CH 31

Although there wasn’t any additional note attached to it, Yan Suizhi glanced at the bank account it came from. Gu Yan’s name was clearly stated.

Why had he suddenly transferred over ten thousand without rhyme or reason? Saw that I’m too poor? Professor Yan had lived for this many years but it was still his first time experiencing such a thing. The myriad of emotions that surfaced was complicated. 

He turned his head over to ask, but found that Gu Yan was already asleep.

During these few days in Wine City, Yan Suizhi had caught a full day of sleep as a result of his fever, whereas Gu Yan never had a moment of rest. Now that he was catching up on sleep on the space shuttle, Yan Suizhi didn’t have the heart to wake him up.

He spent the first half of the journey reading a book as he waited for Gu Yan to awaken. In the latter half, Gu Yan still hadn’t awoken, and beginning to feel sleepy himself, he closed his eyes.

So when the two of them actually spoke to each other, the space shuttle was already moored at De Carma’s port. 

“Why did you suddenly transfer me 10,000 xi without a word?” Yan Suizhi put on his coat and scarf, following the flow of the crowd out of the space shuttle, then going with Gu Yan to wait for his luggage.

As for himself, he had no luggage of any kind aside from a simple change of clothes he had bought to use for the time being in Wine City; he was light as a feather from head to toe.

Gu Yan checked the signboard above the baggage reclaim area, saying without the slightest turn over. “Workplace injury compensation. It’s clearly written in the internship manual that injuries sustained as a result of work are compensated at different rates depending on their severity.”

As he took his luggage and headed towards the exit, he tepidly shot Yan Suizhi’s leg a look and added, “By the standard, your leg is worth 10,000 xi.”

Hearing this, the travellers passing by them glanced over at Yan Suizhi several times, probably trying to find out what a 10,000 xi leg looked like.

Yan Suizhi, “…”

He tsk’ed. “There’s such a stipulation in the internship manual? Why didn’t you say so earlier.”

Gu Yan’s face, paralysed. “…What do you mean by ‘didn’t say so earlier’? If I had said so earlier, what would you have planned to do?” 

“Nothing much.”

“…”

As if anyone was going to believe him.

It was nighttime when they left the port in De Carma. 

The seasons differed from planet to planet, and although the seasons of Wine City were in sync with the seasons in De Carma, there was still a difference in the speed of time. Each day in Wine City was much shorter; time moved very quickly. It was only when they returned to De Carma that they felt the pace returning to normal.

“The business travel allowance and workplace injury compensation have both already been credited to you. The lawyer fees for Joshua’s case will most likely be credited to you tomorrow or the day after. You were the one who went up for the bail hearing, I’ll get Fizz to walk through the process tomorrow and have her draw up your share of the fees for that.”

“Oh? How much?” Yan Suizhi asked.

“I don’t remember the prescribed percentage,” Gu Yan gave an offhand number, “it should be around ten thousand when it reaches your hands.” 

The commission fees set aside by this type of relief agency was often very limited. Being able to dish out 10,000 xi to an intern was already quite generous.

Yan Suizhi nodded.

Glancing at the time, Gu Yan said, “Wait here. I’ll drive the car over.”

De Carma’s port had an area reserved for long-term parking as many people would leave their cars here, board space shuttles or ships out for travel, and only return about half a month later. The fees charged wouldn’t be quite the same. 

For those like Yan Suizhi who flew regularly all year round, there were special parking lots in this type of port that they could book out for an entire year.

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“Can I sit in the front passenger seat? Is there anything about this seat being specially designated for a person to use?” Yan Suizhi held the car door, his eyes curving in a smile at Gu Yan in the driver’s seat. 

The reason for asking this question was because of a famous case at Maze University’s law school. One of the parties involved was a law school student. That lady had a boyfriend who was so paranoid that he crippled the legs of four gentlemen within three months simply because they had unwittingly sat in the front passenger’s seat of that lady’s car.

The case caused a great shock to the law school at the time, such that even afterwards, every student and teacher that came into the school would have heard of this case, and would subconsciously ask before riding in anyone’s front passenger seat.

“No,” Gu Yan returned blandly, “how long do you plan to stand there holding the door?”

Yan Suizhi raised his eyebrows and got in the car, closing the door. 

The car started to drive autonomously, but there was no guarantee that the autopilot system wasn’t tampered with, so most people still habitually hold on to the steering wheel with one hand. Gu Yan was this way too, after all, lawyers could also be considered a high-risk profession.

