CH 62

The timing of the return journey happened to coincide with the peak hour jam in Zone 3. Too lazy to squirm along behind a whole bunch of cars, Yan Suizhi simply took the longest route around the zone instead. He didn’t really care even if he didn’t manage to save any time, as long as he didn’t have to brake the car every five or so metres.

He didn’t have much in his stomach at the moment. Frequently breaking wasn’t going to be kind to him. 

Sure enough, driving on far-flung roads circling the zone was indeed much smoother than trying to take the roads within the zone. Nevertheless, he wasn’t the only one willing to go off the beaten path to avoid the jam, so there was still a relatively long pause mid-route.

While waiting, Yan Suizhi’s gaze swept across the side of the road.

Cherry Estate?

His line of sight finally rested on a giant signage erected at the fork in the road ahead. The large arrow pointed towards a tree-lined boulevard, indicated to be 700 metres away. 

This wasn’t an unfamiliar name to him. It wouldn’t be an unfamiliar name to most people. It was a famous winery in Tian Qin Zone 3. There was a picturesque large cherry orchard behind the winery, interspersed by a variety of flowering vines and evergreens. Word spread amongst the winery’s clientele, and the orchard eventually became a popular venue for garden parties or similar occasions.

The estate manager also had an astute mind for how to play up the sentimentality of it all. To please the guests, he fermented custom-made wine as a special gift for each VIP guest in accordance with their tastes, a bottle every year. Marked with their names and an exclusive seal, these would be individually placed in various corners of the cherry orchard, mayhap behind a flowering branch, or hidden amidst the leafy foliage.

Then, guests would be given a year to slowly search for this pleasant surprise.

The bottles were wrapped in a special and delicate soft film that was able to preserve the wine. Guests who found theirs early were said to be blessed by good fortune; guests who found theirs late could enjoy better-aged wine.

Without a single drawback, this activity was naturally a pleasure that kept growing the reputation of Cherry Estate.

However, what caught Yan Suizhi’s attention at this time wasn’t its reputation, but that a series of paparazzi photos that Bens had previously shown him were taken here. There were a few of Joe and Zhao Zemu together and a few of Joe by himself.

After thinking it over, Yan Suizhi switched the driving mode to manual and spun the steering wheel. The car turned away from the main road at the fork and went straight towards the boulevard.

His busy schedule in his previous life disallowed him the leisure of crossing the universe to attend garden parties. As such, he hadn’t been to Cherry Estate more than a handful of times. Nevertheless, his name was on the VIP list of Cherry Estate as he would order some wine from here every year as a small gift, or to let his students sample something different at his birthday wine parties. 

So, at his request, the exclusive wine that belonged to him was sent directly to De Carma every year.

Yan Suizhi came out from the car park, walking up to the door of Cherry Estate. Then, he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

He almost forgot. Now, he could only enter the foyer of Cherry Estate, not the cherry orchard at the back. After all, he was no longer holding the identity of ‘Yan Suizhi’, but ‘Ruan Ye’.

Just as he was mulling over how to proceed, two people happened to walk out of the foyer of the estate. 

It was none other than the unlucky Bens and Hersey.

Bens was walking ahead at first, gesturing and talking at length. But when he caught sight of Yan Suizhi out of the corner of his eye, he screeched to a halt.

Yan Suizhi smiled. “What a coincidence.”

Bens clutched his camera with a weepy face. “Why is it you again!” 

Due to the previous incident, Bens now wanted to run away if he ever saw Yan Suizhi or Gu Yan, preferably putting an eight-hundred-metre distance between them before he would be willing to talk.

“Don’t worry,” Yan Suizhi reassured. “I’m not here to snatch your camera this time.”

It was very worth deliberating over the way he said those words. The subtext read, ‘Though I’m not here to snatch your camera, I’m going to do a little something else.’

Bens himself played all sorts of word games every day. Of course he was able to catch the key point the very moment he heard it. His face turned even gloomier. “Tell me first what you want.” 

