On the last day of July, Li Shijie suddenly announced a piece of news, saying that today was his birthday. Since he had won two lottery tickets in the previous two days and won some money, he planned to treat everyone to a meal. The place could be chosen by themselves, but there was one requirement: the average consumption per person had to be less than 70 yuan.
When everyone heard the first half of the sentence, they all exclaimed "Wow". The impatient Zhu Zhuo even shouted out the word "Mr. Li". When Li Shijie said the second half of the sentence, "Wow" turned into "Tsk", and the tone dropped several tones, from exclamation to contempt, and they waved their hands and shouted to disperse.
"Xiao Li, this is not very kind of you. It's not easy for your family to open a mine, how can you not invite us brothers to have a good time? Seventy yuan? What can you eat with seventy yuan? You know that the price of goods in Mingzhou is higher than that of many cities in the country, and it is only just surpassing the price of Xinjing next door. You should at least give each person a hundred yuan as a token of your appreciation."
"Come on, brother. You can skip meals and birthdays, but you must buy football lottery tickets. Tell me how you buy them. Win or lose or score? There were two upsets yesterday. I was so angry that I couldn't sleep all night. My wife almost poked my head and broke it. Our family relationship is about to break down. Come on, tell me who you will buy next time..."
The male police officers surrounded Li Shijie and started talking a lot, but joking aside, no one was really prepared to let Li Shijie spend a lot of money to hold a luxurious birthday party. In the end, they discussed and decided on a place to go to the third floor of the nearby super mall to eat a steak buffet. The price was 69.9 yuan per person, which perfectly matched the price range requested by the birthday boy.
Li Shijie's reaction to this was a "F*ck" "I said 70 yuan and you guys really didn't leave me any money? That's really mean of you."
"No, I left you 10 cents. Ten 10 cents is 1 dollar, 20 is 2 dollars, enough to buy a bun."
"That's right, it's 100 million after rounding it off. That's a huge sum of money, Brother Li."
"Yes, didn't you say it yourself, Lord Li, that the price should be below 70 yuan? We strictly followed your standards to make the selection. What else are you not satisfied with?..."
Xu Man sat behind her desk and did not join in the joking, except for when everyone was discussing where to go for dinner and Zhao Jia asked her if she agreed to go for a steak buffet, and she smiled and replied "yes", she had been working quietly the rest of the time. This was a habit she had developed since elementary school; once something was started, it had to be done well and with full concentration, and not given up halfway.
Her task today was to organize the transcripts of the family members of the people involved in the case from the past two days. There were seven copies in total, all of which she was responsible for questioning. After organizing them, she handed them over to the team leader Zhang Hongfei. Zhao Jia had just finished organizing and came over to hand in her work. Zhang Hongfei counted them and found that all the copies were complete, so he asked her to deliver them to Qin Shen.
Xu Man didn't say anything, just nodded, picked up the documents and left the office. After interning in the detachment for almost a month, she summed up a set of rules. As long as there were no special technical requirements for anything related to Qin Shen, everyone liked to let her do it, so as not to have to serve tea and water, but most of the miscellaneous work was taken care of by her. It was not known whether it was because of the time of doing miscellaneous work that every newcomer would experience, or because Qin Shen's care for her was too obvious, which led to misunderstandings among everyone.
She had no complaints about this. It wasn't a big deal anyway, and she could see Qin Shen more often, so why not do it.
Arriving at the captain's office, she shifted the weight of the document to her left hand, raised her right hand and knocked on the door: "Report."
"Come in." Qin Shen's vague reply came from inside the door.
She pushed the door open and walked in, holding the documents and coming to the desk: "Captain, these are the transcripts of the family members involved in the case. They are all sorted out."
“Have you divided the papers?”
"We've split."
"Put it here." Qin Shen nodded lightly and tilted his head to signal her to put the things on the right half of the table. She did as he said and waited for a few seconds. Seeing that he had no intention of speaking, she turned around and prepared to leave. However, she had just moved when Qin Shen called her.
"Wait a minute, what did Xiao Li post in the group? He wants to treat us all?"
Xu Man didn't check the group chat, so she didn't know that Li Shijie had sent a message, let alone what the message was. However, she could guess a general idea from Qin Shen's question, and replied, "Senior Brother Li has his birthday today, so he is going to treat us all to dinner."
"A steak buffet?"
"Yeah. He said the price per person should be less than 70 yuan, and we can choose what to eat. So we chose the steak buffet for 69.9 per person."
"69.9?" Qin Shen was suddenly happy, "This price is really just right."
Xu Man also smiled and said, "Yeah, that's just right."
"The price is just right, but this..." He raised his head, "I remember you are allergic to beef? How do you eat this steak?"
Xu Man was stunned. She didn't expect that he still remembered this matter. A warm feeling surged through her heart.
"It's okay." She lowered her head and lifted a strand of hair from her ear, smiling and said, "It's a buffet. There are other dishes besides steak. I can eat other things."
“What’s the point of a buffet without a main course?”
