DSMIS CH11

Chapter 11: You Don’t Even Call Me “Hero” Anymore

Shen Xing suddenly recalled how he had been so eager to treat the man to dinner earlier that afternoon. Resting his hands on the steering wheel, he had to admit that the feeling of being treated as a criminal suspect for the entire journey was undeniably unpleasant. Yet, at the end of the day, it was also true that this man had dug him out. Taking a deep breath, he raised his head to lock eyes with Jiang Lin and gritted his teeth:

“We’re eating.”

Jiang Lin let out a soft smile:

“Great then. I get off work at five tomorrow.”

Shen Xing offered a simple grunt. Jiang Lin took the initiative to shut the car door for him, watching as the orange Audi pulled out of the Public Security Bureau’s courtyard.

By the time he drove out of the bureau, it was already nearly seven o’clock, and the sky had turned dark. At this hour, there was bound to be no food left at the hospital cafeteria. Shen Xing had been terrified and tense earlier, and only after stepping out did he feel his stomach rumbling in hunger. As he drove toward his residential complex, his eyes scanned the small shops lining both sides of the street. Suddenly, he spotted a small-pot rice noodle shop right outside his residential complex. Thinking back to the bowl of rice noodles Jiang Lin had brought back that morning, his stomach let out another roar.

Even though the Land Cruiser bro treated me as a criminal suspect, the rice noodles he bought were actually pretty delicious. That’s the one, then.

Shen Xing pulled over to the curb. The moment he stepped out of the car, a gust of cold wind blew straight into his throat. Tucking his jacket in, he hurried inside. The shop was tiny with barely any seating indoors, but a plastic awning had been set up outside where quite a few customers were eating. The steaming bowls of rice noodles issued hot vapor, coating the plastic canopy in a thick condensation. The lively, grounded atmosphere gave off an unmistakable sense that it could easily be featured on A Bite of China. Just as Shen Xing sat down, a young boy wearing a school uniform who looked to be in primary school walked over and handed him a menu.

“One bowl of small-pot rice noodles and one side of crispy fried pork.”

“Alright. Any dietary restrictions?”

“No cilantro in the rice noodles.”

“Shi-ge! One small bowl of small-pot rice noodles, one order of crispy pork, hold the cilantro!”

After calling out the order to the cook across the counter, the boy moved deftly to clear the bowl and chopsticks left behind by the previous customer in front of Shen Xing. Shortly after, Shen Xing heard a young man’s clear, pleasant voice:

“Xiao Niu, you don’t need to clear that. I’ll take care of it in a bit—go inside and do your homework.”

Shen Xing raised his eyes toward the shop owner. He was tall and lean, with his sleeves rolled up and wearing disposable gloves, handling the noodles with practiced ease. A face mask covered most of his lower face, but when he raised his eyes, Shen Xing noticed the man had remarkably handsome eyes—the kind that his colleague Hao-ge from Plastic Surgery would probably call a “double eyelid template.”

Xiao Niu didn’t stop his hands, wringing out a rag to wipe down the table:

“I finished my homework at school.”

With that, he moved on to clear the next table.

In less than ten minutes, the young man walked over carrying the rice noodles and crispy pork:

“These are freshly fried crispy pancakes—have one on the house.”

Shen Xing quickly expressed his thanks, thinking to himself that while the owner was young, he certainly knew how to run a business.

The hot rice noodles warmed his stomach through and through, lifting his mood considerably. By the time he looked up after finishing, most of the customers in the shop had already left. He got up to pay, and the young owner raised his head:

“How was the food?”

Shen Xing offered a couple of heartfelt compliments before stepping outside. It was only seven-thirty when he headed back. He drove home and entered his apartment at seven-forty. This commute efficiency gave Shen Xing a newfound appreciation for the perks of living in a small county town. Taking a shower, he collapsed onto his bed.

Quiet. It was far too quiet—so quiet that it made him feel unsettled inside. He picked up his phone and dialed Xu Chun; he needed some therapeutic Samoyed energy right now.

Xu Chun picked up the video call, and immediately a fluffy white face pressed up against the screen, whimpering and whining the moment it saw Shen Xing. Judging by its movements, it was trying to nuzzle him, making Shen Xing’s heart melt instantly:

“Qianjin, do you miss Dad?”

