Su Jin called back, and the person on the other end picked up almost instantly. The lighting was dim, so she could only vaguely see his silhouette. If she remembered correctly, it should be Lu Hao himself.
"..."
When he did not say anything, Su Jin had to start the conversation herself. "I was on a video call with my family just now, so I missed your calls."
"Right."
"..."
Would it kill him to say something more? Su Jin resisted the urge to hang up.
"Um, have you eaten?" Lu Hao finally realized that he should say something.
"No. I just reached the hotel, and I'm planning to go eat after a bit."
"I see. I'm out on a mission, so I'm still outside." Su Jin finally knew why it was all dark on Lu Hao's side. When she heard that he was still out on a mission this late at night, she could not help but sigh at how difficult his job was.
"Be careful out there." Su Jin gave him a word of concern eventually.
"I will. Tell me if you need anything on your end. I know people in G Province who can help."
What help would she possibly need? Actually… There was something she could use some assistance with.
"Lu Hao, I don't need your connections, but I might… need you to help me with a small favor." When he heard what she was going to say next, would he think she was going insane?
"Sure, go on."
"..." Why did he sound like her boss giving her orders? All of a sudden, she was a lot more reluctant to ask.
Nevertheless, she was the one asking him for something. Su Jin forced herself to smile, but in Lu Hao's eyes, it looked like she was flirting with him.
"Lu Hao, do you have any money? Um, could you lend me some?"
His adorable little wife looked so cute when she was trying to butter him up like this. Lu Hao felt his throat tighten.
Did she want to borrow money from him? But his money was her money too.
"Of course. I'll transfer the money to you tomorrow," Lu Hao said without hesitation.
"!!!???" That was a little too direct, no? He did not even ask how much she wanted and skipped straight to the transferring part.
"Aren't you going to ask how much I want to borrow?" Su Jin asked despite herself.
"I'll give you all my savings. They're yours to begin with." Lu Hao was starting to feel like a bit of a failure. It was only natural for a husband to give his wife money, yet here he was forcing her to borrow it from him.
The way Lu Hao said he was handing her all his savings as though it was common sense made Su Jin's heart swell all of a sudden. See, that was her husband. Even his love was so straightforward and overwhelming! Still, he was just a captain in the police force, so he probably did not have that much in savings. She never knew how much he actually earned, but her instincts told her that a job in the civil service like that would not pay all that much.
Nevertheless, that did not affect her current good mood. She happily hung up, having bid him goodbye and even blowing a kiss to him across the screen.
"..."
Lu Hao looked at the blank screen, feeling somewhat dazed. His young wife had been all shy after their wedding, but now she was blowing him kisses? How could she be so cute? He wanted nothing more than to hug her tight right now.
Just then, Yin Chengtian, the occupant of the bunk bed above Lu Hao, lowered his head over the side and teased his roommate, "You sure get along well with your wife, eh, Cap'n?"
"Can't sleep, can you?" Lu Hao's voice cut through the darkness, eight degrees colder than before. "If you're having trouble sleeping, come down here and do a hundred push-ups."
"No, Captain, I was going to sleep, honest! I just accidentally overheard you!" Yin Chengtian wanted to slap himself right now. Why did he have to open his big mouth and tease his captain about his wife? The captain clearly worshipped the ground she walked on…
If he completed this mission properly, he might be able to take some time off and stay at home to spend some quality time with Su Jin. When Lu Hao remembered that Su Jin was going to be abroad for a month, he started feeling down again.
While Lu Hao was drawing circles in his own corner, Su Jin rested for a while in the hotel and then headed out to hunt for food.
She had eaten a meal on the plane, but since Su Jin realized that she had revived and traveled back in time, she could not help but feel a painful emptiness in her gut. She was hungry, hungry enough to eat a horse.
There was a food street not far from the hotel. It was crowded, but it still looked like heaven to Su Jin. A month from now, she might never see such peaceful, prosperous times again.
Su Jin bought two sets of stinky tofu and a deep-fried sausage from the tofu stall, eating the sausage as she walked around looking for the next thing to eat. The sausage was delicious, and even if it was not all that nutritious, its tempting aroma and the delightful deep-fried texture were enough to put tears of happiness in her eyes.
She frequented over a dozen other stalls, until she was holding more food than she could hold properly. There were a few sticks of roasted gluten, a box of milk pudding, a braised duck neck, and a carton of cakes. Finally, Su Jin walked into a beef noodle shop to rest for a moment. Of course, she could not skip out on ordering a bowl of beef noodles, a big portion with two extra slices of beef at that.
By the time she returned to the hotel entrance, Su Jin was feeling almost too full to walk. There was no helping it; after all, she had been starving for the past two years! During the apocalypse, it was impossible to find a full meal. Food production came to an abrupt halt, and there was a food shortage everywhere. A bowl of thin porridge was a luxury. Many people would sell anything for some food, be it their friends, family, or even their own bodies. The apocalypse revealed the true nature of humanity, exposing the dirty deals in every corner of the world. Sometimes, Su Jin even felt as though happiness itself was impossible to find in the apocalypse, and that she might be better off just ending it all. Even the man-eating zombies seemed to live better lives than the human survivors.
Once Su Jin returned to her room, she noticed a few unread messages on her phone.
One of them was a bank notification, telling her that she received a transfer of 4.2 million from one Lu Hao. Su Jin's hand shook as she counted the number of zeroes in that figure. She had to confirm that it was not 420 thousand but 4.2 million!
What the flipping heck?! Did police captains really earn that much? Her husband was freaking loaded!
Su Jin made a solemn oath to make the most of Lu Hao's money as she sent him a text.
'Received. Thanks, love you! xo'
In the darkness, Lu Hao read her message and smiled to himself. Why did it feel like Su Jin had become much cuter since she went outstation? Could she be missing him?
Lu Hao never considered for a moment that it was because he had just transferred her a fortune. All he knew was that he was feeling much more confident about the operation at dawn.
After his 'adorable sweetheart' Su Jin finally calmed down, she checked her other unread messages. One of them was a WeChat friend request from Assistant Zhang. As soon as she confirmed it, she received a message from the other side.
'Miss Su, I'll pick you up at eight in the morning tomorrow so you can go pick up your company pass, alright?'
'Got it. Thanks for informing me.' Su Jin quickly sent him a reply.
Assistant Zhang responded with an animated sticker of two characters walking side by side. Su Jin thought that it was truly a perfect representation of what Assistant Zhang was currently thinking.
The other messages were pictures from the family dinner, courtesy of Lin Xiuyuan. He even teased her for being away and missing out on such an elaborate, loving family dinner. Su Jin did not hold back, asking him if he had finished Grandma's soup on her behalf. As expected, Lin Xiuyuan ignored her message and continued to spam her with photos, trying to drown out her 'heartless interrogation'.
Just then, Su Jin saw a four-word reply from her other cousin, Mao Qiqi. 'He didn't drink it.'
Lin Xiuyuan: 'Oops, I forgot to memorize my vocab. Gtg study now, bb.'
Su Jin: '...'
Su Jin really wanted to tell him that he could forget about his vocabulary and the college entrance exam. All he had to do was stick to her from now on. Nevertheless, now was not the time to say that yet. Once she returned to H City, she was going to tell her family the truth, whether they believed her or not. That included Lu Hao, of course. This time, she was going to make sure she did not lose sight of that idiot despite his terrible sense of direction...