39 Praise

A thin layer of clear oil floated on the noodle soup, and a cloud of steam, soft as white down, drifted up to flush Zhou Suirong’s skin with a faint rose hue.

He regained his composure and replied, "Eat, baby, pour some for me."

Fang Qingzhou was not so easily brushed off. She looked at him intently and said, "That is not what I meant."

She set her chopsticks down, then thought better of it, feeling it might be too serious, and picked them back up, trying to keep the atmosphere from feeling like an interrogation.

"Why?"

Zhou Suirong opened his mouth in surprise.

Why was he being hit with a "why"? Did such an unspeakable question really require a concrete answer?

Fang Qingzhou lowered her voice: "Is it because I saved a photo of you that you took yourself?"

That sounded like a somewhat serious symptom.

Although Zhou Suirong had never been as mature or steady as she was, he wasn't exactly fragile either. She even began to wonder if the anomaly testing project had side effects that caused delusions, leading to this bizarre instability.

Zhou Suirong was all too familiar with her tone and the way she questioned people. He thought to himself, *Oh no, she’s going to get to the bottom of this.*

Fang Qingzhou said with a solemn expression, "I have never shown any inclination of interest toward him. I cannot analyze any reason that would cause you to misunderstand."

Zhou Suirong muttered under his breath, "There is no reason."

Fang Qingzhou pressed on: "Then why were you angry?"

In a moment of mental lapse, Zhou Suirong said the second thing that day he would live to regret: "If one day you saw me standing with a girl, laughing and talking, how would you feel?"

"I cannot imagine that." Fang Qingzhou pondered for a moment, shook her head, and asked with rigorous precision, "What kind of girl? Long hair or short? What are you talking about? Does she like you?"

Zhou Suirong felt a glimmer of despair. Why was he here, discussing his potential future infidelity with Fang Qingzhou?

Seeing that Fang Qingzhou was determined to get to the bottom of it, Zhou Suirong took her hand and forced a bright smile: "Let’s eat the noodles first, shall we? Baby, I’ll tell you after we finish."

Fang Qingzhou knew that the best way to handle Zhou Suirong was with a more soothing approach, so she generously agreed.

During this time, the school lunch bell rang, and a wave of distant clamor drifted over.

On the walkway leading to the parking lot, Fang Qingzhou seized the opportunity to gently bring up the topic again: "Brother Zhou, why did you send me his photo back then?"

"Just sent it, that's all." Zhou Suirong sounded a bit aggrieved. "I can say a hundred things to you, and you might only hear half. That’s why I send so much."

Fang Qingzhou didn't like replying to messages; most of the time, it was Zhou Suirong who would tirelessly send them to her. Sometimes, when the content piled up, Fang Qingzhou would feel bad and pick through them to reply. Her responses were always stiff and formal, like she was reviewing state documents.

"I read them all. When I'm bored, I scroll through our chat history," Fang Qingzhou repeated. "I listen to every word you say."

But replying to every single one was a bit of a tall order.

Zhou Suirong was amused by her tense expression and immediately suppressed the corner of his mouth. In truth, he wasn't really unhappy, but the words that came out still had a strange tang to them: "You were even speaking up for him."

Zhou Suirong’s hands, hanging at his sides, brushed against the back of her hand during the walk; he turned his wrist and naturally held it. Her palm was still damp with a light sheen of sweat, but this time, Fang Qingzhou didn't bother to pull away.

Fang Qingzhou clarified sternly: "I was not speaking up for him; I was merely giving Officer Ye a fair and objective evaluation. He was not wrong about the past events, but regarding you, he was wrong. However, I am on your side. Next time I see him, I will stand by your position."

Zhou Suirong had an unnaturally clear mind; he didn't feel moved, but instead asked, "What was he wrong about regarding me?"

Fang Qingzhou bent down to pick up a ginkgo leaf from the ground.

At this time of year, the ginkgo had not yet changed color, and the green looked a bit dull.

