Lingyun couldn't stand being provoked. She shoved the skewers towards him, pouting, "Eat! Eat! Eat! All I did was have a few of your skewers and I get an earful? Hmph! Cheapskate!"
Muyang retorted helplessly, "I did no such thing! If anyone's being unreasonable, it's you! You're as explosive as hot coals, igniting at the slightest spark. I treat you to food and *this* is the thanks I get? With a temper like yours, you'll probably never find a boyfriend!"
His words hit Chu Lingyun like a physical blow, leaving her utterly furious. She even forgot to eat the sizzling, soft, charred potato slice in her hand, coated temptingly in red chili powder and yellow cumin powder – each piece a tantalizing tease for her taste buds.
Lingyun swallowed her drool, frowned deeply, and widened her eyes, declaring with righteous indignation, "Y-you... that's too much! *You're* the one who'll never find a girlfriend! What do you know, you clueless straight guy?! This lady has *high standards*! Ordinary mortals don't even register!"
Lingyun was so flustered she stumbled over her words, which was exactly what Gao Muyang wanted. He laughed openly at her bravado, though deep down, he cared for her immensely. He just had a peculiar way of showing it – like a childish boy deliberately provoking the girl he liked just to bicker and interact with her. And it worked perfectly, sparking a fierce back-and-forth argument where neither would back down!
Of course, arguing was one thing; the barbecue feast was another! As the saying goes, to live well, you need ice-cold beer paired with barbecue! Gao Muyang hadn't planned on drinking, as he needed to drive Lingyun home later. But seeing her downing her beer with such gusto, he started sipping too.
The ice-cold liquid flowed down, instantly soothing the exhaustion and heat of the day. Paired with the delicious food, it naturally led to more drinks, and they polished off most of the grilled dishes on the table.
By the time Gao Muyang snapped back to awareness, Lingyun opposite him was already tipsy, her face flushed, her words starting to slur.
Muyang found it amusing, but the moment he opened his mouth, a hiccup escaped him. Lingyun immediately seized the chance to mock him: all brawn but no stamina for liquor, weak as a kitten!
The meal was effectively over. Both were so full they could barely stand, drunk and unsteady, reduced to leaning on each other and staggering while bracing against the wall.
Driving in this state was out of the question for Muyang. He had no choice but to call a designated driver to take them home separately. He acted like a gentleman, insisting on seeing the lady home first. There was no taking advantage of her drunken state to cop a feel.
"Don't drink and drive." This was a rule everyone should remember, and Gao Muyang, especially as a detective, was duty-bound to set an example. He absolutely could not cross that line.
So, some money was meant for the designated driver to earn. Even though today's spending amounted to a day's wages, Gao Muyang was willing.
Only when he was seeing stars, legs unsteady, helping her into the car and collapsing into the back seat himself, did he realize something crucial hadn't been done. He was already thoroughly drunk! How careless!
That's right. He'd planned to probe Lingyun again during the meal. But lost in the wine, food, and company, he'd completely forgotten. Well, it wasn't too late. Lingyun was also quite drunk now. As the saying goes, "In wine, there is truth" – surely what she said now would be genuine!
Gao Muyang was a complex, contradictory person. On one hand, he had feelings for Lingyun; on the other, he remained deeply wary of her.
His years of detective work had taught him: evidence that seemed *too* perfect, *too* complete, often felt false. He suspected a trick, a setup.
He leaned back against the soft seat, trying to untangle the jumble of thoughts in his head. Since this young woman beside him had passed all the tests, it meant every word she'd said was true.
But was every word being true the same as revealing the whole truth? If she didn't set the fire herself, did that mean she had nothing to do with it? Couldn't she be an accomplice?
It wasn't necessarily so. There was a classic criminal technique called the "Montage deception." It meant a suspect told the police nothing but the truth, yet obscured the facts by omitting details, rearranging sequences, editing the narrative, or blurring timelines to escape blame.
This was often the trickiest, hardest-to-detect scenario in criminal investigations. Could this seemingly sweet, lovely, vivacious girl be using such a tactic? Gao Muyang felt a pang of doubt.
Of course, he hoped she wasn't. He prayed it wasn't her. But once dragged into this storm, it wouldn't end easily. And if it *was* her... well, he'd have to "sacrifice personal feelings for the greater good"!
The girl beside him had no inkling of the turmoil in his mind. If she knew... heavens! She'd be livid, exploding on the spot. Back at the barbecue stall, she might have flipped the table...
