As if electrified, Yu Hao’s entire body tingled, her toes involuntarily curled, and she lay softly on the bed, half-squinting as she peered at him.

No lights were on in the room. Outside the window, the moonlight was bright and the wind was clear, pouring a floor of silver radiance inside. Cold wind blew the curtains, making them roll like waves.

Lu Huaizheng supported himself with one hand on the bed, while his other hand cradled the back of her head, pressing her forcefully toward himself. He tilted his head to bite her lower lip, sucking it gently. The man’s usually cold eyes were now filled with a flirtatious spirit. Yu Hao felt dizzy as if the ceiling above her might collapse.

This time, there was no Old Li around.

His kiss wasn’t as domineering as last time, nor did he rush to thrust his tongue in. Instead, he held her lips, nibbling and caressing them bit by bit.

Moreover, this man had a habit of not closing his eyes while kissing. As he kissed her, his deep eyes firmly fixed on her. Yu Hao deliberately avoided looking at him, so he tilted his head to catch her, intercepting her line of sight. The more she dodged, the more he refused to let her go, with a mischievous smile hanging at the corner of his mouth.

Gradually—

He withdrew his smile and, supporting Yu Hao’s head, slowly pressed her onto the pillow. No longer kissing her lightly like before, he lowered his head heavily to capture her lips, directly and forcefully prying them open, tracing along the warm walls of her mouth to hook her tongue.

The instant their tongues touched.

Yu Hao’s heart fluttered, and she pulled back.

Lu Huaizheng pressed her against the pillow, teasing her for a while. Looking down, he found the girl’s eyelashes trembling lightly. He slowly withdrew, turning to nibble at her ear, pecking at her clear earlobes, and softly coaxing her: “Scared?”

After asking, he returned to kiss her lips, gently pecking bit by bit.

He was being very proper, only kissing her without letting his hands wander. Yu Hao was kissed until her head was dizzy, unable to distinguish directions, and her answers were broken and muffled as they were swallowed by his mouth: “…your eyes…so red.”

Lu Huaizheng supported himself with one hand on the bed; his other hand cushioning the back of her head to prevent her from getting tired when tilting back. He truly had no extra hand to do anything else, and though his mind was spinning with thoughts, he remained proper, also afraid of frightening her.

He seemed particularly fond of her ears.

Biting her earlobe and continuously licking it, Yu Hao was ticklish and several times tried to escape his kisses by kicking her feet, but was always pulled back by him, firmly held as he murmured: “If you move again, you really won’t be able to leave tonight.”

Yu Hao froze in fear, obediently shrinking her body and closing her eyes, allowing him to kiss her to his satisfaction.

Until—

Yu Hao suddenly felt the warmth withdraw from her lips. Opening her eyes, Lu Huaizheng was still in the same position, supporting himself with one hand on the bed, slightly tilting his head as if listening to movement outside. Yu Hao asked softly: “What’s wrong?”

“Your senior is back.” He looked down, the corner of his mouth twitching in a smile, showing a kind of helplessness at being disturbed.

Yu Hao’s face reddened, and she abruptly sat up, leaning against the headboard to adjust her clothes and hair. Lu Huaizheng also sat up, sitting on the edge of the bed with his legs sprawled openly, shoulders drooping loosely. In the faint moonlight, he tilted his head to watch her hurriedly tidying herself. Then he helped her turn on the bedside lamp, reaching over to slowly tuck a few loose strands of hair behind her ear while saying softly: “Don’t panic, she’s still at the staircase on the first floor.”

Yu Hao couldn’t find her original hair tie, so she casually took a pen from the bedside table and deftly twisted her hair into a bun at the back of her head, looking at him somewhat helplessly.

This skill, Lu Huaizheng had seen before. Back in high school, he had seen her tie her hair like this once. It seemed to be during PE class when her hair tie broke, and she used a pen to roll up her hair, insisting that her hair couldn’t be left loose.

Now, this action seemed to take him back to the past, leaving him slightly entranced.

When Zhao Dailin entered the room, this was the scene she witnessed.

Yu Hao was dressed neatly, with her hair tied up cleanly without a single loose strand, leaning against the headboard. Lu Huaizheng sat on the edge of the bed, hunched forward with his elbows resting on his knees. The two were pretending to seriously discuss—

To be precise.

It was Yu Hao alone, feigning seriousness, acting out a discussion about the case with the man at the bedside.

“Whether the other party has accomplices is still unknown, but what I can be sure of is that he is not an armed person—”

Lu Huaizheng completely ignored her.

