Shen Ting rubbed his slightly reddened forehead and turned his face away. "Then the opportunities for you to perform might not be many." He lowered his eyes and chuckled casually, "I go to bed late and wake up late. When I get up, making it in time for lunch is already pretty good."
The smile in Chu Huainan's eyes deepened: "Then I definitely have to seize the opportunity today to perform well."
Shen Ting went back to the sofa, sprawling out lazily, and instructed like a boss: "Just make one portion, we'll split it later."
He didn't have much of an appetite in the mornings and inherently didn't eat much, so he didn't want to waste food.
More importantly, sharing the exact same breakfast with Chu Huainan would maximally avoid the possibility of his meal being "spiked."
But as soon as he finished this sentence, the gaze the other man shot him immediately had some "extra spice" added to it.
This capitalist, who had washed his hands to make soup, seemed terrified that people wouldn't notice how long his eyelashes were. His fluttering peach-blossom eyes were like two butterflies flying right at his face.
Even from across the dining room, Shen Ting could smell the coquettish aura of this male fox spirit. Feeling a sense of indescribable awkwardness, he could only pretend nothing was amiss, lowering his head to continue scrolling through his phone.
Facing this man, Shen Ting always felt faintly offended, and occasionally even had the illusion of being peered into the depths of his soul.
He himself was an experienced "hunter" who often observed from the shadows, waiting for his prey to fall into the net. The way this man looked at him was just like an alpha wolf looking at prey it had coveted for a long time.
Being alone with this man was dangerous. This was the judgment Shen Ting made based on his intuition, and he trusted his intuition deeply. It was this very intuition that had helped him survive and complete his missions in past operations.
Shen Ting repeatedly reminded himself internally that it never hurt to be a little more cautious at all times.
However, his cautiousness caused Chu Huainan to misunderstand his intentions.
After all, the proposal to "share breakfast" would look like a proactive signal of goodwill to anyone.
At this moment, the atmosphere was perfect, and some intimate contact was urgently needed.
Yet the young man who had broadcasted this signal of closeness had no idea he had made another request that caused the other party to misunderstand. He was even too stingy to spare an extra glance at his emotionally surging opponent.
Despite being given the cold shoulder, Chu Huainan remained in a good mood.
He was a highly patient capitalist.
Owe it, let it all be owed. Those who refuse to let others owe them are fools.
Fools don't understand that compounding interest is the true joy of letting someone run a tab.
Chu Huainan's swift and decisive execution was something Shen Ting had heard of early on. During the time he spent tracking the case, he had personally experienced it as well. It was just that he didn't expect this man to be faster than an ordinary person even when it came to cooking breakfast.
Taking into consideration Shen Ting's habit of "disliking breakfast," the meal Chu Huainan prepared strictly speaking didn't fall into the category of a traditional breakfast. It was the most classic brunch dish: Smoked Salmon Eggs Benedict.
To think he rivals a professional chef even when making breakfast. Does this guy have zero blind spots in his skillset? As a culinary idiot who couldn't distinguish the five grains, Shen Ting propped up his cheek, thinking this with a bit of a metaphorical toothache.
Truly outstanding people usually disdain comparing themselves to others. But when suddenly faced with an opponent even more omnipotent than themselves, their feelings inevitably become somewhat complicated.
Toasted cereal bread slices sat at the very bottom, topped with curled, thin slices of smoked salmon and a poached egg blanketed in Hollandaise sauce.
All the delicious elements were ready, quietly waiting for the two to enjoy.
Using a knife to gently slice open the poached egg, the unsolidified, runny egg yolk burst out, mixing with the Hollandaise sauce to drench the toast slice beneath. Cutting a small piece and swallowing it provided a rich mouthfeel with distinct, clear layers of flavor.
Chu Huainan cut his half and handed the plate to Shen Ting. "Try it, I haven't made this in a long time. Tomorrow we'll switch to Chinese style. I'll have to slowly figure out your preferences."
Shen Ting didn't know that Chu Huainan's daily meals and living arrangements were normally all handled by Auntie Zhao. This "long time" was a lamentation that it had truly been a very long time since he had personally stepped into a kitchen to cook.
