CH 81

The apartment that Luke found was in close vicinity to Southcross Law Firm. However, the residential area was a little aged. The building facade looked weathered and unremarkable, like a bald patch amidst the tall and wide buildings around it. The most awkward feature was that the hover roads and highways newly built a few years ago spanned perfectly overhead. They came practically out of nowhere, causing the retail street opposite to lose popularity, thus plummeting the commercial value of the area.

Everyone knew that this land would be repurposed sooner or later. So the owners were all hoarding their properties, greatly reluctant to sell them off. 

But the younger generation of landlords didn’t like staying here. As such, only the elderly, who didn’t like to shift their nests, and people renting apartments populated the area.

“It looks a little rundown, but other than that, it’s a pretty good place.” Before walking into the neighbourhood, Luke was already peeking at Yan Suizhi’s expression, explaining with a trace of awkwardness. “I checked the vicinity. It’s convenient to go shopping, just, transportation-wise, it’s a little… but you can walk to Southcross from here; you don’t have to drive. Anyhow, aside from transportation, there isn’t really much you can pick on. It’s situated between three major districts, so it’s a popular choice for students from several schools. The people are decent, so it should be pretty safe.”

“The way you’re watching me is making me feel like I’m a walking bomb,” Yan Suizhi said snippily.

Luke laughed abashedly, scratching his head. “Nah, I’m just afraid that you’ll find this place too old.” 

Although Yan Suizhi had told him that he didn’t have any other particular requirements aside from the rent being reasonable and the interior being clean, he had this niggling hunch that Yan Suizhi was the kind of person that had grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth, and thus might not necessarily be able to accept such a dreary place.

“Why not?” Yan Suizhi didn’t mind in the slightest. “It isn’t as if I’m sleeping on a park bench; how the outside looks doesn’t matter to me .”

To be completely honest, if he was being particular, he did have a certain standard for the surrounding neighbourhood. But Luke had already gone through all the trouble for him; he wouldn’t spoil this little intern’s fun.

The apartment was on the ninth floor and the landlord was a tall, thin man with fair skin and sky-blue eyes. It was obvious that he must have been lanky and handsome when he was young. However, there now were deeply-set wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and mouth.

“I was actually already prepared to wait until evening,” said the landlord, holding out his hand and shaking hands with them. “Mervyn White, the poor landlord who has waited for you for a century now.”

Yan Suizhi, “My bad. I almost went out on another business trip today; you nearly had to wait for a second century.”

“Then I’ll have the rental contract engraved on my epitaph and only rest in peace after you sign it for me.”

Luke, “…” You two really have quite a sense of humour. 

Mervyn White appeared to easily warm up to others, readily bantering along when they’d just met. But, it did make people feel much more comfortable around him.

“C’mon, I’ll show you around the place.” He beckoned to Yan Suizhi. “Follow me. The shoe rack on this side of the entryway has a built-in, antibacterial disinfecting system. You can remove and keep your footwear inside without a fuss; there won’t be any odour. But I sniffed you just now, and I feel like this function is of little use for you. However, if you ever have any guests, then it’ll come in handy.”

Yan Suizhi, “…Should I be thanking you for the compliment?”

“Don’t mention it.” Mervyn White continued to speak, “The passcode panel for the door is here. Not now of course, but after you sign the contract, I’ll let you press your thumbprint on it.” 

He passed through the short hallway at the entrance and pushed open a door on his left. “The living room is here. Feel free to lounge around on the two sets of sofas however you like; each one can be laid flat into quite a comfortable position. The kitchen and dining room are past this glass partition door. While the kitchenware isn’t new, they’re pretty much as good as. There might still be some milk and frozen meat in the freezer, you can have them too. And then over here… the bathroom and the storeroom. Let me give you a word of advice: close the sliding door when you shower to prevent water from splashing out. The floor is a little slippery; a fall could ruin a face as handsome as yours. The bedroom’s over here—”

He spoke very quickly; someone who was a little slower to react might have been unable to keep up.

