CM | Chapter 17

Ten years later, Jiangcheng.

After several hours of unconsciousness, Gu Yao finally broke free of the darkness, and when she did, she found herself lying on a large bed.

For the next few minutes, her mind churned violently, her emotions surging up and down.

She quickly realized the predicament she was in, and remembered everything that had happened before she lost consciousness. A trace of fear rose in her.

Had she been kidnapped by that bastard with the surname Xu?!

Unfortunately, Gu Yao’s body was not cooperating. The effect of whatever had been in the tea had only just worn off. She rested for a few minutes while adjusting, and although the fogginess in her head had faded a little, her temples were still throbbing faintly.

She pushed herself up from the bed, but her fingers touched a piece of paper.

It was a note.

She picked it up and glanced over it twice, and the fear in her instantly turned to rage.

She crumpled the note into a ball and threw it to the floor.

A few more minutes passed before Gu Yao adapted to the state of her body and got out of bed to look for a way out.

First, she tried the doorknob. It was locked from the outside and wouldn’t open.

Then she searched the room, trying to find something she could use, but there were no personal belongings here at all. There was only a bed, a nightstand, and a large wardrobe. On the nightstand was a landline phone, and her cell phone was gone.

There was also a bathroom connected to the bedroom, and aside from the basic fixtures, she couldn’t even find a tube of toothpaste.

Of course, she still didn’t know the exact time now, or how long she’d been asleep, or whether it had been long enough for Qin Song to notice something was wrong and call the police.

At the thought of Qin Song, a sliver of hope rose in Gu Yao’s heart, but it sank again just moments later.

With Xu Shuo’s methods, he might already have made arrangements to deal with that.

After checking the entire room, Gu Yao exhaustedly sank down at the edge of the bed and began to think over her terrible situation, and to guess that bastard’s motives.

Ten minutes had already passed. From the shock, panic, and anger when she had first woken up to now, when she accepted reality, Gu Yao couldn’t say she was completely calm, but at the very least, she had recovered about sixty percent of her thinking ability.

But thinking consumed the body. Her hands and feet were ice-cold, her stomach was empty, and her strength was severely lacking. In other words, even if her brain was working enough, and even if she had the ability to run out that door, she probably still wouldn’t outrun that bastard’s long legs.

When Gu Yao realized this, she no longer felt anxious. Instead, she stood up very calmly, picked up the note she’d crumpled into a ball a few minutes ago from the floor, and opened it again.

On it was written this passage, —

“Miss Gu, I know that after you wake up, you’ll feel uneasy, angry, and may even do something impulsive. For the sake of both your safety and mine, we will not have direct contact until you’ve calmed down completely. Once you’ve thought it through, I’ll open the door, treat you to a meal first, and then we’ll talk. Oh, and by the way, there’s an internal phone on the nightstand. You can call me anytime.”

After reading the note for the second time, Gu Yao finally made the wise choice and dialed the internal line on the nightstand.

The phone rang twice, then connected.

A very annoying-sounding voice came through. “Miss Gu, what can I do for you?”

Gu Yao took a breath and, holding back her disgust, said, “I need water and food.”

“No problem. It’ll be sent up right away.”

The call ended. Less than ten seconds later, there was movement outside the door.

Gu Yao jumped and immediately looked toward the door, every nerve on guard.

The door opened, and Xu Shuo’s tall figure appeared there, but he didn’t come in. He only leaned against the doorframe, looking at her with a smile that wasn’t quite a smile.

The two of them were five or six meters apart. Gu Yao stared at this man fixedly, and a ridiculous thought suddenly surged in her mind, what were the chances of knocking him out with the landline phone, then charging out?

It wasn’t until Xu Shuo spoke slowly that the thought was broken. “I advise you to give up on the idea of forcing your way out by violence. This entire office suite has been specially designed. Even if you killed me, you still wouldn’t be able to get out.”

When he finished, Xu Shuo moved aside from the doorway. “Come out and eat. I’ve ordered a feast.”

Gu Yao drew a deep breath, straightened her collar, then walked out.

Only after stepping outside did she realize that this bedroom was connected to the office where she had fainted earlier. It seemed the room inside was a lounge, and it was probably Xu Shuo’s private space.

Heh, no wonder the bed had that damned man’s smell all over it.

Gu Yao sat down on the sofa without showing anything on her face, her expression tight as she looked at the takeaway boxes on the coffee table. Xu Shuo had ordered some Chinese stir-fried dishes, and they looked pretty good.

Gu Yao picked up the disposable chopsticks,夹了一口菜送到嘴里, not too salty, not too bland, just right.

