7 | Exclusive from Jinjiang Literature City · 7
The first time we had a disagreement.
Lai Chuan Huang Quan opened her mouth wide and took a bite of bread. She only chewed a few mouthfuls with her cheeks puffed out before swallowing them hastily. She then turned her head and drank a large gulp of freshly squeezed juice.
Mmm~ Delicious~!
With twinkling little stars in his eyes, Lai Chuan Huang Quan ate with great relish, one hand holding bread and the other juice.
Food from the 21st century is definitely the most delicious!
Across from her, Kenji Hagiwara sat with his chin resting on his hand. He frowned, his smile subtle.
Hagiwara glanced sideways at the mountain of transparent plastic wrappers piled on the table, filled with doubt. This was already the eleventh loaf of bread that Yomi Raikawa had eaten; how could this woman's stomach hold so much?
The gazes of the shop assistants passing by were so intense they were almost as intense as the aurora shooting from Superman's eyes. Kenji Hagiwara even noticed someone secretly recording him with their phone.
With his lips pursed, Kenji Hagiwara finally couldn't sit still any longer: "Raikawa, stand up and let me see you?"
Lai Chuan Huang Quan: "?"
"Well, it's a bit complicated to explain, but please stand up for a moment."
With a crumb still stuck to the corner of her mouth, Lai Chuan Huang Quan stood up blankly, still holding her favorite red bean croissant in her hand.
His gaze shifted from Yomi's face downwards, and Kenji Hagiwara tilted his head, staring at Yomi's flat stomach, lost in thought.
He and Kojinpei would sometimes have a temporary bulge in their bellies from eating too much, but where did all of Raikawa Yomi's dozen or so breakfasts that she stuffed into her mouth go?
All his emotions boiled over, and after a long silence, Kenji Hagiwara finally spoke up, sounding frustrated: "Ms. Raikawa, are all you aliens so... able to eat whatever you want and not gain weight?"
"Huh? Aliens? Is that how you define me?"
"That time traveler lady?"
"!"
Her muscles tensed for a moment and then quickly relaxed. Lai Chuan Huang Quan remained silent. She looked down and exchanged a few moments of smiling eyes with Hagiwara, then sat back down and began to drink her juice.
"Ah, it seems I guessed right."
Lai Chuan Huang Quan remained silent.
"Stop pretending. Anyone who sees your strange moves knows you're not human. At least not the kind of human we can understand in this world."
No one could possibly take down a well-trained riot police officer one by one with just a roll of newspaper. And let alone a newspaper, even a baseball bat might not be able to penetrate the riot police's thick metal helmets and injure their heads.
Lai Chuan Huang Quan felt a little guilty: "What if I have superhuman strength and that's why I was able to knock you out?"
"A monstrous strength that prevents him from getting up once he's pinned down by a small formation?"
"..."
Lai Chuan Huang Quan bit the straw and didn't say anything more. The juice had been finished, and the only sound between them was the hissing of air passing through the plastic straw.
Fortunately, Kenji Hagiwara didn't dwell on it too much. He stood up, grabbed his coat, and headed out: "Let's go, I'll take you to buy a new phone."
Lai Chuan Huang Quan, who had just fallen off the cliff, made a sprint and hurdle-like leap: "I'm not going..."
"Hmm?" Kenji Hagiwara turned to look at Yomi Raikawa, raising an eyebrow: "Getting angry because you were exposed?"
"No, that's not true!"
"Let's go then~"
But Yomi Laichuan remained rooted to the spot, clutching the unfinished bread, unwilling to move.
"What, you know the way all by yourself?"
Suddenly struck by a fatal blow, Lai Chuan Huang Quan remained silent for a moment before resignedly following in Hagiwara Kenji's footsteps.
The light blue flip phone is slim and compact, and it's the latest model that has just been released.
Lai Chuan Huang Quan didn't have the guts to pull out a wad of cash from his bag in front of Hagiwara Kenji, so he could only lower his head and accept Hagiwara Kenji's financial sponsorship.
Clutching a box of takoyaki and stuffing it into her mouth, Raikawa Yomi kept eating with her cheeks puffed out, silently following Hagiwara Kenji as he put a SIM card in her phone.