“Where are you going? I’ll take you there first,” Gu Yan pulled out of the plaza of the port and asked Yan Suizhi.

“Butterfly Avenue, then.” Yan Suizhi said.

Gu Yan froze. “What are you going to Butterfly Avenue for?” 

“Buy some stuff,” Yan Suizhi’s tone was very flippant.

Obviously, this person couldn’t have too much money in his asset card; once a sum came in he would begin to feel restless.

Gu Yan couldn’t stop himself from jibing, “Will having a balance bite you?”

“…” The esteemed Professor Yan was unable to refute. 

It seemed that it really would.

Half an hour later, Gu Yan’s space podcar steadily pulled up in front of the bustling shopping mall on Butterfly Avenue.

Yan Suizhi undid his seatbelt. One foot out the door, he heard Gu Yan ask carelessly, “Did you manage to find someone to get you a place? Where are you going after you finish shopping?”

“I asked Luke to look into a few places for me, but nothing’s firmed up yet.” Yan Suizhi got out of the car. He bent down and said to him with a hand against the car door, “I’ve made a hotel booking, I’ll make do for two nights there and decide after taking a look at the places he found tomorrow.” 

Gu Yan frowned. “Hotel?”

He often frowned, so Yan Suizhi didn’t react to it, casually joking, “What’s that expression for, did a hotel blackmail you? Or has the hotel in Wine City traumatised you?”

He straightened up with a smile and waved his hand at Gu Yan in the car. “Alright, I’ll be off. See you later.”

With this, he closed the door on Gu Yan, turning around to walk up the steps to the mall’s main entrance. 

—

Two days had passed for Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan since they boarded the space shuttle in Wine City; but for the locals of Wine City, five days had passed.

After being cleared and released from court, Joshua Dale resumed his old life. He quickly found several new jobs, packing his schedule from five in the morning to ten in the evening. This was in part because he wanted to quickly pay off Gu Yan as soon as possible, and also because he was trying to avoid someone.

He felt that that neighbour of his, Chester Bell, had a huge problem with his head. 

That day in front of the courthouse, he had even straightforwardly told the other to “fuck off”. If this were before, the two would have broken out in a brawl right there. Even if they hadn’t, their expressions would be quite a sight when they next saw each other.

Little did he expect that from that day on, Chester Bell would, as if having taken the wrong medicine, sometimes shove two loaves of sweetbreads on their windowsill, and on other times a bunch of frozen grapes.

Joshua didn’t want to take his things and had planned to return them in a basket, but his sister Rosie got in his way.

By the time he found a clean basket, Rosie had already eaten half a bunch of frozen grapes with her cheeks puffed out, grinning at Chester outside the yard, laughing as she ate. Joshua suspected that the bastard had drugged the grapes. 

How else would Rosie be so stupid?

The first day, he closed the door and gave Rosie a lecture about eating things willy nilly, then reluctantly took out money to pay for the frozen grapes as he returned everything else.

The second day, Chester tried begging for forgiveness again, this time with fruit candies and chocolates. Joshua didn’t even open the door.

The third day, he had gone to work like fleeing the house; what was out of sight, was out of mind. 

But on this day, Chester didn’t bother to come and deliver anything. He went to the hospital to pick up Kitty Bell.

The old madam, who had been in a coma for many days, finally came to consciousness early that morning. After going through various tests at the hospital and answering the police’s questions, she returned home accompanied by her grandnephew Chester.

The police’s attention mainly focused on Jim, the drunkard who had perjured in court. But despite interrogating him for a long time, progress on the case remained limited. Unfortunately, the old madam Kitty Bell, the victim who had finally come to consciousness, was also unable to provide them with any more information.

“I didn’t see his face and he hadn’t made a sound the whole time,” the old madam thought for a long time but was only able to say this. “I’m so sorry…” 

The days didn’t change much after Kitty Bell returned home. As if she had never been injured, she still took afternoon naps, still got up to eat Chester’s potato soup, smiling as she complimented him on his cooking having improved.

She even tried to turn on the heater to continue knitting, except that the heating pipes in her house hadn’t been used for days and had frozen out. Luckily, Fix happened to pass by her yard at this time and stepped in to help her fix them.

“Thank you dearie, you came just in time.” Mdm Bell touched the heating ducts. The temperature was just right.

