Slowly Smiling

Gan Luo picks up the balloon flowers and makes a run for it, but someone grabs her by the back of her collar and pulls her into his arms. She whirls around and glares at him. “I didn’t expose you when you were pretending to be unconscious, so what’s wrong with me taking one pot of your balloon flowers?”

Taking her height into consideration, Zhang Xiao bends down slightly. “You really have the nerve to bring up my ‘unconsciousness’? Don’t you remember what you did back then?”

“I… I didn’t do anything.” Gan Luo’s ears turn bright red. She grits her teeth and tries to stand her ground, but her confidence wavers. How was she supposed to know he’d hold a grudge and settle the score later?

“From the sound of it, you’re saying what you told me back then doesn’t count either?” Zhang Xiao refuses to let her off the hook.

She looks up at his devastatingly handsome face, cheeks burning as she sticks out her chin. “It counts.”

The corners of Zhang Xiao’s lips lift in satisfaction. He tugs Gan Luo closer. “You can have them, but if you let them die, girl… how should I punish you?”

“How could I possibly let them die?” Gan Luo shakes her head obediently and says with confidence, “I’ll take better care of them than you do!”

Zhang Xiao sees the stars in her eyes and pinches her cheek. “Good. After all, you’re the only person I’ll ever give balloon flowers to.”

[Balloon flower meaning], Unchanging love

[Genre] Fresh and sweet (very sweet, you could say), crime-solving and suspense (they solve cases while falling in love; each case gets its own arc, and the heroine Gan Luo herself is the main clue)