"Here you go, Miss Hamster."
"Huh? You've given me another weird nickname."
But Hagiwara merely curled the corners of his lips, looking back at Yomi Yorikawa with a radiant expression, his eyes, like autumn water, filled with helplessness and tenderness.
He smiled and pointed to the corner of his mouth: "Here, you have seaweed stuck to your lips."
Lai Chuan Huang Quan held a takoyaki in one hand and took the phone in the other, glancing at his face in the dark screen.
Her cheeks, bulging from the takoyaki, looked round and plump, truly resembling a hamster stuffing sunflower seeds into its mouth. But after looking herself up and down, Lai Chuan Huang Quan couldn't see any seaweed sticking around her mouth.
She blinked twice and looked at Hagiwara with a puzzled expression.
Hagiwara tilted his head, winked, and said with a grin, "Just kidding~"
Her triumphant smile, more dazzling and captivating than the warm June sun, was unexpectedly radiant.
Lai Chuan Huang Quan glanced at Hagiwara with a smirk, swallowed the dumpling in his mouth, and slowly said, "Officer Hagiwara, you really do have the potential to be a scumbag."
No wonder it was labeled as "attracting attention" by the central system.
"ha?"
Kenji Hagiwara paused for a moment, then immediately frowned and protested loudly, "Hey, Ms. Soft Bread, you have to take responsibility for your words, how can you slander me? And what do you mean by 'as expected'? Did you judge me to be a scumbag from the very first time you met me?"
Lai Chuan Huang Quan: "Hmm..."
No, when I first met you, I just thought you were a jinx, someone who brought me bad luck.
However, Kenji Hagiwara misunderstood the meaning behind Yomi Rikawa's silence. He twitched his eyebrows, sighed deeply, and covered his face, looking quite helpless.
A few hours ago, after their own teammates stumbled upon him being pinned against a wall by Raikawa Yomi, the mobile unit's group chat kept buzzing. Those grown men were incredibly excited, eagerly discussing how far their captain and Raikawa Yomi had progressed.
"—Great! The female police officer's friend is finally going to find a boyfriend!"
"Hooray! My rival from the Metropolitan Police Department is about to end his single life! I'm going to tell the other guys in the other departments this good news!"
"Does the fact that the captain has someone he likes mean I finally have a chance to pursue the policewoman I have a crush on?"
"Let's have dinner tonight and celebrate with champagne!"
"But doesn't that strange woman have a boyfriend? Is our captain going to NTR her...?"
"Captain Hagiwara is a minotaur!?"
The group chat was buzzing with noise and constant spamming until the other captain, Matsuda Jinpei, who had been silent until now, jumped out and coldly said one sentence:
"Have you guys forgotten that Hagi is also in this group?"
The once bustling group chat, as lively as a night market, instantly fell into a deathly silence, with no one responding. Kenji Hagiwara could feel the frozen atmosphere of the mobile unit even through the screen.
The good-natured captain seemed completely unconcerned about the heated discussion among his subordinates. He chuckled twice, then put away his phone and stopped paying attention to the group chat.
result……
"Hey, Miss Soft Bread, you're actually silent. So you thought I was a jerk from the very first meeting, right?"
Lai Chuan Huang Quan silently averted his gaze.
"Why?"
Hagiwara pursed his lips, feeling a tightness in his chest.
It's true that he's popular with girls, but that's all thanks to his high emotional intelligence and absolute respect for women. He has never toyed with girls' feelings, nor has he ever done anything out of line.
Shrinking his neck, Lai Chuan Huang Quan chose to remain silent.
—Because that's what the central system told me. You're not only popular with girls and a ladies' man, but you're also an excellent driver. These labels combined seem to imply that you're a total scumbag who's a womanizer, plays with girls' hearts, and runs away after getting what you want.
Yomi Laichuan would never dare to say such a thing aloud; she still owed Kenji Hagiwara a huge favor.
Thinking this through, Lai Chuan Huang Quan stuffed the last piece of takoyaki into her mouth, chewed it quickly a couple of times, and swallowed it. She stood up straight and bowed deeply to Hagiwara Kenji: "Thank you for your help, Officer Hagiwara. I won't bother you any longer! I'll return the money to you in a bit!"