Looking up to see Zhao Dailin enter, he didn’t avoid the situation at all but rather nodded slightly in her direction as a greeting. Then he turned back, ruffled Yu Hao’s head, and directly exposed her: “Alright, stop pretending. Your Senior Zhao has been through this too; she understands.”

Yu Hao glared at him.

Lu Huaizheng stood up with a smile, changing his approach to pinch her puffed-up cheeks.

“I’m leaving. Sleep early.”

Zhao Dailin glanced at her junior sister and deliberately teased her: “Looks like I came back at an inconvenient time?”

Yu Hao slid directly under the covers, hiding her face.

Lu Huaizheng stood by the bed, looking down at her. After a while, Yu Hao cautiously lifted the covers a bit, revealing a pair of bright eyes, seemingly testing if Senior Zhao was still standing there.

Lu Huaizheng glanced at Zhao Dailin, then bent down to stroke Yu Hao’s head, comforting her softly:

“Your senior is just teasing you. Go to sleep now.”

Not long after Yu Hao lay down, Lu Huaizheng chatted with Zhao Dailin at the door.

Zhao Dailin spoke frankly: “To be honest, having known Yu Hao for so long, I’ve never seen such a childish side of her. I don’t know if it’s because I spend too little time with her, or if she’s accustomed to wearing a mask in front of people, including me.”

Lu Huaizheng lowered his head with a smile: “When I met her in high school, her mask was thicker than now. I don’t know what she’s experienced over these years.” His tone was regretful.

“She’ll tell you naturally when she wants to.”

Zhao Dailin looked up at the night sky, smiled after hearing this, lit a cigarette for herself, and offered one to Lu Huaizheng, who shook his head in rare refusal.

“Are you planning to quit smoking and become a father?” Zhao Dailin teased him.

Lu Huaizheng smiled and shook his head. He had always smoked sparingly. In the past few years, he hardly smoked at all, occasionally having one when the mood struck, without any addiction. Since the day he saw her at the wedding banquet, he found his craving for cigarettes had increased.

Zhao Dailin put the cigarette back in the pack and casually asked: “Have you and Yu Hao thought it through?”

“What counts as thinking it through?” he asked in return.

Zhao Dailin couldn’t answer this, staring at him in a daze.

Lu Huaizheng put his hands in his pockets, gazing into the distance with narrowed eyes: “Do you believe that in this world, there is always one person waiting for you? Not the kind who happens to appear when I want romance or need companionship. But rather, I’ve always felt that this person who will spend the rest of my life with me should be her. If there is such a person, I think it’s her. So I don’t want to struggle anymore, because I never had a choice.”

These words deeply shocked Zhao Dailin, leaving her rooted to the spot. Lu Huaizheng had been gone for a long time before she could react. Dazed and confused, she wondered, was there such a person?

Then the face of Sun Kai floated into her mind.

She thought she might be going crazy.

…

At 3:20, the sky was still pitch black, and the hour hand continued to tick steadily.

Lu Huaizheng returned to the restroom and carefully reviewed all the materials organized by Yu Hao. She had marked all the characteristics of the suspect with a red pen.

Currently, all the clues that could be gathered about him were summarized.

Not a local, suffering from a serious illness, sexually open.

Looking further down.

Yu Hao had written—

No leg hair.

Lu Huaizheng slightly furrowed his brow, what kind of clue was this?

Body painting.

Seems to be hiding something.

Lu Huaizheng finished the remaining maps for Yu Hao, collected all the materials together, and left the conference room.

A soldier with a gun stood at the door of the isolation room.

Seeing him approach, the soldier gave a rigid military salute. Lu Huaizheng nodded slightly, peered inside through the window, and chatted with the guard: “Has anyone gone in?”

The soldier kept his hands firmly against his trouser seams, standing ramrod straight: “No one, except for Doctor Yu and Team Leader Sun!”

Lu Huaizheng nodded, jerking his chin toward the door lock.

“Open the door.”

The soldier immediately opened the door.

The lock creaked, the door frame slammed against the door, and the person sleeping inside suddenly woke up. Seeing a strange face, he showed no interest and turned over to continue sleeping.

Lu Huaizheng had the soldier close the door.

The isolation room had no lights, pitch black, with only a beam of moonlight shooting through the window bars, casting a round light shadow on the ground, adding some brightness to the room. The silhouette on the bed was still slightly moving.

Lu Huaizheng pulled a chair over, placed it at the head of the bed, then hitched his trousers and sat down.

He leaned against the chair back.

There was still no movement from the other side.

