Qiming Chapter 48

Chapter 48

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The dark night had been turned into day by several consecutive flashes of lightning.

Gu Yunfeng sat wearily on the sofa, holding the remote control without knowing what he was doing. He stared at the dark sky, and with a sudden clap of thunder, he jumped up from the sofa, throwing the remote into the storage box opposite.

Fuck, what did he do in that bar a few hours ago?!

And what did he say?!

Memories came flooding back as if on rewind. He sat on the floor with a hat on, supporting himself with his hands, recalling the words he had spoken a few hours earlier and wishing he could slap himself across the face.

"I'm his boyfriend?" He repeated, and the next second, he covered his mouth, staring despondently at the ceiling.

Was he out of his mind? Or had his mouth been remotely controlled?

Though the hazy air, the restless music, and the intoxicating atmosphere easily muddled one's mind, he had seen worse environments. How had he ended up saying such nonsense?

Saying it in that atmosphere hadn't felt out of place, but now, back in the normal and familiar environment, Gu Yunfeng felt a cold sweat down his back. It would be fine if Professor Xu didn't care about it, but if he did...

It would be too embarrassing. Should he still let him stay here?

He was frozen for several minutes on the floor until he heard the sound of water stopping in the bathroom. Panicking, he tried to get up, supporting himself on the sofa, and accidentally kicked over the floor lamp next to him.

Crash–

The room was plunged into darkness.

"What are you doing?" A cool yet gentle voice asked. He hurriedly got up to find the light switch in the living room. After fumbling for the correct spot, Gu Yunfeng reached out to press the switch but touched a warm, slender finger instead.

A ripple went through his whole body as he stepped back a few steps. Then the light came on, and Xu Chengyue stood by the switch, looking at him with a puzzled expression, "What's wrong with you? You look like you've seen a ghost."

He felt like he had seen a ghost today.

Xu Chengyue had just showered, water droplets dripping from his hair onto his collarbone. He was wearing a very loose black T-shirt, which made his face look very pale.

Then there was a sudden silence.

He scrutinised Xu Chengyue, who was wearing loose loungewear. Professor Xu looked very thin, with a natural and relaxed expression, completely different from his own tension and sensitivity.

The rain outside grew heavier, splashing against the glass. Gu Yunfeng awkwardly pinched his face and said seriously, "Professor Xu, you're really quite thin."

Then he started talking nonsense seriously, "But last time, when you fainted at home, you were really heavy when I carried you downstairs."

"You've been working out less, haven't you?"

"That's impossible, you must have lost weight recently." Looking into the other man's dark eyes, he scratched his head, not knowing what he was saying. His words were incoherent and illogical.

"What's wrong with you?" Noticing his abnormality, Xu Chengyue reached out to pick up the glasses on the table. But before his hand could touch them, Gu Yunfeng intercepted. Taking the black-framed glasses, he tried them on.

"These glasses don't have any prescription?" He wore the glasses with no prescription with a confused expression.

"Yeah, I'm not nearsighted."

"Then what's the point of wearing glasses?"

"Guess."

"Image? To make yourself look more... like a professor?"

"Maybe." Xu Chengyue couldn't help but laugh, "Gu Yunfeng, what's really wrong with you?"

"No-nothing."

"Oh." He looked at the other party doubtfully but said nothing more, turning to go back to his bedroom to sleep.

Looking up, Gu Yunfeng saw that it was past midnight. Several beautifully coloured apples were on the table, with green grapes scattered on a plate.

"Ai wait, wait." Gu Yunfeng felt that if he didn't say something, he wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. Though it was more likely that saying something would make him even more sleepless.

He made a vague gesture with his right hand, rambling, "I wanted to say, back in the bar..."

"Thanks." Xu Chengyue stood in the middle of the room, holding a cup of water, looking at him calmly.

"There's nothing to be thankful for." He said nervously, "I wanted to say, about what I said, don't mind it. The situation was special, and I just impulsively..."

