Wholeheartedly Willing Chapter 42 and Chapter 43

Chapter 42: The Deal

As Lin Xi and Yu Xiucheng’s lovemaking reached its climax, a lone lamp still flickered inside the Qingcheng City Public Security Bureau.

Sitting at his desk, Luo Quan was surrounded by a stack of disorganized folders. The electronic clock in the corner quietly displayed the current time: 05:01.

Fat Pig had already been sent to the hospital, making it impossible to interrogate him. His colleagues had all gone home to rest, leaving only Luo Quan sitting in the entire office of the third team. He closed his eyes, feeling a bit weary. In his mind, the brief encounter with that man from the night surfaced again.

He was impeccably dressed from head to toe, exuding the air of an elite figure in society. But that gaze…

Their eye contact at that time was incredibly brief, but only Luo Quan knew that he was the one who looked away.

Public security in Qingcheng had always been poor, with relentless arms smuggling and ruthless characters involved. Luo Quan had never been afraid before.

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“What does the fact that there were no casualties have to do with us?” Luo Quan interrupted Fang Yang. “That’s because Yu Xiucheng arrived before us and subdued him.”

He paused for a moment. “Otherwise, our informant might…”

Remembering that Lin Xi had already fallen into a complete state of unconsciousness at that time, Luo Quan’s suppressed emotions resurfaced.

“Well, that’s true… But Team leader, what’s the deal with this younger sister of yours? I heard from Li Gang that she can’t even access the police system, so how did she end up at Yetan?” 

Silence filled the office. Fang Yang lifted the clothes covering his face and took a glance, only to see that Luo Quan hadn’t left directly. The cold white light from the computer screen cast an expressionless glow on his face, appearing somewhat eerie at this hour.

“She used to play the piano, starting from the age of four. By the time she was in the first year of high school, she had already participated in world-class competitions.” Luo Quan began, feeling his throat becoming dry. He reached into his pocket, took out a cigarette case, put one in his mouth, and lit it. “Later, there was a major incident in her family… It was the explosion case that you are particularly interested in.”

Fang Yang paused for a moment, as if realizing something, and abruptly pulled off his hat. “The couple… Corript police officers?”

Luo Quan, with a cigarette in his hand, nodded. “She entered the police academy with the determination to become a police officer and clear her parents’ name. Fortunately, her father, who used to be too busy to pick her up from school and worried about her encountering bad people on her way home, had been training her in endurance and martial arts alongside her piano lessons. That’s how she managed to barely get into the academy.”

However, even though she barely made it into the police academy, Lin Xi’s overall qualities were clearly inferior to her classmates. In less than a week after enrollment, she became the laughingstock of the entire grade after fainting three times in class due to her inability to sustain physical exertion. Everywhere she went, she was mocked as a spoiled princess.

It was also during that time that Luo Quan met Lin Xi, on the training ground of the police academy.

Because she ran incredibly slowly.

“Luo Quan, did you see her? Isn’t she beautiful? I heard she used to play the piano, but I don’t know why her head short-circuited and she insisted on coming to the police academy to suffer.” Their schedules happened to be arranged for the same afternoon at the same time. Luo Quan had already completed his five-kilometer training for the day and was standing at the edge of the field, drenched in sweat, resting with his roommate. He heard his roommate chatting away, “She became famous in less than a week after school started. She can’t do anything. Can you believe this kind of spoiled princess came here to experience the hardships of the world?”

Before the voices of those around him could fade, the girl struggling on the track suddenly collapsed to the ground, causing a mix of laughter and mockery. Several boys walked over to extend a helping hand to her, and Luo Quan’s roommate took the opportunity to show his gentlemanly manners. A group of burly men surrounded the girl, making it difficult for water to pass through.

Luo Quan chuckled, expressing his sarcastic comment towards his roommate’s blunt words. But he heard the girl, panting heavily, say, “Thank you, I can handle it myself.”

After speaking, she stood up unsteadily and started running again, stumbling along. Only then did Luo Quan notice that her face had turned red from physical exhaustion, and her steps were completely unsteady.

Why did a girl like her enter the police academy, after all?

