Winter Time Rendering

The mood lightened.

The four of them agreed to head to the supermarket inside the mall next.

Ruoping was rather tactful. After finishing her chocolate, she went off to chat with Qingyi. As she left, she shot Zhang Shutong a glance. He knew what it meant: she and Gu Qiuyan were okay now, but she and he still had something to "discuss."

Those two walked ahead.

Zhang Shutong and Gu Qiuyan walked behind them. Zhang Shutong gave her an admiring thumbs-up, only to have Gu Qiuyan roll her eyes at him.

"You think I *wanted* to apologize?"

"Then why did you?"

But she didn’t elaborate.

Gu Qiuyan then huffed, "And I still have a score to settle with you. Why didn’t you accept my chocolate earlier?"

Zhang Shutong could only apologize. But she seemed to be just venting and didn’t really mean it, as her attention soon shifted.

"Your mom looks so young."

"She’s okay, I guess."

"Oh no, was I rude to her just now?"

"It’s fine, she’s very easygoing," Zhang Shutong said casually.

"Ugh, you’re impossible..." She stomped her foot and huffed, "Anyway, your mom told me all about your childhood."

"What all did she tell you?" Zhang Shutong froze.

"She said you can’t cook."

"That’s not so bad. What else?"

"Crybaby."

"That’s ridiculous," Zhang Shutong said, his face darkening. "She didn’t say anything else, did she?"

He was terrified his mom would let one thing slip—to borrow a phrase from Qingyi, it was a secret a man must protect at all costs: his childhood nickname.

Not even his best friends knew about it. After he started middle school, he’d made a pact with his mom: she could call him "son" or by his full name, and that was it.

It wasn’t that he found the name "Tongtong" itself shameful. ’It’s that if they found out, they’d actually have the nerve to call me Tongtong. Especially Ruoping.’

He suddenly understood how Mianmian must have felt back then.

Desperate to know more, Zhang Shutong asked, "So, what else did you two talk about?" But Gu Qiuyan simply mimicked his usual tone, putting on a cool expression as she replied:

"That’s classified."

"What’s there to keep secret about?"

"You’re the one who always says that to me when I ask you things."

Zhang Shutong thought, ’How is that the same? I keep secrets to find a culprit. What are you keeping secrets for?’

They soon reached the supermarket entrance, where Zhang Shutong casually grabbed a shopping cart and started pushing it.

The cart’s wheels rumbled over the small floor tiles. It was crowded today, and in the blink of an eye, Qingyi and Ruoping had vanished.

"What did you guys come here to buy today?" Gu Qiuyan asked curiously.

"Just picking out some snacks for a gift. It mainly depends on what Du Kang likes."

Looking around, the first things that caught his eye were items on sale: laundry detergent, milk, and so on. Speaking of which, Zhang Shutong had assumed his mom was there to shop, but he hadn’t seen her holding anything.

Then again, his mom had another brilliant move—

She had taken the snack from Ruoping’s hand not because she was actually hungry, but because she’d seen there were only three pieces, which would have been awkward to divide among the four of them.

He felt his mom was incredibly perceptive. He wondered if all women eventually became this shrewd. For instance, Gu Qiuyan’s performance just now was also quite masterful... Zhang Shutong quickly shook his head, realizing he’d been too deeply corrupted by Song lately. How had he also started generalizing about "women" all the time?

’Better to just focus on shopping.’

Zhang Shutong rarely shopped at large supermarkets. When he did, his only job was to push the cart. It used to be his mom in the lead, then it became Ruoping, but today it was another woman entirely.

Gu Qiuyan grabbed the cart and headed off in one direction, getting annoyed if Zhang Shutong was too slow. So he simply pushed the cart with one hand while texting with his head down. It was a message from Qingyi; apparently, he was a bit bored too.

The two were still discussing the housekeeper issue.

"I just explained it to Ruoping. She said she was just kind of annoyed with you for no real reason, but you know Ruoping always has her priorities straight. She said she’ll definitely help if anything comes up."

"That’s good. In any case, be prepared."

"Got it. That’s why we’re giving you two some private time."

"That’s not the kind of prepared I meant. I’m talking about the case."

"You’re still planning on investigating?"

"Possibly. I might have more to do today."

"You could ask Gu Qiuyan if her family’s housekeeper is a local or from off-island."

"I’ve already heard her accent," Zhang Shutong typed back. "She’s not a local. Besides, that whole line of thinking is a bit flawed."

"How so?"

"Trying to analyze her motive is too difficult. Whether she’s a local or not, who she has a grudge against, what caused it—we’ll never be able to find all that out. The only thing we can do is take precautions. Or, use a process of elimination."

Just as he was preparing to type out a long explanation, Gu Qiuyan was constantly at his side asking, "Want this? How about that?" Her voice was like a gentle, persistent drizzle in his ear. Zhang Shutong looked up and realized they had already reached the snack aisle.

Now, one of them was pushing the cart, and the other was walking beside it. Based on Zhang Shutong’s limited understanding of women, he knew they were always inspired to buy things by the sight of dazzling, fully-stocked shelves.

Gu Qiuyan picked up a tube of potato chips, turned around, and asked:

"Should we get this?"

It was actually a tube of Copico.

’I feel like I haven’t seen these in years,’ he thought, shaking his head. "Du Kang doesn’t like the ones in a tube."

"Who said I was asking about him?" Gu Qiuyan wrinkled her nose. "I was asking you."

"I’m good with whatever."

"Why are you always ’good with whatever’?" Gu Qiuyan tossed the chips into the cart and picked up a bag of milk biscuits. "How about these?"

"They’re not good."

"But didn’t you just say you like sweets?" she grumbled, putting the biscuits back on the shelf. It seemed this wasn’t a case of her wanting them but being too embarrassed to grab them directly, so she was just using him as an excuse to ask.

Zhang Shutong, for his part, was wondering when he had ever said he liked sweets.