However, this flat was indeed clean and brightly lit. It did appear to be a very comfortable place to live in, even with a rare artistic touch. The artworks that adorned the wall were elegant and tasteful, the strokes and colours complementing the space perfectly.

While waiting for the landlord to open the bedroom door, Yan Suizhi reached out, touching an artwork hanging near him. 

It was a minimalistic drawing of figures using charcoal, similar to those sketches without facial features that costume designers liked to draw. Only, the focus of this artwork wasn’t in their clothing, nor was it coloured in.

A man and a woman could be made out from the artwork. The woman was seated elegantly, reaching out for a cup of tea, whereas the man was playfully putting a thumb-sized moonrose in her cup.

When Mervyn White saw him reach out, he arched an eyebrow, asking, “How is it? This drawing is pretty decent, right?”

Yan Suizhi nodded, “It’s quite good. I can tell that the artist has an uninhibited nature.” 

Upon hearing this, Mervyn White’s interest deepened. “Really? You can tell something like this? What else can you tell?”

“I can also tell that the artist is an eternal bachelor,” said Yan Suizhi.

Mervyn White, “…”

Yan Suizhi continued to admire it for a moment, then noticed the chatterbox landlord’s silence. “Why?” 

Mervyn White looked at him with a numb face for a long time, finally using his thumb to point to himself. “Thanks for the evaluation. The artist is here.”

Yan Suizhi nodded in understanding. “Then it appears that my words weren’t far off the mark.”

“…”

For a brief moment, Luke slightly regretted introducing the two of them. He kept feeling that after having his sore spots jabbed a couple more times, the landlord would promptly sweep them out of the house. However, he later realised that he was overthinking it. Could anyone ever find Yan Suizhi disagreeable? Oh, aside from the senior Lawyer Hobbes. 

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“Yeah,” Merwin said. “I’ve been living off rent and drawing after I quit my job. It’s been over twenty years now.”

Yan Suizhi nodded. 

Conversely, it was Luke who was a little curious. “Quit your job? What did you do in the past?”

Mervyn White strongly exuded an ‘you can tie me up but don’t tie me down’ vibe from head to toe, giving off a flippant type of attitude. His clothes and pants were baggy and comfortable. Taking advantage of the floor heating and temperature control, he walked around barefoot at home, his hair casually braided behind his head.

Just based on his current lifestyle, it was really a challenge to imagine what he used to work as.

At the mention of his previous employment, Mervyn White seemed to turn a little moody. 

“Eh? Sorry, did I ask something inappropriate?” Luke keenly picked up on his expression; it was evident that he had made some progress during this internship.

“Ah…” Mervyn White trailed off. “It’s not you, it’s just that the memories of my previous job are a little bit of a downer. I pulled this long face for my work to look at, not you guys.”

But he didn’t sidestep Luke’s question, he even put on a dead fish-eyed look in ridicule, taking the initiative to ask Luke, “What do you think I worked as in the past?”

“I don’t know, it’s hard to guess,” Luke said. “I feel like you could have been an artist, or an art dealer? Someone who ran art exhibitions, maybe? Or a designer?” 

Every time he mentioned one, Mervyn White would wag his index finger, shaking it to the end and actually looking several measures more smug. “Sadly, you got it all wrong. It looks like I did well in the past few years, successfully scrubbing away the original vibe I had from there. Nice, nice.”

He sold the whole charade before then saying, “I worked in a hospital.”

He tapped the artwork of the man and the woman on the wall. “I met these two in the hospital. In a sense, they are my patients; I was a specialist doctor at that time, and this was my first meeting with them in the hospital garden. I only happened to walk by, but the scene left a deep impression on me. I would think of it from time to time, so I drew it out.”

The little fool Luke was startled. “Frankly, I really can’t tell at all. Were you a doctor?” 

“Not exactly,” Mervyn White said. “I was in the research lab, not down making rounds, but I still had some interaction with patients.”

