Seeing the SUV stop beside him, Xiang Kun was shocked. Someone was actually willing to stop for him.
The car window was lowered and a middle-aged man with slightly dark skin tone and a crew cut hairstyle looked at Xiang Kun from head to toe and asked, “Brother, why are you barefoot?”
Xiang Kun used the reason he had planned initially and replied, “Sigh! My shoes broke when I was hiking, so I had no choice but to walk barefoot. Are you guys heading down the mountain? Can you give me a ride and drop me off at the foot of the mountain? I will look for a car after that.”
The middle-aged man turned and looked back at his friend, the driver, and asked in a low tone, “Let him on?”
Normally, with that volume and the distance between the driver and Xiang Kun, Xiang Kun, who was standing outside the car, should not have been able to hear anything. However, Xiang Kun’s hearing allowed him to hear everything clearly. However, he did not bother. Even if the people in the car have ill intentions and wanted to do something bad to him, he could “protect himself”.
However, based on his observations, that was unlikely.
The driver looked like a 30 to 40-year-old middle-aged man. He wore glasses and looked like a gentleman. He did not reply but merely nodded.
The middle-aged man who was sitting beside the driver opened the door, got out of the car, and said to Xiang Kun, “Get on. It’s on the way anyway. The weather is hot and you are not wearing any shoes, you will probably be crippled by the time you walk down the mountain like this.”
The middle-aged man opened the back door of the car and sat behind. He let Xiang Kun sit beside the driver as there was another demure young lady who was sitting at the back of the car.
Xiang Kun thanked them as he took off his bag and hugged it in his hands, ready to get in the car.
“Hold on,” said the bespectacled driver suddenly.
Xiang Kun was stunned and retreated from the car. If they suddenly changed their mind, he would not complain. After all, he did not think that they would allow him in the car in the first place.
However, the driver pulled his hand brake and changed to the P gear. Then he got out of the car and opened the trunk and said to Xiang Kun, “I have a pair of slippers in the car, you can put them on. My shoe size is 44, you should be able to fit into it, right?”
After taking the slippers and a bottle of mineral water, the driver closed the trunk and went to Xiang Kun. He placed the slippers beside his feet and passed him the mineral water.
Xiang Kun thanked him as he took the mineral water and was ready to put on the shoes.
“Erm… the water is for you to wash your feet,” reminded the driver awkwardly.
“Oh oh.” Xiang Kun looked down and realized that his feet were really dirty. There was a layer of mud around his feet.
After rinsing his feet with the water, he put the slippers on and sat in the car. Then he continuously thanked the middle-aged man who had moved to the back of the car.
The car moved off. Xiang Kun saw that the young lady at the back of the car was wearing sunglasses through the rear mirror.
The middle-aged man who was sitting beside the young lady saw Xiang Kun’s gaze and smiled. “She is my daughter, she is blind.”
Xiang Kun actually guessed it but did not know how to react, since the middle-aged man had said it so bluntly. He could only nod and change the topic. “I tried to flag down five cars along the way, and you are the only one who stopped for me. I thought I was going to walk down the mountain by myself. Thank you so much, you guys are really good samaritans… You will be repaid for your good deed.”
“Brother, you should choose a pair of better quality shoes if you plan to hike.” The middle-aged man laughed.
Xiang Kun smiled bitterly. “I have no experience, it’s my first time hiking.”
“With your outfit and walking barefoot, it’s no wonder people did not dare to stop for you,” laughed the driver.
“Yeah, I know, that’s why I was surprised that you guys were willing to stop for me,” said Xiang Kun honestly.
“That’s because I can tell that you are not a bad guy,” said the driver.
“Oh? You can tell?” said Xiang Kun. “Honestly, if I was driving, I wouldn’t dare to stop for someone like me.”
The driver said, “You flagged down the car in an open area. That means that you wouldn’t have been able to ambush us when we pulled over. Moreover, someone who has bad intentions will usually dress up in a pitiful way. Although you don’t have any shoes, you looked calm and were neither frowning or smiling. From your body language, I could tell: you can choose to stop or not.”
Xiang Kun and the middle-aged man at the back of the car laughed uncontrollably.
Although he sounded rather forced, Xiang Kun added, “You have good observation skills, did you learn psychology?”
“Hey, our job involves some knowledge regarding psychology.” The driver smiled.
Instead of waiting for Xiang Kun to guess their jobs, the middle-aged man added, “He is a policeman. If you are really a bad guy or a criminal, you are doing him a favor.”
Xiang Kun was astonished. So that was why.
However, the driver shook his head and said, “No, if I felt that he was a bad guy, I would not have stopped the car, since both you and Little Apple are in the car.”
After chatting for a short while, Xiang Kun realized that although the fact that the gentleman who was wearing glasses was a policeman was shocking, the slightly tanned man with a crew cut sitting at the back of the car was actually a university professor.
That was… one could not judge a book by its cover!
Of course, they were shocked to hear that Xiang Kun worked as a programmer. The driver joked that he would’ve believed Xiang Kun if he wore a robe and said that he was a monk.
Xiang Kun said that he had gone for a hike since his company had closed down. He wanted to enjoy the scenery and lighten his mood. Of course, he had not revealed that he had already stayed for four and a half days in the mountains. Instead, he said that he began to climb the mountain from the side and did not know how he had ended up at this place. He nearly got lost and found the road, so he continued walking down the road. Unfortunately, his shoes broke.
Some of his words were real, while some were made up. Most of the truths he told were easily verified.
The driver, who was a policeman, was called Li Sheng. He was the biological brother of Assistant Professor Li Yang. The quiet girl who Li Sheng called “Little Apple” was Li Yang’s daughter.
They had gone to the temple on the mountain to visit a relative and then went bird-spotting since it was along the way.
However, Xiang Kun was rather confused with the claim of “bird-spotting” since Li Yang’s daughter was blind.
Li Yang saw his confusion and explained, “Although my daughter cannot see, her hearing is much better than ordinary people’s. She can differentiate the different sounds made by birds. She can even tell the intention behind those sounds—if they were mating, greeting each other, or provoking each other.”
Xiang Kun could understand as he would blindfold himself to focus his attention on his sense of smell and hearing when he trained initially. When one could not rely on one’s vision, one’s sense of hearing and smell had more potential.
It was normal for one to be able to distinguish the different sounds of birds. If Xiang Kun was given enough time, he could do that too. Of course, with the help of smell, he could distinguish the species more easily.
However, it was impressive for the young lady to be able to judge a bird’s intention based on the sounds it made.
Xiang Kun did not think that professor Li Yang was boasting. Therefore, he asked how the young lady managed to judge the bird’s intention based on the sounds it made.