Yan Suizhi glanced towards the winery, asking him, “I heard you talking about Zhao Zemu just now. Is he at the winery now?”

Bens nodded. “Yeah, why else would I come here with Hersey? To drink wine?”

He stared at Yan Suizhi suspiciously. “Hang on. You… You want to go in?”

This tacit understanding greatly pleased Yan Suizhi, saving him the need to open his mouth. 

“Smart.” Yan Suizhi wasn’t stingy with his praise. “Can I trouble you to take me into the cherry orchard?”

Bens really wanted to say, ‘Don’t trouble me, I don’t wanna, keep dreaming.’ But recalling the quality education he previously received, he swallowed the words back down, groaning reluctantly like he had a toothache. “Forget it, forget it. You. Argh… Follow me.”

A few photos were clearly taken at the cherry orchard, thus it was evident that Bens had access to the orchard.

The waiter in charge of receiving guests froze slightly as Bens led Hersey and Yan Suizhi back into the lobby. “Did you leave something behind?” 

“Ah, nothing like that. I just happened to meet a friend, so I thought I would bring him to the cherry orchard for a drink.” Despite saying that he had ‘met a friend’, Bens’ tone sounded more like he had ‘run into a ghost’. The waiter gave Yan Suizhi a lookover.

“Right, I see. That’s fine.” The waiter demonstrated good customer service upon understanding the situation, immediately putting on a warm smile and gesturing to the path leading to the cherry orchard. “This way, please.  What wine would you like, sir?”

If I asked, would you serve poisoned wine?

Bens mentally grumbled for a long time before picking a relatively economical answer. “Garden wine, I guess.” 

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Since they had already come in, Bens stopped trying to gain any ground, going the full mile. With a foul expression, he led Yan Suizhi deeper into the orchard. 

“Let’s sit here first.”

They selected a table in an area surrounded by strawberries and moonstar grass. The waiter swiftly served the dessert wine, ice, butter, and a plate of exquisite bites to go with the wine. He also brought three slim-footed glasses, each adorned with a ruby red cherry.

The young man skillfully poured wine for the three of them and smiled at them. “Bon appétit. Just ring the bell on the table if you need anything.”

Yan Suizhi ate some of the pastries to stave off any giddiness before lifting the glass and taking a small sip. 

Yan Suizhi was someone who had clear boundaries. Stalking him in an attempt to bring him trouble was one thing, and bringing him in as a favour was a whole other thing. So, after swallowing the wine, he told Bens, “Thank you. I’ll send you a bottle of Silverbase Carmont another time.”

Silverbase Carmont was a famous first-rate wine from Cherry Estate. Amongst the classier wines, its tasting profile was the most widely enjoyed, thus made for a very suitable gift.

Only, the price tag…

Bens rolled his eyes. “If you can afford a Silverbase Carmont, would you still need me to escort you in?” 

The subtext read, ‘Don’t pull my leg, I’m not holding out for it.’

Yan Suizhi merely lifted his eyebrows without offering an explanation.

“Zhao Zemu went into the Confessional.” Bens jabbed his chin towards a secluded trail in the distance. “He always stays inside for a long time. You can wait for him if you’ve got the time. Anyway, we’re going to make a move on.”

He seemed to have other things on his hands or other people he had to tail. Whichever it was, he didn’t have any intention of dallying here. After draining the entire glass of wine in a go, he then hurried Hersey to finish his, and they quickly left. 

So, five minutes later, Yan Suizhi was the only one remaining in this section of the cherry orchard. He unhurriedly sipped the dessert wine, his eyes sweeping around the surrounding thicket, finally settling on that secluded trail.

At the end of that trail was a warm-hued house, known as the Confessional.

Cherry Estate provided a full spectrum of services. It even specially provided a confessional for the ladies and gentlemen who needed a drink to drown their sorrows. Inside, a priest was responsible for listening to their discontent and drunk ramblings, just like the way it was done in the old days. You could freely pour your heart out in front of him; by rule, he had the right and the duty to keep your words confidential.