Fang Qingzhou fiddled with the leaf in her hand, turning it over and over, and after studying it for a while, she tried to bluff her way through: "Little Zhou, look how standard this leaf is."

She had a flash of inspiration and praised him, "Just as upright as you!"

Zhou Suirong looked at her with amusement and said, "Is that so?"

"Yes." Fang Qingzhou considered her description apt and lacking any artistic filler. While her descriptive skills were slightly weak, she made up for it with sincerity. "Of course, you are like many things, not just a small leaf. If you prefer diamonds, I think you have similarities to them too—what I mean is, you have so many virtues in my heart that you can be compared to all sorts of things, each with its own special definition. You are incomparable to others."

Fang Qingzhou’s ability to compliment people could be described as "impoverished" and "low-end." She often made perfectly good, positive words sound as bland and flavorless as sarcasm. Only someone hopelessly infatuated could feel joy and pride in her praise.

Zhou Suirong was likely that infatuated person, unable to remain calm and clear-headed in the face of her well-intentioned bias.

He hugged Fang Qingzhou, his arms tightening around her.

Although they didn't fully know each other's frequencies, when they embraced tightly, their hearts could resonate on another level through emotion. They beat faster and more powerfully, expressing—more clearly than words—the genuine affection that originated from the depths of their souls.

Fang Qingzhou felt the air being squeezed out of her lungs. Realizing he was moved, she struggled slightly in his arms and couldn't help but say, "It’s so hot, Brother Zhou."

Zhou Suirong let her go, pulled her along to his car, and nudged her inside.

The cool air from the air conditioner dispersed the lingering heat between them.

"Don't go see him alone next time. It’s not that I don't trust you, it’s just that I feel he has ill intentions," Zhou Suirong began to complain. "Before he left, he even glared at me on purpose."

Fang Qingzhou said earnestly, "I accept your advice and feedback."

"Oh?" Zhou Suirong tilted his head, leaning forward to look at her face, and asked expectantly, "Will you adopt it, then?"

Fang Qingzhou stammered, "...I'm not quite that humanized."

Zhou Suirong: "...Then don't accept it."

"If I don't accept it, you're unhappy, saying I don't want to understand you at all," Fang Qingzhou retorted. "Look at you, so petty, always letting your imagination run wild, and you love holding grudges. If I reject you, you get sad."

Zhou Suirong: "..."

He laughed and protested, "Fine, go ahead and criticize me. Just a moment ago, you said I was full of virtues you loved, yet you didn't list a single one, and now you’re listing a whole basket of my faults."

Fang Qingzhou pulled on his clothes, drew him closer, and kissed his lips.

"Damn it." The smile in Zhou Suirong's dark brown eyes was about to overflow. He was easily bought off and transformed into a willing laborer, asking, "Leader, where to? Little Zhou the driver is at your service."

Fang Qingzhou said haughtily, "Wait for my instructions."

She picked up her phone and called Ji He. The person on the other end picked up in less than two seconds but didn't speak.

Fang Qingzhou waited for a moment, unsure if there was no signal, or if Ji He had spent too much time with Lu Shengxing and had caught their professional sickness, becoming intermittently mute. She asked, "Should I come to the precinct to find you this afternoon?"

"Don't bother," Ji He said. "We're going to dig up a corpse this afternoon."

Fang Qingzhou turned up the volume and heard they were eating, so she asked, "What corpse?"

Ji He was not in the mood to be polite, keeping it as brief as possible, too lazy to waste a single extra word: "Xu Yuan said his father committed suicide—Xu Yuan is the name of the guy who blinded Liang Yizheng. The thug we caught last night claims to be him. Although we don't know who helped dispose of the body, we estimate it won't be hidden too far away. Since we couldn't reach the officer on duty from back then, we decided to inspect the scene ourselves to see if we can find it. We can't keep waiting."

Fang Qingzhou asked, "What about Lu Shengxing?"

"We praised him all the way there and sent him to find Xu Youxiang," Ji He said flatly. "Are you coming or not?"

"I'm coming."