CH 22

Licking the insides of her cheeks, Rosie Dale shifted the candy to another position. Her raven dark eyes blinked at Yan Suizhi twice. She whispered, “What are you doing?”

Yan Suizhi’s whisper was quieter than hers, “My face hurts.” 

Rosie Dale crinkled her eyes and laughed merrily.

Yan Suizhi, “…” You’re such a little angel.

Little Angel Rosie’s merry laughter successfully attracted a certain someone’s attention.

As Yan Suizhi looked towards the French windows in silence with half his face covered, Gu Yan’s voice rang out from beside him. “Do you think I wouldn’t be able to see you if you covered your face?” 

You never know, what if it worked?

Yan Sui’s face flitted through several expressions. Finally, he coughed lightly and put down his hand.

Rosie moved inwards by herself without being asked to, freeing up more than half the sofa. This little girl was afraid of strangers, but after that piece of chocolate from back then and spending the past two days in close proximity, she had warmed her up significantly to the two of them, and even somewhat regarded them as friends.

“Thank you.” Lawyer Gu was very polite to the girl.

He sat on the sofa and lifted his eyes to look at Yan Suizhi. His tone was particularly barbed. “‘Sit tight in the hotel waiting for the files to be sent over’. Do you intend to sleep here tonight?”

Yan Suizhi, “…”

Poisoned words right as he came; indeed a good student with only the deepest, utmost respect for his teacher.

Professor Yan shamelessly said, “At least half of it is the truth.” 

Gu Yan frowned, “?”

“Sitting tight,” Yan Suizhi, “everything up to this point is true, merely that the location is nonsense.”

“…” Gu Yan gave a cold scoff in response.

Yan Suizhi simply arched his eyebrows wordlessly. After all, he had just been caught in a lie and was a little in the wrong. 

His finger twitched involuntarily, lightly brushing against a candy that he still held in his palm. It was the candy that Rosie had given him earlier; he hadn’t had the time to eat it yet.

Right away, the esteemed Professor Yan, who had a particular knack for coaxing people, was struck by inspiration. He pressed that candy wrapped in blue into Lawyer Gu’s hand. To make it look natural, he reached out and took another candy for himself. He said, “Have a candy first. Sweeten up before you speak.”

Xe Tjc, “…”

“Jbwf bc, vbc’a xffq ulnlcu wf remt j mbiv ibbx,” Tjc Velhtl rjlv, “P bcis mjwf tfgf ab olcv lwqbgajca fnlvfcmf jcv tjnf rbwf obbv jr P ub, P’w rb ojwlrtfv atja P’w ufaalcu vlhhs.” 

Vjslcu atlr, tf qffifv atf kgjqqlcu boo atf mjcvs tf tjv lc tlr tjcv, cbcmtjijcais jrxlcu Ebrlf, “Pr atf mjcvs ajras?”

Rosie nodded, then stuck her tongue out at him.

A… brilliant blue tongue.

Yan Suizhi, “…” 

The sugar dye was quite remarkable…

He silently repackaged the candy. His fingers hesitated before Gu Yan, but he ultimately gave the candy to Rosie. “Go back and share it with your brother.”

Gu Yan, “…”

“So, why are you here?” Yan Suizhi took a sip of warm water. 

Gu Yan, “To find important evidence.”

Quoted word for word from the reason Yan Suizhi gave earlier. Even if it was certainly the truth, inexplicably, the words sounded scathingly sarcastic coming from Gu Yan. Fortunately, Yan Suizhi was completely able to endure it.

The corners of his lips lifted. “Seems that you’ll be joining us, then? What are you looking for?”

Gu Yan glanced at the surveillance camera above. 

Yan Suizhi nodded, saying with a smile, “Great. That saves me the time of looking for you as well. So you had gone out earlier to submit the application?”

“The process is quicker if they’ve someone staring at them,” Gu Yan said. “I’ve already gotten the approval and made an appointment with the notary. He will come by as soon as he finishes dealing with another matter on hand—”

He glanced at the row of interstellar clocks on the wall of the restaurant before continuing to say, “At approximately four o’clock. There is still forty minutes left.”

With impeccable timing, the waiter walked over with the menu. “Sorry for the wait, you may order now. What would you like to have?” 

Gu Yan looked at Yan Suizhi.

Yan Suizhi, “…” I would like to have grilled lamb chops.

Gu Yan didn’t have to hear him say anything to know what he was thinking. He instantly said with a frosty expression, “Look down at your leg before you order.”