She smiled slightly: "Fortunately, I heard that this is a famous chain restaurant. The dishes there are very good and everyone likes them."
Qin Shen was a man who was used to interrogating people. He was very experienced in extracting information. He immediately understood the key point of her words: "Since you were chosen by everyone, there is really nothing we can do. Are you going to join him in this dinner?"
"Yes," she nodded, "Senior Brother Li is always very caring towards me, I will definitely go to his birthday party."
After Qin Shen heard this, he sat back in his chair, glanced at his phone and said, "Okay, go back and tell Xiao Li that I'll be there in the evening too. Ask him what time he has set."
"Yeah. OK."
…
Li Shijie's birthday dinner was scheduled for six o'clock in the evening, just after get off work. He invited everyone in the detachment to have this buffet. Excluding those who could not come due to some matters or did not want to come, a total of about thirty people were invited. And because the dinner place was nearby, only two blocks away, everyone chose to walk there. After get off work, a group of people walked out of the detachment and crossed the road in a mighty manner. The scene was extremely spectacular.
Due to the large number of people, the two small long tables in the restaurant were full with only seven or eight people left, so the waiter opened two other tables with four seats. Seeing this, Qin Shen led Xu Man to sit at one of the tables. Li Shijie followed immediately. After they sat down, he saw Guan Shuiyun hesitating between another table and the small long table, so he waved enthusiastically and asked her to come over and sit down.
In this way, the seating arrangements of the four people became Qin Shen and Li Shijie, Xu Man and Guan Shuiyun. Qin Shen and Xu Man sat face to face on the inside, while Li Shijie and Guan Shuiyun sat face to face on the outside. This weird seating order made Xu Man feel uncomfortable. It was of course a happy thing to be able to sit face to face with the person you like and have a meal, but if there was a suspected rival sitting next to you, the experience would be reduced by more than one level.
Li Shijie was not at all embarrassed. On the contrary, he was unusually active tonight. Seeing that everyone was seated, he called the waiter to bring the menu and asked everyone to order the main course first before going to the dining table to choose the buffet dishes.
"Brother Qin, take a look, which steak do you want to eat?" After getting the menu, he was the first to unfold it and show it to Qin Shen.
Qin Shen didn't look at it, "It's your treat today, you're the boss, you order first."
After hearing what he said, Li Shijie stopped being attentive and took back the menu to look through it. After choosing a set meal, he handed it to Qin Shen again. "Here, Brother Qin, I've chosen it."
Qin Shen took the menu, flipped through two pages, drew a circle on it with a pencil, and passed it to Guan Shuiyun.
Xu Man was a little stunned. Judging from the distance, he should have passed the menu to her, but why did he give it to Guan Shuiyun who was sitting diagonally opposite him? Fortunately, before she could think about it, Qin Shen's words dispelled all her doubts: "I helped you choose a steak, which is paired with pasta. You should be able to eat it, right?"
This was naturally said to Xu Man. Guan Shuiyun paused for a moment as she flipped through the menu. She glanced at the dish Qin Shen had circled and said with a smile, "Black pepper steak? Captain Qin, you are really bad at choosing dishes. Eating too much pepper can cause acne, and girls generally don't choose to eat it."
As she spoke, she looked at Xu Man and said, "I don't think you can eat spicy food. Why don't you try another one?" She then handed over the menu in her hand.
"Of course I know she can't eat spicy food." Qin Shen said nonchalantly, "But this is the only dish that goes with pasta. There's no other choice. And it's only the steak that's spicy, the pasta isn't."
Xu Man had no intention of changing the dish in the first place, and she gave Guan Shuiyun a smile and said, "It's okay, let's just have this one. Thank you."
Guan Shuiyun's gaze paused on her face for two seconds, then she smiled and replied calmly, "You're welcome."
"Don't be polite. Don't worry. I'm treating you today. Just eat as much as you want. It doesn't matter how many servings you have." Li Shijie, who was completely out of his mind, interrupted the conversation between the two. "Of course, each person can only have three servings at most. You have to pay extra for additional servings. Hey, forensic doctor Guan, have you made your choice? What kind do you want to eat?"
"I've chosen." Guan Shuiyun made a mark on the menu without even looking at it. "Same as the other two. Black pepper steak with macaroni."
"Ah? Why did you all choose this one? Is this one so delicious?" Li Shijie sat up straight from the sofa, "Let me see the menu, is this one so delicious..."
Guan Shuiyun ignored him, put the menu and pencil on the table, said "I'll go pick the dishes", and got up and left. Li Shijie pouted angrily and whispered "Why are you angry with me?", then reached out and pulled the menu over, and buried his head in deep thought.
Xu Man quietly watched Guan Shuiyun walk away, then retracted her gaze and glanced at Qin Shen opposite her. She had just glanced at him subconsciously, but she didn't expect that he was also looking at her, and her gaze met his.
Qin Shen was leaning back in the sofa chair. When he saw her looking at him, he gave her a smile that was a bit lazy, nonchalant, and doting.
Her heart skipped a beat.
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