Dangerous Personality - Chapter 2

The corridor outside the bathroom was really long and there was a row of seats against it.

The weather was bad, so there weren’t that many people either.

Many police officers’ families would pick up their children and would have them wait there until they were off work.

When Chi Qing walked outside, there was a girl sitting there skillfully taking out her stationary and practice textbooks from ehr backpack. She sat on the long chair, her feet too short to even reach the ground.

It seemed like she was still in elementary school.

When Chi Qing passed the girl, she tugged on his hands before he could even put his gloves on. “…Big brother.” The girl’s hands were chubby and soft, her voice childish. Even the distorted voice in his ears became cute.

[I don’t know how to answer this question. Daddy just taught me yesterday. He’ll think I’m stupid if I go and ask him again today. QAQ.]

“Can you…”

The girl didn’t get to finish her words. Chi Qing stared at his chubby fingers and glanced at the hesitating yet embarrassed girl. He said mercilessly, “You are very stupid.”

The girl paused, feeling attacked. She even forgot to think about how the big brother knew what she was thinking.

She was actually a bit afraid of this big brother. She was about to let go when he sat next to her and took her practice textbook.

“Which one do you need help with?”

The girl responded, “The blank ones.”

Chi Qing said, “There are lots of blank ones.”

The girl was speechless…

Chi Qing continued, “Are you sure you’ll remember how to solve the questions after I teach you today? I don’t want to be like your father, doing something useless.”

The girl was at a loss.

Chi Qing answered, “it seems like you can’t.”

Chi Qing hit the nail on the head. However, he still explained the questions to her despite the girl’s attention not on it towards the end.

“Big brother, how do you know I wanted to ask you for help?”

The girl widened her eyes, an innocent yet naive expression. Confused, “I didn’t finish my words earlier.”

Chi Qing covered the tip of the pen. “I can hear your inner thoughts.”

The girl blinked her eyes. “Like telepathy?”

“I guess.”

“You can hear my inner thoughts just by touching me?”

“Sounds about right.”

Her ponytail swayed and she said in jealousy, “If I have telepathy, I would know where my daddy hid my candies. I’ve been looking for two days and I still can’t find it.”

Chi Qing returned the practice textbook, giving the girl an explanation too profound for her to understand. “Child, there are no sweets in the world of adults.”

The girl clearly was confused. “Why? You guys don’t like candies?”

Chi Qing didn’t respond. He wore his gloves and placed a finger on his lips as if shushing her before entering the office. There was a distinct contrast from his lips to his black gloves. However, different from his lips’ redness, his words were cold, “Our conversation today is a secret.”

The girl said, “Why did you tell me then?”

Chi Qing opened the door and replied, “Because you’re very young. No one will believe you even if you tell everyone.”

The girl had no words.

The dispute about the wooden carving finally ended within the office.

“I won’t press this issue.” Hearing that the man wearing a formal outfit’s son, Xiao Kang, was the one that stole her item, Aunt Wang felt bad to complain over a child’s mistake. She said, “Go back and educate your son. Don’t let him take other people’s things just because he wants to play with them…”

Chi Qing returned from washing his hands to see both parties settling the dispute.

The man nodded repeatedly and left after the granny. “I will educate him.”

Granny Wang walked for a bit before stopping and wanting to turn back. Nervously, “Police officer, there have been many missing cases in our neighborhood lately. I want to request your help.”

Li Mingrui wasn’t the innocent mediator that hurriedly dispatched police because he was fooled by the granny’s explanation that it was a “valuable treasure passed down from generation.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“It’s the stray cats in our neighborhood—”

“…” As expected.

“They didn’t even eat the cat food prepared for them. This never happens.”

Granny Wang raised cats of her own, so her heart softened for the stray cats. She would slip out of her courtyard to prepare some cat food for them frequently.

“Granny,” Ji Mingrui said, “this can’t be counted as a missing case. We can’t dispatch police to search for cats as well. Stray cats don’t have a fixed residence. They might’ve went somewhere else. Maybe they’ll be back soon.”

Ji Mingrui sent off the granny. Seeing Chi Qing coming back, he poured a cup of water for him respectfully. “Want a drink? Are you thirsty? Look at you. You could’ve just come. You didn’t need to be a mediator for me either.”

Chi Qing received the water cup. “I didn’t plan on it at first.”

Ji Mingrui said, “Then why did you?”

He answered, “Because you guys are too slow. I’m afraid that if I don’t intervene, I will be waiting until tomorrow morning’s breakfast.”

He then added, “Are you off work now? When are you eating?”

You only got off the sofa because you’re hungry?

Ji Mingrui looked at the thunderstorm outside which showed no signs of stopping. Then he looked at the time and then at his colleagues who were working overtime with him. “I don’t think there are many restaurants open at this time. There’s an open-air restaurant nearby and the food is pretty good. It’d be open until 2am.”

The rain seemed to have forgotten lighter. The open-air restaurant was still in business, but there weren’t many customers. There was a menu hung on the wall with a red background and yellow words. Smoke escaped from the back kitchen along with the collision of bowls and pots.

The table could seat eight people and the owner gave them an extra two chairs. They reluctantly squeezed at a table.

Ji Mingrui brushed his nose and explained, “Um, it’s very late now. Let’s just gather here and have dinner. It’s been a hard day for us all.” He then smacked his head and exclaimed, “Ah! I forgot to introduce you guys. We graduated the same year and he just took office today.”

He introduced Chi Qing concisely. Starting from the female officer, Su Xiaolan, who sat across from Chi Qing, they started laughing. “You guys were supposed to eat together, yet we’re all here intruding on your plan. Sorry.”
Although Chi Qing didn’t say anything, Su Xiaolan could tell from his expression that he agreed.

