Xu Man frowned, a little hesitant: "If I don't go to work...will others say something about me?"
Qin Shen: "What are you talking about? You're not feeling well, so you're taking a leave and not going to work. Isn't that normal?"
"But I just published that blog post yesterday," Xu Man said. "If I don't go to work today, will people think I'm hiding from the spotlight?"
Qin Shen laughed: "It's just an article, not a news report. Why should we avoid the limelight? Besides, is there anyone in the team who doesn't know that we are together? Even if they saw the article, can they really believe the nonsense in it?"
These words made Xu Man suddenly enlightened. Yes, it was just a piece of made-up article. It might be okay to deceive those uninformed netizens, but it was a bit unrealistic to expect her colleagues in the team to believe it. She was just being too picky.
Thinking of this, she felt more at ease and smiled elegantly, "Then I'll take a day off today. Remember to ask for sick leave for me."
Qin Shen pinched her cheek helplessly and lovingly: "I'll remember everything for you. If you make any mistakes in attendance at the end of the month, just come to me. Why do you always worry about these problems that I can't even think of?"
"No way, this is something that any normal person would consider. You are the captain so you don't have to think about this, but it's different for us little shrimps working under you..."
…
After seeing Qin Shen off, Xu Man stayed in the living room downstairs for a while, then felt unwell and went back to her room. She didn't get a good rest last night. Not only were her eyelids sore, but she also felt dizzy. Qin Shen's decision to ask for leave for her was right. Otherwise, given her current state, it would be a waste of time for her to go to the detachment as she would have no mind to work at all.
Qin Shen cooked her white porridge for breakfast. She actually didn't have much of an appetite. Once a person catches a cold, their entire sense of taste will be impaired and food will seem bland to them, not to mention the already light white porridge. But thinking that this was a token of the other party's goodwill, she still forced herself to finish the bowl of porridge. At this moment, those things were churning in her stomach, giving her the illusion that they would come back at the next moment.
To avoid such a situation, she quickly took cold medicine with half a glass of water and drank cough syrup, trying to suppress the nausea.
The cool and slightly bitter cough syrup flowed down the esophagus into the stomach, bringing a refreshing feeling and lubricating her throat, reducing the urge to cough by a little.
But at this moment, she thought of another possibility and her heart was suddenly in suspense.
Dizziness, upset, nausea...
...Could she be pregnant?
As soon as this thought came to her mind, Xu Man could no longer sit still and quickly recalled the last time she had her period... It seemed to be in mid-July, and Tang Yourong even called her on the first day of her period. She remembered it very clearly because she was feeling unwell at that time.
Thinking of this, she quickly turned on her mobile phone, checked the call records, and found that the call was made on the evening of July 23.
Today is August 20th, almost a month since July 23rd, and a full 28-day cycle, but she has shown no signs of coming, not even the uncomfortable abdominal pain.
Xu Man knew that the menstrual cycle could not be calculated so simply and roughly according to 28 days. She herself had never been accurate. It was either a few days early or a few days late. It was normal that her period had not come yet, but she just felt uneasy.
Although Qin Shen was very careful about this kind of thing and would wear a condom every time and not play heart-pounding games of chance, she had also heard from Tian Si that condoms could not guarantee 100% contraception. What if she happened to encounter a low-probability event?
What happened in the past two days is already bad enough. If she is pregnant, it would really be...
Xu Man didn't dare to think about the consequences. She had never thought about getting pregnant. Even if she liked Qin Shen, she didn't want to get pregnant and have a child so early. She was only a junior and hadn't graduated yet. Even if she graduated and got married, having a child would be a long time in the future. There was no such thing in her current life plan.
Not daring to delay even a second, she changed her clothes as quickly as possible, went out to the nearest drugstore to buy a pregnancy test stick, and when she got home she was sweating all over, some from the heat, some from the cold, but mostly from nervousness.
She conducted the test according to the steps in the instruction manual. First, a bar appeared, followed by an anxious waiting period. Later, she even held her breath unconsciously, her heart beating rapidly.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Three minutes passed.
It's still a bar.
Negative.
Xu Man let out a long sigh, relaxed completely, and fell back on the bed.
Great, I'm not pregnant...
She buried her head in the pillow and smiled with relief. The comfort and joy even diluted the physical discomfort brought by the cold.
She finally understood why Tian Si had asked her so nervously whether she had taken safety measures. In just those short twenty minutes, her mood had gone through a huge ups and downs, just like she had experienced a roller coaster ride.
Of course she likes Qin Shen, and can even be said to love him, otherwise she would not give herself to him. She grew up under the traditional family education method and is reserved about love, let alone living together before marriage.
But the reason she did that was simply because of love. It is still too early for her to take on the responsibility of being a mother.
