Silver Snow Line [Criminal Investigation]

Xu Siruo nodded: "I am 20 years old, what's wrong?"
Wei Cheng: "When is your birthday?"
"January."
"Oh, that's about to expire too."
Xu Siruo didn't understand, Xie Qingfei glared at Wei Cheng helplessly, then turned around and said, "You should go back early, and be careful when driving."
Xu Siruo was so carefree that she forgot to ask Wei Cheng how he got out of Xie Qingfei's house. She moved towards the car reluctantly and said that she wished her sister a happy new year in advance.

After watching the car go away, Xie Qingfei said, "What nonsense were you just talking about?"
"What's wrong? I just asked about his age," Wei Cheng pretended to be innocent, "or did you think of going somewhere else?"
Haha, such a strong cat, in his arms, looks like a "little kitten", and even rubs against his chest muscles, completely forgetting about its owner whom it has not seen for many days.
Xie Qingfei looked at this worthless lecher, then looked at Wei Cheng, made a gap between his two fingers, and said, "Your mind is only this big."

She squeezed through the man and the cat and entered the house. She found that the house had been kept very tidy according to her habits. Thinking that Wei Cheng arrived before her, she asked in disbelief, "You didn't come to clean it yourself, did you?"
"Someone doesn't like others touching her things."
Wei Cheng threw He He to the ground. He He obviously hadn't had enough. He pawed at his trouser legs with his two front paws, but was ruthlessly pushed away by Wei Cheng. After being treated coldly this time, he finally remembered his master who never left him. He shook his fur and walked elegantly again, rubbing against Xie Qingfei.
Xie Qingfei didn't want a traitor, but she put away her left foot, and it rubbed against her right foot. When she pressed against its neck, it shamelessly came into her arms like a dragon wagging its tail, and rested its head on her chest in a very rascally manner, which made people laugh.

Wei Cheng's eyebrows jumped when he saw it, and he picked it up and threw it far away. After all, Hehe was at the bottom of the food chain, and was bullied by this hateful human. He just snorted at him angrily, wagged his tail and went to enjoy his afternoon tea.

Wei Cheng washed his hands and said, "Did my mother tell you about having dinner together tonight?"
Ms. Gu Mingxu strongly requested that Xie Qingfei go to her home to celebrate the New Year, and she couldn't refuse such a kind invitation.
"I told you, what time should we go there?" Xie Qingfei looked over and saw that he had already brought her things.
"If we leave now, we can just catch the meal." Wei Cheng glanced at his watch and said quietly, "I was planning to pick you up, but who knew you would have someone to take you there? People in their twenties are always quick."
Xie Qingfei: "Just keep saying this, even if you say it a hundred times, you won't be able to turn back to youth."
Wei Cheng was horrified: "So I really lost because I was born too early?"
"Tsk..." Xie Qingfei couldn't help laughing and poked the two kitten paw prints on his chest, "Then there's nothing we can do."

There are a lot of cars on the road during holidays. It was dinner time again, and although the traffic was not so smooth, it was not as annoying as the usual busy commute, but rather a festive and lively atmosphere. The two went to the mall to buy things, and Xie Qingfei insisted on paying for it herself. Wei Cheng did not stop her, but smiled at her while carrying the bags.
"What are you laughing at again? I'm the one who's visiting." Xie Qingfei's face turned red for no reason.
Wei Cheng couldn't hold back his smile: "You've never come home with me before."
Xie Qingfei was stunned. Why did he feel that this was a bit strange? Then he saw other people queuing up to check out. Most of them were men and women, who also bought gifts. One of them always comforted the other and told them not to be nervous.
Xie Qingfei: "..."
Wei Cheng said in time: "It's too late to regret now."
"I didn't intend to regret it," Xie Qingfei said calmly, "I just went there to have a meal."
"Oh." He deliberately dragged out the syllables.

Just because he reminded her, Xie Qingfei became more and more nervous when the car drove through the gate of the manor. She agreed to it because she didn't want to spoil Ms. Gu's fun. She often came to take care of her during her hospitalization. In addition, they often met each other and had a good relationship. However, this kind of date without Wei Cheng often made her ignore the fact that she was her ex-boyfriend's mother. This time, going directly to their home had a very different meaning. She didn't have a clear identity, and even as an ordinary colleague who had saved Wei Cheng with kindness, it was too much to meet his parents.

Moreover, Xie Qingfei had never met Wei Cheng's father, and both mother and son rarely mentioned this person, so that her impression of Wei Sicheng only existed in financial news.