Only after she swallowed the food in silence did she catch sight of Xu Shuo across from her from the corner of her eye. He had been standing there the entire time, not moving.

Xu Shuo folded his arms. “You’re surprisingly calm. I tell you to eat and you eat. Aren’t you afraid I’ll drug you again?”

Xu Shuo sat down and picked up another box of rice.

Gu Yao’s voice was cold. “If you wanted to drug me again, you wouldn’t need such a fuss. You could have fed it to me while I was unconscious. Besides, these dishes look decent, and they taste all right too. Food is life. Why wouldn’t I eat?”

Xu Shuo nodded. “Apart from eating, don’t you have anything you want to ask me?”

This time, Gu Yao didn’t even lift her eyelids. She only said, “Silence while eating and sleeping.”

Xu Shuo: “…”

From then on, Xu Shuo didn’t say another word.

Only the sound of chewing filled the room. Neither of them held back with the other, both eating as if they were trying to finish ten full portions, and before long they had cleared more than half the dishes on the table.

After the meal, Xu Shuo gathered the takeaway boxes into a plastic bag and then walked to the bar counter in the corner.

Gu Yao stayed on the sofa and checked her body.

Although she was full, her strength didn’t recover right away. She still had no energy, her limbs felt weak, probably from the aftereffects of that cup of tea.

She looked again at the office door, then turned toward Xu Shuo, who was making coffee at the bar.

He was so at ease leaving his seat, even turning his back to her. He must have been absolutely certain she couldn’t do anything, whether it was attacking him from behind or going to open that door.

By this point, Gu Yao was no longer impatient. In fact, she had even developed a kind of, “since I’m here, I’ll make myself at home” mentality. So she simply sat quietly here and rested. As for the other questions, even if she didn’t ask them, she believed Xu Shuo would say them sooner or later.

When Xu Shuo came back with the coffee, he saw that Gu Yao was still in the same position as before, her gaze slightly dull, as if she were spacing out.

Xu Shuo set the coffee in front of her. “Have a cup of coffee to perk yourself up. You’ve eaten too much.”

Gu Yao slowly lifted her eyelids, as if to look at him, or maybe to take the chance to roll her eyes at him. Then she picked up the cup and took a small sip.

The coffee was a little hot, but it tasted good.

When Gu Yao drank the coffee, her eyes were still very straight, fixed on the coffee table in a daze. After half a cup went into her stomach, she finally put the cup down and looked at Xu Shuo.

Xu Shuo had no sense of propriety in how he sat. One leg was crossed over the other, one hand resting beside him, fingers tapping on the sofa, the other elbow propped on the armrest with his hand supporting his temple. He just tilted his head and looked at her that way, half smiling and half not.

Gu Yao pressed her lips together, holding back the profanity that was about to burst out. Only when Xu Shuo spoke first did she stop. “You’re really calm. Not shouting, not making a fuss, not crying. You adapted to adversity pretty quickly. I’m a little curious, are all psychology experts like this?”

Gu Yao took a breath, her speech slow and clear. “Someone once did an experiment. They tied a plaster cast onto the feet of a male rat and a female rat respectively, in order to observe what changes would happen to their muscles and bones. After the male rat was casted, it kept gnawing nonstop, hoping to break free from its restraints. It was very stubborn and refused to give in to death. As for the female rat, at first it also struggled and resisted, but after a period of time, it quieted down, as if it had already accepted this fate and quickly adapted to the new environment. In the end, the male rat exhausted itself to death because of its own stupidity and impulsiveness.”

After her words fell, silence lingered in the room for several seconds, so quiet it was terrifying.

Xu Shuo had always been very good at comprehension, and he quickly understood what Gu Yao meant. This woman could insult people without using a single curse word, and her upbringing was excellent, otherwise she would have started swearing long ago. How could she still be in the mood to tell a story to mock him?

Xu Shuo raised a brow. “So you’re saying women are born better at adapting to their environment, and more pragmatic too, especially female psychology experts.”

Gu Yao took another sip of coffee and replied, “Before I came, I thought this was a trap you’d set, and I also knew there would definitely be an argument after we met. Based on your profession, you wouldn’t admit your crimes happily. You’d definitely have ways to destroy evidence and exploit loopholes in the law. But I really didn’t expect you to drug me and confine me here, knowingly breaking the law, and not just breaking it but illegally detaining me. You’d better not let me get a chance to walk out that door, or I’ll definitely call the police and have you arrested.”

Xu Shuo smiled lazily, with a trace of craftiness. “Want to make a bet?”

Gu Yao said nothing.

“I’ll bet that once you’re safely out, you definitely won’t call the police, and you definitely won’t sue me.”

