Chapter 104: Things that humble.

The day ended without an arrest. As soon as Weijun heard about this, he showed up to the precinct to pick up his wife. He tracked her down to the pier, where she was sitting with her her pants rolled up to her knees, and a bottle of beer in her hand.

“Drowning your sorrows in alcohol detective Liwu.” He said, squatting beside her, before plopping down completely and stretching his legs like hers.

His shoulders brushed against hers, and he inhaled deeply. The sea did not smell sweet in the way actors and actresses made it seem in dramas. It smelled like snails, sea gull poop, fish and sea weed. Ever since Old Tai showed up in the city, Weijun had been losing his love for the sea he longed for deeply once upon a time.

“Do you know how many petitions I have received today with people demanding that I ban circus-style events? Others want gatherings of more than fifty people to be banned with the exception of events in stadiums or legal places of gathering. On the other hand, I have business people who are worried about how this event is going to affect them.”

She handed him a beer and ripped open a bag of nuts.

“No permits for neighborhood watches?” She asked. “Isn’t it sad how the assault of a woman has been turned into politics? It has been reduced to pros and cons on the scales of some people.”

Weijun shrugged. “That is the way the world works. Politics, economics: these things are safer than crime scenes to many. The leakage of those pictures and messages did not help.”

Before she could respond, a wave rose, formed a fist and punched her husband in the face, leaving him drenched.

Weijun sputtered.

“Great great grandpa!” Liwu screamed.

Weijun growled, rose and ripped off his shirt. “That’s it!” he declared, “I am going to fight you head on.”

Liwu reached for his hand, pulling him down. “You want to dive into the sea and fight the king of the sea. Are you crazy or have you swallowed to much sea salt?”

Weijun stomped his foot!

Liwu’s mouth widened into a smile.

“He is bullying me Liwu.” Her husband whined. “The old man picks on me whenever he gets a chance. I am tired of this. What did I do to offend him?”

She still pulled him down. As he sat down on the wet wood, she said softly. “My father gets the same treatment fifty percent of the time. My great great grandpa is not a fun of the Zhang family so he dislikes my father, just a little bit. He does not like your Shen family either, but in due time, you will grow on him and then he will find someone else to pick on.”

Weijun snorted. Was his wife hearing herself? What did she mean by he would find someone else to pick on? It would be best if the old man stopped picking on people. Full stop.

Old Tai was a bully and becoming a system host had just amplified it.

The night air was cool, a lighthouse in the distance flashed a light in their direction and remained still, instead of rotating like it was supposed to do. Liwu thought about directly asking her husband how he was able to track down new system hosts, but she decided not to.

He would just ask her how she knew and she would have to admit that sometimes, Majesty spied on him.

“I had forgotten what it looked like when the stars dipped into the waves.” Weijun whispered.

Liwu thought back on all the times she slept in a boat, watching the stars in the sky. The sea would sing her lullabies and the waves would rock her to sleep. Tonight, she wished she would do just that. The world was just so….dirty, complicated. Ugly.

Weijun shivered.

She reached into her bag and handed him a floral shirt and one of her trench coats. “Thank you,” he said softly. After changing, he sat down and took a sip of his beer.

“You know,” Liwu said, licking the top of her bottle, “if you had not suffered bad luck, what would you have done with your life?”

She tilted her head, her dark hair brushing her cheek. “I would still have been a detective. What about you? If you hadn’t gotten that system which made you build a city, what would you be today?”

Weijun chuckled, the sound low and warm. “I would be an architect. I always liked building things, houses especially.”

She smiled faintly, though her eyes stayed on the water. “Can you imagine it, if we met as an ordinary couple, in a world without systems. In a world where I was not unlucky. You would be an architect with ink-stained hands, I would be the chief of police. We would live in a house you built and I would never have to hear things like ’the image of the city,’ ’the president commands.’”

Weijun laughed again, softer this time. “It is also possible that I would have become a politician and we would still be under the President’s control. Think about it, as the chief of police, he would be your ultimate boss.”

She pursed her lips. “Hey, this is a fictional world. Why can’t the fictional President be a she?”

He rolled his eyes. “Well…she would still be your boss.”

“Do you still get pleasure in your job ever since you became a system host?” She raised a random question.

Weijun was quiet for a moment. Waves lapped against the pier, filling the silence. “In the beginning, yes. I had always dreamed of shaping skylines, the system made it too easy. But without the struggle, I slowly came to stop enjoying it. It became ordinary…like working an assembly line in a factory. When I look at what I have built, there are times when I get no fulfillment.”

Liwu turned to him, her gaze steady. His answer was surprisingly more genuine than she expected. “I was pampered a little more than my siblings, when I was a child. I think it used to make Xifeng jealous. Then I got bad luck and some of that pampering went away. In my teenage years, I used to wonder if it was fate’s way of keeping me humble, or punishing me for my past arrogance.”

Weijun turned his eyes to her, and she looked away. This case, someone wanted to humble the victim, teach her a lesson for being arrogant. It reminded me of my past. If I had smooth victories all my life, maybe I would not be the woman I am today.”

He raised his bottle in a mock toast. “Then I am grateful for the bad luck, because I like the woman you are today.”

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