Wei Cheng saw her expression in the rearview mirror, which was tangled and annoyed, and asked, "Why are you so nervous?"
"Who's nervous?" Xie Qingfei immediately retorted. Seeing that he didn't respond, he couldn't help but ask, "Is your dad here today?"
"Yes, right? Are you nervous because he's here?" Wei Cheng said, "You can also pretend he's not here."
Xie Qingfei was confused by him: "Through self-hypnosis?"
Wei Cheng said: "Anyway, he is definitely not as difficult to approach as you think."
"Oh," Xie Qingfei reluctantly believed him and added, "I'm not nervous. I'm not here to... do that or anything."

They soon arrived at their destination. Gu Mingxu was already waiting at the gate. When he saw his son, he pretended not to see him. He took Xie Qingfei by the hand and asked him about his well-being. After entering the house, Xie Qingfei formally met Wei Cheng's father, Wei Sicheng.

The man in front of him was very tall, wearing a tailor-made suit, with a mature and handsome face and a seemingly indifferent expression. His vigorous temperament was exactly the same as Wei Cheng. Although Wei Cheng looked more like his mother, anyone who saw the two men standing together would immediately recognize them as father and son.

"Hello, Miss Xie."

Wei Sicheng nodded politely to Xie Qingfei, his eyes staying on her face for less than two seconds before moving away, so fast that Xie Qingfei doubted whether he could see clearly what she looked like.
"This is my dad." Wei Cheng introduced.
Xie Qingfei hurriedly called out, "Hello, Uncle Wei."
Wei Sicheng nodded again, and then stopped talking. The atmosphere was a bit tense, and Xie Qingfei looked at Wei Cheng as if asking for help.
At this time, Gu Mingxu walked over and patted her husband, saying angrily, "You are so annoying. This is Feifei's first time at home, can't you smile?"
Wei Sicheng silently took two light punches from his wife, then smiled at Xie Qingfei.
Xie Qingfei: "..."

After she and Wei Cheng went upstairs, she asked in disbelief, "Your father, President Wei, how could such a big boss be...socially anxious?"
"You'll get used to it, so I told you not to be nervous." Wei Cheng handed her a glass of water and said, "Sit down."

Wei Cheng lived alone on the second floor. It was obvious that this was the place he rarely came back to. Xie Qingfei looked around and found that there were photos of their family hanging on the wall. Most of them were taken when Wei Cheng was a student. He used to have a cold face and didn't even smile at the camera. And Mr. Wei Sicheng, who was his template, stood aside as if he was copied and pasted. The vitality of the whole photo was completely maintained by Ms. Gu alone.

Fortunately, Wei Cheng’s personality is not completely like his father’s. He is still quite talkative most of the time.

Xie Qingfei couldn't help but laugh and asked, "Then how did Aunt Gu get together with your dad? They seem to have completely different personalities."
"They have been engaged since they were young," Wei Cheng sat next to her and looked at the photo. "You can see that my mother likes to be the center of attention wherever she goes. She likes to be in the limelight. When she was young, she was even more so. In the words of my grandparents, she was 'lawless'. So she has many friends and suitors. She never took my father, the fiancé arranged by the family, seriously."

Xie Qingfei saw another photo of the couple when they were young. The location was on a cruise ship. Gu Mingxu waved towards the sunset, and Wei Sicheng stood aside, staring at her quietly.
"Are you here now?"
Wei Cheng took a look and said, "Not yet. My mother is not easy to chase."
Xie Qingfei smiled: "Your dad doesn't seem like the kind of person who would actively pursue a girl."
"Well, although they were childhood sweethearts, my dad actually always knew that my mom had no interest in him. Later, he went abroad to study, and my mom also had her own studies to complete, so the two of them got together by chance. The family would not provide too much financial support to children who were still studying, and my mom was not someone who could take care of herself. During that period, my dad was the only one who could be ordered around." Wei Cheng smiled, "It was probably from this time that she found that this guy was not bad, and if she wanted to spend her life with him, it didn't seem so bad."

Xie Qingfei listened to his perspective and said, "Why didn't you tell me what your father thought of this engagement? Is he willing to listen to his family's arrangements?"
"My dad has liked my mom since he was a kid, so he must be secretly happy to marry her, but he still wants to have an opinion." Wei Cheng said, "My mom used to focus on her career, and he only needed to fulfill his supporting duties, so of course he rarely showed up. Now my mom wants to relax, and he needs to take care of the company's affairs. It's not that he is very resistant to socializing, he just doesn't care about other things."
Xie Qingfei: "It sounds like you got it as a gift from buying a lottery ticket."
Wei Cheng also said: "Yes, I am so pitiful, why is there no one who loves me to death."

As she was talking, Xie Qingfei saw another familiar photo. It was when Gu Mingxu came to school to participate in the coming-of-age ceremony in her senior year of high school and took a photo with her and Wei Cheng. Ms. Gu still firmly occupied the center position, mainly because the people on her left and right were not cooperating. They were only willing to look at the camera with their noses, as if being less than one meter apart would cost them their lives.
However, this weird way of getting along was brought together by Ms. Gu, who even left several different photos. In the end, she even stopped appearing in the photo and insisted that they take photos alone. The finished product is that the two of them stared at each other with their faces facing each other, as if they would fight immediately if they left the camera.