Xu Chun scooped the fluffy snowball blocking the camera onto his lap, pinning it under his arm as he looked at Shen Xing:

“You arrived? Quick, show me where you’re staying! Is there enough room to raise your son?”

Shen Xing had already changed into his pajamas. He really couldn’t stand the fact that the indoor temperature here matched the outdoor temperature. Once he got into bed, he had zero desire to get back up. He used the rear camera to sweep around the room for him:

“One bedroom, one living room—just right for one person and one dog.”

“So when are you having Qianjin shipped over to you?”

Shen Xing checked the shipping status for the dog supplies he had ordered for the Samoyed:

“Let’s make it this Friday. I’ll arrange air transport for him, and I’ll go to Baoshan to pick him up on Saturday.”

Shen Xing cooed and doted on his Samoyed through the screen for a while before finally hanging up the call.

The next morning on his way to work, Shen Xing spotted a food stall set up outside the small-pot rice noodle shop from last night. It was the same tall, lean owner frying dough sticks. As the irresistible aroma wafted over, he couldn’t help walking up to order two fried dough sticks and a small bowl of rice noodles, polishing them off inside the shop in ten minutes before strolling casually over to the hospital for work.

Today’s situation was roughly the same as yesterday’s, with the patient demographic still consisting mostly of middle-aged and elderly folks. Shen Xing was getting somewhat used to “listening like a duck hearing thunder.” He barely checked his WeChat for the entire day, mostly because he couldn’t face the memory of his idiot self sending meme stickers to Jiang Lin yesterday.

It wasn’t until noon that his phone chimed. Picking it up, he saw a message from Jiang Lin featuring links to several restaurants: one for hand-pulled mutton/pork, one for sesame oil chicken, and another for wild mushroom hotpot:

“Dr. Shen, are you off work yet? These places are quite famous in the county town—which one do you prefer?”

This eager demeanor made him look less like the guest being treated and more like the host paying the bill. Shen Xing felt a slight headache coming on. He remembered Jiang Lin being fairly reserved along the road, hardly the type to eagerly push for a meal when someone else offered to treat him. Why was he being so proactive about this dinner? It made it impossible to back out even if he wanted to.

“I’m at the host’s disposal—you decide.”

There was a brief pause before a reply came through just as Shen Xing reached the cafeteria:

“Let’s go with the hand-pulled meat then. Their Dai-style grilled fish is pretty good too—you should try it.”

Shen Xing had no objections.

“Shall we meet straight at the restaurant after work then?”

“Sounds good.”

After finishing his shift, Shen Xing looked at the chat history and let out a sigh. Opening his navigation app, he realized the restaurant was only 800 meters from the hospital, so he decided not to drive and simply walked over.

Scanning the parking lot in front of the restaurant, he didn’t spot the Land Cruiser. Assuming Jiang Lin hadn’t arrived yet, he pushed open the door, only to see the man stepping out of a private room and waving at him:

“Over here.”

Since he was the one treating, Shen Xing—despite feeling a slight awkwardness in his heart—still enthusiastically handed over the menu for Jiang Lin to order:

“Officer Jiang, you’re here so early! I didn’t see your car and thought you hadn’t arrived yet. Order whatever you like.”

Still “Officer Jiang.” Jiang Lin pressed his lips together, opening the menu as a beaming smile suddenly flashed across his face:

“How about trying their house specialty then?”

Shen Xing suspected nothing:

“Sure thing.”

Jiang Lin immediately placed a picture right in front of Shen Xing:

“Do you eat roasted bamboo worms?”

Looking at the plump, white worms in the photo, Shen Xing’s pupils dilated. Taking a deep breath, his voice jumped an entire octave:

“This is the specialty dish here?!”

Jiang Lin chuckled, pulling back the menu:

“Sort of. Want to try it?”

Shen Xing truly had zero interest in eating insects; if those worms were served, he probably wouldn’t be able to swallow a single bite of the entire meal. Still, if Jiang Lin wanted to eat them, he would just pretend not to see. Just as he was about to grit his teeth and agree, he heard the man opposite him speak up:

“Just teasing you—we’re not eating that. One plate of hand-pulled meat, one Dai-style sour and spicy fish, plus a stir-fried donkey meat—does that work?”