Yan Suizhi, “Grilled lamb chops with puff pastry mushroom soup, two servings, thanks.” 

Gu Yan, “…”

“I’ve already been primed with two and a half days of grass, eating this little bit of lamb chop wouldn’t go so far as to inflame my wound.” Yan Suizhi smiled and said, “Tomorrow I’ll obediently go back to eating grass, alright?”

This time, without the jinxed hotel snitching to the room owner, it wasn’t quite appropriate for Gu Yan to refute and directly change the order made right in his face, so Yan Suizhi finally got his way.

The waiter acknowledged the order, taking the menus as she left. 

Once the waiter returned to the bar counter, Gu Yan then sprung out with a sentence, “Don’t cry if your leg gets swollen.”

Yan Suizhi, “Don’t worry.”

The prices in Wine City weren’t expensive for the Professor Yan of before; it couldn’t hold a light to the prices in De Carma. But these two portions of lamb chops with soup still cost him a considerable sum of money. The balance on his asset card suddenly collapsed.

Nevertheless, Yan Suizhi was in a good mood after shedding the trauma of eating grass; his lips only twitched once when he saw the figure. 

He closed the hologram, meeting Gu Yan’s gaze as soon as he looked up.

“Does the balance look good?”

Yan Suizhi smiled, “It’s quite ugly, but carpe diem.”

Saying this, he casually lifted his chin towards the restaurant door and began to blather. “Life is very unpredictable. What if I suddenly meet with an accident on the road when I go downstairs later and die? Then, what I’m eating now will be my last meal. Wouldn’t I regret it greatly if I wanted to have lamb chops but didn’t get to eat it?” 

“…”

The little girl Rosie Dale had yet to see the world and was easily taken in by this ‘giving an excuse to eat and spend as you will’ nonsense. She sucked on her candy for a long time without a word. After a long moment of contemplation, she hurriedly wolfed down the appetiser as well.

At first, Yan Suizhi thought that Gu Yan would snipe back at him as he often had when listening to such casual nonsense, and then completely unable to get a handle on him, leave him to his own devices.

But Gu Yan, unexpectedly, merely narrowed his eyes and went in thought midway his words. Despite eventually breaking out of it, from start to end, he never sprayed the expected vitriol. 

“Are you full?” Gu Yan lowered his gaze, drinking some warm water before opening his mouth to ask this.

It was unusual not to be mocked; it threw Yan Suizhi completely off-beat. He thought to himself, Is this student drinking water or hallucinogens? Just a gulp is enough to cause such a large effect?

He froze for a moment, then nodded. “Mhm.”

Incidentally, the notary happened to step through the restaurant door just as the waiter came to clear the table. The interstellar clock denoting the time for Wine City just reached four o’clock; he had arrived on the dot. 

“Good afternoon. Lawyer Gu? I’m Julien Goyle.”

“Afternoon.” Gu Yan pointed at Yan Suizhi, “This is my intern, Ruan Ye.”

The restaurant owner was notified by the waiter and quickly came out from the back. After getting through the pleasantries, he understood the purpose of their visit.

“The surveillance? It is indeed a panoramic camera,” the restaurant owner said, “I’ve heard of that burglary. It was at the slums over there, wasn’t it? If there’s any way that I may help, of course I’ll be more than ready to oblige.” 

“Have the police previously come by?” Gu Yan asked.

The restaurant owner took them into the surveillance room. “No, surely not. Or I wouldn’t have been that surprised earlier.”

There was a young man in the surveillance room. He rose to his feet seeing his boss enter, but Yan Suizhi pressed him back down into the seat with a smile. “Relax, it’s fine.”

“Rewind the video to the evening on the 23rd for them,” the restaurant owner instructed. 

The young man expertly manipulated the controls. The video recording was rewound. Simultaneously, the many monitors in the room displayed the same footage from different angles. Everyone was able to find the screen monitoring the angle that pointed outside the window at a glance.

Then, the time frame was wound to seven in the evening.

The screen instantly turned pitch-black.

Everyone, “…” 

The restaurant owner laughed drily. “This camera is getting old, the lighting is a little dark.”

Is this what you call a little dark? It’s as dark as a black malfunctioning screen…

However, this was primarily because the sky in Wine City turned dark very early on winter nights. There were streetlamps in the slum alleys, but most of them were broken, and those still functioning were extremely dim; it would be a feat for it to even light up a one-metre radius of the road around it.

Unfortunately, there weren’t any working streetlamps near Joshua’s and Kitty Bell’s houses.