Chapter Text
The arrest goes according to plan with just two exceptions—the culprit escapes, and there’s some collateral clothing damage.
From the shadows by the physics department, Lao Chu gives the signal. Zhao Yunlan silently counts to five, then says into his phone, “Go!”
Three seconds later the university lawn sprinklers—including the extensions Lin Jing fitted to cover the paved areas—hiss into action and fill the air with a fine mist.
And yeah, there’s their serial graffiti artist, visible in the negative space, a disturbance in the droplets. The Dixingren is smaller than Zhao Yunlan expected. Probably a teenage girl, but he doesn’t want to assume. He dives in and grabs them by their invisible arm.
They squeak in a female register and struggle desperately, but Zhao Yunlan’s grip is firm despite the water running off the cuffs of his new North Face rain jacket. He yells, “Cut the sprinklers!” and Lao Chu relays the order.
There’s a short delay, during which damp seeps into Zhao Yunlan’s boots and he congratulates himself on a neatly executed plan. It was well worth some wet socks. Invisible Girl is still resisting arrest, and he’s about to impress on her the seriousness of her crimes when the fine droplets ramp down as quickly as they started, and Zhao Yunlan sees something that makes him tune out her cursing and mutter under his breath, “Ugh, I must have screwed up my last life so bad.”
Because standing on the far side of the lawn, watching the arrest, is Professor Shen, and he’s drenched from his collar studs to his expensive leather loafers.
The same Professor Shen who’d caught Zhao Yunlan out in a stupid lie about some overpriced old books last week and, later that day, scraped him out of the gutter, practically carried him home, and deep-cleaned his pigsty apartment while he slept. Not only that, the next morning he’d advised Zhao Yunlan, the chief of the SID, to stay out of danger.
Zhao Yunlan has been doing his damnedest not to chew on his chagrin or dwell on his disgrace, but it’s hard. Why did it have to be Shen Wei of all people who got to see the fuckup behind the curtain? Zhao Yunlan is a competent professional who can handle himself just fine. He cultivates his public persona with care, and he doesn’t show his unkempt side to anyone but Damn Cat.
Anyway, right now, none of that is relevant. What’s relevant is that Zhao Yunlan’s brilliant ruse to capture the university’s invisible graffitist has resulted in collateral damage.
Shen Wei takes off his glasses and tries to wipe them on what is clearly, even from this distance, a dripping handkerchief.
If only the ground would swallow Zhao Yunlan whole. If only he’d considered this possibility beforehand and stationed Damn Cat and Xiao Guo as sentries. But it’s too late for regrets—he’s the chief, and damage control is the second bullet-point on his job description. He’s just about to hand his arrestee off to Chu Shuzhi and approach Shen Wei with a quip, an apology, and a promise of dry-cleaning reimbursement, when he registers a food smell. More specifically, a pork baozi aroma.
His stomach responds with a rumble, and he glances around automatically. Invisible Girl takes advantage of his distraction to wrench free, sending him stumbling like an idiot. She vanishes into the night, if someone invisible can be said to vanish.
Fuck. Catching Dixingren is the one damn thing Zhao Yunlan excels at, and now Shen Wei’s here to witness his failure at this, too?
Zhao Yunlan closes his eyes, blocks out the exclamations of his team as they realise what’s happened, and listens hard for the splash of footsteps on wet turf. There, to the left! He squints, and yeah, slight indentations make a line across the glistening lawn towards the geology department and the nearest exit to the street.
He takes off.
His boots slip on the grass, and it’s obvious even as he puts on a burst of speed that he’s lost her. She’ll have made the path by now, and he can’t track her there. Zhao Yunlan slows, frustrated, and his left foot skids out from under him.
For an agonising moment, he’s sure he’s going to land face-first in the mud. That this indignity will be the final nail in the coffin of his chance to ever impress Shen Wei. But by a miracle of balance and luck which Da Qing will undoubtedly take credit for later, he stays upright. At this stage, that feels like a triumph in itself.
He unzips his jacket as he squelches over to Shen Wei. Maybe it’s a cheap shot, showing off his own dry t-shirt, but he needs all the swagger he can muster to face the professor after this fiasco. Has no idea if Shen Wei will be angry at the unscheduled dousing, politely concerned about the SID’s evident incompetence, or think the whole thing’s a joke. That Zhao Yunlan’s a joke.
Perhaps it’s best to pre-empt that.
“Ha,” he says, when he’s in easy earshot. “Haha, you’re here late. If I were a more suspicious person, I’d think you’d put a bug on me.”
Something like disappointment shadows Shen Wei’s expression, but he otherwise maintains his calm composure while his clothes drip steadily. “I was grading papers in my office.”
Zhao Yunlan’s stomach holds nothing but a stew of embarrassment and regret. He puts a lid on it and assumes an officially apologetic smile. “Our little stunt has ruined your suit. Give me a moment to talk to the others, and I’ll drive you home.”
Shen Wei nods to accept the offer, so that’s something.
There’s not much the SID can do about Invisible Girl tonight, but Zhao Yunlan tells Lao Chu and Xiao Guo to patrol the neighbourhood for wet footprints and makes sure Lin Jing removes the sprinkler extensions. “I’ll think of a new plan tomorrow.”
“Yes, boss,” says Lin Jing. “Is Professor Shen mad?”
“Why would he be? We only half-drowned him.” Zhao Yunlan turns on his heel and stalks off to see Shen Wei home, sacrificing his car’s upholstery at the altar of making amends.