Shen Ting, who was exceptionally dense in certain aspects, assumed the other party just hadn't cooked this specific dish in a long time. He accepted the plate with peace of mind, watched Chu Huainan cut a piece and put it in his mouth, and only then lowered his head to start eating.
Just as all chefs hope to receive reviews from food critics, the capitalist, who was implementing a "breakfast contracting system" for his crush, frequently cast expectant glances at the "heartless" diner burying his head in the lovingly prepared breakfast.
He wanted some feedback. —Whether about the breakfast, or about himself.
No matter how skilled Shen Ting was at pretending to turn a blind eye, those two scorching streams of sight simply wouldn't disappear. Reaching the limit of his endurance, he looked up and was just about to speak, but ended up choking on a piece of insufficiently chewed cereal bread.
Seeing him choke, Chu Huainan completely abandoned the idea of demanding a mini-thesis on the taste of the breakfast. He reached out and handed Shen Ting the untouched glass of milk sitting in front of him: "Drink some milk, quickly."
Shen Ting did indeed need some liquid, but the glass of milk at hand was the one Chu Huainan had poured specifically for him, and he didn't want to drink it. Thus, without thinking, he reached out, grabbed the glass in front of Chu Huainan, tipped his head back, and took a massive gulp. Chu Huainan had just drunk from this glass, so it should be quite safe.
As he tipped his head back, his raised jawline was smooth and his contours deep. Even the slightly protruding angles where the edges transitioned were exceptionally sexy undulations. His large gulping actions triggered a rapid, continuous bobbing of his Adam's apple.
Watching him drink made Chu Huainan feel exceptionally thirsty as well. But since his beverage was in the other's hand, he could only lick his lips.
Shen Ting was tilting his head back drinking the milk, completely unaware that his dining companion sitting across from him had a gaze so hot it looked ready to eat a person alive.
To choke on just a piece of bread... this guy who is always inadvertently teasing and provoking people actually has quite a shallow throat.
With excellent patience, Chu Huainan silently added another tally to his ledger.
For the remainder of the meal, both of them ate rather uncomfortably.
Especially Shen Ting, who found choking on a piece of bread genuinely quite embarrassing.
Fortunately, Chu Huainan was tactful enough not to bring it up, and considerately reined in that unabashed, staring gaze of his.
After breakfast, Chu Huainan received a phone call.
Shen Ting, who was eating and living there for free, voluntarily shouldered the heavy burden of washing the dishes. While drying a plate, he didn't forget to prick up his ears to pay attention to the movement of that phone call.
Faintly, words like "Email it to me" and "Understood" drifted from the living room. It seemed they were discussing work matters?
After finishing the call, Chu Huainan leaned lazily against the kitchen doorframe and apologized, "I have a few things to take care of, I need to stay in the study for a while."
Shen Ting waved his hand reasonably: "Go, go, official business is important."
He wanted to check on Chen Cong's progress anyway and wished Chu Huainan would disappear immediately. "Don't treat me like a guest; a guest wouldn't be standing here washing plates for you! Don't worry about me, I'll just watch TV by myself for a bit."
Saying this, he set down the dried plate and nestled back into the sofa.
Now this is what you call a good wife and loving mother—sensible and knows how to do chores. Glancing at the spotlessly clean dining table and kitchen, Chu Huainan silently hooked the corners of his mouth.
...
Around ten o'clock, Shen Ting received flowers brought up by the downstairs concierge. —A staggeringly large bouquet of double-petaled blue carnations.
Upon seeing it, Shen Ting realized for the first time that carnations actually came in such an enchantingly cold and glamorous shade of blue.
Did this guy change his personality? He stopped sending roses and switched to carnations?
This exquisitely fresh, massive bouquet reminded Shen Ting that he hadn't seen Chu Huainan for over an hour. Holding the flowers and pondering for a moment, Shen Ting felt that, logically and reasonably, he ought to go "check on" and "thank" the sender of the flowers.
"Come in."