Now, even Yan Suizhi was surprised.

Luke asked, “Research lab? What were you researching?”

Mervyn White waved a hand. “Forget it, it’s all in the past, I don’t want to bring it up anymore. Also, it’s already been more than twenty years, so I’ve pretty much forgotten all the details.” 

During the tour of the bedroom afterwards, Luke couldn’t help but glance at him and glance again in the next moment.

“Even though the temperature panel has been installed for more than a decade, it still works quite well.” Mervyn White said, “You can call this number if anything goes wrong. Dear Student, you’ve already glanced over at me forty-seven times; two more and I’ll suspect that you want to start a grandfatherly relationship with me.”

“…”

Luke looked horrified. “No, wait, what grandfatherly relationship? How old are you?” 

Mervyn White graced him with an astonishingly condescending eye roll. “Don’t you think there’s something wrong with what you’re focusing on? I’ve counted with my fingers before, I’m not that old, maybe seventy years older than you guys.”

Doing the math, he was in his nineties now. In fact, he was still considered to be in the tail-end of his prime in his nineties, and still had another twenty years to go before he reached the tip of this tail. With that in mind, the creases in the corners of his eyes and the frown lines around his mouth were a tad too deep, especially the two in between his brows. If it weren’t for years upon years of having the brows locked in a frown, people would rarely have such deep-set wrinkles there.

When pieced together with what he earlier said, it did seem that his previous job had greatly vexed him.

Mervyn White didn’t continue to make things difficult for Luke. Instead, he brought them to the last door. “There’s a bedroom here too, but it isn’t included in the rental—I will stay in this room from time to time. My stuff is all in here; I don’t intend to vacate it.” 

Despite saying so, he still opened the door to this room. “Even though it isn’t up for rent, I don’t mind giving you a tour. Cherish this opportunity; I’ll be locking it up after this and you’ll never have the right to open it anymore.”

Compared to the clean and neat living spaces before, this bedroom contained real signs of occupancy. There was even an archaic notebook resting at the head of the bed with a pen bookmarking it, like he was midway writing something before leaving the door.

Several rows of artistic bookshelves were nailed to the wall in picturesque disorder. There were collector’s edition illustration books on two rows of them, two sketchbooks opened to an arbitrary page, and various photo frames placed on the other rows, interspersed with the occasional vividly-coloured pots of cacti.

“Look, to ease this rental arrangement, I even changed the flowering vines in here to cacti so you don’t have to take care of them,” Mervyn White said. 

Yan Suizhi showed the utmost sincerity. “I won’t take care of them, don’t worry. All the plants that have been under my care have all died.”

Mervyn White, “…Then it’d be for the best not to trouble your golden hands to.”

Yan Suizhi’s gaze swept past the photo frames. The bulk of them were Mervyn White’s drawings or photographs of his exhibitions, but there were two that were the exception.

Those two photos looked very aged. From the fashion and the scenery, it was probably from at least twenty years ago. In one of the photographs, Mervyn White was holding white flowers in a cemetery. He was walking slowly surrounded by evergreens. To his side and in the distance behind him were rows after rows of silent gravestones. 

The other photograph was also taken in a cemetery but from a different angle. This time, Mervyn White wasn’t captured in the lens, only the countless gravestones spread out far yonder amidst the deep green trees.

Luke was speechless when he saw the two photographs, thinking that this landlord really didn’t skirt around taboos at all. While the photographs did have an artistic flair, it was too weird to place them facing the bed. Wasn’t he scared that he would accidentally glance over at them and get a shock in the middle of the night?

Yan Suizhi was also looking at the same two photographs, yet his thoughts were completely different.

Even though the photographs didn’t show the cemetery gates nor was there the name of the cemetery anywhere, Yan Suizhi could recognise it at first sight. “Is this the Juniper Cemetery at Zone 13 of Helan?” 

Mervyn White nodded, slightly surprised, “Yeah. You can recognise it with just this?”

“I happen to be familiar with it,” Yan Suizhi said.

