Hu Bugui slowly raised his head. Their eyes met, and Su Qing broke out in cold sweat at once, thinking, Motherfucker, is God at it again? Why would this great Buddha be here? 

He had trespassed into his headquarters and been caught red-handed. In his three year career of swindling and fraud, he had never encountered such a thing. In an instant, countless disorderly thoughts flashed through Su Qing’s head. Then his professional quality allowed him to make the most ideal response in the fastest time: he stood at attention, gave a salute, and, relying on the uniform he had picked up, properly said, “Reporting!” 

Concerning the possibility that Hu Bugui had already recognized him, the thought never crossed Su Qing’s mind. 

On one hand, he was still wearing the skinny edition of Lu Dacheng’s appearance. On the other hand, he thought, after such a long time, with all the myriad affairs Captain Hu dealt with every day, how could he remember a minor figure like him? 

But even if he didn’t remember him, how was he supposed to explain his sudden appearance in Cheng Weizhi’s room now? Considering it was giving Su Qing a bit of a headache. He was afraid Hu Bugui would simply take him for an enemy agent and deal with him the way the little mustache had been dealt with. Then this business would get rather messy. 

But Hu Bugui didn’t violently pull a gun right away like Fang Xiu. He only sat unmoving on the cloth couch in Cheng Weizhi’s living room, quietly looking at him. The look in his eyes made Su Qing feel as though a flower had opened on his face. 

Su Qing focused and said with matchless shamelessness, “Reporting to Captain Hu, this floor had already been searched. General Xiong sent me to notify you to come down.” 

Hu Bugui’s expression became a little complicated. Staring at this professional swindler’s face, he found that with his own vision, he couldn’t read a single clue from it. It was as though Su Qing was naturally missing the thread called “guilt.” His expression didn’t change and his heart didn’t race as he fabricated. 

Hu Bugui thought that if he hadn’t known ahead of time, he would really have thought that the person in front of him with his somewhat familiar but also somewhat strange face was in fact one of headquarters’ ordinary guards. He couldn’t resist pondering just what sort of shape this person was in now. 

Su Qing found that Hu Bugui’s venerable buttocks were still stuck unmoving to the couch and grumbled inwardly, but his face displayed a perfect bewilderment. He asked doubtfully, “What’s wrong, Captain Hu? Is there a problem?” 

Hu Bugui’s mouth, which apart from giving orders, basically didn’t speak any superfluous words all day, suddenly turned up at the corners, almost creating a “he’s smiling at me” impression. 

His features were sharply defined and rather handsome. He should have been very good-looking when he smiled. But for some reason, when Su Qing connected the terms “Captain Hu” and “smiling,” a great horror spontaneously arose in his heart. 

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up one by one and cried out—you can’t stay here for long. 

So he continued: “General Xiong said to be sure you came down within five minutes. If there’s still something you need, I’ll go down and report. Please act quickly.” 

Su Qing controlled the speed of his speech, doing his best not to show his impatience. After saying this, he very accurately clicked his heels together lightly. After performing all the moves, he turned and unhurriedly headed out. From behind, his shoulders and back were very upright, his slender body tall and straight—he really did look like a professional soldier. 

The moment he put his hand on the doorknob, Hu Bugui at last spoke. He seemed to also be uncomfortable, as though he didn’t know how to organize his words. Rather dryly, he quietly said, “Su Qing, I haven’t seen you in years. How have you been?” 

Su Qing, with his back to him, maintained his position of putting his hand on the doorknob. He froze. 

After a long moment, Su Qing laughed lightly and slowly raised his hands. With this one gesture, his body language changed miraculously. His shoulders only bent a tiny bit, and that soldier’s bearing was immediately gone. 

Then he turned around, and Hu Bugui found that this person’s smile had changed. 

Before, Su Qing had smiled when he wanted to smile, gotten angry when he wanted to get angry. His beautiful features were especially lively, with a recklessness peculiar to youth. But the person in front of him now smiled noiselessly. First his eyes curved, then the corners of his lips turned up bit by bit as though with some profound meaning. His eyebrows went up a bit, revealing the gaze from his narrowly curved eyes. He calmly peered out at anyone standing in front of him, seeming particularly like bad news. 

Su Qing took off his cap and held it in his hand. He removed his false eyebrows, then took something semi-transparent off his eyelids and wiped a few times with his sleeve. The wrinkles disappeared. The eyebrows like Crayon Shin-chan’s¹ and the squinting little eyes at once resumed their original appearance. He also tore off the circle of beard pasted around his lips and casually rubbed his face a couple of times. The original color of his skin appeared in some places. His face looked extremely colorful. 

“I’m sorry, my craft has fallen off today,” this swindler said carelessly. Then he gave a thumbs up. “Captain Hu truly is a superstar. You actually still remember me… And never mind remembering me, you even recognized me. Only you could have done it. An ordinary person definitely couldn’t have measured up.” 

Hu Bugui gazed steadily at him and suddenly found that his emotions were in even greater turmoil than he had imagined. He thought, How could I not remember? Time and memory would soon have carved this person into his heart. When he closed his eyes, he saw his appearance from back then. 

He heard Su Qing continue: “Well, then, you see, sir, I was purely meddling without knowing what I was doing. Casually charging into a state organ was wrong of me, but don’t we both have the same goal? Captain Hu, you could call us old friends. Heaven knows, earth knows, you and I know—let me off. When I get home I’ll burn incense for you every day, and in the next lifetime I’ll pay repay you for your great kindness even if I have to work like a farm animal.” 

