Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
As Bai Muchuan said he would be late, the two of them did not go ahead to the restaurant immediately but took a detour and went downtown to do some shopping. When their stomachs cry of hunger and got tired from all the walking, they carried their shopping bags, hopped onto the car and headed directly to the hotpot restaurant.
Fang Yuanyuan chose quite a high-class hotpot restaurant.
She had said that this was a hotpot restaurant hidden in a garden. Not only the food was delicious, it was also beautiful and had a nice ambience.
It was proven that Fang Yuanyuan had good taste. The courtyard of the restaurant was elegant and exquisite, with rows of flower beds of various breeds. The shrubs and bushes were also well-maintained. Walking along the corridor was a pleasure as people enjoyed the beautiful scenery.
Well, the food was great and the environment was splendid, but the prices were steep as well.
“We’ll get these first, thank you!” Xiang Wan gave the order to the waitress. After she left the private dining room, she immediately flopped onto the table. “Fang Yuanyuan,” she questioned in a low tone, “you’re deliberate, right?”
“What’s up?” Fang Yuanyuan lifted her chin, admiring her newly manicured fingernails. By then, she had fully recovered from her sorrows. “Isn’t the dining environment good here?”
“… Didn’t you realize my hands were shaking when I was ordering the food earlier?”
“You’re the one who told me to pick any place I like?”
“… Yes.” Xiang Wan chuckled helplessly and looked at her with a gloomy expression. “Yeah, and you did just that.”
“Who told you to flaunt your love life in front of me?” grunted Fang Yuanyuan with a laugh as she looked at Xiang Wan from the sideways. “Beware! Isn’t there a popular saying on the internet–show off and the love will die? But no worries, your Detective Bai will help you with the bill.”
“Tch!” Xiang Wan glared at her and sat properly on her seat with an expression as though she was dying. “You really think I’ll let a guy pay for me? I’ve said that I’m giving you a treat and I mean it!”
“Continue to pretend, I feel that Detective Bai is someone who wouldn’t mind treating us to a hotpot dinner.”
“These are two different matters.” Xiang Wan didn’t want to continue arguing with Fang Yuanyuan on this. Everyone had a different way of living their life. There was no need for her to prove her point or force Yuanyuan to adopt her way of living.
Hence, she decided to change the topic. “You better think it over carefully on how you are going to talk to your Huanghuang later! Somehow, I have a weird feeling about the matter you mentioned to me…”
“Why should I talk to him? Hmph, it’s up to him to explain himself.”
She was a typical example of being firm in speech but soft at heart!
Xiang Wan knew very well how Fang Yuanyuan was like. She shook her head and puffed a sigh, smiling but did not say anything more.
Soon, a waiter served their hotpot. The red, spicy soup and its alluring aroma simulated their appetite.
The two of them took a sniff of the aroma and felt hungry.
In no time, the dishes were being served, but Bai Muchuan and Huang He had yet to show up. Fang Yuanyuan couldn’t wait anymore.
“Let’s not wait for them okay?” Fang Yuanyuan gulped, “Let’s eat first?”
“Okay… We’ll eat first. We can order more if it’s not enough.”
Although she had said that, she still took out her mobile phone secretly and sent Bai Muchuan a message.
“When are you coming? I won’t be waiting for you, I’ll start eating now!”
Bai Muchuan had gone to look for Huang He. However, she did not know if he had looked him up for official business or private matter. As he was joking with her about it earlier, Xiang Wan did not think much of it and sent a casual message.
However, she did not receive a reply from Bai Muchuan for a long time.
Five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes…
Xiang Wan started to feel uneasy.
Could it be something had cropped up last minute?
Her finger hesitated for a moment before she tapped on the “Call” button…
“Sorry, the subscriber’s mobile phone has been turned off—”
His phone has been turned off? Xiang Wan’s heart squeezed tightly for a moment.
Was the phone out of battery or he was not convenient to take the call?
“Any reply?” Fang Yuanyuan ate as she lifted her head and looked at Xiang Wan. “Are they arriving soon?”
“They will take a while more!” Xiang Wan felt ill at ease but did not show it before Fang Yuanyuan. She only smiled and continued eating. “No hurry, we can take our time to eat. It’s still early anyway…”
The hotpot boiled again after they placed more food in it.
After boiling for another round, the soup was getting thick… But, they still did not turn up for dinner.
Fang Yuanyuan was now full. She was getting impatient and her mood was starting to get worse.
“Looks like you’re wrong. He totally did not care at all… And here I am, waiting for him to come and apologize? Hah, just look, he’s not even willing to come!”
Xiang Wan took a glance at her but said nothing.
She knew Bai Muchuan’s personality. If he promised her that he would come, he would definitely turn up.
However, Fang Yuanyuan thought differently from her.
After learning that Xiang Wan had gotten Bai Muchuan to get Huang He to come but failed to show up, Fang Yuanyuan’s mind started to think of all sorts of situations as to why they did not turn up. She felt that Huang He was together with his ex-girlfriend and had forgotten totally about her. Even Bai Muchuan could not get him to come and see her…
It was scary when a woman’s thoughts started to go wild.
The more Fang Yuanyuan thought about it, she felt that she had really put herself in a disadvantaged position.
It was clear that the one who was in the wrong was him—on what basis did she have to wait for him to come for a hotpot dinner?
“Let’s leave. I’m full… and I don’t want to wait anymore.” Fang Yuanyuan looked grim and her eyes seemed to be engulfed in flames.