There were only two people in the house, so Chu Huainan knew perfectly well who was standing outside.
He just didn't expect the other party to be a goody two-shoes who actually knew to knock before entering. What he expected even less was that this young man—who in his eyes exuded an entirely contradictory, complex aura—would hand him a bouquet of flowers.
Holding the flowers, Shen Ting inconspicuously assessed Chu Huainan, who had just been staring fixedly at his screen. —His hands weren't on the mouse, nor was he typing. His arms were crossed, and he was staring intently at the computer, having blinked only six times in thirty seconds.
Combining these observations, he quickly concluded that the other party had definitely been watching video footage just now.
Chu Huainan tapped the spacebar lightly, presumably to pause it, reached out to take the flowers, and smiled: "You bought these? Why are you being so polite?" As he spoke, he glanced at the time on his computer screen, thinking to himself that the bouquet he ordered should have arrived by now anyway.
Shen Ting raised an eyebrow: "Didn't you buy them?"
Chu Huainan shook his head. He had indeed bought flowers, but not this variety, and certainly not this color. Just as he said "No," he immediately received a phone call from Lin Youfei.
It turned out this bouquet was bought by Lin Youfei. The lobby concierge downstairs had misread the room numbers and accidentally swapped their flowers.
On the other end of the line, Lin Youfei was as accommodating as ever, smiling as he made excuses for the concierge's mistake: "There must be an insane number of people buying flowers at this hour today, so mix-ups are inevitable. No one is immune to making mistakes."
Having known him for so long, Chu Huainan felt he had never seen him rush or lose his temper. This man, as gentle as a spring breeze, was always calm, always tender, expressing warm goodwill to everyone around him.
"I can't step away right now, could I trouble you to come to my place to pick them up, and bring my bouquet over along the way?"
Chu Huainan looked down at the flowers resting on his desk. There was no card, but the semi-transparent frosted wrapping paper was covered in various famous romantic quotes.
One line among them was exceptionally conspicuous: [This world is crazy, inhumane, and corrupt, but you are always awake, gentle, and unblemished.]
This line indeed sounded exactly like the style of Lin Youfei, whose entire world revolved around Lu Xinghe.
Hanging up the phone, Chu Huainan looked up and met the other's sly face as Shen Ting leaned with his palms pressed backward against the desk. "Based on my observation just now, why do I feel like you aren't actually working..." Every word dripped with malicious teasing.
Chu Huainan shrugged frankly: "If I'm not working, what else would I be doing in the study?"
Shen Ting extended a single finger, pressing down on a corner of the laptop, pushing the upright screen down until it was perfectly flat at one hundred and eighty degrees. "You were definitely watching a video just now." He let out a wicked laugh. "Who looks at documents without touching the mouse or the keyboard?"
Laughing, he voluntarily leaned his body across nearly half the desk to look at the computer screen. "But to think you'd rather watch a video than look at a real person... exactly how lacking in charm must I be?"
Chu Huainan pinched his finger and pushed the computer screen back upright.
Undeterred, Shen Ting walked around the desk. "Let me see, what kind of genre does the legendary, ascetic President Chu enjoy?"
Chu Huainan was amused by the vivid imagination of the person before him.
Meanwhile, Shen Ting, "suspecting" that the other party was secretly watching NSFW videos alone, bypassed the desk and stood behind Chu Huainan, openly leaning over to look at the contents of the screen.
His guess was right; Chu Huainan was indeed watching a video. In the paused frame, the truck circled by a red dotted line was exactly the one Li Songyuan usually drove when delivering goods for his company.
Shen Ting instantly understood: the other party was also tracing Li Songyuan's movement trajectory.
These videos had a different camera angle from the Skynet surveillance footage pulled by the police. It was evident that these were from the security cameras of merchants located on both sides of the street.
"This is...?" Shen Ting, perfectly understanding the situation, faked wide-eyed astonishment. "Surveillance footage?" Then he frowned with extreme disgust: "In broad daylight, you're hiding in your study watching surveillance footage?" He rolled his eyes speechlessly, seeming completely drained of enthusiasm because the video wasn't the kind he had "hoped" for.