He raised one leg, extremely arrogantly stepping on the edge of the bed, then suddenly exerted force with a violent kick. With a harsh “creaking” sound, half the bed instantly tilted, the bed leg hitting the wall, causing a small dent in the gray-white wall that was now shedding dust.

Hearing such a commotion inside, the soldier outside couldn’t help peering in and approaching the bed. He found Lu Huaizheng leaning back against the chair, his back to the door, a casual posture with his foot still propped on the bed.

Was he about to use “private punishment”?

Should he pretend not to see, or not see?

The person on the bed woke up and turned to glare at him angrily.

Lu Huaizheng, however, grinned: “Awake?” Then he shook his foot again, smiling as he looked at him: “How is it? Comfortable on this military bed?”

The man also smiled: “It would be more comfortable with a woman. Where’s that beautiful woman from before? I like talking to her.”

Lu Huaizheng unexpectedly delivered another kick, and the other half of the bed tilted in as well. The entire bed had been straightened out, just shifted to the wall. He glanced over with a smile, then looked down and said: “Too bad, from now on, you can only talk to me.”

“I don’t like negotiating with men.”

“I don’t like negotiating with men either.” He smiled, turning his head slightly: “Then let’s make it short. Tomorrow at ten o’clock, a helicopter. I’ll send you away. No other conditions negotiable.”

“I said, I only want the woman.”

Lu Huaizheng leaned forward a bit, one elbow propped on his knee, meeting his pitch-black eyes: “What’s wrong, afraid you can’t beat me?”

He insisted: “The child can be forgone, but I want that female doctor.”

“Impossible.” Lu Huaizheng’s tone was mild but sounded indisputable, with no room for negotiation: “You now have only two choices: either wait to be executed by firing squad or leave with me tomorrow.”

“Don’t you care about the bombs in town?”

Lu Huaizheng smiled: “We’ve already arranged other helicopters to evacuate some townspeople. At most, it’s just property loss. If homes are gone, they can be rebuilt. I just find it troublesome and want to save the country some money, which is why I’ve given you this second option.”

With that, Lu Huaizheng put his foot down and rose to leave.

The man suddenly called him back. After a long while, he gritted his teeth and said: “I can tell you a safe address. There are no bombs in that area!”

“And the condition?”

“Before nine tomorrow, change the helicopter to a car. I’ll leave you alone. After I’m safely away, I’ll tell you the location of the bombs, and until then, I can guarantee that none of them will explode. You can evacuate the townspeople to the safe address. I promise that even if other bombs explode, they won’t affect that place.”

Lu Huaizheng initially thought that demanding a helicopter was a brainless act since ordinary people couldn’t fly helicopters and would need a pilot, who would certainly be chosen from among them. The man must have considered this as well, which was why he had been insisting on two hostages to ensure his safety.

Now this made sense.

However, he betrayed no emotion: “Tell me the address first. I need to confirm there’s no danger before I can trade with you.”

“The grand hall behind Hushui Elementary School.”

…

At five in the morning, the sky gradually began to whiten.

Lu Huaizheng left the isolation room and drove directly to town to meet with Sun Kai.

Sun Kai and Director Tang were standing with their hands behind their backs on the bridge, surrounded by their men who were removing mines. The ancient canal still flowed steadily, with a dim light at the horizon sparsely illuminating the small town. In the morning mist, Lu Huaizheng parked at the bridge entrance. The breakfast shop owner Zaza had gotten up particularly early, and seeing Lu Huaizheng get out of the car, hurried over to grab him: “Brother Lu!”

Lu Huaizheng turned around: “Zaza?”

“What have you guys been doing these two days? Why do I keep seeing planes flying back and forth in the sky? What are they doing?!”

They had been blocking the news from the public, evacuating some elderly and children with various excuses, without telling them the truth. Lu Huaizheng also knew there would be too much public opinion to face afterward. If this mission failed, they might return to face a ghost town, which would be even harder to handle.

He smoothed Zaza’s head: “Have you finished your homework? If you have time to worry about these things, go back and do your homework. If anything happens, we’ll let you know.”

Zaza refused to leave: “Is there going to be a war?”

Lu Huaizheng smiled: “There’s no war for you to fight. Go back first, someone will notify you later. I’m really busy right now. If you delay me by one minute, it could be truly dangerous.”

Zaza was scared and quickly let go: “Then I’ll go back to do my homework?”

“Go.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Zaza reluctantly left. Sun Kai, having heard some noise, turned around and indeed saw Lu Huaizheng. He led Director Tang over.

Lu Huaizheng took his cap from the car and put it on, then lifted a box of tools from the back seat of the jeep. He briefly and quickly explained the situation. Sun Kai quickly understood: “Are we going to clear it now?”

