CH 34

As it happened, Gu Yan might only have taken a small sip of poison, for the effects only lasted for a short while. Or perhaps he was merely travel-worn, and his words did not pass through his brain filter in his fatigue.

He fell silent for two seconds after throwing down such a senseless statement. Probably also feeling that his words sounded a little strange, he pinched the bridge of his nose, saying, “Just use this first. I’m going down.” 

By the time Yan Suizhi looked at him, Gu Yan had already turned down the stairs.

His upright figure turned the corner, and the light at the staircase suddenly went out. A very faint rustling sound brushed towards the bedroom on the second floor.

Not more than a few seconds later, there was a soft click. Gu Yan’s bedroom door closed.

Yan Suizhi closed the door to the loft. He looked over to the bed from where Gu Yan had stood earlier. If the bed was made and someone lay on the solid black sheets, it wasn’t ugly to look at. Only, it really was a bit unsightly… it looked a little too much like a funeral site. 

He thought back on Gu Yan’s reaction, and he laughed, stunned.

Many people were quite sensitive to this type of thing, but Yan Suizhi was outrageously obtuse in this regard.

Of course, it wasn’t that it wouldn’t cross his mind, but simply that he couldn’t bring himself to care. After all, he had been in this profession for many years and had received countless death threats. He used to be a little sensitive to them, but after it occurred time and time again, he grew inured, let alone taboos from oral tradition or force of habit.

Caring too much would make life difficult to tread.

However, this feeling of someone helping him care about these wasn’t too bad. Especially when that someone was Gu Yan, the student who was aloof and indifferent to everything…

It felt a little novel.

Ever since their paths crossed again, Student Gu seemed to keep giving him a sense of novelty…

After an interstellar business trip, it was necessary to adjust to jet lag. Not only were the mornings and nights out of sync, but there was a difference in the length and speed of the days as well. 

Ordinary people might take more than ten days to completely slow down their body clock, but Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan adjusted very quickly.

The next day at seven in the morning, Yan Suizhi changed his clothes, padding barefoot to the sink to freshen up.

Gu Yan’s house was carpeted in many areas, just like his office. This made the sound of footfalls in the house minimal, leaving only the rustling of fabric, which in turn made it feel even quieter. It was perfect for people like them who would get headaches when they heard loud disturbances early in the morning.

Yan Suizhi splashed a few handfuls of cold water on his face. Then, he looked up at the mirror for a moment. 

The number of times he looked at himself in the mirror since the genetic modifications had been made could be counted on one hand.

The modifications to his genes had significantly transformed his actual appearance. Perhaps someone as dense to the details of facial features as Luke was would have thought that his face now looked a little like his previous face at a particular angle. But to himself, it didn’t look the slightest bit similar.

That was why, until today, he still wasn’t used to seeing it.

But Fizz’s remark last night made him worry. 

Had there really been a subtle change in his appearance, or was it ultimately the influence of the lighting at night?

How long was the effective period of the genetic modification done on him?

But it was impossible for him to ask anyone about such a change. It would be hard for Gu Yan, who was close at hand these few days and always in each other’s paths, to notice any subtle changes, so beating around the bush to ask him was out of the question as well.

If he wanted to know the extent of the change, he would have to wait until he got back to the law firm and took a look at how Luke and the other interns reacted. 

Ten minutes later, Yan Suizhi headed downstairs with his shirt cuffs rolled up, coming upon Gu Yan, who had just opened his bedroom door.

“Zbgclcu.” Tjc Velhtl, jigfjvs rajcvlcu bc atf ijcvlcu bc atf ugbecv oibbg, gjlrfv tlr tfjv jcv ugffafv tlw.

Xe Tjc’r olcufgr qjerfv ogbw atflg wbalbc bo yeaabclcu tlr rtlga. Llr ujhf oilmxfgfv vbkc qjra atf gjlilcu.

Pa kjr tjgv ab afii lo Ojksfg Xe kjr ribk ab gfrqbcv lc atf wbgclcur, bg lo tf rlwqis kjrc’a erfv ab yflcu ugffafv jr rbbc jr tf rafqqfv bea bo tlr yfvgbbw. 

He looked for a few seconds, his gaze hung down, before answering. “Morning.”

His voice was low, carrying a little bit of raspiness characteristic of early mornings, showing a rare hint of a drawl.

