Chapter 44 Qiao Yanyu was a very alert person. After He Zhao woke up, her eyelashes trembled slightly...
Qiao Yanyu was a very alert person. After He Zhao woke up, her eyelashes trembled slightly, and then she opened her eyes as well.
She went from waking up to being fully awake very quickly, booting up in just 0.1 seconds, beating 99.99% of people.
After seeing that He Zhao was awake, Qiao Yanyu asked, "May I touch your forehead?"
He Zhao huddled under the covers, her cheeks still a little flushed, whether from a fever or from Qiao Yanyu's request was unclear. She nodded nonetheless, and then saw Qiao Yanyu's hand reach out.
It was another hand; He Zhao was holding the other hand in bed. He Zhao felt a little bad. Qiao Yanyu had rushed over late at night, and he had let her sit on the edge of the bed and lean against the headboard for so long without inviting her to lie down with him. He had the bed all to himself.
Especially on such a cold day, she's really wicked.
Qiao Yanyu touched He Zhao's forehead, her brows relaxing slightly. Just by looking at her expression, He Zhao knew her forehead wasn't as hot as it had been yesterday. He Zhao was quite aware of this, because her mind was clearer than it had been the night before.
"I'll get you some food. You can have some porridge later, and take a fever reducer. Then you can sleep for a while when you feel sleepy. We'll see how it goes. If it still doesn't work, I'll take you to the hospital."
He Zhao didn't actually feel that she needed to go to the hospital, but since Qiao Yanyu was so worried about her, she nodded. She felt that her physical condition was still okay; although she had been knocked down by a sudden fever, she should be able to recover after taking medicine and getting some sleep.
After thinking about her own affairs, He Zhao also started to care about Qiao Yanyu, but her words always had a bit of a tea-like tone.
"Sister Qiao, how's your work going? Have you finished it? If you came here halfway through, do you want to go back first today?"
He Zhao didn't want Qiao Yanyu to go back at all. Having confirmed her feelings, Qiao Yanyu had gone from being someone she was interested in to someone she secretly admired. She couldn't wait to spend more time with Qiao Yanyu, so how could she possibly want her to go back?
But since he had already made Qiao Yanyu so busy, he had to pretend to be magnanimous and make Qiao Yanyu feel that he wasn't so petty.
Unexpectedly, Qiao Yanyu said directly, "I've already finished my work." She paused for a moment, then continued, "It's all thanks to the ghost money you gave me, He Zhao. I bribed some little ghosts and quickly found out where the target was."
It sounds simple, but He Zhao knew things were definitely not as simple as Qiao Yanyu made them out to be. She had never caught ghosts, but she had played video games. In those puzzle-solving games, finding the boss might indeed be difficult, but what's even harder is how to defeat the boss, or escape from the boss's clutches.
Qiao Yanyu compressed a five-day task into three days and had to rush back, making it much more difficult than usual.
When He Zhao heard this answer from Qiao Yanyu, he felt a dense, tingling pain in his heart, but he was also moved: she had gone to such lengths to come back for his sake.
"Sister Qiao, thank you for your hard work... but please don't do that again next time. It's dangerous. What would I do if something happened to you?"
Qiao Yanyu's hand, held by He Zhao, twitched slightly. She couldn't quite describe how she felt when she heard He Zhao say those words. But she had to admit, she had heard "You've worked hard" countless times, but she had never heard "What will I do if something happens to you?" before.
Because Qiao Yanyu is a lone investigator with no ties, she naturally doesn't worry about what would happen to others if something happened to her.
But now, He Zhao is truly bound to him, and the past few days have proven with reality that he really can't do without him.
We can't really rely on Wang Yu, can we?
Wang Yu is barely able to take care of herself, yet she's talking about protecting He Zhao. She shouldn't have trusted the bureau chief; Wang Yu is completely unreliable. She's only been away on a mission for a few days and she's already encountered a problem that Wang Yu can't handle, and she even caused He Zhao to catch a cold and fever. How can she possibly feel at ease about this?
Qiao Yanyu had no idea that she had gone out to take on a mission in order to let her relationship with He Zhao cool down. However, she rushed back halfway through the mission and found that He Zhao really couldn't do without her.
Instead of calming down, she made He Zhao her responsibility.
Qiao Yanyu even went so far as to enter He Zhaolai's home and begin to take care of him.
Sometimes, being too righteous and responsible isn't a good thing. It can easily lead to being unknowingly bound by people with malicious intentions, like He Zhao.
As they were talking, the takeout Qiao Yanyu ordered arrived. Qiao Yanyu pulled her hand back from under He Zhao's blanket, then got out of bed, took her phone, and went outside to get the takeout she had ordered for He Zhao.
He Zhao couldn't eat much, at most a bowl of porridge. But a single bowl of porridge wasn't enough to meet the minimum order amount, so Qiao Yanyu ordered more, intending for her to eat a few bites when she felt better. But He Zhao, seeing the large pile, said directly, "Sister Qiao, you should eat some too. You rushed back yesterday, you probably didn't eat much either."
