Chapter 27: The Emperor’s New Clothes (1/2)

Cheng Xi’s hand was very warm. Warm and soft, a completely different feeling from his tea pet.

Lu Chenzhou grabbed his own hand and put it down. Throughout the whole process, Cheng Xi didn’t even realize that Lu Chenzhou had ‘gently’ caressed her. She even felt somewhat bad that she had touched her patient like that, laughing awkwardly and saying, “Sorry to offend you. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Lu Chenzhou answered suavely with a nonverbal grunt.

Cheng Xi asked Lu Chenzhou about his sincere thoughts. “I think that the townsfolk are acting very strangely. Chen Jiaman hasn’t done anything particularly vicious or evil besides the incident with her grandmother, but from start to finish, I haven’t heard a single word of pity or regret for her.”

Lu Chenzhou wasn’t paying much attention to her question. He lowered his head to look at his fingertips, which seemed to possess remnants of the softness and fineness that he had felt earlier. Lightly stroking them, he put his hand to his nose and sniffed. Upon raising his head, he found that Cheng Xi was staring at him, eyes wide.

Lu Chenzhou sat up straight, put down his hand, and with his face unflinching, said, “How smelly!”

”……”

She instantly understood the phrase she had heard on the Internet, ‘smiling on the outside and looking down disdainfully on the inside.’ Even though she knew that Lu Chenzhou couldn’t be understood through normal means and that he couldn’t be simply asked to behave like a regular person, but after she had washed her hair and bathed three times, almost rubbing an entire layer of skin off of her body, for her to still hear such an evaluation, it really…...made her heart clench!

She struggled to maintain her disposition, only able to awkwardly apologize again. “Sorry for disgusting you with my smell.”

Lu Chenzhou grunted once again.

”……”

His responses really made her want to hit him. She took a deep breath, firmly deciding not to make life difficult for herself. “Hm, I think that this will only be harder with three people. Given how busy you are, why don’t you go back first? I can take the car here myself tomorrow.”

Unfortunately, her suggestions to him were always viewed as useless words. Lu Chenzhou got out of the car and nonchalantly said, “Let’s go.”

“Go… go where?”

He turned his head around, expression grave and stern. “Didn’t you want to investigate some more?”

“...I’m scared of disgusting you with my smell again.”

“No problem,” Lu Chenzhou said lightly. “Since you said that the nature of clean freaks is to like dirty things, I’ve decided to give it a try.”

”……”

It was often said that, when doctors had to treat intelligent patients, or when police encountered intelligent criminals, they often ended up scratching their heads. This was because, from just a moment of inattention, these intelligent people would entrap you in their routine.

But Lu Chenzhou’s words were much more problematic than that. Put in a different way, it sounded as if he were confessing to her that he would try to like her out.

Unintentional words often held a grain of truth in them, but at this moment, neither Cheng Xi nor Lu Chenzhou had realized it yet.

Cheng Xi was more or less an easygoing person, so despite her sugggestion being rejected by Lu Chenzhou, she wouldn’t stop him from coming along if he insisted.

Thus, the two of them left the hotel and returned to the school. This time, Cheng Xi had prepared herself adequately; in order to avoid being drenched with foul water again, she was wearing a hat and a scarf now, covering herself up from head to toe. The little town’s resources were limited and her clothes were of average quality, so she seemed quite inconspicuous.

As for Lu Chenzhou, well, he simply decided to not walk with her. By the time they got there, the restaurant had already closed, and it was about when school was out. The traffic on the road and streets had increased suddenly, and little stalls had also popped up by the roadside near the school.

At once, the smell of food and the dust brought about by the traffic mingled through the air. Lu Chenzhou had stopped far from the scene and was frowning at the sight, almost as if he were watching a horror flick set in another dimension.

Cheng Xi didn’t force him and walked slowly forward alone. From Lu Chenzhou’s viewpoint, she seemed like a strange auntie. She was waving around a piece of ham sausage and twisting and turning around, sometimes drawing close to one or two lone children. She knew to pick out the older children, but she still had little luck in her endeavors.

When most of the crowd had dispersed, she walked back toward him, expression dejected.

Lu Chenzhou raised his eyebrows.

Cheng Xi said, “No luck. Most of the children don’t remember her, or even if they have heard of her name, they only have a superficial impression of her. Either she’s a murderer or a crazy person.”

As expected. “Are you going to keep trying?”

“Yes, we have to at least try.” She didn’t have much vacation time accrued, so given that the hospital had given her a small ‘vacation,’ she had to make the most of it before going back and facing Chen Jiaman. “Staying here for a night is just like a vacation, even if we’re not able to find anything out.”

At least she’s very mentally healthy. Lu Chenzhou didn’t say anything, his gaze stopping on the remaining ham sausage in her hand.

The ham sausage looked somewhat evil, but it also smelled surprisingly good.

Cheng Xi immediately realized what was on his mind. “Are you hungry?” Her palm lightly touched the ham sausage. “It isn’t tasty if it’s cold. Since everyone’s about to have dinner, we can’t investigate right now either. Why don’t we find a place to eat too?”

As she said this, she threw the ham sausage away and took out her phone. She asked some friends, “I’m at … Does anyone know if there’s a clean, sanitary, decent place to eat around here?”

It turned out that one of her classmates did know a good place nearby; he had been a safety engineer who had worked in the region for a decent amount of time, and was relatively familiar with the place.

He sent over the name of a restaurant, which Cheng Xi searched up on her phone. It was a small agricultural restaurant, not too far from Chen Jiaman’s home.

“What do you think?” she asked as she held out her phone to Lu Chenzhou’s face.