Needless to say, Bens, who had been tailing Zhao Zemu for a long time, knew his habits like the back of his hand. 

Yan Suizhi sat there for an hour. The sky had already turned dark by the time Zhao Zemu came out from the Confessional. A long time had passed since he last saw Zhao Zemu, but he looked much worse for wear and had a layer of grey stubble on his chin. He looked a far cry from the meticulously groomed appearance he had before.

He bumped into an acquaintance along the path, forcibly getting his mood up to exchange a few pleasantries with him.

“Why have you come here out of the blue? I thought you haven’t been stepping out of your house recently,” said that man.

Zhao Zemu nodded, saying somewhat haggardly, “I suddenly felt like coming by for a look.” 

It dawned on that man. “Oh, I remember. Manson, Joe, and you used to come here for drinks all the time, didn’t you? I think someone mentioned it to me before?”

Zhao Zemu, “Yeah. It’s a thing of our childhood. We used to sneak here for a drink in our teens under our family names.”

That man smiled. “It’s something we’ve all done, as well as coming here to find the wine marked with our parents’ names and swapping the labels. All of us thought it was a fun prank back then.”

“Yeah.” 

That man thought for a moment, and he sighed. “I hear that Manson’s still unwell?”

Even though the Manson family had sealed off some of the news, those within their social circle would still more or less have heard whiff of it.

Zhao Zemu, “Mn… Lately, I’ve been thinking about all the stupid things Manson did when he was in his teens, so I came back here for a bit.”

“Oh man…” That man patted Zhao Zemu’s shoulder. “I wonder if he’ll be okay.” 

Zhao Zemu stayed silent for a very long time, then said, “He’ll be out of the hospital eventually. Alright, talk to you another time, I’m heading off.”

“Alright, let’s have a drink together another day!”

“Yeah.”

When Zhao Zemu passed by this way, Yan Suizhi drank his wine, deliberately turning his head inwards. 

According to the rules in this jurisdiction, as the defence lawyer for the suspect, Chen Zhang, he wasn’t at liberty to meet with witnesses on the victim’s side. If he wanted to meet them, he first had to report it and go through procedure, thus preventing witnesses from being pressured into changing their testimonies, or suchlike scenarios.

Yan Suizhi had come to Cherry Estate on a whim. Naturally, he hadn’t walked the procedure. He had only come to observe how Zhao Zemu was doing and had no intention of having a direct conversation with him.

As such, Zhao Zemu really didn’t see him, leaving in a hurry.

The man left behind was still in the garden, chatting casually with someone else from within their circle about Zhao Zemu. 

“Since when was he so close to Manson? Why don’t I know about this?”

“That’s because you didn’t know them before. They were quite close when they were young. He, Joe, and Manson. It was only after they grew up that they got distant; they aren’t the same type of people, after all.”

“Fair enough. He looks much more dependable?”

“It’s in his bones, really! Whereas of the three of them, Manson is definitely the dumbest.” 

Yan Suizhi listened to them indiscriminately gossip about a whole string of people. He finished the last bit of wine, then used a clean paper towel to wipe the fingers which had touched the pastries before leaving.

The very next morning, there wasn’t a single good omen. The sky was dark and overcast, the clashing winds from all directions howling loudly.

Yan Suizhi arrived at the detention centre for the appointment right on the dot.

“Wait one moment, I’ll go and bring Chen Zhang over.” Seeing him come by every day, bring Chen Zhang into a trancelike state every day, yet never achieving any tangible progress on the case, the warden with a tiger-fierce felt pity for this unfortunate intern, his tone softening significantly. 

Yan Suizhi sat down at his usual old spot in the visiting room and nodded. “Thank you.”

The wait ended up being ten minutes long.

Even the wardens guarding the door could barely watch on anymore. One of them glanced inside, furtively speaking to the other. “It can’t be that they’re going back to the starting point after so much work, right? Why do I feel like Chen Zhang is going to refuse to see him again?”