Anyway, the relief is done. I'll find a secluded place later, make some money, pay Hagiwara 30% back, including the principal and interest, and then cut off all contact.
Suddenly receiving a formal bow of thanks, Kenji Hagiwara instinctively took a small step back. He stared at the sincere woman in front of him, remained silent for a moment, and then said, "Were you secretly cursing me just now?"
Although it is a question, it is phrased in an affirmative tone.
Lai Chuan Huang Quan: "!"
“I knew it,” Kenji Hagiwara lowered his gaze, his smile fading. “Miss Soft Bread, you really aren’t cute.”
"I was originally planning to ask if we should exchange contact information, but... never mind."
Hagiwara forced a smile again, as if his earlier dejection was merely Yomi Yorikawa's illusion.
"As for repaying the money, Miss Raikawa, you can just give it to your colleagues at the Metropolitan Police Department, and they will pass it on to me," he said with a cheerful smile, waving to Raikawa Yomi. "Then I'll be going now, Miss Raikawa, remember to take good care of yourself~"
"I'm leaving now, bye-bye~"
Having said that, without waiting for Yomi's reply, Kenji Hagiwara put one hand in his pocket and turned to leave.
Hagiwara has excellent body proportions. He has a broad back, a straight spine, and long legs, making him particularly suitable for wearing formal attire.
His neatly ironed dark blue shirt still had some white lime residue left on it, from when Raikawa Yomi pressed him against the wall. Although Raikawa patted his back afterward, it couldn't be completely removed.
Watching Hagiwara turn and leave, Yomi Yorikawa stood there for a moment, flustered. She subconsciously raised her right hand as if to grab something, but stopped abruptly just a hair's breadth from the man's warm arm.
Lai Chuan Huang Quan watched Hagiwara Kenji walk away, his lips pressed tightly together.
She seems to have hurt him.
But……!
The labels provided by the central system are absolutely infallible.
One of the reasons the mission failed in the last world was that a key figure displayed a personality that didn't match the label. Lai Chuan Huang Quan thought the label given by the central system was wrong, and mistakenly believed the other party's feigned kindness, only to be deceived and almost lose his life.
Lai Chuan Huang Quan stared at the tall figure disappearing into the crowd for a moment, then lowered her cold gaze. She put her hands behind her back, the hard soles of her black high heels rubbing against the ground. After a moment of hesitation, she too turned and left.
Amidst the bustling streets and traffic, Lai Chuan Huang Quan felt utterly out of place in the world. His heart felt ripped away, thrown into the sea.
His mood continued to plummet, and Lai Chuan Huang Quan sat on the riverbank with his knees drawn up, gazing at the rolling river without saying a word.
This feeling is terrible, like I've done something awful and hurt someone's good intentions.
Yomi Laichuan is the kind of idiot who, when playing a game, makes a choice that hurts an NPC's feelings, and immediately feels ashamed and has to reload the save.
Beneath layers of thorns lies a soft heart.
Fallen leaves are swirled into the eddy by the water flow, spinning and sinking into the depths.
With his brows furrowed, Lai Chuan Huang Quan stared blankly at the river, his heart rising and falling with the rhythm of the falling leaves.
"I guess I should go apologize."
The central system didn't say he was a bad person; she just needed to be careful not to get seduced by that playboy police officer.
Lost in her own thoughts, Lai Chuan Huang Quan completely ignored the man approaching her step by step behind her.
A pair of long legs in sneakers stood in her field of vision for quite a while before she finally uttered an "Hmm?" and quickly snapped back to reality.
My gaze traveled upwards from the men's sneakers in front of me, past black sweatpants, a gray-blue hoodie, a large black bass bag, and a familiar face.
Lai Chuan Huang Quan stared intently into the gentle, cat-like eyes of the man before her. She blinked, momentarily unable to recall where she had seen him before.
"hello."
The man's voice was soft and gentle, like a clear spring hitting a rock. His eyes were tender as he spoke, like the bright moon in the sky, making one want to get closer.
He said, "May I sit next to you?"
[Author's Note]
Second-year graduate student: Is it possible that "perfect driving skills" is really just about the car, and you, this soft bread with a head full of lewd thoughts?
Huang Quan: ...?
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