266 Would You Like Some Coffee?

"It can be done, not an issue," Fredrick replied after a while. "Get me a topographical map of the city and a place with a good internet connection."

Everyone, except Shelby's mouth twitched at the latter part of Fredrick's requirement. 

Internet?

You don't have that here?

Everyone had the same thought in their mind, but it was finally Wu Zihao who decided to speak out his mind, "You don't have that here?"

"There has been some trouble from the past few days. So it would be a problem for me to work from here."

"You can come to the Wu Mansion, then?" offered Song Jia.

"I am getting all your stuff transferred right now. Meet me at the mansion." Wu Zihao said and then got up from the couch to make a phone call before leaving along with Song Jia and Wei Xin.

Wu Zihao's car drove off first and just when Song Jia was about to get in her car, her phone rang. She pulled it out to see the caller and her lips curled into a faint smile.

"Grandpa!"

Being a man of few words, Song Guang cut directly to the chase. "Little Jia, come to share breakfast with this old man tomorrow. I have taken care of a very important job for you."

"What job?" Song Jia asked.

"Just come tomorrow, and you will find it out yourself." Song Guang was adamant about not telling it over the phone, which made Song Jia chuckle.

"Alright, I will be there on time tomorrow, grandpa." Despite his habit of not sugarcoating anything and cutting directly to the chase, Song Jia never felt about it. She knew how much he loved her and could easily picture the faint smile on his face when he spoke; his fondness for his granddaughter had always been unbridled after all. Song Jia agreed in a heartbeat to go and visit him and then hung up before her car drove off.

...

The sun was barely up when Song Jia got out of the bed and reached for the room in which Fredrick was working. Seeing the door ajar and lights turned on, she hesitated for a moment because of the inappropriate timing, before she finally decided to knock and open it. "Hey, I am sorry for the odd timing." She spoke as she peeked inside from the door.

Fredrick lifted his head from one of the computers and saw who it was. Song Jia had barely slept all night and her eyes looked a bit red from the lack of sleep, but her body refused to rest under so much anxiety of finding Wu Zhang. He, however, chose to not comment on it and gave a small smile and waved his hand in front of him. "Ha. not an issue. I am not going to sleep soon anyway." After he punched a few more keys in a system he said, "You don't have to stand on the door. Please feel free to come in."

"Any progress?" Despite her unexpressive voice, she could not hide the small hint of hope in her eyes.

"Yes, but not very close. It would take me several more hours I think. Can't say anything before that." He replied while creating a circle with a red marker on the map laid on the table.

Song Jia nodded her head and then watched him from the sidelines as he worked. He would do something on a few systems, then would reach for a computer that had a CCTV footage of the roads of F City running. When she observed more closely, she realized that the footage had Wu Zhang's car in it. Fredrick watched the video for a while and then reached back to the table and marked another circle on the map. 

"Wasn't this footage deleted?" She asked in surprise.

"Yeah I restored it after hacking into various systems," Fredrick replied nonchalantly as if it was a child's play for him.

He had the bits of the erased video restored and was tracing the route to find out where Wu Zhang's car was spotted last! Song Jia was totally surprised when she heard it. Every hacker that she had contacted told her that they would either take at least a week to do it or would not be able to do it at all because it was the government's system that they were talking about. But this man pulled it off over just one night?! This was shocking! Now she knew why Wu Zihao went to seek his help.

She stood in her spot and continued observing for a while before finally taking her leave, not intending to disturb him in his work.

Fredrick continued working until he heard a soft knock on the door once again. He tilted his head to see Wei Xin's face appearing in the small gap between the door before it was finally pushed open to reveal her entire body. 

Fredrick was surprised to see her at the Wu Mansion and could not help asking, "You are here at this hour?"

It was barely five in the morning.

Wei Xin cleared her throat, looking slightly awkward before she said, "Yeah I am living here temporarily, to keep Song Jia company."

Fredrick nodded his head in understanding and shifted his focus back to the computer screen in front of him.

"Umm... I was going to make myself a cup of coffee... would you like some as well?" She had been feeling quite embarrassed about her behavior previously and wanted to apologize, but seeing him so focused on the work, she decided it would not be appropriate to disturb him right now.

A flash of surprise surfaced in Fredrick's eyes when he heard those words and his fingers paused for a second. The next moment a very faint smile, that was hard to detect appeared on his lips, before he finally schooled his features back to his poker face. "Sure!"

Wei Xin who had missed that reaction soon came back with two coffee mugs in her hand and handed over one to him, to which he just murmured a nonchalant "thank you."

"I hope you don't find it very bitter, I don't put sugar in mine and I wasn't sure how much do you put in yours so I haven't added much." 

Fredrick took a sip and then slightly raising his mug towards her, he said, "No it's great. Not bitter at all."

"Great." She looked as if she wanted to say more, but could not bring herself to. "Well since there is nothing more, I shall head back to my room first." 

"Sure!"

As soon as Wei Xin left, Fei Rong's entire face scrunched up from the bitter taste in his mouth and he rubbed his tongue against the upper ridge of his mouth to get rid of that bitter taste. Unable to bring himself to drink that coffee anymore, he placed the coffee mug aside with a thud, spilling some coffee on the desk as well.

No wonder she has such a bitter tongue! He thought.