CH 8

“Don’t you think so?” Gu Yan said.

Yan Suizhi, in his head, said: ‘Yeah, well. You aren’t wrong about that.’ 

But his mouth already started spouting out nonsense. This person was so adept at talking nonsense that he didn’t even need time to fabricate excuses; the words came out naturally as soon as he opened his mouth. “I don’t believe I’ve ever said that this is my first time encountering such things, right?”

Gu Yan looked at him.

Yan Suizhi began to blather, “My father was a lawyer as well. I had encountered all sorts of things with him. Several times I had accidentally overheard him on call in the study without an earpiece on, and the words ten times more vicious than this. I was still young the first time I came across it and got a great shock. Hearing it again afterwards, it no longer has the same impact.”

The esteemed Professor Yan was well-versed in the art of telling lies. He knew that he couldn’t go too deep into the specifics. Only those who were clear that they were scamming others would dive into a lengthy essay to convince the other, and deliberately craft some details to make it more believable. 

This was similar to sticking a ‘there isn’t any treasure buried here’ sign above a hidden trove; the more one tried to hide, the more glaring the signs of a guilty conscience.

When making actual small talk, unless in the mood, such stories would be quickly tided over with a few sentences. Because what was spoken was the truth, so there wasn’t any need to worry if the other believed it.

Once he finished his story, he peeked at Gu Yan’s face out the corner of his eye.

He couldn’t quite see his face clearly, but in any case, Gu Yan wasn’t using any kind of ‘penetrating gaze’ to stare at him. His footsteps didn’t pause, as if the question he asked earlier was merely a passing thought, and his interest in the answer equally perfunctory.

“Did you cry?” There was a short pause after he finished, then Gu Yan abruptly piped in with such a sentence.

Yan Suizhi, “???”

“What I’m asking is, did you cry after listening to all that when you were young?” Gu Yan asked him mildly.

Yan Suizhi, “…” 

Hey, dear student. Turn your head and ask me straight; who did you say cried?

It was more than obvious that Lawyer Gu was, once again, simply traversing time to mock the ‘him when he was young’, and wasn’t actually concerned about waiting for his reply.

By the time he came back to his senses, Gu Yan had already walked on ahead of him.

But it was just because of that question earlier that Yan Suizhi realised his laidback nature was perhaps too unsuited for discretion. If he continued running amok like this, the gig was bound to be up sooner or later. Frankly speaking, he couldn’t care less about anything else. But the only thing he couldn’t accept was losing face.

Especially when it was him losing face right in front of his own student.

Wine City’s courthouses were fairly near the detention centre, taking them less than ten minutes by foot.

The local people’s court was the lowest-level court of law. It handled all sorts of trivial, messy procedures and cases every day. It wasn’t as dignified and solemn as people imagined it to be, and would sometimes even make a mess of things, such as in areas concerning the application for bail. 

This wasn’t Yan Suizhi’s first time here, but every time he came, he wanted to heave a deep sigh at how hard the staff at the local people’s court in Wine City worked. Only people with eight hundred lifetimes of accumulated misfortune running through their veins would be assigned to work here.

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Gu Yan, “…” 

He must also have eight hundred lifetimes of accumulated misfortune to have been paired with such an intern.

Gu Yan was standing two steps away. He slid his hands into the pockets of his wool coat, his back ramrod straight as he gazed with his eyes half-lidded at a certain someone leaning against the door frame. After a moment of silence, he spoke up tepidly, “Need I remind you that something such as filing an application for bail just so happens to be an intern’s job?”

With this, he lifted his chin in the direction of the hall. “Go forth and abide by your role.”

Yan Suizhi beat up this scheming student in his heart, but merely smiled on the outside. He patiently straightened his posture and turned to enter the hall. 

A cacophony of noise immediately blasted him in the face.

He side-stepped through the crowd of people signing holographic papers everywhere, making his way to the platform.

A young lady dressed in formal wear was standing behind the platform counter. These responsibilities were mostly assumed by young people who had just started working at the courthouse. She eyed Yan Suizhi and reflexively tapped the virtual keyboard in front of her. “Bail application?”

“Yes. Coldlake Detention Centre, Joshua Dale. He’s been accused of burglary.” 

That young lady entered in the information he gave her, tapping against the virtual keys. She affirmed again. “Dale… 14 years old?”

“That’s correct.”

“Please take the application form.”

The photon computer spat out a holographic paper right after she finished speaking. The first section of the form clearly stated Joshua’s personal information, and the rest of it was the standard legal language for applications. 

As far as the alliance was concerned, in the present, bail wasn’t something that needed to be requested. Rather, the review officer would take the initiative to confirm whether or not a suspected convict was fit for bail. It was only when the review officer deemed a person ineligible for bail that a lawyer would be required to apply for bail. Then, the court would arrange for a hearing on the same day, or on the next day, according to the queue order.

Therefore, submitting an application was an exceedingly simple procedure which was mostly managed by interns. In any case, it wasn’t something anyone had to fret over.

Yan Suizhi scanned through Joshua’s information and nodded. “There are no mistakes.”