“Mr Landlord,” Yan Suizhi asked jokingly, “may I borrow the kitchen?”

Gu Yan buttoned his shirt cuffs and went down the stairs without even a lift of his head. “As long as you don’t poison yourself to death here.” 

Yan Suizhi snickered. He opened the refrigerator door.

For frequent travellers like them, with each trip easily lasting ten days to half a month, the refrigerator they bought would always be the one with the highest ability to maintain freshness, such that whatever food products inside wouldn’t have gone rancid by the time they returned.

For refrigerators like these, no matter what was put in it, they would still be as fresh half a year later. The refrigerator could be stocked to the brim without a worry.

However… 

Yan Suizhi held the refrigerator door open and looked it over from top to bottom. “You don’t seem to even want to give me the opportunity to lace poison… There is enough space here to fit two grown adults in, what do you think?”

Gu Yan, “…”

Some people just couldn’t get enough of a kick out of their own taunts; they even wanted the person being taunted to play along with them. Could this guy be any more shameless?

Fortunately, Gu Yan was once a promising student under a prestigious teacher. He walked behind Yan Suizhi, poured himself a cup of preset, ready-made coffee from the carafe, and replied evenly. “What do I think? I think that I could’ve saved myself a loft yesterday and let you sleep in the refrigerator instead. Shall we change the arrangement tonight?” 

Yan Suizhi tsk’ed, showing his immense dissatisfaction towards this student.

When Yan Suizhi attempted to reach out, Gu Yan set the coffee machine on cleaning mode, not even leaving him any coffee dregs. Following which, he brought his cup of coffee and sat to one side of the glass table, his expression frosty as he watched Yan Suizhi move about his kitchen.

“You look like a mean overseer like this,” Yan Suizhi glanced over, poking fun at him, “as if I’d blow up this kitchen of yours if you daydreamed for a moment.”

“If you poison yourself here, I would be the first suspect.” 

“Unreasonable,” the esteemed Professor Yan commented.

“…”

The impression Yan Suizhi gave off to others was that he led a pampered life—such as, making himself a cup of coffee or pouring a glass of red or white wine, instead of picking up a spatula when he was hungry.

He had no idea where such an extraordinarily phoney misconception had come from, but it was widespread. 

Unlike Student Gu who wasn’t even willing to share his coffee, Professor Yan flaunted the magnanimity of his heart. He picked out a few ingredients from the refrigerator, and as he made breakfast for himself, he also made a little for Gu Yan.

He said to Gu Yan with a smile, “Made you an omelette cooked over easy, the yolk’s only done on one side.” Payback for not leaving him a mouthful of coffee.

Gu · doesn’t like food served raw · not even runny eggs · Yan, “…”

However, when the plate was brought over, he found out that the omelette wasn’t actually only cooked on one side as Yan Suizhi had claimed. Instead, it happened to be fully cooked. 

Yan Suizhi, in a rare show of good behaviour, took the initiative to heat himself a glass of milk. Yet while waiting for the milk, he never heard the sound of knives and forks clinking against a dining plate.

Are you really that afraid I’d poison you?

He turned his head in puzzlement and saw Gu Yan’s smart device just happen to start buzzing.

Gu Yan’s gaze looked as if it had just slid off him. He put on an earpiece, his eyes downcasted as he answered the call. 

“Mm.”

“On my way.”

He gave a sparse, precious few words of response to the other, then quietly finished the breakfast in front of him.

“Leaving?” When Yan Suizhi sat at the table, Gu Yan had gotten up, picking up his coat. 

“Mn. I’m already a little late,” Gu Yan said.

Yan Suizhi glanced at the time in surprise. The person who strictly adhered to the golden 10-minutes actually had times when he ran late?

“Meeting a client?”

“No, former coursemates,” Gu Yan replied succinctly, without meaning to expound on it. 

Yan Suizhi didn’t have much of an inquiring mind towards the affairs of others, and didn’t ask more. He nodded, drinking his milk.

“By the way.”

“Hm?” Yan Suizhi looked over upon hearing this.

Gu Yan had already walked to the entryway, about to open the door and leave. He pointed to the empty plate in the dishwasher that had held the omelette. “Thank you.” 

Was this something that required thanks?

Professor Yan’s eyebrows lifted. He simply joked, “This can be considered ‘grovelling’ for me. Did it work?”

