[A grounded florist and counselor × a criminal investigation consultant who learns to be gentle for her | White roses can see your secrets]
Shen Qingwan is a counselor at a mysterious flower shop.
When clients come for consultations holding one of my white roses, I can see the deepest images in their hearts: a car window on a rainy night, a rusted iron gate, a pocket watch opening and closing again and again in the dusk.
Then criminal investigation consultant Gu Weian walked through my door with photos from a murder scene.
Three hundred and twenty-seven white rose petals scattered around the body.
As he held my flower, I saw the killer’s gun pointed straight at my heart.
“Ms. Shen,” he said, his gaze sharp. “There’s a fingerprint on the back of the eleventh petal. Yours.”
The police wanted me to hand over the names of every client who had bought white roses.
I refused.
“Professional ethics prevent me from revealing any client’s secrets.”
“But,” I said, sliding over a professional analysis, “the killer desperately wanted redemption, but went about it the wrong way. They may have come to see me.”
Gu Weian stared at me for a long time.
Later, he told me that in that moment, he hadn’t seen a suspect.
He had seen someone who would not budge when it came to her professional principles.
After that, he often came to my flower shop late at night.
Sometimes he brought case files, sometimes a bowl of hot congee.
“I’m not here to protect you,” he said. “I’m here to work with you.”
“But my flowers are particular,” I said, snipping a white rose and handing it to him. “They need soil that’s honest enough.”
He took the flower, and a thorn pricked his fingertip.
As his blood seeped into the petals, I saw a new image, not a gun pointed at me.
It was him, kneeling in the garden late at night, clumsily tying a support stake to my white rose, which was suffering from the backlash of its supernatural power.