Lu Huaizheng nodded, looking down at the time on his military watch.

“It must be cleared before six o’clock. If we confirm there’s nothing in that area, we’ll evacuate the remaining people there before nine.”

“You’re letting him go?”

Sun Kai asked.

Lu Huaizheng laughed coldly while putting on his gloves: “I’ve contacted the troops below. They’ve stationed people along the route. Once the crisis is resolved, we’ll arrest him.” Then he casually asked: “Where did you catch him?”

“In those mountains back there. He was dressed like a mountain bandit and looked suspicious so I questioned him for a bit. He hemmed and hawed, refusing to say anything, so I brought him back to the team. Damn, when we searched him, he was covered in bombs.”

“Where are the things?” Lu Huaizheng asked, having finished putting on his gloves.

“Confiscated, of course.”

…

Yu Hao woke up again at six o’clock. The sky was bright, with dawn light shining at the horizon.

She couldn’t help but remember what they had done on this bed before sleep, and her heart began to beat rapidly. Thinking about seeing him later, she felt as happy as a magpie on a beam, unable to suppress her joy. If not for that psychopath, today would have been so perfect.

Zhao Dailin was still sound asleep. Yu Hao looked at the time, rubbed her eyes, sat up, quietly washed up, and went downstairs where she met Chen Rui, who was covered in mud, walking up. Chen Rui always greeted her with a smile: “Doctor Yu.”

Yu Hao returned a smile.

This startled Chen Rui, who froze in place, stammering: “Doctor Yu… you’re in a good mood today.”

Yu Hao paused: “Do I usually look fierce?”

Chen Rui scratched his head, his hands covered with mud, now even staining his hair: “Not really, just that you usually don’t look very happy…”

“Sorry for the misunderstanding.”

Yu Hao’s sincere and sudden apology left Chen Rui confused, stuttering without knowing what to say, instinctively replying: “It’s nothing, everything’s fine. By the way, are you looking for the captain? He’s at the grand hall of Hushui Elementary School. I was just about to go there, let me wash my hands and get something first.”

Yu Hao wanted to say.

No, I wasn’t.

But since he had mentioned it, she might as well reluctantly go.

“Has he had breakfast?” Yu Hao casually asked.

“Who has time to eat? He got off the plane and hasn’t even slept, clearing mines until now.” Chen Rui said as he entered the bathroom.

Before getting in the car, Yu Hao went to the canteen to get some steamed buns. Worried that the soldiers there also hadn’t eaten, she took a whole bag and then followed Chen Rui to the grand hall.

The car had just stopped outside.

Yu Hao saw him standing with his hands on his hips on a mound outside the hall. He wasn’t much cleaner, with mud on his trouser legs, but he stood with a straight back. Despite not having slept all night, he showed no signs of fatigue and remained energetic. Nearby were soldiers in uniform, lying on the ground using mine detectors to probe downward.

Chen Rui turned off the engine and got out with his belongings.

Yu Hao followed behind him.

She watched as Lu Huaizheng walked to the side with his hands on his hips, cleared some soil with his foot, then turned his back, hitched up his trouser legs, and squatted down. He reached back, and the soldier behind him discreetly handed over a probe. He squatted on the ground, and just as he finished testing and stood up, he heard Chen Rui calling him from behind. Turning around, he saw Yu Hao coming toward him.

Yu Hao found herself inexplicably starting to run.

When she reached him, he stopped her with one hand, smiling and asking: “Why are you running?”

Yu Hao stopped, not knowing why she was running; she just wanted to get to his side quickly.

“I heard the suspect is willing to talk?”

Yu Hao’s hair wasn’t tied tightly, so when she ran, the loose strands in front would fall across her forehead, as well as at the sides. She had always had lots of loose hair since childhood, and it was also very curly, easily escaping.

Lu Huaizheng looked down at her, his eyes tender as he casually helped tuck all the loose strands behind her ears, absentmindedly responding with a murmur.

Chen Rui stood by, watching in astonishment.

The captain’s pampering of women had become increasingly unrestrained.

…

Ten minutes later, Lu Huaizheng and Sun Kai completed the verification of all procedures, and Hushui Elementary School officially lifted its alert.

Yu Hao ate steamed buns while watching him walk over with Sun Kai, followed by a group of people.

When he reached her side, Yu Hao handed over the bag beside her: “Maybe fill your stomach first.”

Unexpectedly, Lu Huaizheng took off his gloves and directly bent down to take a bite from the bun she had been eating, continuing to discuss the next strategic deployment with Sun Kai as they walked, seemingly completely at ease.

… …