Gu Yao frowned. Instinctively, she didn’t believe she would let him off, but then she thought about it again. Xu was so confident, and every step of his previous setup had been carried out flawlessly. That meant his understanding of her was far deeper than she had originally thought.

And since he was so certain she wouldn’t do anything, could it be that he had some leverage or secret in his hands? Was it about her father, Gu Chengwen, or Zhu Shengxi?

Even though Gu Yao had already reached this understanding, she didn’t take the bait. Instead, she changed the subject and said, “I have a question.”

Xu Shuo: “Ask.”

Gu Yao: “I never touched the cup of tea you poured for me, so the drug must have been in the new tea cup I picked up later. How did you know I would definitely use that new cup?”

And there were several other cups on the tea tray too.

Xu Shuo went, “Oh,” and said, “I wasn’t sure you would take the new tea cup. I just wanted to be safe, so I put a layer of drug on all the cups except the teapot and the cup I used.”

“…”

“Also, to make sure you fell for it, I even put drug in that water dispenser. I figured that after talking so much, you’d eventually want to drink some water.”

“…”

How despicable, shameless, vile, and filthy!

That bastard!

Gu Yao cursed him out in her heart without expression, then said with a cold laugh, “No wonder you kept leading me to talk so much earlier. So your real goal was to get me to take one sip of water.”

As she spoke, Gu Yao sorted through the whole chain of events in her mind.

At the very least, she was now certain that Xu Shuo’s target wasn’t her. First, because there really wasn’t anything about her worth digging for, and second, if she had been his actual target, he wouldn’t have laid his cards on the table so directly in his style.

Clearly, in Xu Shuo’s eyes, she was just a stepping stone.

So as a stepping stone, how should she fight for a chance to get out of here for herself?

Thinking of this, Gu Yao suddenly asked, “Where’s my phone?”

Xu Shuo: “Oh, I put it away for you for now. But don’t worry, your friend Qin Song is fine. As long as he behaves, I won’t touch him.”

Gu Yao froze. “What did you do?”

“Nothing much. I just unlocked your passcode and changed location sharing to your home. Qin Song will think you’re safe once he sees you’ve gone home. Of course, to be safe, he even called you once. But Xiaochuan already recorded what you said before and edited it, so on the phone, it was you who ‘personally’ told Qin Song that you’re very safe, you’re very tired, and that you’d already gone home to rest.”

Gu Yao clenched her teeth and said nothing.

She should have thought of it earlier. A location ping and a let-me-know-you’re-safe call would absolutely not be difficult for that Xiaochuan.

Gu Yao was quiet for a few seconds. Only after making sure she had forced the anger back down did she speak. “You want to use me to deal with my father and Zhu Shengxi. Why do you think I’ll cooperate?”

Xu Shuo didn’t answer directly. Instead, he asked back, “Maybe my target is you?”

Gu Yao slowly shook her head. “Impossible.”

“Why?”

“First, you don’t covet my looks. I was unconscious for so long, and you didn’t do anything.”

Xu Shuo sucked in his cheek, and something flashed through his eyes. “How do you know I didn’t do anything?”

Gu Yao ignored that line.

After two exchanges, she had already caught onto a pattern. Diverting attention and disrupting the questioner’s train of thought was his usual strategy.

Gu Yao said, “You don’t covet money either. With your net worth, no matter how much money comes before you, it’s just a number. You became a lawyer for interest and challenge, not for profit, and the Gu family fortune isn’t something a lawyer can just take away. You should have that much self-awareness.”

Xu Shuo: “Talking to smart people really is convenient. But being too smart is also very troublesome.”

Gu Yao still wasn’t moved by his distractions. She opened the skylight wide. “Now, you can tell me the rules of the game.”

After two seconds of silence, Xu Shuo suddenly gave a cold laugh, with a hint of wickedness.

Then he asked, “Did Miss Gu use to have a habit of reading serialized magazine stories? Zhiyin, Duzhe, Gushi Hui?”

Gu Yao asked in return, “Is that important?”

Xu Shuo nodded. “Very important, because following a serial is a very exhausting thing. It not only requires patience, but also the ability to endure inner restlessness. It takes a certain amount of analytical ability and imagination too. Before the next update comes out, you also have to make up the rest of the story yourself.”

Gu Yao: “…”

After Xu Shuo finished speaking, he stood up, walked to the desk, and picked up a notebook. When he came back, he sat down again in a very showy posture.

Then, in front of Gu Yao, he opened the notebook, smiling faintly. “Now, I’ll tell you a story.”

Gu Yao: “…………”