"Don't worry that I'll find it troublesome." Qin Shen added, "Even if it's troublesome, I'm happy to take you there. It's not a troublesome thing in the first place. Have you forgotten that I'm on the same way as you? Picking you up from get off work is just a simple task. It won't cause any trouble to me at all."

Xu Man was still a little hesitant. Of course it would be nice to be picked up and dropped off to get off work by the person she liked, but she was afraid that he would say it was not a bother now, but when he picked her up and dropped her off more often, he would start to feel disgusted. That would be terrible.

"It's ok on normal days, but if I have a lot of things to do, I can't ask you to put down your work and pick me up, which would delay things... like the last few times." She thought of the days when Qin Shen didn't pick her up because he was busy with work. "If you are free on normal days, I would of course be willing to do it, but I can't always trouble you like this."

"I told you, this is not a hassle." Qin Shen stood up, walked up to her, lowered his head and looked her in the eye and said, "I'm so happy to see you sooner or later, how can I find it a hassle?"

"It's not that I don't want you to pick me up," Xu Man explained patiently, "I'm saying that if you're not busy, you can come pick me up, but if you're busy, you don't have to. You don't need to delay my work."

"It's only 20 minutes. It won't delay anything." Qin Shen said nonchalantly. "I didn't come to pick you up a few times before because I was afraid that you would get impatient if I kept pestering you. I was afraid that you would be scared away by me. I deliberately left some time. I wasn't really busy."

Xu Man: "...deliberately?"

He hummed, "I just checked in a few times, to prevent you from seeing me six days out of seven and thinking I'm haunting you, and start keeping your distance from me. Then I'll lose more than I gain."

At this point, he paused and smiled, then continued, "No matter how busy I am, I can still spare twenty minutes. Otherwise, no one would do the job of criminal investigation captain, and there would be no private time. This is not how you exploit workers."

Xu Man: “…”

It turns out that what he said before about being busy and unable to get away was a lie, and he just didn't come so as not to appear in front of her too often?

Really... thoughtful...

Qin Shen was amused by her conflicted expression, wanting to say something but not knowing how to say it. He raised his hand and touched her head with a smile: "How is it, are you not worried now?"

This is a difficult question to answer. It is wrong to say that you are worried, and it is also wrong to say that you are not worried. Xu Man held her breath for two seconds, then replied sullenly with a “hmm”. “Of course it would be great if you could send me off… But if something really happened, it’s okay for me to come back alone. I’m 21, not a child. I know how to protect myself. After all, I’m a police officer.”

"Police academy intern." Qin Shen corrected, "You are not a police officer yet, and even if you become a police officer, I will still continue to send you. This has nothing to do with your professional age. It is just my pure personal wish."

Xu Man felt a warm feeling in her heart because of his words. She smiled slightly, nodded, said okay, paused, and said thank you.

"Why are you thanking me? This is what I should do." Qin Shen moved the hand on her head to her cheek, smiled and patted it twice. The tender and smooth touch made him want to linger, and after a long while he took his hand back and put it down. "You were polite when you thanked me before, but it's really strange if you continue to do that to me now. Feel free to bother me, don't be afraid, I am happy to be bothered by you."

Xu Man smiled at his words, looked up at him, nodded again, and answered with a "hmm".

Qin Shen looked at her with a smile and said nothing.

She felt a little embarrassed by the tender gaze, lowered her head to lift the hair by her ear, and asked, "Would you like something to drink?"

"What do you have here?"

"Juice, coconut water and yogurt."

The little girl’s favorite, a light sour and sweet taste. Qin Shen commented in his heart. It seems that his girlfriend's mental age is the same as her appearance, she looks young, sweet and lovely.

But there was one word that he was more concerned about, "Yogurt? Can you drink yogurt? Isn't it said that you can't eat beef?"

"Try not to eat beef, but milk is okay." Xu Man replied, "I asked the doctor, and he said it's okay to drink a little. Do you want some yogurt?"

"No. I'll just drink water. Do you have iced mineral water? Or coffee will be fine too."

"There is mineral water, but no coffee."

"Then have a bottle of mineral water."

Xu Man agreed, opened the refrigerator, took out a bottle of mineral water and handed it to Qin Shen. She watched the latter take it, unscrew the cap, and take a big sip. She remembered how he blocked her drink in the restaurant before. Her heart was beating and she smiled.

"Thank you so much for what happened in the restaurant before, otherwise I really don't know how I would have gotten out of there."

Qin Shen put down the water bottle and screwed the cap back on. "Those guys are very bright when they see a little sunshine. You can't back down when dealing with them. If you back down, you're done. But tonight they went a little too far. I was really angry at the time and almost yelled at them."

He walked towards the sofa, put the mineral water on the coffee table, and sat on the sofa. "If Lao Zhang hadn't come out to smooth things over, there's no telling how this dinner would have ended."

