Mo Du (默读) - Silent Reading

Julien XV

Tao Ran went out and saw Fei Du, hands stuck in his pockets, waiting for him at the door.

The “woodpeckers” making an uproar at the gates had yet to disperse. With the City Bureau having just been forced to release a very suspicious-looking rich kid, even Fei Du could see the pressure hanging in the air over the Criminal Investigation Team, so he had made his preparations to wait until the day wore out. He hadn’t expected Tao Ran to be in such a hurry to get off work. He paused slightly; Tao Ran spoke first: “Fei Du, come over here. I have something to say to you.”

Fei Du blinked, then looked at the woman curled up on the chairs. “What about her?”

Hearing this, Tao Ran was at some difficulty.

“It’s fine,” said Luo Wenzhou, coming out and leaning against the door. “When she wakes up, I’ll ask her what she wants. There’s a guesthouse by the gates where our people stay when they’re traveling for business. It’s safe and cheap. If she’s willing, I’ll have them get her a room over there. If she still isn’t willing, I’ll have the officer on duty make up a simple bed for her.”

Hesitantly, Tao Ran said, “Isn’t that against regulations?”

“A word from me will take care of it.” Luo Wenzhou waved a hand. “Hurry up and go. No one frets as much as you do.”

Hearing this, Fei Du asked in surprise, “What, Tao Ran, do you have something to do tonight?”

Tao Ran didn’t answer. He only said, “Come here.”

Luo Wenzhou watched Tao Ran pull Fei Du aside; because they’d just gone a round, he had for the moment forgotten the game machine and its associated tender feelings.

He swept a critical gaze over Fei Du’s back, feeling that every stitch of him expressed the word “flirtation”; put him in a spy drama, and you wouldn’t need any makeup to turn him into the classic image of a traitor to the nation.

But however flirtatious he was, what was the use? He’d be jilted just the same.

Luo Wenzhou suddenly felt an odd twinge of schadenfreude towards his fellow sufferer; in high spirits, he hung back by the office door unwilling to leave, wishing his neck could grow long enough to observe the process of a second generation patriarch meeting with a rebuff up close.

Luo Wenzhou had known Tao Ran for many years. They had been through everything: searched for missing children together, fought diabolical evildoers together, won honor and written self-reflections together. Their relationship ran deep.

Though Tao Ran was poor and wretched, he was a nice person, nice in a quiet and obliging way. As time went on, this would almost unavoidably bring about a few inordinate ambitions in a “gender: male, interest: male” individual. But on the subject of sexual orientation, Tao Ran walked an entirely separate road from Luo Wenzhou; he was straight enough to hold up the sky. Insisting would have been cruel, so Luo Wenzhou had quickly put on the brakes, only sometimes putting in a few words brushing up against the bounds of propriety from force of habit.

Tao Ran’s reaction had always been neither ashamed nor angry nor over the line; he was entirely magnanimous. And there were some beautiful thoughts whose beauty could only ferment if kept hidden away; once exposed to the clear light of day, it was very easy for them to be sterilized by the ultraviolet rays.

And now, with Tao Ran clearly displaying that he was about to move on to another stage of life, Luo Wenzhou followed along readily, releasing these non-polluting worries, which under the ultraviolet rays had been almost entirely neutralized. Aside from a small handful of regretful dust, this didn’t arouse any notable waves, but rather the relief of a problem coming to its natural resolution.