CH 2

At the beginning, their student-teacher relationship hadn’t been all that bad.

Maze University had a tradition where, three months after their start date, new students were asked to select a professor as their direct mentor. This meant that students who had just started adapting to their new surroundings and new classes were forced to quickly settle in and plan out a clear path for their future.

It was a wonderful tradition - on paper perhaps. The actual execution, however, was a bit of a joke.

Every year, when it came time for students to make their selection, the senior students would gather in the school’s electronics marketplace. With beaming faces, they would peddle their AI inventions and meds claiming to cure selection anxiety and even specialty lottery tickets to snag certain professors. The services offered were comprehensive and the whole process had become a well-oiled machine.

Although the process may be absurd, the end result was still more or less the same - the majority of students still ended up choosing the professor who gave them a good impression.

Based on Gu Yan’s personality, Yan Suizhi knew Gu Yan hadn’t selected him through some lottery. Gu Yan must have followed the proper selection procedures, which meant that he had made a genuine attempt to walk the mountainous path of his ‘revered master’s teachings’. However, someone must have fed Gu-tongxue [1] rat poison along the way, and it was why he had leapt off the mountain without so much as a word.

In those rare moments when Yan Suizhi’s conscience would emerge, he would ponder over this particular problem. Unfortunately, he was never able to think on it for more than a few minutes before being interrupted by work matters. It was to the extent that, for a long time, he wasn’t able to figure out why this Gu-tongxue was so opposed to him. Eventually, Gu Yan had graduated and there was no need for Yan Suizhi to ponder anymore.

___

Going up and down the stairs took less than half a minute but the esteemed Professor Yan still managed to zone out within that time. When he recovered his senses, Gu Yan had already stepped aside to let the group of interns pass.

Gu Yan was his old student, after all, and Yan Sizhui couldn’t help but feel a bit rueful that under the current circumstances, there was so little fanfare to their reunion.

When he was about to turn a corner on the second floor, Yan Suizhi turned back and cast another glance downstairs. At that exact moment, Gu Yan, who had reached the bottom step, removed his wireless earpiece and looked up in his direction.

Yan Suizhi froze.

However, it was only a fleeting glance. Gu Yan’s gaze didn’t linger and he coolly withdrew it without a single shift in his expression or a change in his gait. He was already pushing open a door downstairs without a backward glance.

This was a completely normal reaction from a typical stranger and Yan Suizhi merely raised a brow, scratched the back of his head and turned on his heels. He strolled casually to the tail-end of the intern group and entered the conference room on the second floor.

“The rooms we passed by just now are our lawyers’ offices,” said Miss Fizz, the human resources manager. “More often than not, you wouldn’t be able to catch even a glimpse of them in there so today's your lucky day. You had a chance to greet a few of them on the stairs as well, though it seems some of you might have been otherwise preoccupied.”

The otherwise preoccupied Yan Suizhi responded with a small smile and raised his hand. “So sorry about that, I was probably too nervous.”

Everyone: “......”

His words could only be classified as pure and utter nonsense - anyone with eyes could see that he wasn’t fucking nervous at all!

Fizz waved a hand with a smile. “Not to worry. Young gentlemen who are a sight for sore eyes can always make my terrible temper go away.”

Perhaps it was because Miss Fizz seemed approachable, but two of the girls in the group struck up the courage to ask, “Are the lawyers downstairs accepting interns? All of them?”

Fizz’s expression was one that said ‘I've been there too’ and she replied, “I wish I could answer ‘yes, all of them’ but unfortunately, there’s one particular lawyer who’s the exception.”

“Which one?”

Miss Fizz smiled. “I’m afraid that if I give you the answer, your faces will be full of woe. My face was more full of woe than anyone else's when I first found out.”

“Oh...alright then,” the two girls said slowly. They had evidently caught on, probably because of some sort of mutual understanding between fellow admirers of aesthetics.

One could only guess if the other boys had figured it out for themselves but the blond kid who looked as if he had stepped on an electrical cord sure didn’t. He just stared blankly at them as they chatted.

The esteemed Professor Yan glanced at the blond kid with a critical eye, and gave him the same kind of silent assessment he had once used to sift through students and pick out the truly gifted. In Yan Suizhi’s opinion, the kid had all but reached the end of the road of his career. His lack of ability to grasp hidden meanings and read between the lines was worrying and if he were ever to go to court, the opposition would probably reduce him to a puddle of tears.

The two girls may be disappointed but Yan Suizhi was clapping his hands together in glee on the inside. He thanked his lucky stars that the zombie-faced Gu-tongxue didn’t accept any interns. Otherwise, in the event that disaster struck and he was assigned to Gu Yan, their roles as student and teacher would be thrown into chaos and become terribly awkward.

“Why doesn’t he take on any interns?” One of the more lively girls was still keen on carrying on the conversation.

Fizz didn’t seem to be tired of the topic either and replied, “He’s worried that his temper will drive away any interns, at least that’s what he told management. While it’s not clear if he was just giving them an excuse, I still think there’s a bit of truth to it.”

“Really? Is his temper that bad?”

“That’s not it, but…” She paused, seemingly incapable of finding the right words. In the end, she simply shrugged and said, “Anyway, don’t get your hopes up, ladies.”