"Which words?"

"Just..."

"The boyfriend thing?"

Gu Yunfeng nodded helplessly. Saying it out loud made him feel as if a weight had been lifted from his heart. At worst, Xu Chengyue might mock him for being overly sensitive and self-important, but it wasn't a big deal.

Unexpectedly, Xu Chengyue's cold eyes stared straight at him, "Are you serious?"

"No, I'm not!" Gu Yunfeng froze for a few seconds, then quickly shook his head, covering his face.

"Oh, so you're afraid I'd take it seriously?"

"I..." He didn't know how to answer.

"I see... You want me to take it seriously." Xu Chengyue blinked as he finished speaking.

Damn it, who wants you to take it seriously?! I'm a straight man! Gu Yunfeng sat there, internally defending himself but unable to find the right words. His fingers clenched the armrest, ready to stand up in the next second and shake Professor Xu to wake him up.

What on earth was Professor Xu thinking?

Before he could say anything, Xu Chengyue approached him, bent down slightly, and placed his cup of water on the ground without spilling a drop.

Then he took off Gu Yunfeng's baseball cap, leaned on the back of the sofa with one hand, and gently touched his lips.

He then stood up and put Gu Yunfeng's hat on his own head.

"Don't take it seriously." After saying that, he patted his hands and walked away, closing the bedroom door to sleep as if nothing had happened.

The entire process was clean and swift, lasting no more than a minute.

Gu Yunfeng was left sitting alone in the living room until the rain stopped, transitioning from the initial shock to frowning in contemplation.

On the television, a tangled and passionate idol drama was playing. When the male lead began shouting, Gu Yunfeng snapped out of it, stood up abruptly, and kicked over the cup Xu Chengyue had forgotten on the floor.

Water spilt everywhere.

Damn?! He had actually... just been kissed by a man?

Gu Yunfeng wiped the floor repeatedly, thinking about why he had been so hung up on those trivial matters in the bar earlier. He had just been kissed by a man, those words were nothing in comparison, why was he so bothered by them before?

So... what did it all mean?

After a few hours of mental struggle, he finally lay down on the sofa, gazing at the moonless night sky. He fell asleep, convincing himself it wasn't a real kiss as there was no tongue, just an accidental brush due to proximity.

He even forgot to shower.

Xu Chengyue never dreamt. Since moving here, he had ignored the rule of going to bed before ten o'clock, but his sleep quality remained excellent, and he was always focused on his tasks. Sleeping was just for sleeping, eating was just for eating, and during investigations, he only thought about the case. At school, he focused solely on academic matters.

But that night, he had a strange dream. He dreamt of clutching a laptop, running furiously through classrooms. He passed through crooked doors and windows, over rows of desks, not knowing why he was running, just moving forward, up the stairs, and onto the roof.

He stood on the roof holding something that seemed very precious to him. Above was a starry sky, and below was an empty campus. At that hour, nearly everyone, students and teachers alike, were in their dormitories, except for him standing on the roof of the laboratory. The wind was strong, blowing his coat, and cherry blossoms on the roadside fell all over the ground, covering the street overnight.

He closed his eyes, made up his mind, and threw the laptop into the air, watching it fall rapidly and heavily smash onto the petal-covered ground. The night stars were bright, but he didn't get to see them. The wind-blown cherry blossoms were beautiful, but he didn't see them either.

Then he opened his eyes, and it was already daylight.

—————

Upon waking up, he received a call. Lu Yong asked him to go to the laboratory because there was a problem with several external interfaces of the AI detective system that the project team members couldn't fix.

When he opened the door, he saw Gu Yunfeng holding a utility knife, cutting a cardboard box in front of him.

"Captain Gu, what's this?" He rubbed his eyes, put on his glasses, and yawned.

"A bed." Gu Yunfeng turned around with a strange expression, "I bought it for you, it's not assembled yet."

