You're just a locksmith! What are you doing catching swindlers at the start?

He stood up and reached out to open the cold storage door.

The stainless steel door panel opened outwards, and a blast of cold white air rushed out from the door frame.

A little girl was huddled in a corner of the cold storage, hugging her knees with her hands, her face covered in tears, and her lips were purple from the cold.

She was still crying softly, her sobs weak, like a kitten drenched in rain. The young woman got up from the ground, rushed in, scooped the little girl up in her arms, knelt down, and pressed her face against her chest.

"Mommy's here, Mommy's here."

The little girl coughed once, and her crying gradually grew louder. She buried her face in her mother's arms, her fingers gripping her mother's collar until her knuckles turned white.

The young woman turned to look at Lin Zhou, her lips trembling, she choked back a sob, and then tears streamed down her face.

"Thank you—what's your name—"

Lin Zhou picked up the padlock that had fallen to the ground and placed it on the handle of the cold storage door.

The lock was still emitting cold air, and the ice crystals around the keyhole were slowly melting, leaving a trail of water on my fingertips. "Lin Zhou."

The little girl peeked out from her mother's arms.

Tears still clung to her face, and the color of her lips had faded from bluish-purple to a pale pink.

She looked at Lin Zhou, her eyes bright, with tears still clinging to her eyelashes.

"Thank you, Uncle."

The voice was very soft, and the throat was a little hoarse from crying out earlier.

But he spoke each word very seriously.

Lin Zhou squatted down to be at eye level with the little girl.

She adopted the same posture as last time when she squatted down next to the BMW 7 Series to look at Duoduo.

He pulled a pack of tissues out of his pocket.

It was the same packet of beer wipes that Su Wan had given him at the barbecue restaurant yesterday. He pulled out a bill and handed it to the little girl.

"Wipe your face. Next time you play hide-and-seek, don't hide in the cold storage. Once the door is closed, you can't open it from the inside, understand?"

The little girl took the tissue, nodded, and held it in her palm, just like Duoduo had held a tissue.

The young woman stood up, holding her child.

He wiped the tears from his face with his sleeve and sniffed.

"Master, are you free tonight? I'd like to treat you to dinner—our house is right across from the mall, and my husband will be there soon—you're a benefactor to our whole family, I don't know how to thank you enough. What would you like to eat? I'll cook—"

"No need, you should take the child to a warm place first."

Lin Zhou picked up the tool bag from the ground and patted off the dust.

"She's been frozen for over ten minutes. It would be best if she went downstairs to the milk tea shop to sit for a while and have a hot milk tea. The temperature in the cold storage is minus eighteen degrees Celsius, and it takes about half an hour for her body temperature to recover. During this time, she will feel sleepy, so don't let her fall asleep."

The young woman stared at him blankly.

She probably never expected that a locksmith would give her these instructions after unlocking the door.

The temperature of the cold storage, the recovery time, and don't let the child fall asleep.

She nodded, lifted the child up, and walked towards the elevator.

After walking a few steps, he turned back and glanced at Lin Zhou again.

Lin Zhou stood in front of the cold storage door, putting the wire back into his tool bag.

The back view of the person in the blue down jacket, with their hair sticking up.

It was the exact same posture she had seen when she was crouching on the ground, desperately clutching the lock ring.

She memorized that face and that blue down jacket in her mind.

The crowd is gradually dispersing.

The fire doors to the emergency exit were closed again, and several security guards were directing the onlookers back to their respective restaurants.

The door to the cold storage was also temporarily sealed off by security guards, who affixed a handwritten note to it.

Lin Zhou had just zipped up his tool bag when he was surrounded by several people.

A young girl wearing a pink hoodie leaned over, holding up her phone.

"You were so handsome just now! Can I add you on WeChat?"

Her best friend next to her tugged at her sleeve but was also secretly glancing at Lin Zhou.

Another middle-aged man wearing glasses patted him on the shoulder and said, "You're awesome, young man."

He handed over another business card, saying he made security equipment and wanted to collaborate with him.

Lin Zhou was about to refuse.

His repertoire of phrases for refusing to add strangers on WeChat only included "I don't add strangers."

Before he could even speak, a hand reached out from the side.

It passed very naturally through the crook of his arm.

My fingers rested on the inside of his forearm, with just the right amount of pressure to pull his arm slightly towards me.

"Excuse me,"

Su Wan's voice was very flat, exactly the same as when she gave her statement in the interrogation room.

But she gently pinched the inside of Lin Zhou's forearm with her fingers.

"He has a girlfriend."

The girl in the pink hoodie paused for a moment, her gaze shifting from Lin Zhou's face to Su Wan's.

The gaze then shifted from Su Wan's face back to Lin Zhou's face.

She probably saw something on Su Wan's face that made her give up instantly.

It's not a threat, not a boast, but a calm statement of facts.

She pulled her hand back, grabbed her best friend, turned around and left. After a few steps, Lin Zhou heard her best friend whisper, "I told you not to go—".

The onlookers gradually dispersed, and Lin Zhou looked down at Su Wan's hand, which was still wrapped around his arm.

She used a declarative tone just now, but the force with which she pinched him was the same as when he asked Lao Zhou in the interrogation room, "Can we stop?"—calm on the surface, but fiercely competitive inside.

She used a declarative tone just now, but the force with which she pinched him was the same as when he asked Lao Zhou in the interrogation room, "Can we stop?"—calm on the surface, but fiercely competitive inside.

"Officer Su, 'I have a girlfriend'—is this also a tactical cover?"

Su Wan pulled her hand out of his arm and took her phone out of her pocket.

He looked down as he scrolled through the messages.

She turned her face away, but Lin Zhou could see from the side that her ears were even redder than before.

"It's not tactical cover."

She swiped her finger across the screen, and the screen remained on the same screen after she finished swiping.

"It's true. I was thinking of saying that when you knelt down to hand that little girl a tissue."

Lin Zhou looked at her.

Her finger remained on the phone screen, motionless.

She had read the message notifications on the screen three times, but hadn't clicked on any of them.

"When did you decide to do that?"

"Around the time you unlocked the door and squatted down."

Su Wan put her phone back in her pocket and looked up at Lin Zhou.

The tiny mole on her ear was faintly visible under the corridor lights.

Lin Zhou opened his mouth.

Before he could find the right words—not lock-picking terminology, not "it's alright" or "less talk, less power"—he caught a glimpse of a figure out of the corner of his eye.

On the periphery of the crowd, three parents were walking over from the other end of the corridor.

Lin Zhou's mother, wearing a purple down jacket, walked at the front, her face showing a mixture of shock and pride, as if she had just heard that her son had opened a cold storage to save people.

Su Wan's mother followed behind her, her camel coat standing out in the crowd, her gold-rimmed glasses reflecting the corridor lights.

Lin Zhou's father walked at the back with his hands behind his back, his pace a half beat faster than usual.

"Lin Zhou!"

His mother walked quickly to him, looked him up and down, and reached out to brush off a speck of dust that had somehow gotten on the collar of his down jacket.

"I just heard someone say you opened a cold storage room—what's going on? How did you unlock it? Doesn't that stuff freeze your hands? Are your hands okay?"