As he babbled, he glanced at the door, rubbed his hands together, then insolently and fawningly said, “Anyway, I can see you’re all pretty busy. Don’t hold up everyone’s work efficiency on my account. Me, I came quietly, and I’ll quietly go…” 

Hu Bugui heard the word “go,” and it was as though some mechanism in his body had been set off. He immediately jumped off the couch and gripped Su Qing’s shoulder. “You can’t go!” 

Su Qing felt that his gall bladder burst, sending up bitterness. “Brother, I swear, I really didn’t make a disturbance on purpose. I know that military installations can’t be profaned, but, look…” 

Hu Bugui’s hand squeezing his shoulder slowly relaxed and moved downward slightly, pressing against his shoulder blade, as though embracing him. But his face was very tense. He didn’t know how he could make Su Qing understand him. He stifled himself for a long moment until his lungs nearly burst, then haltingly spat out: “Don’t go. I’ve spent three years searching for you. Since you’ve come back, stay.” 

Su Qing gave a dry laugh. “Captain Hu, that tone and these actions of yours are too easy to misunderstand.” 

Hu Bugui only looked at him profoundly. He didn’t let go, and he didn’t explain anything. He was silent for a while, then repeated: “Stay.” 

Su Qing frowned slightly. He didn’t know what this was. He only took half a step back, dodging Hu Bugui’s hand. But Hu Bugui grabbed his arm. He didn’t make a sound, didn’t explain, and didn’t let go, only looked directly at him. 

Just then, Lu Qingbai’s voice suddenly came from a corner of the room. Just dying to make trouble, he said, “Captain Hu, just snap on some power-limiting handcuffs and cuff him to yourself.” 

Xu Ruchong said, “The unit has just received a new binding cord with a slight electric current. It can’t be forced open. If you want, I can bring you one.” 

Hu Bugui completely ignored these two prattlers. Pulling Su Qing with one hand, he opened Cheng Weizhi’s door with the other and pulled him outside. He turned left and counted two rooms. Su Qing noticed that the doorplate had his name written on it. He was a little bewildered.

Hu Bugui said, “Fingerprint recognition. You go ahead and open it.” 

Su Qing instantly backed away automatically, but sadly Hu Bugui had a tight hold on him. “Captain Hu, you really don’t need to be so polite, I’ll go out and find a hotel, really, setting aside an individual room just for me…” 

Hu Bugui said precisely, “When you were in the hospital three years ago, I set this room aside for you. But before I could tell you, you left.” 

Su Qing said, “Thank you, thank you. My thanks to the Party and the people for their care and concern for me. I’m going to cry from gratitude, really.” 

While he said this, his eyes were whirling around, and he was backing away nonstop. Hu Bugui half-compellingly raised his hand and pressed it to the door’s fingerprint recognition system. There was a click, and the door opened. Su Qing looked up and froze. 

The layout of the room looked familiar. He stood at the door in a daze for a long time before realizing that it looked like his childhood room. Even the wooden guitar displayed in a corner was there—this was from middle school, his only time being appraised as a triple A student. His dad had been wild with joy and given it to him as a reward, even though at the time the school had suddenly put together an encouraging teaching experiment, making more than half the class triple A students—it had been a novelty for a time, and then he hadn’t played with it again, because he had found that it wasn’t nearly as effective as money when it came to flirting. 

Hu Bugui quietly said, “While we were searching for you, we monitored your house, though you never returned. I had Fang Xiu take a few pictures of your room and bring them back, then rearranged it according to them so it would be ready if you ever came back to stay.” 

Su Qing was silent. 

Hu Bugui was silent along with him. After a long moment he once again, in a somewhat beseeching tone, said, “Come back. Don’t go.” 

He was standing behind Su Qing, his chest almost pressed against his back. He spoke very quietly, his voice striking Su Qing’s eardrums again and again. For a moment, something like a throb really did rise in Su Qing’s heart, but it was only for a moment. He knew that he had been constantly on the run too long. He hadn’t been moved by anything for a long time. That was where the mistake came from. 

After a long time, Su Qing lowered his eyes and made a very small nod. 

Hu Bugui felt a large stone suddenly fall in his heart. He nearly became wild with joy, feeling that, more and more, he would shine with only a drop of sunlight. “The electricity and hot water in your room haven’t been stopped. There’s someone assigned to come clean periodically. It’s ready to be occupied.” 

Su Qing turned to look at him. As soon as their eyes met, Hu Bugui couldn’t resist letting go. He took half a step back and a little unnaturally said, “Take a look and see if you need anything else.” 

After thinking about it, Su Qing said, “I’ll just take a shower first. I smell like the sewers. Also, is there anything to eat? I’m starving.—Heh, this place is pretty big.” 

Hu Bugui watched him go in, but he didn’t follow. He frowned slightly, as though uncertain, then asked again, “You won’t go, right?” 

Su Qing waved a hand and gave him an especially sincere smile. “It would be impolite to refuse.” 

Hu Bugui lowered his eyes, paused, then said, “There’s a clean change of clothes in the cabinet.” 

Before he had finished speaking, Su Qing had already very familiarly turned up everything he wanted—after all, this was a room he had “lived in before.” Then, not standing on ceremony at all, he said to Hu Bugui, “Thank you, Captain Hu, close the door for me on your way out.” 

Then he dashed into the bathroom as though he couldn’t wait. 

The bathroom door closed before Hu Bugui’s eyes. Hu Bugui took a deep breath, then let it out like a sigh. He leaned somewhat wearily against the doorframe next to him. He didn’t look happy at all. 

General Xiong had warned him that if Su Qing, after careful consideration or not, really decided to stay, the first thing he would say would definitely concern the grey seal child he had taken away. If he didn’t say it, then he was lying. 

The sound of water came. Hu Bugui thought that from the moment he had seen Su Qing, he hadn’t said a single word of truth to him.