CH 9

“1971182, you’re welcome,” the young lad managing the check-in reported it back smoothly once more.

Yan Suizhi hurriedly pulled up a hologram, swiping through his call record. The entire record was woefully short; he had a grand total of only two numbers sending communication requests to his smart device in the past few days. One was the customer service of the apartment that called him after. As for the other… 

He didn’t have to say who it was.

Gu Yan took the room cards that the young lad handed over and lifted his eyes. “Finally realised whose call you hung up on?”

“Please speak some sense. You were clearly the one who hung up first.”

They entered the lift one after the other. 

Gu Yan pressed the button for the seventh floor and mocked coldly without turning his gaze over at all, “Coming with a ‘won’t be extending lease’ right at the start of the call, if I hadn’t hung up wouldn’t I be asking you how many stars you would rate my service?”

“That was because I had just received notice from my apartment informing me that they would be confirming over call, and you called over right then.” Yan Suizhi said snippily, “How does this teacher have such impeccable timing?”

Infuriatingly fussy and unreasonable.

Gu Yan’s face turned glacial, indescribably mad.

“Also—” Yan Suizhi began again.

He still had the goddamn nerve to find an ‘also’?

Gu Yan was about to break out in laughter from rage. He gave a short scoff and strode out the lift as soon as the doors opened.

“Why didn’t you say who you were when you called over?” Yan Suizhi unhurriedly followed behind him, going on to say, “If you had said something then wouldn’t the later misunderstanding have been avoided? It wasn’t as if I had your contact number.” 

Gu Yan having his contact number was nothing out of the ordinary, for it was included in his identity card and later also in the attached electronic file.

As Yan Suizhi said this, he lowered his head and pulled up the hologram again, walking with his head lowered while saving Lawyer Gu’s contact number.

“Internship manual.” Gu Yan spoke up without warning, his footsteps coming to an abrupt halt.

“The manual? What does that cursed book have to do with anything?” Yan Suizhi also stopped in his steps, raising his head to ask. 

His head hurt just hearing a mention of this thing. He often felt like countless snares were hidden within that Gu Yan could casually bring out to aggravate him.

“Fizz had listed the mentoring lawyer’s contact number in the manual. She even highlighted it thrice and bolded it to remind interns to save it,” Gu Yan said.

Yan Suizhi froze. “There was something like that? Why didn’t I see it at all?”

“Because you were only looking at the money.” 

“…”

Gu Yan drew out a room card, opened the room in front of him, went in and turned on the lights.

Yan Suizhi admitted that he was a little tiny bit in the wrong, so he no longer intended to chat any more about the issue of contact numbers. He casually picked on something else. “Didn’t you say that you hadn’t read any materials relevant to interns at all? How are you so familiar with the contents of the manual?”

“I took some time to study it in the past few days.” 

“What are you studying that for?” If you’d the time for this, wasn’t it better spent looking at your case files?

Gu Yan turned over, leaning against the entrance hall and blocking the path in. “So that I can find an explicit reason to send you off.”

Yan Suizhi, “?”

With this, Gu Yan stuffed the other room card key into Yan Suizhi’s coat pocket. He casually pointed outside, his tone exceedingly calm. “Get out.” 

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“…”

Yan Suizhi arched his eyebrows and muttered in his heart: Fine. This sentence was definitely learnt from me, no doubt about it. 

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Although this hotel couldn’t hold a candle to those in De Carma, it could still be considered relatively clean and cosy. At the very least, this hotel didn’t have the smell particular to hoodlums and drunkards wandering the premises. An air freshener diffusing a light fragrance was even placed in the room.

There was a bed, a sofa, and the room temperature was just right.

This business trip just happened to resolve his housing problem. While the duration of stay wasn’t long, it worked out quite well in the meanwhile. 

That day, he had hung up on Gu Yan and had asked in the afternoon if he was allowed to stay overnight at the office. Even an idiot would be able to work out the gist of the situation simply from those two sentences. Furthermore, Gu Yan also knew that he only had a pathetic sum of 5022 xi in the bank.