“That’ll be really hard to handle.” 

“This intern is really unlucky, he actually met such a troublesome client for his first trial.”

“What terrible luck.”

The two of them thought that they had kept their voices low enough, but Yan Suizhi could actually hear the bulk of their softly murmured conversation and was between amusement and annoyance.

Nevertheless, he wasn’t in any hurry. He leaned back against the chair, as relaxed as before. 

Another ten minutes later, the wardens at the door snapped back to attention, standing up straight by the wall.

“Holy shit, he actually came!”

“The visiting time is already half over…”

Slow footsteps echoed down the corridor. They were heavy and sluggish, accompanied by the faint clinking of the metal handcuffs knocking against each other. 

Yan Suizhi loosely clasped his hands on the table in front of him. He could tell. Chen Zhang had worked it out; he could have had countless reasons that hindered him from divulging anything before, but he must have worked it out now.

Chen Zhang looked twice as haggard today as he did yesterday. Large dark shadows hung under his eyes, the stubble above his lips and on his chin had joined together, his hair was stuck up in all directions, and even the muscles he built after the many years of diving seemed to droop, covered by his clothes.

But his eyes were very bright, and his gaze was very heavy.

He sat in his seat, slowly speaking, “Yesterday’s recording replayed many times in my head. Many, many times. I couldn’t sleep. I kept hearing my granddad, dad, mum, and sister asking me whether I’m having a hard time, whether I didn’t want them anymore…” 

He fell silent for a moment, then gave a bitter laugh. “Please, I could never… I’m just…”

“I’m just scared of seeing them…”

“You know, right? My family has a hereditary disease. At the age of sixty, there’s a ninety percent chance that we’d end up paralysed. I’m not too far off. At best, I probably have another five or six years. Actually, it isn’t that this is an incurable disease. Including my mum’s respiratory disease. To treat them, just find the hospital that does the best tissue engineering, choose the healthiest backup time, and engineer organs to replace the diseased ones. I have enquired about it before… it’s just… it’s just I don’t earn enough to afford it.”

Chen Zhang said, “If it was someone a little more useful who can earn a little more, they wouldn’t be lying in the hospital as they are right now. So I don’t want to see them, I don’t dare to see him… The closer I get to the onset of the disease, the more I don’t want to see them. I want to stay far away and find a small hospital they don’t even know about and wait for the disease to onset.” 

“These two years, every other day, it was as if I was possessed. I keep fantasising that a pie would fall from the sky, or a tornado would whip up some money to my front door… The thoughts kept coming. Every day. Every day, even in my dreams.”

—

He treated Yan Suizhi like the priest in the Cherry Estate, pouring out all the grievances and delusions he had over the years. The more he spoke, the more he was unable to stop.

But Yan Suizhi didn’t rush him. Neither did he show any kind of impatience, nor any pity or sympathy. He listened just as if he was hearing something ordinary and mundane, which in turn made Chen Zhang feel more at ease, that it didn’t matter what he said. 

After a long time, Chen Zhang finally finished digging out the sludge that had piled up over the years, letting out a long exhale.

It was only at this moment that he raised his eyes and looked unwaveringly at Yan Suizhi. “I thought about it the whole night. I feel… Compared to money falling from the heavens, they would still prefer to see me more, right?”

Yan Suizhi said, “Of course.”

He paused in thought before adding, “And there are places where the astronomical price of those surgeries you mentioned can be greatly reduced. I know of one or two, at least.” 

Chen Zhang’s eyes instantly widened. “Really?”

“Obviously, there are certain conditions as well, but they aren’t too stringent.” Yan Suizhi said, “It’s just that the environment there might not be as good as Tian Qin. It’s in Wine City.”

Chen Zhang stared into his eyes for an extended length of time, as if he could confirm the credibility of his words in this way. Afterwards, like he had made up his mind, he closed his eyes, then opened them again. He said, “About… About that case… The one about Mr Manson… I am at blame.”