Chi Qing washed the utensils and then looked at the gloves he was wearing. He couldn’t remove them as he didn’t want to accidentally touch someone on the table while eating.

Su Xiaolan waited for a while, but Chi Qing had no plans of removing his gloves. She finally couldn’t help but ask, “You also wear…the gloves while eating?”

Chi Qing replied, “I pay a lot of attention to hygiene.”

Su Xiaolan was at a loss.

“Ignore him.” Ji Mingrui said comfortably. He started grabbing food and said, “That’s just the type of person he is. He has severe mysophobia, to the point where he doesn’t even like touching the dust in the air. In the past, his nickname was ‘Don’t Touch Chi.’”

“Don’t touch?”

“Yeah, he refuses to let anyone touch him.”

Chi Qing warned, “Eat instead of talking!”

Ji Mingrui was speechless.

The rain was drizzling outside.

In between eating, Su Xiaolan thought of something. “Mr. Chi, you must be busy with work.”

From her knowledge, whenever friends made plans to eat together, they would pick a day with good weather first. Since they had chosen to eat on such a thunderous and poor day, he must’ve been so busy with work that he didn’t get time to choose.

Chi Qing avoided the parts of the dishes that have been touched by others. He ate a bit before drinking his cup of water calmly. He looked out the window and said relaxed, “It’s not that busy.”

He placed his cup of water down and then added, “The weather is nice today.”

“?”

Ji Mingrui explained for his strange friend, “He likes rainy days.”

The two decided to eat out because they wanted to celebrate Chi Qing getting a job in the police station. However, Ji Mingrui was only able to schedule a day with Chi Qing about two months into his taking office.

Ji Mingrui recalled the bumpy road he took to ask Chi Qing out to eat together. Chi Qing mentioned that he knew and then that he’d notify him after choosing a date. He had been waiting, waiting, and waiting up until the weather report said that the next few days would be thundering before he received Chi Qing’s notification. “The weather the day after tomorrow is pretty nice. When do you get off work that day?”

Ji Mingrui wanted to ask: …you looked at the weather report?

Chi Qing: What the hell do you mean?

Normally, when people thought of “nice weather,” it was obviously a sunny and bright day they were thinking.

However, JI Mingrui was used to this. Mostly because Chi Qing was different from ordinary people. His little habits weren’t strange.

Someone laughed and eased the tension. “You have a special preference.”

The male officer eased the tension and wanted to look at the time. He reached for his pocket but there was nothing. “Eh? My phone…”

“What happened? You lost your phone?”

This led to a small commotion. Everyone moved their seats and dishes, wanting to see if it was left on the table.

Chi Qing’s gaze was still on the rain outside. He seemed to be admiring the view. He calmly drew his gaze back and said casually, “Since coming inside, you’ve only taken your phone out twice. The first time was when you just entered and the second time was five minutes ago. You took your phone to the bathroom.”

The male officer smacked his head. “Right. I remember now. The bathroom.”

This was a small incident.

Su Xiaolan felt that this colleague of hers was a bit off.

He was too keen. Despite it not being his intention because he was talking about this as if talking about the weather outside the window, she recalled what happened an hour earlier. Chi Qing entered the room and noticed the man in formal attire’s shoes.

Chi Qing sat in the corner. He was leaning against the wall right now when he noticed Su Xiaolan’s gaze on him. The AC was on in the restaurant and he had removed his jacket already. He was wearing a custom-made deep-colored wool sweater. The hair in front of his forehead was a bit long which covered a part of his eyes gloomily. However, you could still see his eye color. His eye color was nearly the same as his hair color, deep and bottomless.

It might be because he just had warm water, but his lips turned redder. This served as a stark contrast to the deep black and his lip color.

Su Xiaolan recalled how Ji Mingrui introduced his friend: …he was in a film academy. He has nothing to do with us.

The words went in one ear and out the other. She was busy with other things at the time, so she didn’t really listen,

Now that she thought about it…

Film academy? What was his profession?

Plus, Su Xiaolan thought he was a bit familiar. However, she just couldn’t recall.

The meal didn’t take long, neither did Chi Qing talk much. Most of the time, he maintained an overcast expression and sat there looking at the rain.

After they were done eating, Chi Qing and Ji Mingrui bid farewell to the others. He pushed the door open holding his transparent umbrella.

Ji Mingrui followed him. “I’ll take him home…You guys should go home soon too. We have other work tomorrow.”
After the two left, the male officer who went to the bathroom to find his phone earlier also packed his things, getting ready to go home. Before leaving, he casually said, “When that Mr. Chi walked into the police station, I took a glimpse of him when he was in the distance and I almost thought he was a celebrity coming over for something—”

The male officer said this carelessly but Su Xiaolan caught the string of connection.

Su Xiaolan had a great memory. She would watch TV shows with her family from time to time. Due to her occupation habits, she would take a few more looks at supporting roles who only appeared a few times in the show in total…She seemed to have seen Chi Qing on TV before.

Clearly, he was far from a “celebrity.”

This name barely meant anything within the show business. No one heard of him before. Not only that, they almost never saw him on any major TV stations and entertainment publications. Just like the countless artists who never made a name out of themselves and no one could recognize them either.

Su Xiaolan looked out the restaurant with this hazy silhouette in her memory. She watched as Chi Qing held the umbrella and stood by the road, waiting for Ji Mingrui to drive over. His contact with the handle of the umbrella was separated by the black gloves. It made them look icy yet unfit within the environment.

Then he started walking down the road, his figure quickly vanishing into the deep night covered by rain.