It was only natural that he could recognise it, because there was once a long period of time that Yan Suizhi would go there every day, and the day would turn to afternoon in the blink of an eye. The placement of the gravestones, how the trees looked, which regions were higher and made the climb up more tiring, and which regions were lower and would often flood when it rained—he knew it like the back of his hand.

For that was where his parents were buried. 

Yan Suizhi gazed at those two photographs for a while; there were hundreds of gravestones, among which there were two beneath which lay the people he missed the most.

“What’s the matter?” Mervyn White asked.

A moment later, Yan Suizhi turned his eyes away, saying apologetically, “It’s nothing, my thoughts wandered for a bit.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Mervyn White said. “I easily get lost in thought every time I see these two photographs too, a whole afternoon will go by just like that.” 

He took the two of them out of the room and locked the door again. He said, “I spent my childhood in Helan, but I mainly stayed in De Carma for work. After I retired, I would go back and forth, spending half a year there and the other half-year here. I was supposed to be here to attend an interstellar art exhibition held in De Carma, but I just received a call out of the blue telling me that my mother is ill, so I have to hurry back to take care of her for a while, otherwise I’d probably be striked out of the family tree.”

“What kind of illness? Is it severe?” Luke asked with concern.

Mervyn White smiled merrily, saying, “You’re really like a blonde cherub at times like this; you’d look more like it if you were just a little bit more plump. It’s nothing big, she might have caught some flu. She’s running a fever and is already hospitalised. But even if she gets better by night, I still have to make a trip back to feel more at ease.”

“So—” Mervyn White led the two men back to the living room. He projected the pre-prepared rental contract from his photon computer and spread the holographic papers over the glass coffee table. “If you don’t have any other questions, shall we sign the contract?” 

Actually, before entering, Yan Suizhi was inclined not to rent, because this residential area was indeed nothing much to speak of. But at this moment, his mind had changed slightly.

Perhaps it was because the interior of the house really was decorated quite well, exceeding his expectations. Or perhaps it was because of those two photographs of the cemetery…

Yan Suizhi thought about it before saying, “To be honest, I’m very satisfied with this place, but due to various circumstances, I’m currently unable to confirm the lease—”

Mervyn White glanced at Luke and flapped a hand at Yan Suizhi, a suave look on his face. “It’s cool! I know, I heard from this little buddy Luke that you’re in your internship period so the salary you get is limited. Even if you wanted to live independently, there’s no way that you could shell out half a year’s rent in a go. That’s very normal; I’ve come across other kiddos from Southcross too, I understand too well.” 

He misunderstood the reason for Yan Suizhi’s hesitance as being embarrassingly short of money, which was also true to an extent. Naturally, Yan Suizhi was actually considering how he might not be able to stay for long before his sheepskin dropped for good.

However, this wasn’t a reason that he could give the landlord. Since the landlord had already found a reason for him, he was more than happy to go along with it. Nodding, he said, “Exactly. I’m sorry to say this, but I’m broke right now.”

This broke guy didn’t have a smidge of the embarrassment that any broke guy would have. His airs and demeanour were still immaculate, and he was still as frank as could be.

Watching this from the side, Luke silently looked away and facepalmed. 

Little did anyone expect that Mervyn White would laugh raucously instead. “Yo, I like your spunk! To be honest, it’s not easy for me to meet a tenant like you. Since I’m in a good mood, why don’t I just sign you for a 1-week probational lease period? I’m going to be in Helan for a week or so anyway, so it isn’t a bad idea to have someone around to help me keep an eye on the house. You can just move your luggage and whatnot over and settle in for a bite. If you really like it here, we can renew it on a monthly basis, how does that sound?”

Luke sneaked a look at him, saying in his head that most people wouldn’t have the cheek to accept such an arrangement. Normally, in the face of such a considerate and reasonable landlord, people would say, ‘No, how could I. Let’s sign a month first.’ or ‘Let’s sign three months’, which was the equivalent of both sides making concessions and both sides would be happy.

