looked out at the night.

The same, deeply mesmerising, lonely night scene also enveloped the top of a building not far away.

Luo Lang peered through the telescope and observed the lights go off in Jian Yao’s window. Following that, he also lay on the bed. Without him fully realising what he was doing, in this past year, he had taken down many of the photographs which had previously been densely layered all over the wall. Those remaining were all of Jian Yao, Jian Xuan and Mrs. Jian smiling. Luo Lang lay on the bed and thought about Jian Yao’s tranquil and gentle expression as they were drinking that night, and also smiled. He got a glass of water, swallowed five sleeping pills and shut his eyes.

Only in Fang Qing’s apartment were the lights still shining brightly.

This was the apartment he had rented, one bedroom, neither old nor new, near the police station. Of late, he had been tossing and turning in his bed, always unable to sleep well. Might as well do some more exercise before turning in. He had done goodness knows how many pull-ups at home, followed by push-ups, before taking a bath and lying on the bed, panting.

After lying down with his eyes shut for a long time, he abruptly wrenched open his eyes, and got up to grab his cellphone. He opened the photo folder but could only stare blankly as he remembered that he had deleted all of Jin Xiaozhe’s photographs from his cellphone when they had quarrelled and broken up.

However, her photographs her news her movements anything which she was even remotely involved in, all of that was available online.

Fang Qing looked at them for a while, but in the end they just plunged him into a heart-wrenching turmoil. He was just making things difficult for himself, until at last he was so tired, he tossed the cellphone aside, pressed his palm against his face and fell into a deep slumber.