Hu Xing was genuinely a little rattled.
No one could stay calm after experiencing something as bizarre as dreaming while driving, then waking up to find they were still driving.
"How did you do that?" Hu Xing asked.
"I didn't do anything," Qingmu said.
Hu Xing knew Qingmu wouldn't tell her. She snorted, got out of the car, straightened her police uniform, and said, "Wait here." Then she walked into the hotel building beside the road.
When she returned, she was carrying a black shopping bag.
"Here." Hu Xing thrust the bag into Qingmu's hands. "I threw away your matches. Consider this compensation."
Inside the bag were a carton of Yellow Crane Tower cigarettes and an S.T. Dupont lighter.
"Are police officers all this rich now? Can you get reimbursed for this?" Qingmu asked, staring at the bag of luxury goods in astonishment.
"In your dreams. This came out of my own pocket!" Hu Xing stressed.
"Then if I lose this, will you police help me find it?"
"Yes, of course we will!" Hu Xing said irritably. "Anything over ten thousand is enough to open a case. If it gets stolen, go report it at a police station."
"Oh, I'm not really worried about theft. It's just that little things like this are always easy to lose, and once they're gone, you can never find them. Matches are still better. Losing them doesn't hurt," Qingmu said.
Hu Xing was a little angry. That cost me three months' salary. Never mind not thanking me-you're even acting like you're reluctantly accepting it.
She turned to glare at Qingmu, but when she saw him studying the lighter in all seriousness, like a child, she burst out laughing. "Aren't you going to try smoking one?"
"I thought smoking in your car wasn't allowed?" Qingmu said.
"Well, this young lady is allowing it now," Hu Xing said.
Qingmu chuckled, took his Paramount cigarettes from his pocket, and lit one with a click of the S.T. Dupont lighter. He took a drag and only after a long while exhaled a thick cloud of white smoke. "I'll use this lighter, but I'll stick to my own cigarettes. Take these Yellow Crane Towers back for your dad."
"My dad doesn't smoke these."
Smelling the secondhand smoke, Hu Xing opened the window and angrily stepped on the accelerator. The car roared down the road, belching black smoke from its exhaust.
"Hey, we're at Liuying Lane. Which way?" Hu Xing called.
"Oh, drive in. A little farther," Qingmu directed. "Keep going. On the left. Stop right here."
Liuying Lane was an old street in Wuzhong. Decades ago, it had been a bustling place, but as the city developed, it gradually fell behind the times. Historical reasons made redevelopment difficult, and it had become a byword for dirt, disorder, and squalor.
Stalls and shops lined both sides of the narrow street, with a dazzling array of signs advertising snacks, lodgings, and bars. People of every sort threaded through the street, while vendors' cries, drunken curses, and children's wails rose and fell.
A lane like this was naturally chaotic, with disturbances and fights breaking out from time to time. As a police officer, she ought to have known it well. But an old lane had its own heritage: petty trouble was frequent, major crimes nonexistent. Like Qingmu's trousers, it had once been the height of fashion, and however outdated it became, it retained its own dignity, never sinking into shamate-style degeneracy.
Hu Xing had joined the criminal investigation team straight out of police academy and had never worked at a local station. She wasn't familiar with this old street, and certainly had no fondness for it.
As soon as she got out of the car, she covered her nose and mouth. The street reeked of sweat and seafood, along with the heavy hair-salon smell drifting from a little alley nearby. For a moment, she almost thought she had arrived in a red-light district somewhere in Southeast Asia.
She could have turned around and left. Delivering Qingmu to his destination had fulfilled her duty, and Shi Dazhuang's "use your judgment" had naturally been a joke. But she had developed a keen interest in this enigmatic man before her. Like an unsolved case, the more baffling he was, the more he made her forget food and sleep.
Qingmu shuffled up to the entrance of a small two-story building facing the street, his slippers clopping along. Turning to see Hu Xing still following, he invited her in. "Want to come upstairs for a bit?"