Who knew that Yan Suizhi would actually nod his head and say, “Really? It’d be great if that’s really possible, thank you very much.”

Luke, “…” Do you have no shame? 

Professor Yan really didn’t have any shame.

As he spoke, he breezily lowered his head and scanned the contents of the contract, then filled 7 days into the lease term with particular ease, finally signing his name with a flourish at the end.

While signing, his stroke got stuck on the way out for the second time, and he even tsk’ed at himself in his head, thinking to himself that it really was easy to slip up without Student Gu’s timely cough next to him.

Mervyn White was utterly unfazed as he took the contract, checked the information filled in a few places, then unhesitantly signed his name as well. 

Everyone, except for Luke, was happy.

With these two around, a process that should have been quite finicky was finished astonishingly quickly; it took less than half an hour from viewing the property for the contract to be signed.

Even after Yan Suizhi bade farewell and made to leave, Luke was still unable to wrap his head around it. “Just like that?”

“Otherwise?” 

As they walked to the door, Mervyn White suddenly thought of something, slapping his forehead. “Hey—I was so excited that I forgot to mention. You can do whatever you want when you stay here, except for two conditions.”

“What are they?”

“No pets.” Mervyn White said, “No matter what animal it is, don’t let me catch a single trace of animals left behind. I’m very sensitive about such things; I’ll choke at the sight of it. Really, no joke. It’s that serious. I have a bit of a… psychological shadow about this. So, be very, very sure not to violate this.”

Yan Suizhi nodded. “Don’t worry, it is already particularly challenging to raise myself on an intern’s salary, let alone have any surplus to raise a pet.” 

Mervyn White said, “Great.”

“…”

“Ahem, I mean. I hope you can have a pay raise soon.” Mervyn White continued, “The other condition is that you’re not allowed to bring any girlfriends over. This is similarly another serious psychological shadow I have. I didn’t have such a stipulation in the past, only the first one, then ran into three tenants in a row like a human motor. Resentment is a cosmic, indisputable fact of life. Ah… what a nightmare that was. Anyway, just think of it as a touchy spot of this eternal bachelor. Don’t poke it, so promise me, not to bring any over, got it?”

Yan Suizhi was caught between laughter and tears. “I don’t know if this will bring you any consolation, but I don’t have a girlfriend.” 

Mervyn White unyieldingly added, “No boyfriends allowed, either.”

Yan Suizhi, “…”

“Why did you go silent?” An annoying glint of suspicion entered Mervyn White’s gaze.

Yan Suizhi huffily said, “No, none of that either. If you keep looking at me like that, I’m going to annul the contract.” 

Reassured, Mervyn White nodded. “Good. I’ll register your fingerprints to the security system for seven days’ access. You can move in tonight and enjoy your new life.”

—

Yan Suizhi intended to give a word to Gu Yan when he returned to Southcross Law Firm.

In truth, for a fleeting moment as he signed the contract, the idea of calling to ask Gu Yan popped into his mind. But he himself crossed it out the moment this thought flashed by. As for why, he didn’t think closely about it. 

Or, rather, he did know why. But a certain consciousness pulled him away from thinking about it.

However, when he returned to Southcross Law Firm, he then found that the office on the second floor was devoid of anyone.

He gave it a thought before sending a message to Gu Yan on his smart device: [Have you left for the port?]

A moment later, the other’s response came in: [I’m already on the space shuttle.] 

-So soon?

-Expedited.

In the next moment, Gu Yan sent another message over: [About to leave the port. Head back on your own tonight.]

Yan Suizhi considered it then responded: [Mm. By the way, Luke found a new flat for me. I’ve just signed a short-term contract; I’ll move out in the next two days.] 

After all, his presence there would bring Gu Yan trouble. Even if Gu Yan himself didn’t mind, Yan Suizhi wouldn’t casually take his future for a joke.

Only, this time, even after a long wait, Gu Yan’s reply never came.