Yan Suizhi looked at him. 

After saying this, he took a deep breath, and slowly let it out. “But not of conspiracy to murder.”

Yan Suizhi nodded. “So, tell me. Do you want me to plead guilty, or not guilty?”

Chen Zhang clenched his fists. He said, “Not guilty.”

“Okay.” 

“I didn’t do those things, but…” Chen Zhang said, “My confession is recorded, my fingerprints are on the syringe and on the bottom of the medicinal vials, and—”

Yan Suizhi calmly interrupted him. “That’s not for you to worry about. As long as you promise to tell me the truth, you can leave the rest to me.”

A sudden thunderclap boomed outside, dimly heard from through the door and the walls. Chen Zhang’s fingers trembled, and he slowly clenched them even tighter. Like suddenly waking up from a dream, he said, “Alright. I promise.”

Finally, rain poured heavily from the sky that had been overcast all day. The large and icy drops heavily pelted the roofs and the walls, immediately drenching the area. 

Gurgling water rapidly streamed down along the sides of the roads, soon leaving nowhere to step.

Yan Suizhi walked along the corridor of the detention centre. The window panes were obscured with rainwater. Every now and then, a flash of lightning cut across, lighting up half the sky.

He silently opened his asset card and glanced at it, thinking: I’m screwed. Gu Yan, that crow’s mouth, really hit the nail on the head. My balance is so absymal that even buying an umbrella would hurt.

No matter how long the corridor of the detention centre was, there would surely come an end. He eyed the way it rained cats and dogs outside, stopping a metre from the main door. 

Just when he was about to resign himself to his fate, lean against the wall and wait out the rain, he saw someone coming out of a car across the street. The silhouette was straight and upright, holding an umbrella as he walked unhurriedly in this direction.

When reaching the front steps leading up to the detention centre, that person angled the edge of the umbrella slightly, looking up towards Yan Suizhi.

Yan Suizhi started slightly, standing up straight.

The man’s features were blurred under the heavy downpour. But Yan Suizhi could still recognise him at a glance. It was Gu Yan. 

Yan Suizhi projected a hologram, fingers flying swiftly as he sent a message:

-Didn’t you say you’ll reach at night?

Gu Yan didn’t even look at his smart device, coming up the steps under the umbrella. He stopped in front of the door and said tepidly, “Why are you sending me a message from a distance of fewer than five metres away?”

Yan Suizhi, “Remind me who was the one who sent me a message yesterday telling me to lift my head? I can’t seem to recall.” 

Gu Yan, “…”

Having been rescued, Professor Yan immediately followed Gu Yan down the stairs, walking step in step, shoulder to shoulder towards the courtyard gate.

“Have you booked the room?” Gu Yan asked.

Yan Suizhi said, “Nope.” 

Gu Yan, “?”

Very sincerely, Yan Suizhi said, “My current balance is only enough for an add-on bed in my room. So that’s what I did, and now I can’t even afford an umbrella anymore.”

“…”

Lawyer Gu’s face was blank. It was hard to say if he was more flabbergasted by the idea of an ‘add-on bed’ or that Yan Suizhi ‘can’t even afford an umbrella.’ 

But from the looks of it, he was slightly tempted to abandon the guy under the umbrella out in the pouring rain.

Yan Suizhi silently admired his expression for a while and finally could no longer restrain his smile. “All right, I was just teasing you. I’ve booked it. But you owe me an explanation. Am I some kind of dangerous beast, why does your face look so tense at the mention of an add-on bed?”

Without a single word nor glance over, Gu Yan walked to the side of the road and opened the car door, stuffing a certain someone into the car.

He himself got into the driver’s seat. After he kept the umbrella and was just about to set off, a fair and slender hand suddenly reached out beside him. 

“Pay me the room deposit. Thanks to your crow’s mouth, your teacher is really going to be unable to afford an umbrella.” Yan Suizhi said.

Gu Yan, “…”

Why don’t you pawn yourself and spend that money too?