But he quickly snapped back to it, eagerly pulling a chair over. As he sat down, he asked: "Hey, is this surveillance footage related to that case too?"
Chu Huainan's unusual zeal for the case was perplexing. Shen Ting took the opportunity to ask bluntly: "Didn't we already call the police about this last night and hand it over to them to handle? Why are you still investigating?"
Chu Huainan didn't answer him. A small bump formed between his furrowed brows. He paused for a few seconds before answering a different question to avoid the heavy point: "I had someone look into it. Li Songyuan's residence is a group rental; it doesn't have the conditions to commit the crime."
Shen Ting gave a highly "bewildered" "Ah?"
Chu Huainan patiently explained to him: "The location we locked onto last night was not the primary crime scene. I don't think the police will arrest him directly."
Oh, this guy understands the operational style of the police system quite well. Grinding his teeth internally, Shen Ting maintained a facade of complete confusion: "And so?"
Chu Huainan continued his analysis: "The probability of Li Songyuan being the killer is very high. He also has experience slaughtering live pigs. Killing a person and dismembering a body would be a walk in the park for him."
Shen Ting knew this was correct. Over the past hour, his colleagues in the CID had already thoroughly investigated the slaughterhouse named Shangfeng. Regarding Li Songyuan's profession and workplace, he knew far more than Chu Huainan did.
But the investigation showed that the slaughterhouse Li Songyuan worked at operated under highly regulated procedures. Every step in the slaughtering workshop had strict controls, and 24-hour surveillance cameras were fully operational. Therefore, the possibility of Li Songyuan bringing a living, breathing Chen Feng into the slaughterhouse to murder and dismember him was nonexistent.
As for the Iveco box truck marked with the words [Shangfeng Foods] on Chu Huainan's computer screen, that was Li Songyuan's work vehicle. His role at Shangfeng was handling cold chain delivery.
Through the surveillance footage, it wasn't hard to discover that on the day Chen Feng went missing, Li Songyuan had only stopped at one location for an extended period: a braised meat shop. And Shen Ting's colleagues had already inspected that braised meat shop.
That day, Li Songyuan indeed brought some blocks of meat and asked the landlady to help boil them. And the partial remains dumped on the pedestrian street were indeed mixed with some pieces of boiled meat.
But even if the braised meat shop did help him boil part of the body, where exactly was the location where he committed the crime? This question, which was currently plaguing the police, also plunged Chu Huainan into deep thought.
"Forget it, I'm done watching." He closed the laptop and slightly stretched his stiff shoulders.
Shen Ting immediately expressed his agreement: "Professional matters should be left to professionals." Curving his lips at the closed screen, he added: "This thing works better than a lullaby, watching it made me sleepy."
Chu Huainan was amused by him. Taking the bouquet of flowers that had been neglected on the desk for a long time, he shoved it into Shen Ting's arms. "Then how about we go do some work right now that you are competent at?"
His throat is actually quite shallow...? President Chu, what exactly are you trying to do?!
Continuing tomorrow at midnight, love you all~
Wash hands and make soup (洗手作羹汤): A line from a classical Chinese poem describing a new bride cooking for her husband's family. Shen Ting uses it sarcastically to describe the billionaire CEO making him breakfast, equating him to a "good wife and loving mother."
Shallow throat (喉咙浅): This implies a strong gag reflex. Chu Huainan observing Shen Ting choking and noting his "shallow throat" carries a distinct, highly suggestive (NSFW) double entendre regarding his physical capabilities.
Cannot distinguish the five grains (五谷不分): An idiom for someone who is completely clueless about practical, everyday matters like cooking or agriculture.
Skynet surveillance (天眼监控): Refers to China's massive national mass surveillance network of CCTV cameras.
Goody two-shoes / Good boy card (乖乖牌): Slang for someone who follows the rules and behaves perfectly.
NSFW (少.儿.不.宜): Literally "unsuitable for children." Shen Ting is teasing Chu Huainan by implying he's watching porn in his study.