Seeing that the man still had the heart to tease him, Shen Xing felt a slight surge of irritation. Nodding, he lowered his head to tear open the plastic wrap on his disposable tableware.

Jiang Lin asked the waiter for hot water and a basin for washing utensils. After scalding Shen Xing’s freshly unpacked tableware in boiling water, he set it back in front of him, raising his head to ask softly:

“Are you upset?”

Shen Xing thought he had concealed it well:

“No. What do I have to be upset about?”

“You don’t even call me ‘Hero’ anymore—it’s ‘Officer Jiang’ with every single breath.”

“Aren’t you Officer Jiang to begin with? As for me, I almost ended up a criminal suspect.”

Recalling the entire journey, Shen Xing felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him. He knew he had bad luck, but had it really been this absurdly overboard lately?

“I’ll admit, while we were on the road, I did intend to test you a little, but it wasn’t purely because I suspected you.”

Shen Xing kept his head down without saying a word. Jiang Lin took the initiative to pour him some fruit juice before continuing:

“I saw your car being searched at the checkpoint. You might not be very familiar with how these things work, but generally speaking, when a car is pulled over and thoroughly searched like yours was that day, it’s usually because someone ‘tipped off the police’ about the vehicle.”

“Tipped… tipped off? What does that mean?”

“It’s a bit of underworld slang. You can think of it as someone providing the police with specific information about drug traffickers.”

Shen Xing’s eyes widened:

“Someone tipped them off about my car?”

Jiang Lin felt somewhat helpless as well:

“Passing along intelligence carries risks, so the information isn’t usually terribly detailed—they only provide general matching characteristics. But no one expected your car’s brand, color, and even the last two digits of your license plate to match completely. So…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but Shen Xing already understood:

“So I was just the unlucky idiot that the police mistook for the target vehicle?”

Jiang Lin covered the corner of his mouth with his cup and nodded.

Well, then. Looking back now, the guarded, suspicious glares those police officers at the checkpoint had given him made total sense. Shen Xing, unwilling to accept that his luck could truly be this abysmal, asked with a last flicker of hope:

“Is the probability of making a mistake like this high?”

Jiang Lin pressed his lips together:

“It’s the first time I’ve ever encountered it since becoming a police officer.”

Shen Xing nodded three times in succession, then raised his glass and downed the orange juice in one go. Even though it was just orange juice, he drank it with the fierce momentum of Wu Song going up the mountain to slay a tiger. If there were a competition for bad luck, not even a top vocational school could train someone to beat him.

Jiang Lin silently refilled his glass with juice.

At that moment, the waiter opened the door and served a massive platter of hand-pulled meat amidst the bizarre atmosphere in the room. Shen Xing instinctively lowered his head; he was indeed starving. To be frank, the hospital cafeteria food tasted awful, and he hadn’t eaten his fill at lunch. Looking up now, he realized just how lavish this hand-pulled meat platter was: it didn’t just feature hand-pulled meat, but also cured sausages, smoked pork, salted duck eggs, and various unnamed wild greens and fruits. Shen Xing’s attention couldn’t help but shift from his own rotten luck straight onto the food.

“This place is considered the most authentic for hand-pulled meat in the county.”

“I thought it was going to be like Inner Mongolian hand-pulled meat, where it’s nothing but pure meat.”

Jiang Lin handed him a pair of disposable gloves before putting on a pair himself. Picking up a leaf that Shen Xing didn’t recognize, he wrapped a piece of meat inside, added two cucumber strips, dipped it in sauce, rolled it up, and passed it over:

“This is wild mountain onion leaf—it’s lightly pickled. Paired with this sauce, it tastes amazing. Give it a try.”

Shen Xing took it and bit down, his eyes lighting up instantly:

“Mm! Delicious.”

“Dr. Shen, I’m truly sorry about what happened on the road. Don’t be mad anymore.”

Shen Xing swallowed the entire roll of meat, waving his hand with a dazed expression:

“Don’t even mention it, Hero. My bad luck is off the charts—it’s like Bad Luck’s mother opening the door for Bad Luck, bringing bad luck all the way home. With a mind-boggling coincidence like that, if I were the cop, I’d have suspected me too.”