Okay, maybe there’s a petty part of him that wants to flaunt his car and his driver’s licence. In that small regard, according to a thorough background check, he’s one up on Shen Wei in the maturity stakes.
*
In the car, Shen Wei asks, “You apprehended a Dixingren?”
“An invisible girl,” confirms Zhao Yunlan. “The university’s had some graffiti attacks, and no one showed up on their CCTV, so I set a trap. And I caught her, too. She only got away because I skipped dinner.”
He’s remembering the distractingly sweet-savoury scent of pork baozi, but when his comment is met with silence, he glances across. Professor Shen is looking through the windscreen at the road ahead, his lips a thin straight line.
Zhao Yunlan nearly facepalms. He hadn’t thought how that would sound to someone who knows he gets stomach troubles. What this conversation needs is a distraction, so he says the first thing that comes into his head, and it’s not about dry-cleaning. “We need to get you out of those wet clothes before you catch a chill.”
Shen Wei’s lips twist wryly, but when he looks at Zhao Yunlan to answer, his gaze diverts to the tickling trail of a droplet on Zhao Yunlan’s cheek. “You’re wet, too.”
Heat rises in Zhao Yunlan’s body. Is Shen Wei suggesting they both strip off? Together? There’s been a vibe between them since the day they met, practically a haze of hormones. And despite all the suspicious things that keep happening in Shen Wei’s vicinity, and his own recent missteps, if Shen Wei wants to pursue things to their logical extrapolation, Zhao Yunlan would be extremely up for that. Truth be told, he’s starting to be up for it already.
The prospect is so tempting his palms tingle. Repeated loss of face forgotten, he puts on his best flirtatious grin. “That’s right. And you know, Shen Wei, it’s entirely the fault of the SID that you’re in this mess. I think I owe you some… compensation.”
“There’s no need.” Shen Wei looks out of the passenger window, serious and remote.
Zhao Yunlan’s fantasies trip and fall on their collective face. Somehow he screwed that up before they even got started. Did Shen Wei misunderstand? He’s got an old-fashioned air—maybe he wants to be wined and dined first? Zhao Yunlan can already imagine sitting across a restaurant table from him, food aromas and sizzling possibility filling the space between them. His stomach growls loudly at the thought of a meal, but the rest of him just wants to reignite the warmth in Shen Wei’s eyes.
“No, really. I owe you. At least let me buy you dinner.”
Shen Wei turns to him, calm, devastatingly hot, and so adult he makes Zhao Yunlan feel about fifteen. Fifteen and desperate.
“Compensation?”
“Absolutely. Whatever you want.”
Shen Wei lets out a huff that’s almost a sigh, and those eyelashes sweep down as he considers. Zhao Yunlan tries to keep his attention on the road, but without meaning to, he’s holding his breath. Did he blow it with the old books and filthy apartment or not?
“Can you cook, Chief Zhao?”
“Sure,” says Zhao Yunlan, surprised into truthfulness. If it’s can you, not present-tense do you, then of course. “I’m a natural.”
“In that case, how about you compensate me by cooking me dinner. Say, this Friday?”
Zhao Yunlan licks his lip slowly. “You wouldn’t rather go to a restaurant?”
Is Shen Wei refusing to be seen with him in public, now he knows what a mess he is? But no, he has that weird intensity he sometimes gets.
“I’d like you to cook.”
Maybe he just wants to stay in.
“You won’t regret it,” Zhao Yunlan assures him.
As a kid, he’d often helped in the kitchen, bringing his own flair to the proceedings to create countless culinary triumphs. Cooking isn’t that complicated, and instinct, like musicality or a knack for logic puzzles, doesn’t just go away. If he’s a little rusty, his wits will carry him through; he always performs well under pressure.
The tiny lurch in his stomach is just a hunger pang.
He pulls into the residents’ carpark around the back of their building, already anticipating the possibilities involved in having Shen Wei over to his place—invited, this time. “It’s a date.”
Shen Wei doesn’t correct him.
*
He sees Shen Wei safely home, and then he’s alone in the hallway between their apartments, with fizz sparkling through his bloodstream and a stupid grin on his face. A date. They’re having a date. He’ll have to make sure Damn Cat knows to make himself scarce, and—
His elation dims as he recalls searching Professor Shen’s apartment with Da Qing and finding the SID file. And then there’s the Dixing knowledge at Shen Wei’s fingertips, his unnatural ability to escape Dixingren attacks unscathed, and his claim of a “sixth sense”. The reply from the Dixing Archives was worse than useless, and when it comes down to it, Zhao Yunlan has no idea who he’s dealing with, but Shen Wei’s almost certainly not ordinary.
Even tonight, there’d been no aggrieved air of a man ambushed by irrigation. If Zhao Yunlan didn’t know better, he’d think Shen Wei had chosen saturation. He’s too—
Too controlled. Too poised. It’s not natural.
But for all that, he’s helped with multiple cases. He’s sworn not to stand by while others are in danger. Zhao Yunlan trusts him. So, Zhao Yunlan’s not backing down. The mistake with the old books and the former state of his flat will be laid to rest for good, once he’s impressed Shen Wei with his cooking, and they can take it from there. Play it by ear. Maybe pillow talk is the answer to learning his secrets. Whatever the extent of them, Zhao Yunlan is willing to gamble they won’t change how he feels.
But it has to go flawlessly to balance tonight’s failures. He needs to pull out all the stops. And that means investigating—where Shen Wei likes to eat, and what his favourite dishes are.
Luckily, investigation is Zhao Yunlan’s other forte. So, step one: recon.