So, the reason behind the last-minute notification for this business trip wasn’t hard to guess.

It turned out this grouchy student of his was simply a grouch; at the end of the day, he still had a rather soft heart.

Professor Yan suddenly found his barely present conscience. He stood by the French windows and had a moment of self-awareness, then sent a message to the number that he had newly saved a few minutes ago: [The room’s pretty good. Thanks.] 

As expected, there was no response from the other side.

Yan Suizhi huffed out a laugh and shook his head, making a mental note to stop quarrelling with this kid as thanks for the accommodations.

However, while he had a bed to sleep in tonight, he still didn’t have clothes to change out into. After all, he had come empty-handed.

It wasn’t because the notification of this business trip came too suddenly. It was merely that Yan Suizhi didn’t even have such a habit; he didn’t like carrying too many things around in his hand. Aside from his smart device, photon computer, and court dress, he would directly buy whatever he needed from the place itself. 

Yan Suizhi neatened his clothes slightly and left the room with his room card.

He was no stranger to Wine City, and was even more of an old hand when it came to finding where he needed to go. He hailed a taxi at the hotel entrance and spoke his destination, then leaned back into the seat and rested his eyes.

A bare few seconds after, his ring vibrated.

Yan Suizhi frowned. He opened his eyes and saw on the hologram that he had a new message. 

From: Grouchy Student

Message: [You went out?]

The esteemed Professor Yan had done whatever he wanted and went wherever he wanted as and when his whims came for these many years without restraint, and never got into the practice of having to report his whereabouts to anyone. Receiving such a message out of the blue felt rather disconcerting.

After sitting frozen for two seconds, he clucked his tongue. He kept his patience in check and replied, [Yeah. I’m going to buy—] 

An incoming call cut away the interface before he could finish his message.

Yan Suizhi, “???”

As soon as the comms connected, the other end said, “This is Gu Yan.”

You don’t say. Yan Suizhi, “I know. I’ve already saved your number.” 

“Where are you?”

“In an unlicensed taxi.”

The driver up front, “…”

Gu Yan was silent for a few seconds. “…Where are you going?” 

Yan Suizhi said, “Two Moon Street. I’m going to buy some clothes to change into. I’d only just got on the taxi when your message came in.”

“You just went out without a word?”

Yan Suizhi found it amusing. “Would you have replied even had I said anything?”

“…” 

His words seemed to have made Gu Yan bite his tongue; he spoke again after a moment, “I’ll go over too in a while.”

“No need. I’m a quick shopper, it won’t take me more than ten minutes,” Yan Suizhi said.

“I will have to take responsibility if anything happened to an intern I brought for a business trip,” Gu Yan said. “Have you forgotten what kind of place Wine City is?”

Yan Suizhi said inside, of course he hadn’t. But the number of times he had been to Wine City was likely twice that of Gu Yan. Rather than his own safety, he probably would be more concerned about Gu Yan. 

But he tightly reined in his tongue this time, and these words never came loose.

The esteemed Professor Yan fastidiously held himself in for a few seconds. Unable to think of a more convincing reason without exposing his identity, he could only nod. “Alright then, I’ll wait for you when I reach.”

“Send over your car license plate number first.”

Yan Suizhi, “??? What for?” 

“In case anything happens, there’ll still be clues to find your corpse.”

Yan Suizhi, “…”

And Gu Yan hung up right after painting this horror story.

Yan Suizhi gave a long, hard stare at the hologram, but he ended up accepting his fate and sent over a string of numbers: [EM1033.] 

—

Two Moon Street was a peculiar place. It was the equivalent of a rich man’s metropolis, yet of all places, it was firmly located in the heart of a motley collection of low-rise slum housings. This could be likened to a chewing gum accidentally stuck to the wrong place, forming a stark yellowish protrusion amidst a dirty, pitch-black stain.