Right now, Lingyun was quietly curled up in the comfortable seat, resting her eyes. As the car warmed up, two suspiciously rosy spots appeared on her pretty cheeks, like rouge, making her look even more charming. Her breathing was light, her expression peaceful as she drifted into a sweet, tipsy sleep.
Gao Muyang gazed deeply at this beautiful scene, momentarily unable to form the words he needed. He hesitated, unsure how to begin. He *had* learned quite a bit during the barbecue. But that information still couldn't outweigh his deep-seated paranoia.
The situation was just too peculiar, utterly incompatible with everything he'd been taught since childhood. The police academy hadn't prepared him for this. His long-held beliefs and worldview were collapsing and needing to be rebuilt – a painful process, and this was only the beginning...
During the meal, he'd casually inquired about Chu Lingyun's personal and family background. Ostensibly, it was friendly chatter, but he was actually probing for concrete information. As a detective, he *could* access citizen records. Asking directly was partly out of respect, but also a test of Lingyun's honesty.
This showed Gao Muyang wasn't just a handsome but dim-witted pretty boy. On the contrary, he possessed all the qualities of an excellent detective. He was a true schemer, a testament to the saying "A man's heart is as deep as the ocean."
Chu Lingyun, in contrast, was the simple and kind-hearted one. She said whatever came to mind, just blinking her big, clear, and perhaps slightly foolish eyes. If she *had* done anything wrong, it would be written all over her face. It was precisely Muyang's disbelief that someone so guileless could exist that fueled his constant suspicion.
Lingyun was truly the one "dazzled by his good looks." Unaware of her own infatuation, she'd soften whenever she met his puppy-dog eyes – a weakness she really needed to cure! If she ever discovered the truth, she'd probably try to throttle him!
And from that conversation at the barbecue stall, Gao Muyang had obtained truly shocking information. Hence his hesitation in the car: should he dig deeper into Chu Lingyun? The similarities between them were simply too numerous!
First, their major life trajectories were almost identical: both hailed from a city slightly less developed than Jiangcheng, a neighboring municipality; both attended university in the mega-city of Jiangcheng; and both naturally stayed to work there after graduation.
If that alone was coincidence enough, the next details were even more uncanny – downright chilling. Because not only were they from the same hometown, they had attended the *same* high school and university.
This meant they weren't just fellow townspeople; they were alumni. Even their childhood homes were only separated by two or three streets. And in terms of age, he was only two or three years older than her. How could there be *this* many coincidences in the world?
Coincidence wasn't a regular guest in Gao Muyang's world. The counter-intuitive nature of his work didn't allow him to explain cases away with coincidence; truth was built on evidence.
If being from the same hometown was coincidence, then attending the same schools was something he absolutely refused to believe was chance. In a world built on logic and reason, how could there be so many flukes?
Therefore, he was convinced Chu Lingyun harbored undisclosed secrets. He even suspected she had secretly accessed his personnel file at the police station. How else could she know his life so intimately?
What unnerved him even more was the strange resonance he felt with Lingyun's words, a subconscious tendency to believe her. But being a cop meant you couldn't have biases; it was dangerous.
The path Lingyun described – studies, work – was actually very reasonable and common. Most people around Gao Muyang, including himself, had followed that pattern.
But Lingyun *wasn't* one of those people around him. This made him uneasy, setting off alarm bells. Could two people, complete strangers until yesterday, really be *this* fated?
During the meal, Lingyun had also mumbled drunkenly about the origin of her name, delivering another heavy blow to Gao Muyang's psyche. Because the story behind "Chu Lingyun" was *exactly the same* as his own!
Lingyun said that when she was little, a fortune teller encountered by chance told her parents her Eight Characters were flawed and needed the elements of Fire and Earth. Being their only precious daughter, although they thought the fortune teller was spouting nonsense, they still deliberately gave her a name rich in Fire and Earth attributes.
Hearing this, Gao Muyang was inwardly shocked, though he kept his expression neutral. Because *his* name had the same origin. His name, meaning "sun high in the sky, showering the world with warm light," was also bestowed after his parents consulted a fortune teller to analyze his fate.
The name wasn't overly grand, but it was warm, perfectly suited to counter his Five Elements' deficiency in Fire. It symbolized cleansing the world of all ugliness, filth, and darkness – fitting his current profession. It was also his parents' painstaking creation!