Having ridden back in her car and accepted a rather expensive lighter from her, he naturally felt too embarrassed to send her away.
Hu Xing saw that the entrance was shut tight, with a sign reading "Ruhua Bar" hanging outside. Puzzled, she asked, "You run a bar?"
Qingmu pointed at the second-floor window and said, a little awkwardly, "The rent's cheap here."
Hu Xing looked up and couldn't help covering her mouth to suppress a laugh.
A little sign reading "Divine Crow Studio" hung beside the second-floor windowsill. Next to the large "Ruhua Bar" sign below, it looked like a phone sitting on top of a television. The rows of lettering stuck to the window, however, were quite eye-catching:
Duke Zhou's dream interpretation
Psychological counseling
Fortune guidance
Names for people and dogs
The more Hu Xing looked, the funnier she found it. The earlier ones were understandable, but what on earth was "names for people and dogs"?
Putting that together with Qingmu's outfit, she simply couldn't hold it in anymore and shook with laughter.
"So you're a master! My apologies for not recognizing you!"
She cupped her hands in an exaggeratedly odd gesture, then remembered she was still in uniform and needed to maintain some decorum in public. Only then did she stop, with a couple of coughs.
Qingmu went up and knocked hard on the door.
"What are you banging for? Can't you see we don't open till eight?"
A fierce voice came from inside, somewhat shrill and impossible to identify as male or female.
Qingmu knocked again, saying as he did, "It's me."
"Me, my ass! Who the hell knows who you are? You went out without your keys again? Fuck!"
The fierce voice rang out again, followed by the creak of the door opening.
Hu Xing had expected a stubbly middle-aged man, or a fat woman with curled hair and a fleshy face. Instead, she was greeted by a strikingly handsome face.
Its features were delicate and beautiful, like a classical painting, while the bold lines of its contours resembled a medieval sculpture. Short black hair fell diagonally across the forehead, covering half the eyebrows and making the eyes look even more lively.
Hu Xing stared for a good while but still couldn't tell whether this person was a man or a woman.
The person froze briefly at the sight of Hu Xing, then rounded on Qingmu. "Fuck! What have you done? You've even brought the police here! I have a license!"
"Oh, this is Officer Hu. She's a client of mine." With both hands tucked into his trouser pockets and an utterly unconcerned air, Qingmu lifted a foot to step inside.
The person refused to let it go. "Who are you trying to fool? A cop is your client? What does she want, dream interpretation or a name? If you're so capable, why don't you pay your rent?"
Hu Xing couldn't watch any longer and stepped forward to smooth things over. "Hello, I'm Qingmu's friend."
Qingmu gave a few dry chuckles and said to Hu Xing, "Well, this is the bar's landlady, and my landlord too. Ruhua."
"What do you mean, Ruhua? How many times have I told you? My name is Bi Shenghua, not Ruhua. Ruhua is the name of my bar," the landlady corrected him loudly.
"Got it, Ruhua," Qingmu replied lazily.
"You're still calling me that! Do it again and I'll raise your rent!"
"All right, Ruhua."
Only now was Hu Xing certain that this person, whose voice was so at odds with her face, was a woman. As she led them inside, the curves of a woman's figure were still faintly visible beneath her loose sweatshirt. She seemed to have quite a good figure.
Such a pretty person, yet such a tomboy!
Qingmu alone was eccentric enough, and now there was an eccentric landlady too. Hu Xing didn't know whether it was coincidence or whether Liuying Lane was simply a place of hidden dragons and crouching tigers that produced eccentrics. She felt she ought to visit places like this more often.
Bi Shenghua kept looking at Hu Xing as she walked, muttering, "Why become a cop when you're this pretty?"
Hu Xing couldn't tell whether that was praise or mockery. If I weren't a cop, was I supposed to...
She badly wanted to retort, "Why be such a tomboy when you're this pretty?"
Then she glanced at Qingmu again, and a strange thought suddenly arose in her mind: This guy would actually be quite handsome if he spruced himself up!