Wei Cheng was the first to blame others: "Look, you made a good photo look like Batman vs. Superman."
Xie Qingfei also thought the person in the photo was funny, but he couldn't blame her entirely: "It's because you always come to provoke me. Look at your expression. Doesn't it look like you deserve a beating?"
When they were young, they were at loggerheads, but now they can calmly recall the past. Xie Qingfei looked at the photos one by one. In fact, she didn't realize that Wei Cheng liked her at that time. How could someone express his love in such an awkward way? Wei Cheng, who was still in school uniform in the photo, was still a teenager, but the man next to him had lost his youthfulness. He looked very reliable no matter how you looked at him. The two figures merged, and their eyes seemed to have really not changed.

Wei Cheng calmly let her look at him, and even moved closer: "Can you see clearly?"
"See clearly...what?"
"Look at how I plotted against you back then."
Xie Qingfei's heart was moved by his smile, and a faint blush slowly crept up his cheeks. Batman wouldn't suddenly say something that people couldn't respond to when fighting Superman.
Fortunately, at this time, Ms. Gu, the Wonder Woman who was in charge of the situation, was downstairs calling people to eat.
Xie Qingfei put the cup in his arms and ran quickly to the stairs.
Wei Cheng turned the glass in his hand, and there was a very light lip print on the edge. He put his finger on it and touched it, then got up and went downstairs. The meal was very harmonious. Later in the evening, Ms. Gu wanted to ask Xie Qingfei to stay overnight, but Wei Cheng said that she had just been discharged from the hospital and it was difficult for her to rest well in an unfamiliar environment, so she gave up the idea.

After returning to their residence, Xie Qingfei got out of the car, walked around to the driver's window and said, "I'll leave first, and you should be careful too."
Wei Cheng stared at her for a moment, and seeing that she really had no intention of going any further, he said, "Okay."
Xie Qingfei waited for him to back out before turning around to open the door, but she didn't know that Wei Cheng hadn't left at all. He parked the car under a tree outside the courtyard. From this angle, he could just see her figure reflected behind the curtains after she turned on the lights on the second floor without being noticed by her.

When he heard her conversation with Zhao Chongyun that day, he felt like a person who had been sentenced to death and suddenly got a chance to start over. After the surprise, he was actually at a loss. Xie Qingfei did not regard love as indispensable, because she was rational, strong, outstanding, and had an absolutely rich spiritual world. She had ten thousand reasons to prove that she did not need his company.

But she didn't seem to realize that she was always soft-hearted. Wei Cheng used to be unwilling to accept her reasons for breaking up, but now he understood that they were all insincere. He was just afraid of being abandoned, so he forced her to admit that she liked him and cared about him, and repeatedly confirmed his position in her heart. In fact, if she didn't love him, she would be more at ease to enjoy his care. She could just treat him as a toy to tease when she was free, give him a smile when she was happy, and ignore him when she was unhappy. Why would she worry about who would delay whom? At that time, as long as he could be by her side, he didn't care how much love he could get from her.

Wei Cheng recalled what she said to him on the day when she injured her waist. It was unpleasant and really heartless, but it turned out that she had always thought about having a future with him, and did not just regard him as someone who would accompany her for a while.
She was so calm that she seldom asked for anything from the outside world and didn't care about her own gains and losses, but he really wanted to let her know that she deserved everything.

Wei Cheng rolled down the car window and let the cold wind blow away his worries. The dead silence of the winter night made him irritated, so he turned on the car radio and barely felt less lonely.
The boring sound of reading aroused his sleepiness. When Wei Cheng was about to fall asleep, his cell phone suddenly rang. He looked at the caller ID and it was Xie Qingfei.

As he answered the call, he looked up and saw that she had walked onto the balcony without him noticing. Her voice floated from a long distance from her eyes to his ears: "Are you home?"
Wei Cheng turned up the volume of the radio by two notches: "We're here. What's going on?"
Xie Qingfei said: "I don't know why the light bulb in my house doesn't light up. I don't know how to fix it. Can you teach me?"

Wei Cheng blinked slowly and looked at her upstairs surrounded by bright lights.