Xu Man got herself a bottle of yogurt and walked over to sit down, but they were sitting face to face across a coffee table from each other. "Then I have to thank Team Leader Zhang. Luckily he came out, otherwise it would have been bad to ruin Senior Brother Li's birthday party."

"Xiao Li? I think he's the happiest person tonight. As long as someone pays for him, he won't mind how the party turns out." Qin Shen sneered at first, then raised his eyebrows at her and patted the sofa cushion beside him, "Why are you so far away from me? Come here and sit next to me. You are sitting face to face with me like this. Are you preparing for a case interrogation?"

Xu Man felt a little embarrassed, but after thinking about it, she felt that what he said made sense. Now that they were boyfriend and girlfriend, it was different from the previous relationship of just ordinary colleagues. It was normal for them to have closer contact. So she listened to him, stood up, walked over and sat down next to him.

But just as she sat down and hadn't settled down yet, Qin Shen suddenly put his arm around her waist and put his other hand across her knees, holding her on his thighs. She screamed in fright and her heart almost jumped out.

She was wearing a chiffon skirt today. The thin fabric could not block anything. The place where her thighs were pressed felt very sharp. Even the other person's body temperature she felt rose a few degrees due to psychological effects, making her feel shy and her face burning.

"What are you doing?" She said softly, partly complaining, partly acting like a spoiled child, and a little shy, "Suddenly like this..."

"I just want to hug you." Qin Shen said, "Did I scare you?"

"I was almost scared to death by you!" Xu Man replied unhappily.

This was the first time she used a dissatisfied and complaining tone when talking to Qin Shen, but rather than being angry or unhappy, her tone was more like being coquettish, and her pink lips pouted slightly, with a moist luster, which made Qin Shen unable to resist kissing her. He even apologized only after the kiss: "I'm sorry, I just thought you wouldn't sit on my lap by yourself, so I just hugged you. I didn't mean to scare you."

After saying that, he laughed again, "But to be honest, you are really petite. You can only look at me at eye level if you sit on my lap. Are you really 158cm tall? You are not even that tall, right?"

Xu Man looked a little angry, with a thin layer of red on her cheeks, as if she was angry out of shame, but it was not to that extent: "I have reached that point. During the physical examination in my senior year of high school, my naked height was 158. Three years have passed, and even if I haven't grown, I won't shrink or regress."

A height of 1.58 meters is not actually particularly short for a southern girl. The problem is that Xu Man applied to the police academy, which is the big brother of the academy and gathers top students from all over the country. The girls are all 165 cm tall or above, and 160 cm is rare, not to mention her height which is within the acceptable range.

Actually, it’s nothing. It doesn’t matter if you’re a little short. It doesn’t affect your normal life and you can pass all the tests. There’s nothing to worry about. But why did she happen to meet this person? He relied on his height and long legs to hit her sore spots. Before, he was her boss and it was difficult for her to refute him. Now he has become her boyfriend, and she... it is even more difficult to refute him.

"Is it really 158?" Qin Shen smiled and put his arms around her waist.

"Why would I lie to you about this?"

"Okay, I believe you." He leaned back so that Xu Man could sit more comfortably and fit his body better. "Then guess how tall I am?"

Xu Man: “…” Do you really have to rub salt into someone’s wounds?

"About 1.8 meters?" she said, remembering that when she walked next to him in the past, she could barely reach his chest, and that was when he wore height-increasing shoes. So he was definitely over 1.8 meters tall, but she didn't know exactly how tall he was.

"One hundred and eighty-eight." Qin Shen replied with a smile, "It's exactly thirty centimeters taller than you."

Thirty centimeters...

Xu Man didn't know what expression to use to respond, so she could only curl the corners of her lips and say "oh".

When others answer with "Oh", it is basically to express their indifference to the topic, but she is different. When she said this, she was as well-behaved and quiet as usual. And because she was sitting on Qin Shen's lap, her face had a shy blush, which made people feel itchy in their hearts and want to hug her tightly and love her well.

Qin Shen indeed did so. He tightened his arms around her waist and pulled her closer to him. Feeling the girl's beautiful curves pressed against his body, his breathing became heavy. Fortunately, reason prevailed and he controlled his strength and did not use too much.

Xu Man naturally felt the lines and temperature of his body and felt a little embarrassed, but she did not show any resistance and just let him hold her. First, she had no experience in dating and didn't know how normal lovers got along with each other, so she didn't say anything for fear of appearing embarrassed; the other, and most important reason, was that she didn't hate it.

Qin Shen's embrace gave her an inexplicable sense of security, and she couldn't tell where it came from. If she thought it was because of his identity as a criminal policeman, she had never had such a feeling towards other police officers, and it seemed that she only felt this way about him. But whatever, there is no harm anyway. It brings more reliability and peace of mind, not to mention all the little sweetness in your heart.