She raised her head and smiled at Fix. “Would you like some potato soup before you go?” 

Fix waved his hand. “No need, I’m going back. I’ve to cover a shift for someone later.”

Saying this, he kept his tools and greeted Chester, and left the house. His short hair scraped the top of the door, causing Chester to worry that he would crash into it.

After Fix left, Chester cleaned up the dishes and sighed deeply, saying to Kitty Bell, “It’s such a cold night for you to make a trip out. It’s a good thing that he was in the car.”

Kitty Bell toasted her hands by the heater. “Didn’t he say that he wasn’t planning to work anymore? I was only out for a few days and he’s hard at work again?” 

Chester shrugged. “Yeah. He said he won a bet and could buy a secondhand car for himself—”

As he said this, he suddenly frowned and looked back at the door. “Grandma Kitty, how high is this door again?”

The old madam pursed her lips. “Here. I’ve a tape measure in my wool basket, measure it yourself. Why are you suddenly asking this?”

“It’s nothing.” Chester fished out the tape measure, walked to the door and reached out. Then, the colour of his face changed— 

182.5cm.

“What happened? Ate a bug?” the old madam joked when she saw his face, chuckling at her own joke after saying it.

“…Yeah. I ate a fly.”

Fix was taken away by the police for investigation at noon on the fifth day, something Joshua Dale only learned of after coming back from work that evening. 

It was already ten in the evening by the time he returned. He heard a slightly topsy-turvy rumour from Rosie, though he couldn’t be sure if Chester had been the one to tell her this.

And when he heard it, Joshua Dale stood up with a start.

By the time he snapped out of it, he was already standing in the doorway of Kitty Bell’s yard.

There were quite a few neighbours who had visited Kitty Bell over the past few days, but not him. 

He hadn’t been able to figure out how he felt before, and had simply chalked it down to feeling wronged from being misunderstood, such that he didn’t want to see the Bell family, whether it was Chester, or Mdm Kitty.

It wasn’t until he stood at the door to the old madam’s house now, that he suddenly understood. He was just a little afraid.

He was afraid that the old madam would grow wary of the people around her after being hurt once. He didn’t care about anyone else, but he didn’t want to see the old madam showing caution and wariness to him.

This way, he could look at the silhouette of the elderly woman reflected on the glass panes, or her gentle and warm smile, and pretend that the grandmother who loved him was still around. This way, when he was worn out, he could stand outside the old madam’s yard and look in for a while, then dream of his grandmother knitting a scarf for him when he went home… 

Joshua stood outside the yard for a while until he was pulled back to his senses by two knocks against the window.

He saw an area of condensation being wiped off the glass, the face resembling his grandmother coming close to the glass and looking at him. Then, the figure stood up. With her back gently bowed, she walked out of the room.

Like a frightened wildcat, Joshua instinctively wanted to scamper back to his house. All the hairs on his body felt as if they were on fire, yet the soles of his feet stayed frozen in place.

A few moments later, the closed door was pulled open from the inside with a creak. 

After which, warm yellow light flooded out, cast onto Joshua’s body. The old madam slowly walked out of the house. She waved at Joshua, her face kind, and her tone worried. “Why are you standing dumbly outside at this hour? Are you cold?”

As she opened her mouth to speak, the mist that came out from her breath blurred her features, gradually superimposing with the elderly woman in Joshua’s dreams.

And when those two wrinkly, old hands touched him, Joshua covered his eyes and crouched down. Only after a very, very long time, he said hoarsely, “Not too cold…”

“Why are you crying?” 

Joshua’s muffled voice sounded nasally with snot. “…No reason.”

I just miss you.

I just really, really miss you.

The houses in the old district of Wine City, one after another, lit up like specks of starlight. In the deep night, they resembled a large and silent anthill, miles different from De Carma, light-years away from it. When Yan Suizhi was making payment after shopping, he glanced out the window and, for some reason, thought of the sparsely lit night of Wine City. 

He calmly looked away, smiled at the girl at the cashier, and headed out of the mall with a few paper bags in hand.

His leg had not yet fully recovered, so he walked slowly. By the time he stood in front of the mall, it was already ten in the evening.

The crowd on the street had thinned slightly from before. Due to the chill of the wind in the night, people looked in a hurry.

And in this rushing stream of people, a familiar matte black space podcar was quietly parked by the road, reflecting the golden-white lights of the street, like it was waiting for him.