Yan Sizhui was standing off to the side, as calm and composed as you please, as he listened to their conversation. Based on his understanding of Gu-tongxue’s personality, the reason he didn’t accept interns wasn’t because he was worried about pissing off the interns. The more likely reason was because management was afraid that the interns would anger him enough to drive him away.

The chances of that happening were pretty high.

Fizz continued to chat idly with the interns and after a short while, the lawyers that had been busy with something downstairs finally came back up and pushed open the door to the meeting room.

Once they had filed into the room and sat down, Fizz’s eyes scanned the room and she said, perplexed, “Where’s More? He said he could come by the office to meet the interns. Is he not here yet?”

“I didn’t see him today,” said a serious-looking lawyer with grey eyes and grey hair. “You’re sure he was free?”

“You can all chat first, I’ll go get ahold of him,” Fizz said, then turned on her stiletto heels and left the room.

Though it was simply a ‘chat’, in reality it was simply a less formal version of an interview. And while it was meant to be casual, an interview was still an interview and the topic always came back to past experience, the details of which were attached to an electronic file containing their registration documents.

Throughout the process, the esteemed Professor Yan maintained a graceful, relaxed smile and didn’t speak as he looked at the other interns. Given that his registration was from the black market, the electronic file was fake as well. And seeing as he was a counterfeit student, he had kept it modest - after all, the more he said, the easier it was to slip up and give himself away.

As a result, the sections in his electronic file noting his past experience as well as his awards and activities section were all but blank. At first glance, one would think that there was something wrong with the network and the file hadn’t loaded properly.

Moreover, his posture was too calm and too relaxed, and he had even shamelessly shifted his seat closer to the other lawyers. Over the course of the fourteen-minute ‘interview’, the interns subconsciously began to treat him as yet another interviewer.

Even the lawyers didn’t notice that he had infiltrated their group. As they nodded along, engrossed in a particular conversation, there were a few instances where they tossed out a “this batch of interns aren’t too bad, right?” at Yan Suizhi.

Professor Yan, ever the bright-eyed, bushy-tailed wolf, had smiled pleasantly as he replied, “Yes, they’re not bad at all.”

And when the lawyers left the conference room, they didn’t notice anything wrong at all.

Yan Suizhi was more than pleased with the results. The fact that he hadn’t instinctively turned things around and interviewed the lawyers himself was already a demonstration of great restraint.

However, ten minutes later, he could no longer bring himself to smile.

With hurried steps, Fizz rushed back and forth between the lawyers’ offices upstairs and management’s offices on the lower floor. Her high heels clicked incessantly and it was obvious that she was caught up in an issue that had cropped up at the last minute.

“You really want to do this? Are you sure? Why do I get the feeling that this is a dangerous idea?” Fizz’s voice floated through the half-opened door. She spoke quickly and there was something like...schadenfreude in her tone.

“I’m sure, I just spoke to him,” a low male voice replied.

“Did you get wrecked?”

The man clicked his tongue, “Stop laughing, we’ll just do it this way. Hurry up and go inside, don’t leave those students hanging.”

The students in the conference room glanced at each other nervously, faces filled with confusion.

A few moments later, Fizz walked through the door. She cleared her throat and said with a small smile, “All of you did an excellent job and the lawyers were very pleased with what you've shown. However, I have a bit of bad news to share. Lawyer More was supposed to take on an intern but unfortunately, he was involved in a shuttle accident. Right now, he’s stuck between two nearby planets and it’ll be over half a month before he can return. As a result, the intern that was meant to work with him will be paired with another lawyer.”

Yan Suizhi suddenly had a very bad feeling.

His sixth sense was selective in its accuracy. The chances of it being correct was about fifty-fifty and it only worked when the outcome was unclear. One could call it ‘speaking tragedies into existence’ or better yet, ‘having a crow’s mouth’.

Fizz continued, “Let me go over your assignments. Miss Philida, Lawyer Dean is pleased to be working with you in the coming period. Congratulations, Henry, Lawyer Aves will be your teacher…”

She went down the list of names and eventually turned towards Yan Suizhi with a radiant smile. “I’ve mentioned it already but I want to apologize again on behalf of Lawyer More. However, I’d like to congratulate you as Lawyer Gu will become your teacher going forward. Good luck.”

Yan Suizhi “......”

Although the words she had uttered were ‘good luck’, her tone made them sound more like ‘do your best’. The esteemed Professor Yan looked as if someone had splashed a bucket of liquid nitrogen in his face - the faint smile on his lips was so frozen it had almost split in half.

It took a few seconds for his expression to thaw and he replied, “Thank you.”

I’ll do my best to not piss off your distinguished lawyer and drive him away but...no promises.

After all, Yan Suizhi had pissed him off plenty of times back in the day.

Also…

Yan Suizhi thought to himself with a smile, ‘You’re better off telling Gu Yan to ‘do his best’. Youngsters should look out for themselves.’

Half an hour later, Yan Suizhi found himself sitting behind the intern’s desk that Fizz had found someone to set up. He was face-to-face with Gu Yan, who was seated behind his own larger lawyer’s desk.

Yan Suizhi took a silent sip of his coffee. “......”

Gu Yan took a sip of his coffee as well. “......”

The atmosphere was truly somber and for a moment, it was hard to tell who was visiting whose grave, and whose cup of coffee seemed like it was filled with cat shit.