"Huh? Where will it go?"

"In the guest room, there's nothing else in there." With dark circles under his eyes, Gu Yunfeng skilfully operated the utility knife, swiftly cutting the cardboard box into pieces, revealing a wooden frame and a pile of wooden boards.

"You're going to assemble it yourself?"

"Ai, the handyman I arranged decided to quit and go back to his hometown. Getting another one would take several days."

"I'm not in a rush."

"But I am," Gu Yunfeng said, pointing to the sofa with a grimace. "I've been sleeping on the sofa for several days now."

That was true. Since Xu Chengyue had moved in due to the threat to his safety, he had taken over Gu Yunfeng's room, relegating him to the cramped sofa. But now, the aura emanating from him seemed different from before...

Did something happen yesterday? Xu Chengyue's eyes flickered with thought as he recalled that quite a lot had indeed happened.

"Why does it feel like you have a problem with me?" he asked bluntly.

"I... I don't," Gu Yunfeng suppressed his tiredness and annoyance from a sleepless night, cursing himself internally for feeling embarrassed.

"It's good that you don't," Xu Chengyue walked straight to the fridge, took out some milk and the soup dumplings from the previous night, and put them in the microwave.

"I'm going to the lab today, I won't be joining you at the team."

"What are you going to the lab for?" Gu Yunfeng put down the utility knife, quickly washed his hands, and sat at the dining table. He grabbed a pair of chopsticks and stuffed a steaming soup dumpling into his mouth, burning his cheeks before finally managing to swallow it with difficulty.

"There's a problem with the lab project."

"Oh, what's that thing in your lab called... that AI detective, right? What does it do exactly?" Gu Yunfeng opened another packet of milk from the fridge and drank it cold, finding hot milk to be a secondary injury after being burned by the soup dumpling.

"Yes, that's the one. Our lab has been focused on the AI detective project for the past few years, I came to the criminal investigation team because of it."

Seeing Gu Yunfeng's blank yet expectant expression, Xu Chengyue tried to explain in the simplest terms he could think of. "In layman's terms, we're creating an artificial brain to quickly solve relatively simple cases, reducing human labour costs."

"Then why did you join the criminal investigation team?" The documents approving Professor Xu's involvement had included an explanation, but he hadn't read them thoroughly, nor would he have understood them if he had.

"Simply put, after we build the artificial brain, we need to train it to learn how to solve cases, which is called machine learning."

Gu Yunfeng nodded for him to continue.

"I joined the criminal investigation team to familiarise myself with the investigative processes to train the AI in the correct way."

The sunlight outside was bright, but it was autumn, and after a heavy rain, the temperature had noticeably dropped. After finishing the remaining dumplings, Xu Chengyue found a trench coat among his clothes and carefully ironed it with the difficult-to-use iron. He then hung the coat on the coat rack by the entrance, walked to the dining table, and joined Gu Yunfeng for breakfast, holding a warm cup of milk.

After seeing Professor Xu leave, Gu Yunfeng quickly drank a full glass of milk and sighed at his reflection in the mirror, noticing the dark circles under his eyes. He had spent half the night trying to understand what Professor Xu's actions meant, but couldn't figure it out. Just now, Xu Chengyue had seemed perfectly normal, as if nothing had happened. If he could act like nothing had happened, then perhaps nothing really had.

He pulled a grey jacket from his wardrobe. The sun was bright outside, but the wind was even stronger, and the ground was covered with fallen green leaves. Autumn had finally arrived. He unplugged the iron Xu Chengyue had forgotten and continued to ponder why he could act as if nothing had happened...

Eventually, he found a comforting answer for himself: his job was dangerous and low-paying, totally unfit for someone as brilliant and promising as Xu Chengyue. After all, he was destined to soar high and become a national asset, while he was just an ordinary man.

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: July 29, 2024 by Angel

Edited: September 26, 2024 by Angel