Watching her wobbly figure run into the distance, Luo Quan couldn’t help but have the same thought as his roommate.

Later, there was an occasion when Luo Quan was summoned by a teacher to spar with a first-year student, actually just to teach a lesson to some of the overconfident freshmen and let them experience the cruelty of real combat.

In that class, Luo Quan once again saw Lin Xi.

“Who wants to step forward and challenge the senior?” The training instructor smiled mischievously. “Let me remind you, this is the legendary all-around senior, known as Luo the Almighty. Those of you who claim to be good at fighting, give it a try?”

“Teacher, I’d like to give it a try.”

The teacher’s gaze was mainly focused on the rowdy students in the class, but neither he nor Luo Quan expected that the first person to raise her hand and stand up would be Lin Xi.

“Lin Xi, even though you’ve improved rapidly, it might be a bit…” The teacher looked at Lin Xi standing up with a somewhat troubled expression. “Don’t push yourself too hard.”

“I’m not trying to show off, I really want to give it a try.” Lin Xi, with her hair tied up in a high ponytail, revealed her smooth forehead. Without waiting for the teacher to say anything else, she voluntarily stepped forward and bowed deeply to him. “Senior, please guide me.”

She rolled up her sleeves, revealing bruises of various sizes, old and new, on her arms. It seemed as though she was afraid that Luo Quan wouldn’t take her seriously unless he saw the marks. Without waiting for the young man in front of her to respond, she charged forward directly.

She had indeed improved rapidly. Her lower body became stable, and the first few moves caught Luo Quan off guard, making it difficult for him to dodge as he was distracted. In the subsequent counterattacks, she predicted his moves accurately. The two of them exchanged blows back and forth.

Just within those few moves, Luo Quan could already imagine how much hardship she had endured behind the scenes.

In fact, Luo Quan’s roommate used to complain in front of him, saying, “That piano-playing miss spends over an hour more than everyone else on endurance training on the field every day, and she goes around looking for people to spar with. She’s not a miss at all, she’s like a fighting c*ck.” Luo Quan never took it to heart and simply regarded it as his roommate’s perspective on a pretty girl.

Now, looking back, no one filters people into fighting c*cks.

“And what happened later? Who won?” Fang Yang’s voice made Luo Quan smile and shake his head.

“I won.”

That day, Lin Xi was still defeated, but her defeat was nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone present could see that it was the one strike where he genuinely put his strength that knocked her down.

“Her resilience is truly the strongest I’ve seen among all female police officers. Later, she told me that while others joined the police academy out of admiration and love for the profession, she didn’t. She joined to clear her parents’ name of being corrupt police officers. That’s why she had no room for giving up.”

“Unfortunately,” Luo Quan continued, “During those four years, she constantly longed for graduation, but it was only after graduating that she realized those four years were the closest she ever was to becoming a police officer.”

After graduation, Lin Xi was rejected by various criminal investigation teams, and no one was willing to tell her the real reason. She begged around and eventually ended up with Luo Quan, who had already settled down in the sub-bureau for over two years.

In the end, it was still Luo Quan who had to inquire around and act as the bad guy.

“Oh, so that’s how it is. They should have told me earlier. If they had, I wouldn’t have gone around asking.” Luo Quan still remembered that day, when the temperature dropped sharply from autumn to winter, and a strong north wind blew throughout the day, chilling him to the core.

Lin Xi was squatting by the roadside at that time, still wearing her autumn clothes. She kept her head down the whole time, looking so fragile that it seemed like a gust of wind could blow her away. Unable to see her expression and fearing that she would cry, Luo Quan tried to comfort her several times. But then he saw Lin Xi slowly raise her head and look at him with an unwavering gaze.

“Senior, can we make a deal?”

“A deal?”

“Yeah, I’ll be your insider, help you with the peripheral tasks, and you help me investigate my parents’ affairs. We’ll exchange information. Is that possible?”

At that moment, Luo Quan realized that he had never seen Lin Xi shed tears before. Even if she lost miserably or was beaten severely, she would always get up from the ground, panting heavily, and look at him with utmost seriousness, just like she did a moment ago.