Xiang Wan looked up at her, slowly stirring the hotpot. “I’m not done yet. Let’s wait a while more…”
“What’s there to wait? Can’t you see that he’s unwilling to come!” Fang Yuanyuan was a straightforward person. She simply blamed all her dissatisfaction onto Huang He. “He’s a jerk! If I, Fang Yuanyuan, still bother with him again, then I’m a puppy!”
“…”
This sounds familiar? She had said it before.
Xiang Wan looked at her again and suddenly felt that something was really amiss.
“Even if Huang He did not want to see you, Bai Muchuan would surely want to see me.”
“?” Fang Yuanyuan looked at her quietly.
“Well, to put it crudely, he has not slept with me, so he is not sick of me yet!”
“D*rn!” Fang Yuanyuan was fuming, almost flaring up. “Are you saying that Huang He has gotten sick of me since we’ve slept together, so he didn’t want to show up?”
“Aren’t you the one who’s talking about this non-stop earlier?” Xiang Wan blinked her eyes innocently as she teased her. “Who’s the one who kept scolding ‘scum’, ‘scoundrel’? Who’s the one who said that men would try all ways and means to coax women and the moment a man succeeded to bed a woman, he would not treat her as well as before and would not treasure her? Eh? Could I have heard wrongly?”
Fang Yuanyuan was exasperated.
Indeed, she had said that, but that was only because she was in a fit of anger.
She grunted loudly, refusing to admit defeat. “You gotta be clear about this. It is not that he got sick of me but I’ve gotten sick of him, alright?”
“Yes, yes, yes, I also feel the same way… You’re so beautiful! How can he be sick of you?”
“Cut me some slack, you do not think this way…”
“What am I thinking then?”
“You’re prettier than me!”
“Thank you!”
Hence, while Xiang Wan and Fang Yuanyuan argued and laughed with each other, they also continued to eat that they totally filled their stomachs.
Another hour passed, but Xiang Wan still did not receive a reply.
Gradually, as time passed by, she started to get really uneasy and worried.
Even Fang Yuanyuan also felt something was not quite right.
“Why is Detective Bai still not here? Could it be something has happened?”
“…” Xiang Wan shook her head and closed her eyes.
“You’re right—even if Huang He did not want to come, Bai Muchuan would have come nevertheless.” Fang Yuanyuan also switched on her Sherlocks Holmes spirit to analyze the situation. “You also said that Bai Muchuan went to see Huang He earlier… Why did I feel so strange about this? At this juncture, why would he look Huang He up?”
Xiang Wan kept quiet.
She had also thought of what Fang Yuanyuan had thought.
The reason why Bai Muchuan suddenly look Huang He up today should be due to the case…
The only reason that they were not here yet must be because of the case.
“It’s half past ten now.” Fang Yuanyuan creased her brows and looked at the entrance from time to time. “The waiter has come in five times to add the soup for us. I think we really need to leave now…”
“Okay.” Xiang Wan took her phone and dialed Bai Muchuan’s number one more time. “I can’t still get through. His phone is switched off…”
“Let me call Huang He then.” Fang Yuanyuan took her phone. “Let’s see if he is with Huang He…”
While talking, she pressed on the “Call” button.
Dduu… Dduu….
Nobody picked up the call.
Fang Yuanyuan did not want to give up and called one more time.
This time, after a long while, someone finally picked up the call. It was a woman’s voice.
“Who are you looking for?”
The moment Fang Yuanyuan heard a sweet voice that belonged to a woman, she got irritated. “Where’s Huang He? I’m looking for Huang He.”
“Who are you?” the woman asked.
“I’m his girlfriend!” Fang Yuanyuan almost shouted into the phone. That look of her gnashing her teeth terrified Xiang Wan as well. “Hurry and pass the phone to him! Let him talk to me!”
“Oh… My apologies, he did not want to talk to you.”
He did not want to talk to me? When Fang Yuanyuan heard that, her head felt warm, her cheeks went red, and her blood was as if flowed in the opposite direction. Her heart was beating wildly and her eyes were agape, as though flames were about to shoot out of it.
“Whether he wanted to talk to me or not, it’s not for you to tell me. I want to hear from him personally…”
“Miss, please have some self-respect and stop harassing us…”
That woman interrupted Fang Yuanyuan’s sentence and directly hung up her call. Fang Yuanyuan was so angry that she nearly threw her phone onto the ground.
“D*rn! He’s too much! I’m so angry!”
“What happened?” Xiang Wan was so nervous when she saw Yuanyuan’s peeved look.
“D*mmit! That woman picked up the call. She said Huang He didn’t want to talk to me and asked me to stop harassing them… What is this? Even if he wanted a breakup, it can’t be this hasty? I don’t even know what’s going on and he’s already with another girl. What is he trying to do?…”
Fang Yuanyuan clenched her teeth tightly, her chest heaving while she rambled on what happened.
Xiang Wan furrowed her eyebrows and shook her head seriously. “This is not right.”
“Of course this is not right. Both of them are scums! Scums!” Fang Yuanyuan was so angry that her face was red. She scolded for a few more times before she noticed that Xiang Wan had a serious and gloomy face. “What’s up?”
“Yuanyuan,” said Xiang Wan who took her bag and started to walk, “you need to send me to the Criminal Investigation Unit now!”
“What!?” Fang Yuanyuan looked at her with confusion.
“I need you to help me settle the bill first. I’ll transfer back to you later. Let me make a phone call first…”
“!” What the?
Fang Yuanyuan curled her lips and pulled her hair in anger.
…