“…” Gu Yan’s expression instantly turned a splendid sight before freezing over once again. Then, he turned around and walked away, flatly shutting the door on him.

— 

Fizz’s car came out punctually. When Yan Suizhi stood at the door, not a second late, she also stopped the car, not a second late.

There were advantages and disadvantages to hitching a ride from Ms Fizz.

The advantage was that he could hear countless new tidbits of information from her along the way. Naturally, she wouldn’t divulge a word on anything he shouldn’t know, but the rest of it wouldn’t see an end once she started.

From the law firm’s internal case classification system to today’s sale at a certain mall in De Carma, Yan Suizhi was fed a full banquet of useful and useless tidbits. 

Even including a tidbit about Gu Yan and the explosion case.

“Strictly speaking, Gu is your senior. He graduated many years before you, so you might not have heard of this…” Fizz always spoke as swiftly as an energetic lark. “He was a student under Dean Yan. Back in the day, people from the same batch as him said that he had a poor relationship with the dean, breaking off all contact with him after graduation.”

“I’ve heard a little about it,” Yan Suizhi said.

Not only had he heard about it, but he had even experienced it first-hand. 

However, whether it was then or now, at least on his part, he didn’t find Gu Yan unlikeable. There were qualities in this student that he greatly appreciated, thus he treated Gu Yan a little differently from the way he treated other students.

In Yan Suizhi’s dictionary, this could be defined as showing ‘preferential treatment’.

…That was, if being particularly fond of riling someone up could be considered a form of preferential treatment.

The so-called poor relationship, Professor Yan shamelessly thought, was primarily one-sided on Gu Yan’s end, and had nothing to do with him. 

“I don’t think that’s the case, though,” Fizz said.

Yan Suizhi raised his eyebrows, thinking to himself, ‘Lady, you have a rather unique understanding.’

“When that explosion happened, Gu was on a business trip and didn’t receive notice of it at first. The firm assigned to the case to Hobbes. Gu rushed back as soon as he heard the news, but the case was already a foregone conclusion. Compensation was settled and justice was served. He went to upper management to request an exception to be made for him so that he could take out the case file. He poured over it for a very long time, and afterwards took on many similar or related cases. Those two months of workload neared what he used to get in six months.”

Fizz said, “In my opinion… no matter what their relationship was like in school, Gu, as his student, still retained a little sentiment for that dean.” 

Yan Suizhi’s clear gaze fell outside the car window. After a moment of silence, he smiled, echoing, “I suppose so.”

A little later, as Fizz parked her car in the underground car park at Southcross, he  offhandedly asked out of the blue, “Apart from the people involved, that explosion case had nothing special in nature, so why did the firm classify it as a level 1 file?”

A level 1 file meant that access to it was restricted.

Fizz gave a start, then shook her head. “I don’t know. There’s a set of criteria for evaluating this. It’s outside my scope.” 

He nodded without probing further. It was another moment before he withdrew his gaze from out the car window.

Yan Suizhi initially assumed that he would spend his first day back at the law firm holed up in Gu Yan’s office. After all, Gu Yan wasn’t in the firm today and had not taken him along out on business, which meant that he had no other tasks today aside from organising files.

But as it turned out, it was impossible to have a moment of peace. 

Before it even reached ten in the morning, work came in. The official questions for the preliminary assessment had been released. What they had picked out for themselves before, such as robbery and intentional homicide, weren’t completely separate cases, but a singular, comprehensive major law case.

In order to give them a holistic experience and to simulate it closer to reality, the interns had to approach all the witnesses and so on themselves with appointments.

So they had to go to the first appointment venue to meet a party involved with the case that very morning.

The few interns were very excited, starkly contrasting with Yan Suizhi. “Where are we going?” 

“A cemetery,” Luke said.

“…” Yan Suizhi inwardly thought, they’re really putting on a show. “Who arranged this, do I have to go?”

“My teacher, Hobbes,” Luke mentioned his teacher’s name like a chick meeting an eagle.

Yan Suizhi, “…” 

“You definitely have to go, otherwise do you want to get a zero on your assessment? Just think about that teacher of yours.” Luke took while Gu Yan was absent to daringly jab his office desk. “I fear that you won’t even get brownie points. You have grim prospects, my friend.”

“Which cemetery?” Yan Suizhi asked.

Luke said, “Violet Lake Cemetery.”