Chương 35: Aunt Wang's daughter is you

"What's the point of you going now! That girl has been waiting for you for almost an hour!"

Is she still there?

"I just called Aunt Wang and she's still here! Hurry up!"

It's over.

Lin Zhou put his phone in his pocket so quickly that he almost missed it.

The comments section was filled with laughter.

"The tool kit is down. The locksmith isn't picking locks today; he's on a blind date."

"He glanced at the toolbox just now, his eyes looking at it like it was a contraband item that couldn't be brought into the exam room."

"Three-Second King: Bro, wait for me to come back. Toolkit:..."

Lin Zhou rushed out of the house.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway, and the motion-activated lights turned on and off.

He hailed a taxi at the entrance of the residential compound.

"Starbucks on Renmin Road. Hurry up."

The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror—the young man's hair was unkempt, and there was a mark on his face from just waking up.

The driver stepped on the gas.

Outside the car window, the city street scenes receded one by one.

Lin Zhou sat in the back seat, fixing his hair in front of his phone's front-facing camera.

I combed it twice with my fingers. The incoming clump bounced back.

He combed it again, and it bounced back.

The live stream chat was filled with people watching him comb his hair.

"Stop combing it, just leave it sticking up."

"My blind date might mistake this for a hairstyle."

"Three-second lock-picking takes three seconds, combing your hair takes three minutes, the effect is the same—it's still perky."

"He's nervous now. He wasn't nervous when he was giving a statement at the police station, he wasn't nervous when he was caught in a prostitution raid at a foot massage parlor, and he even smoked at a drug addict's house. Now he's nervous because he's going on a blind date."

The taxi stopped in front of Starbucks.

Lin Zhou paid the fare and took an extra receipt—a habitual action.

He got out of the car and stood at the Starbucks entrance.

The glass door reflected the light, revealing warm yellow lighting and dark tables and chairs inside.

He took a deep breath and pushed the door open.

The air conditioning in the store was set very warmly.

The flavor of coffee beans blends with the sweetness of milk.

There weren't many people in line; two or three were ordering at the counter. A young man was sitting by the window using a laptop, and a pair of best friends were taking selfies in the corner.

The background music was an English song he couldn't name, with a very slow tempo.

His gaze swept over the window seats, over the round table in the middle, and over the corner booths.

Then it landed on a silhouette in the corner.

Dark gray hoodie.

Short hair, the ends just reaching the collar.

She was looking at her phone with her head tilted to the side, and there was a very small mole on her earlobe.

Lin Zhou stopped in his tracks.

That back view looked so familiar.

He spent more than half an hour at the barbecue restaurant last night.

This morning, I watched her walk from the back of her head to the shoe cabinet in the living room.

Now, this figure is sitting in a corner of Starbucks, holding an Americano, and seemingly looking at something on his phone.

It's probably case materials; she mentioned yesterday that she hadn't finished writing the materials for one case.

The viewers in the live chat recognized it too.

"That silhouette" Dark gray sweatshirt Short hair, a mole on her earlobe.

"Suwan"

"That's Officer Su."

"Officer Su at Starbucks"

"The Three-Second King said he also came to go on a blind date."

"etc"

"Wait, wait, wait..."

"Officer Su said yesterday that she also went on a blind date."

"The locksmith king said he also goes on blind dates."

They were at the same Starbucks.

"At the same time"

"No way!"

"No way, no way?"

Lin Zhou stood in the middle of Starbucks.

As he watched Su Wan's retreating figure, all the calculations in his mind vanished in that instant.

Is the blind date Su Wan?

The "Aunt Wang's daughter" who had been scolded by his mother all morning and made him come to see her was Su Wan, who had gotten drunk and vomited on him last night and walked out of his house this morning.

He took a deep breath and walked over.

Walk to the booth.

Su Wan was still looking down at her phone, the screen displaying a PDF of case materials with very small print. She zoomed in on a page and was reading it.

Lin Zhou reached out and gently patted her shoulder.

The exact same actions as yesterday at the barbecue restaurant.

The sweatshirt fabric is very soft; when you press your fingertip against it, it sinks in slightly.

Su Wan turned her head.

She saw Lin Zhou standing in front of her.

She was wearing a blue dress, her hair was sticking up, and the sofa cushion mark on her face hadn't faded yet.

Her expression shifted from confusion to shock, and from shock to a rapidly growing alertness.

Her eyebrows furrowed, and the natural curve of her lips disappeared. Her gaze shifted from his face to behind him—there was no one else, just him.

"You're following me," she said. (Not a question.) Lin Zhou removed his hand from her shoulder.

"No."

Su Wan looked at him.

Her gaze was the same as it was in his living room this morning, and the same as it was when she asked him at the barbecue restaurant last night, "Are you just giving me the runaround?"

That kind of subtle, scrutinizing gaze, as if trying to connect all the clues to reach a reasonable conclusion.

"I'm here for a blind date," Lin Zhou said.

Su Wan's eyebrows furrowed even more.

Her mouth opened and then closed.

Then she looked down at her phone—the screen still showed the case materials—and looked up at Lin Zhou.

Her expression was changing rapidly, as if she were rearranging all the known information.

"What's your mother's last name?" she asked.

"……king."

"That's not right. Your surname is Lin, so why is your mother's surname Wang?"

"My mother's surname is Wang. I took my father's surname."

Su Wan's lips moved slightly.

She picked up her phone, swiped a couple of times, and found a WeChat message.

I glanced at it. Then I put my phone down.

Her expression shifted from scrutiny to something complex, something she herself couldn't quite define.

It wasn't anger, nor embarrassment, but a sense of bewilderment, as if "the world is messing with me."

"Aunt Wang's daughter," she said.

Lin Zhou looked at her.

"right."

Su Wan fell silent.

She picked up her Americano, took a sip, and put it down.

She tapped her fingers lightly on the rim of the glass twice. Then she looked up at Lin Zhou.

His lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to ask something, but he swallowed it back.

Then she said something that Lin Zhou never expected.

"What about your girlfriend? Aren't you going to see her first?"

Lin Zhou looked at her.

She looked at him.

The two stared at each other for about two seconds. Then Lin Zhou pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down.

"Is there any possibility," he said, "that Aunt Wang's daughter—is you?"

Su Wan's hand, holding the coffee cup, froze in mid-air. Her lips parted slightly, then closed again.

The scene from last night flashed through her mind—she slammed her hand on the table and shouted, "I'm only twenty-four!" She vomited all over the floor, she asked him if he was just being polite, and she told him to call her Wanwan.

Then he called her Wanwan, and she fell asleep.

She woke up in his bed this morning.

Now he says—Aunt Wang's daughter is her.

Her mother urged her to go on blind dates, and his mother urged him to go on blind dates.

The person who was late, whom she waited for an hour at Starbucks, was Lin Zhou.

She put the coffee cup down.

The bottom of the glass tapped on the table, making a much softer sound than when I tapped the wine glass last night.

She looked at Lin Zhou, her lips moved slightly, but she didn't say "Why didn't you say so sooner?" or "How is this possible?"