Fortunately, the result was as she expected and everyone was happy.
…
Because of this episode, Xu Man was excited for a while, but it did not last long. After the brief excitement disappeared, fatigue quickly surged up, prompting her to close her eyes and fall asleep. It was not until a phone call woke her up that she opened her eyes drowsily.
"Hello……?"
She answered the call without looking at the caller's name. The only people who would call her at this time were Qin Shen and advertising salesmen, and they were the kind that she could answer casually and lazily.
But this time she guessed wrong, the person who called her was Tian Si.
It is very rare that, given that the two of them have very different schedules, Tian Si and her chat through messages. They only communicate by phone in extremely rare urgent and important moments, and so far that was only once yesterday morning.
"Xiao Man, didn't you see the message I sent you?" As expected, Tian Si said anxiously on the other end of the phone, "Hurry up and check online, your captain has become popular!"
This sentence made Xu Man wake up suddenly. She turned over and sat up from the bed. She frantically searched for her mobile phone for a long time. Finally, she found it in her hand. She frantically switched the interface and opened the online APP to check.
As soon as the search interface popped up, her attention was attracted by the top title on the popular list: #Mingzhou Criminal Investigation Captain Beats People#.
When she saw the title for the first time, her heart skipped a beat and she felt like something bad was going to happen.
When I clicked on it, I saw that the first thing that appeared was the blog post written by Luo Junyi yesterday. The number of reposts jumped from 4100 last night to 20000, but the number of comments was still very few and did not increase much. However, other marketing accounts reposted this blog post, and there were hundreds of comments and replies below.
"Did you see it?" Tian Si asked.
Xu Man was still immersed in great disbelief, not understanding how it was possible that an entire night had passed, no, it was now past two in the afternoon, and how come the popularity had suddenly exploded after only one day? Everything was fine last night, and there was no new revelation.
"How could this happen?" She turned on the speakerphone and looked at the webpage while talking on the phone with her childhood friend. "Why did the popularity rise all of a sudden?"
Tian Si: "The marketing account has been shut down, and it has started a new trend. It was even more chaotic at noon, and they dug up your captain's background, saying that he was a third-generation official and joined the police through nepotism. But they blocked it very quickly, and the trend faded before it got hot. But this incident has caused those marketing accounts to start a new trend, saying that your captain is something 'unspeakable' and dissed the entire national system. Now they are dancing like crazy, all crazy."
Xu Man's heart sank.
As expected, they started talking about their background... It seems that there is indeed another person behind this matter, otherwise it wouldn't have erupted so suddenly, and on Monday when everyone is at work.
Tian Si obviously thought the same as her: "I think this matter is not simple. It's fine for ordinary marketing accounts to share and take advantage of the popularity, but why would they personally expose the truth, especially such a big thing? They wouldn't dare to do it even if they had ten times the courage. It must be the 8,000 water army who are paid to do the work. They don't even do their job for a little money. Now the rhythm of the Internet has been driven by them, like a carnival party."
Xu Man felt a headache after hearing this. She didn’t know if it was because she was already feeling unwell or if it was because of the psychological effect of these words.
"Is there anything else?" She coughed twice.
"That's all for now." Tian Si replied, "But I'm not sure if there will be anything else later. Xiao Man, I'm a little worried about you now. Do you think those people will dig you out as well? Where are you now? In the detachment?"
"It doesn't matter to me. I'm not a star anyway. Just expose my secrets." Xu Man said, "I'm at home now. I felt a little unwell today, so I didn't go to work." After chatting with Tian Si for a few more sentences, she hung up the phone and dialed Qin Shen's cell phone number instead.
Qin Shen didn't answer. She called again, but still no answer.
The bad feeling in her heart grew stronger. If she was shocked by the sudden burst of heat before, now she was just filled with worry.
Why don't you answer your own phone? Didn’t you hear it? Are you in a meeting, or… in the Municipal Bureau?
With a nervous heart, Xu Man searched the official account of the Minnesota Public Security Bureau and the accounts of other official media in Minnesota. She felt relieved when she found that the content they released was the same as usual and there was no statement or response regarding the first place in the popularity ranking.
But she was not completely reassured. Just because there was no movement now did not mean there would be no movement in the future. The replies to the most recent blog post by the Minnesota Public Security Bureau were all about this matter. No matter how slow the staff's feedback was, it would be conveyed to the highest level of the Municipal Bureau in a few hours. Perhaps they were already discussing solutions to the situation.
It's worse than last night.
Xu Man frowned deeply, and couldn't stop worrying about Qin Shen.
Things have developed to this point, maybe even the media have gotten wind of it and are blocking the entrance of the detachment waiting for interviews... What will he do?
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