“Sign the form, then.” The lady pointed at the tables where many people were crowded around. “There’s an electronic pen over there. Or you can just sign with your finger.” 

The sight of that crowd of people was enough to make Yan Suizhi’s scalp go numb. He said, smiling, “I’ll sign with my hand.”

The lady huffed out a laugh. “You look just like a fresh grad. Are you an intern?”

“Mhm,” Yan Suizhi responded.

“That’s not too bad, at least you can go out and get some exercise. I’m an intern, too. I’ve been standing here for close to a month now.” This lady had been standing here for close to a month but had never wanted to chat with anyone of her own accord. Yet, she now suddenly had the itch to make small talk. It was probably the natural instinct of face-cons. 

Yan Suizhi looked up and smiled at her. “And before this? Tidying files for a whole month?”

“How did you know?”

“I had also interned in a courthouse a very long time ago.”

“A very long time ago?” That lady couldn’t quite make sense of his words. 

“Mm.” He casually replied without even lifting his head, raising his hand to sign, his signature coming out with a beautiful flourish.

But no more than a few strokes into his signature, he abruptly stopped, and silently tapped to cancel it.

“Why did you cancel it?”

The person who almost signed his name as ‘Yan Suizhi’, “…” 

He said with a smile, “The strokes were too ugly.” Following this, he carefully wrote the two characters for ‘Ruan Ye’ and confirmed the application.

“Great, that’s all.”

Yan Suizhi lifted his eyes, smiling at the lady behind the platform counter, “Thanks.”

“Bye,” she smiled. 

“As someone who has been in your shoes before, you’ll be able to start doing proper work come next month,” Yan Suizhi waved, then turned around and left.

Gu Yan had already worn his patience thin from the wait by the time he stepped out the doorway. Of course, not a trace of this could be picked out from his expression.

“Let’s make a move on,” Yan Suizhi inclined his head. “Go up and take a look at the result.”

Gu Yan pointed at the hologram with a look of admiration plastered over his face, “Ruan Ye. You took five minutes just to sign two characters.” 

Yan Suizhi raised his brows. “This name isn’t good to sign, it looked ugly the first time I did it.”

Gu Yan said blandly, “How can it still turn out ugly after twenty years of signing your name. Don’t simply blame the characters for being hard to write.”

Yan Suizhi, “?”

Whose handwriting are you calling ugly? 

He really wanted to rub the signature framed by the law school in this particular student’s face.

All kinds of information were screened on the large display board in the front hall of the courthouse. The schedule for bail hearings was shown in the lowest left corner.

Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan waited for no more than five minutes before Joshua Dale’s name appeared.

“Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock,” Yan Suizhi said. “Not too bad. It isn’t too near or too far off from lunchtime, the court wouldn’t be too annoyed by their hunger.” 

“Mn. Let’s go.”

The two people left the courthouse and flagged down another taxi by the roadside.

This time, the taxi driver wasn’t much of a talker, but he also looked rather fierce for this reason.

There weren’t many wide roads in Wine City, thus the taxis here often preferred to step on the gas pedal and get on the road before asking for the destination. So it was only after this driver opened his mouth to speak that Yan Suizhi then understood why he didn’t like speaking much. 

Because, his voice was so hoarse that it sounded like his mouth was filled with grit. Listening to it made people feel uneasy.

“Where to?” the driver asked tersely.

“Kale Avenue,” Gu Yan zoomed in on the map on his smart device and said.

There were many unlicensed taxis scurrying about a place like Wine City; very few of them were registered. Therefore, the online booking system was poorly developed and it was almost impossible to book a taxi from it. Most of the time, people had to rely on using a map to find the name of roads. 

Yan Suizhi knew of Kale Avenue. If they were to talk about the only barely passable accommodations in this city, these would be located at Kale Avenue. There were a few hotels there that most probably would not eat humans.

Evidently, Gu Yan was familiar with this and had likely booked accommodations there.

Yan Suizhi was right.

The place that Gu Yan booked was a respectable hotel called Silver Tea… well, a respectable hotel by Wine City’s standards. Put in other words, this was the equivalent to a non-seedy hotel. 

And that was all it had going for it.

The person in charge of booking the two of them in at the front reception of the hotel was a young lad.

A young lad with braids, a row of ear studs, and a lip stud. He glanced at Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan. After openly surveying them, he laughed the same way the first taxi driver did.

Gu Yan had always treated these incomprehensible actions of others as non-existent. Without a flicker in his expression, he simply raised his eyes to look at the other and said coldly, “I’ve a booking.” 

Fortunately, this lad was more tactful than the previous taxi driver and was able to contain himself without having to mention the detention centre. He nodded, swapped out his expression for a more serious look, and said to Gu Yan, “What’s your contact number?”

Gu Yan said, “1971182.”

“Got it, let me check you in. Just hang on a moment.” The lad tossed a piece of candy into his mouth, his voice muffled as he spoke.

Yan Suizhi paused for a bit. He suddenly sucked in a sharp breath. 

“What?” Gu Yan frowned at him, “Toothache?”

Yan Suizhi’s frown was even deeper than his. “What’s your contact number??? Say that again???”