“Senior, one more time.”

Whenever that happened, Luo Quan would show a helpless expression, looking at her struggling to stand steady, and nod.

“Okay.”

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Chapter 43: Grinding

By the time Lin Xi reached her final cl*max, it was already bright outside. Unable to withstand exhaustion, she fell asleep immediately. When she woke up, it was already afternoon.

She opened her eyes and lazily rolled over, only to realize that she was still in Yu Xiucheng’s room. The door was slightly ajar, and from outside, she could faintly hear the familiar sound of a piano.

People came to clean and cook at Yu Xiucheng’s place every day, but probably because he didn’t like to see strangers, they would come and leave when he wasn’t home.

But today seemed a little different.

Lin Xi got out of bed and noticed that she was wearing one of Yu Xiucheng’s shirts, which happened to reach past her hips, accentuating her captivating figure. She leisurely buttoned it up, leaving the top two buttons undone, revealing her collarbone.

Just like that, she walked out of the bedroom barefoot, enjoying the comfort of the soft wool carpet, which made her squint with delight.

Following the sound of music, she pushed open the study door. The man was sitting in front of the desk, fully absorbed in looking at the laptop in front of him. The speakers on either side of the computer were playing Chopin’s “Winter Wind Etude.” This piece was also one of Lin Xi’s favorites, which she had practiced under her teacher’s guidance and even used it in competitions before.

“Don’t you ever need to sleep?” Lin Xi teased, genuinely curious. She walked slowly towards the man and sat on his lap, snuggling into Yu Xiucheng’s embrace like a little white cat.

Yu Xiucheng casually wrapped his arm around her slender waist, then decisively captured her offered red lips. The two of them naturally engaged in an intimate moment. Yu Xiucheng’s voice was already hoarse as he spoke, “I don’t dislike it.”

In fact, the most difficult time to endure for post-traumatic stress disorder was during the night. Closing one’s eyes would bring forth the past repeatedly, even if one managed to fall asleep, there would be no respite in the dreams, leaving one with nowhere to escape.

Although Gabapentin can effectively alleviate these symptoms, Yu Xiucheng’s aversion to sleep has become a deeply ingrained habit over the years and is difficult to change.

“People always say that children who don’t like to sleep won’t grow tall,” Lin Xi’s fingers slipped into the gap between the man’s hair and placed her chin on his broad shoulder. “How come it’s not applicable to you?”

“I don’t know.”

Yu Xiucheng had actually never heard that saying before. He lightly tapped the back of Lin Xi’s head with his palm. “Want to sleep a bit more?”

Lin Xi indeed hadn’t gotten enough sleep yet. Nestled in Yu Xiucheng’s embrace, she comfortably closed her eyes again. She dozed off like that, listening to the piano piece that felt so familiar and reminiscent. It seemed like she used to listen to it often, but she couldn’t recall which pianist’s version it was.

“Whose version is this…? It feels so familiar.”

After two more pieces, Lin Xi became more and more curious. Unable to resist, she lazily sat up from the man’s embrace and reached out to access the backend program of Yu Xiucheng’s computer.

Then she discovered that it wasn’t an audio file but a video.

When she opened the video window, the previous piece had just ended, but the program was set to automatically play several videos in a row. Lin Xi watched as another video automatically started.

After a brief blackout, a familiar concert hall appeared on the screen, and Lin Xi was momentarily stunned. After the applause, she watched as a girl in a white dress gracefully stepped onto the center stage, slightly bowing to the judges and the audience below.

The girl had put on a light makeup, but her youthful features still exuded a touch of innocence. Lin Xi watched as the person in the footage sat at the grand piano, unable to believe her eyes, and turned to look at Yu Xiucheng.

Yu Xiucheng was also staring at her without turning away, his black eyes resembling a tranquil ancient well, so profound that one dared not look for too long.

It seemed that she really hadn’t touched the piano in such a long time, to the point where she couldn’t even recognize the piece she had played herself.

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Translator’s note: I’m still not back to top condition guys. I’m kinda in a slump right now. I hope I get over this soon. I keep trying to post my regular updates. Still, thank you for the support! 

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