His heart suddenly trembled violently, he straightened up, tried to control his emotions and asked: "Do you need my help?"
Xie Qingfei bent her index finger and scratched her forehead twice. She didn't know what little movements she would make when she lied.
"No need, just teach me how to do it."
Wei Cheng's Adam's apple rolled up and down and he said okay.
"If the lights in other rooms are also off, check if there is something wrong with the switch. Your switch is on the south exterior wall on the first floor."
"Oh, let me see." Xie Qingfei held up the phone for a long time without saying anything. He looked at his feet, fiddled with the balcony door handle twice, and said, "It seems there is no problem. What should I do?"
Wei Cheng said, "That means the light bulb is old. Hasn't it been a long time since you lived here?"
"Well, that can't be helped."
"Are you scared?"
"It's okay, you can chat with me."
We agreed to chat, but after saying this she fell silent.
After a long silence, Wei Cheng asked, "Xie Qingfei, did you miss me?"
"Why do you say that suddenly?" She would definitely not admit it.

The wind blew, and the moon emerged from the clouds, secretly looking at the people below.

"Wei Cheng."
"Ah."
Xie Qingfei spoke carefully: "Actually, Aunt Gu told me that you are very afraid of getting hurt and dying because of some experiences you had when you were a child, so you must have been very scared by the explosion."
Wei Cheng said nothing.
"I chose to stand in front of you, not because of any duty or heroism." Xie Qingfei said, "Have you forgotten? You saved me before, and you didn't hesitate when you came to save me."
She said that one year when the two of them went to the earthquake zone, she was injured and trapped in the mountains. Not only was there a risk of aftershocks at any time, it was already very late and there was about to be a rainstorm in the mountains. No rescue worker dared to take the risk of going into the mountains to look for people at this time. Saving her would be tantamount to seeking death, but Wei Cheng went.

He asked softly, "Do you want to settle accounts with me so clearly?"
Xie Qingfei laughed softly: "Something like gratitude may cause an imbalance in one's mentality and embellish some feelings, but after calculating it clearly, I suddenly realized...it has never been an influencing factor."
Wei Cheng: “I don’t understand.”
"I want to ask you why you were willing to come to me and why I stood in front of you that day. There is no other reason." Xie Qingfei paused and snorted, "I don't want you to have wild thoughts. Don't you know how abnormal you have been recently? You must have misunderstood what I meant."
Wei Cheng felt his breathing become a little tight.
Compared to the soft words of love, she was more skilled in criticizing him: "You are really something. You didn't even say you were scared. Aren't you usually good at playing the victim? You are stubborn when you are really needed. In fact, you can tell me that you are worried about me. You told me not to take risks all the time, and I would listen."

Wei Cheng coughed lightly, fearing that he would break his voice if he opened his mouth, but his voice was still slightly hoarse: "I don't want you to listen to me. This is not your wish."
"Do you understand..." Xie Qingfei raised his voice, "Then why do you come here every day to work for free when you know clearly that being a policeman is very hard? What you least want to see is these life and death things, isn't it also forcing yourself to adapt?"

Wei Cheng did not answer, but the radio station, which had been on all the time, happened to broadcast something quite appropriate at this moment -
"I have said I will go, and I will not change my mind. If you will not let me take this risk with you...
"Well, well...we've lived together for years, it would be interesting if we all died from the same bullet."

Before we knew it, it was already midnight. The New Year's Eve fireworks suddenly lit up the sky, drowning out all the other sounds.

When Wei Cheng looked up, Xie Qingfei was also looking up at the fireworks. The brilliant lights illuminated her face, and he was looking at her.
As if all the emotions just now were washed away, Xie Qingfei calmed down and asked: "Are you setting off fireworks over there too?"
Wei Cheng hummed.
Xie Qingfei said again: "Happy New Year."

She didn't hear a reply for a long time. She looked at the phone screen in surprise and found that he had hung up the call.
Xie Qingfei couldn't describe his mood. He threw his phone on the bed dejectedly. Just as he was about to throw himself on the bed, he heard the doorbell ring downstairs.
She was stunned for a few seconds, then suddenly ran downstairs quickly.
The door opened and Wei Cheng was standing there.

"How did you come."
He looked unhappy, staring at her for a long while before speaking stiffly, "Apologize."
Xie Qingfei: "What?"
"Apologize and say you shouldn't have broken up with me."
Xie Qingfei felt as if his heart was being pushed by a ball of fire, and he said "I'm sorry" in a daze.
Wei Cheng's expression became better, and he stepped onto the stairs: "Okay, I accept."
She was about to ask a question, but then she heard him say, "Kiss me and I'll forgive you."
Without giving her a chance to speak, he bent over and rubbed his cheek against her lips as quickly as flowing water.
Xie Qingfei subconsciously covered her lips and looked up to see him smiling.
"Now we are reconciled." Wei Cheng said with satisfaction.
She couldn't imagine such a shameless move and was speechless for a moment. Wei Cheng didn't plan to wait for her to answer. He pulled her hand to his shoulder, lifted her chin, and kissed her lips again.
The second round of New Year's fireworks exploded as they kissed.
-
Book 3: Sinbad the Sailor - End
(End of this chapter)