The taxi driver was a short and stout middle-aged man. He stopped the taxi at the corner around Two Moon Street and notified Yan Suizhi, “Sorry mister, I can only let you off here, I’ve to rush to make a trip home. Two Moon Street is right up ahead. Hope you enjoy yourself.”

“Thanks.” He had encountered a normal taxi driver, a rare encounter for Yan Suizhi in Wine City. He paid the fare and got off. 

Little did he expect that the taxi driver would get off from the driver’s seat with him, speaking to someone over an old-model communication device, a hand propped against the driver’s door as he smiled at Yan Suizhi.

“Are you here yet?” The surroundings were noisy and the driver had to yell into the receiver at the person on the other end. “I’m already at the junction, why don’t I see neither tail nor hide of you at all? Hurry up and get your ass over, I already told you to take over my shift an hour ago, must you dally till now. Did you go there again—fine fine fine, I’m not going to say it. But you better fucking hurry up!”

Even if Yan Suizhi hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, this loud voice still knocked into his eardrums.

He lifted his eyebrows and smiled at the taxi driver. Then, he made his way towards the well-lit surroundings of Two Moon Street. 

Yan Suizhi was never one with much fondness for strolling the streets. He always had a clear goal in mind when shopping, getting it done in the shortest possible time. So, he went straight for a store that he had often frequented whenever buying clothes in Wine City without hesitation.

Right as he stepped into the store, the ring on his finger vibrated successively, almost buzzing his entire finger off.

What the hell was this about?

Yan Suizhi at first thought that it was a certain grouchy student coming to kick up a fuss again, but the end result actually turned out contrary to what he had expected. 

The one who buzzed his finger was actually the intern Luke. For some reason or other, the overzealous idiot had pulled all the interns into a group chat.

Two minutes later, Anna sent a screenshot inside. The screenshot contained an announcement.

The announcement was that all interns would have an assessment in a week’s time. The results would be registered as their preliminary scores, and summed together with the scores from their latter part of the internship to form a comprehensive evaluation on whether they would be offered full-time employment at the firm.

[Luke: Each person has to pick and prepare a case for a mock court debate.] 

[Anna: You’ve seen the announcement too?]

[Luke: My teacher told me about it two hours ago. He told me to prepare for it well so that I wouldn’t embarrass him.]

[Freida: Why haven’t I received any notice of it?]

Yan Suizhi said internally, ‘What a coincidence. Me too.’ 

[Anna: Perhaps it just hasn’t come in yet? You’d surely be informed by tomorrow in any case. Why don’t we discuss which cases we’re picking first?]

[Freida: Let me take a look.]

Yan Suizhi glanced over the cases listed in the screenshot. There were five in total, and the types of crimes covered in each were all different. He didn’t have a preference for any, so he decided to let the other interns pick first and simply take whichever was leftover.

The group chat grew active again after a few seconds. 

[Luke: Okay, robbery’s mine.]

[Freida: I’ll take kidnapping.]

[Anna: …I’ll just do intentional homicide, then.]

[Henry: Illegal detention.] 

Yan Suizhi’s fingers flew across the screen, and he sent a message.

[Ruan Ye: Then I can only arrest all of you.]

Everyone: ???

The contents of the assessment were distributed internally in this way. Yan Suizhi smiled. Just as he was about the close the interface, he saw another person materialise with a text again. 

[Henry: Congratulations to Anna and Luke in advance.]

[Luke: ?]

[Anna: ?]

[Henry: Haven’t you heard? The preliminary scores depend on the teacher assessing it. Because their teachers are Lawyer Hobbes and Lawyer Chen, these two interns don’t have to worry about their scores, they are practically shoo-ins for first and second place.] 

[Freida: …Where did you hear this from. It’s best not to say things like this if there’s no evidence.]

[Henry: We’ll find out when it comes to it. I don’t really care, honestly. The one who has to worry is Ruan Ye.]

It took Yan Suizhi a moment to realise they were talking about him. He thought for a moment, then replied with a word: [Oh.]

[Henry: …………Isn’t anyone going to ask why???]