Qiao Yanyu bought a lot, and He Zhao was a patient with no appetite at all. At first, Qiao Yanyu said she wouldn't eat, but He Zhao put on his coat and got out of bed, so Qiao Yanyu could only say, "Okay, I'll eat."
At first, she ate with some reluctance. Qiao Yanyu had come all this way, and she didn't really have an appetite; she was too tired. When people are extremely tired, they don't want to say anything or eat anything. But seeing He Zhao sipping his porridge, Qiao Yanyu started to feel a little hungry.
She picked out the food she ordered and ate it along with He Zhao.
After they finished eating, both felt a little better. Qiao Yanyu got up and asked He Zhao where the hot water was, but He Zhao seemed a little guilty. Her room had carbonated drinks and bottled water, but there really wasn't much hot water.
When Qiao Yanyu noticed this, she looked back at He Zhao for a moment, her eyes clearly wanting to say something, but since He Zhao was a patient, she didn't say anything. Qiao Yanyu took out the kettle, but it was obviously not used much and was very dirty.
Qiao Yanyu was about to go buy a new one, but He Zhao clearly didn't want her to leave.
At this moment, the system stepped in: [I've placed a kettle in the food cart compartment. Host, have Qiao Yanyu get it; it'll definitely be much better quality than what she buys at the convenience store now.]
He Zhao relayed the message to Qiao Yanyu, who nodded and told her to go back to bed before going downstairs to get it. This time, He Zhao didn't throw a tantrum and let Qiao Yanyu go.
Qiao Yanyu went downstairs, and while taking the elevator, she inexplicably pressed the button for the 5th floor. She remembered what He Zhao had said: that guy was not only staring at He Zhao, but also lingering near her food cart, which was clearly suspicious. After reaching the fifth floor, she got off the elevator.
The apartment building has two units per floor. He Zhao didn't tell her exactly which one it was on. There are also two rooms, 501 and 502, on the fifth floor. Qiao Yanyu didn't know where the suspicious person lived. As soon as she arrived on the fifth floor, Qiao Yanyu saw small "For Rent" stickers on both doors.
Qiao Yanyu carefully compared the two stickers and found that the phone numbers on both were the same. She took a picture and wrote down the rental information. She guessed it was the sub-landlord's phone number. Since both houses were sub-landlords, she could probably get some information from them.
After doing all that, she made a point of checking to make sure the yin energy on the fifth floor wasn't too heavy and there were no ghosts or monsters before heading downstairs. Following the system's instructions, she took out a kettle from the cubicle and went upstairs again.
After boiling water, Qiao Yanyu helped He Zhao get up and take his medicine. Once He Zhao was asleep again, she turned on her phone and began investigating the tenants on the fifth floor. As a Level 1 investigator in the Paranormal Countermeasures Bureau, Qiao Yanyu had high authority, and her data was directly connected to the police. If the people on the fifth floor had registered as permanent residents and obtained residence permits, Qiao Yanyu could find out.
There were indeed tenants who registered their information in those two rooms on the fifth floor, but Qiao Yanyu had compared them and found that they did not match the tall, thin man He Zhao had mentioned at all; he had not registered his information.
Qiao Yanyu tapped her phone screen with her fingers, glanced at He Zhao who was fast asleep, opened the door, went outside, and dialed the number of the sub-landlord.
"Hello, I'd like to rent a house."
Qiao Yanyu explained her situation: she was a single woman who wanted to rent an apartment alone and didn't want to share a house with a man. The sub-landlord assured her on the phone that the apartments on the fifth floor were all occupied by young women and couples, and there were no single men.
Qiao Yanyu made an appointment with the sub-landlord to visit in person.
After hanging up the phone, Qiao Yanyu had a gut feeling that this matter might not be so simple. The tall, thin man might not have acted on a whim, but rather it was premeditated, and perhaps... he wasn't a novice. She planned to investigate further once He Zhao's condition improved.
She returned to her rented room and really felt that it was a bad place.
Firstly, there are houses furnished by subletters, divided into many single rooms, each with a small bathroom and a small kitchenette connected to the room, with separate water and electricity lines. These types of houses, with their later modifications to the water and electricity systems, are inherently dangerous.
Secondly, since the burning items were all inside the room, and the plywood was the kind made of three-plywood, once a fire started, it would spread very quickly.
Leaving aside the large number of people and the mixed quality of the place, the fire safety alone is a major concern. Furthermore, the houses likely didn't use high-quality building materials; they might have been rented out immediately after renovation, resulting in substandard rental properties with dangerously high levels of formaldehyde.
These rental apartments are not under Qiao Yanyu's jurisdiction, but she is aware of their existence because there is demand. Renting in big cities is too expensive, while these shared apartments are very cheap and are a necessity for many people.
But Qiao Yanyu genuinely felt that He Zhao could no longer live in this kind of house, especially now that they were being watched.
Qiao Yanyu decided that once He Zhao woke up, she would talk to him about moving, since she had quite a few empty rooms in her apartment.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com