“Don’t you think so?” Gu Yan said.
Yan Suizhi, in his head, said: Yeah, well. You aren’t wrong about that.
But his mouth already started spouting nonsense. This person was so adept at talking nonsense that he didn’t even need time to fabricate excuses; words poured naturally as soon as he opened his mouth. “I don’t believe I’ve ever said that this is my first time encountering such things, right?”
Gu Yan looked at him.
Yan Suizhi began to blather, “My father was a lawyer as well. I had encountered all sorts of things with him. Several times I had accidentally overheard him on call in the study without an earpiece on, and the words were ten times more vicious than this. I was still young the first time I came across it and got a great shock. Hearing it again afterwards, it no longer has the same impact.”
The esteemed Professor Yan was well-versed in the art of telling lies. He knew that he couldn’t go too deep into the specifics. Only those who were clear that they were scamming others would dive into a lengthy essay to convince the other, and deliberately craft some details to make it more believable.
This was similar to sticking a ‘there isn’t any treasure buried here’ sign above a hidden trove; the more one tried to hide, the more glaring the signs of a guilty conscience.
When making actual small talk, unless in the mood, such stories would be quickly tided over with a few sentences. Because what was spoken was the truth, so there wasn’t any need to worry if the other believed it.
Once he finished his story, he peeked at Gu Yan’s face out of the corner of his eye.
He couldn’t quite see his face clearly, but in any case, Gu Yan wasn’t using any kind of ‘penetrating gaze’ to stare at him. His footsteps didn’t pause, as if the question he asked earlier was merely a passing thought, and his interest in the answer equally perfunctory.
“Did you cry?” There was a short pause after he finished, then Gu Yan abruptly pitched in with such a sentence.
Yan Suizhi, “???”
“What I’m asking is, did you cry after listening to all that when you were young?” Gu Yan asked him indifferently.
Yan Suizhi, “…”
Hey, dear student. Turn your head and ask me straight; who did you say cried?
It was more than obvious that the distinguished Lawyer Gu was, once again, simply traversing time to mock the ‘him when he was young’, and wasn’t actually concerned about waiting for his reply.
By the time he came back to his senses, Gu Yan had already walked on ahead of him.
But it was just because of that question earlier that Yan Suizhi realised his laidback nature was perhaps too unsuited for discretion. If he continued running amok like this, sooner or later, the gig was bound to be up. Frankly speaking, he couldn’t care less about anything else—but the only thing he couldn’t accept was losing face.
Especially when it was losing face right in front of his own student.
Wine City’s courthouses were fairly near the detention centre, taking them less than ten minutes by foot.
The local people’s court was the lowest-level court of law. It handled all sorts of trivial, messy procedures and cases every day. It wasn’t as dignified and solemn as people imagined it to be, and would sometimes even make a mess of things, such as in areas concerning the application for bail.
This wasn’t Yan Suizhi’s first time here, but every time he came, he wanted to heave a deep sigh at how hard the staff at the local people’s court in Wine City worked. Only people with eight hundred lifetimes of accumulated misfortune running through their veins would be assigned to work here.
People were generally clumped together messily in groups of threes and fours in the hall. There were holographic papers all over the place.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“P rffw ab tjnf fcafgfv j qbeiags ojgw…” Tjc Velhtl ijeutfv vglis. Ktfc, mjiwis jcv ragjlutaobgkjgvis, tf ifjcfv jujlcra atf vbbg ogjwf, joofmalcu jc fzagfwfis rlcmfgf ibbx. “Ktlr alwf, P klii glubgberis jylvf ys ws gbif jr jc lcafgc jcv cba rafji atf atecvfg ogbw ws afjmtfg. Xb obgat, atfc.”
Gu Yan, “…”
He must also have eight hundred lifetimes of accumulated misfortune to have been paired with such an intern.
Gu Yan was standing two steps away. He slid his hands into the pockets of his overcoat, his back ramrod straight as he gazed with his eyes half-lidded at a certain someone leaning against the door frame. After a moment of silence, he spoke up tepidly, “Need I remind you that something such as filing an application for bail just so happens to be an intern’s job?”
With this, he lifted his chin in the direction of the hall. “Go forth and abide by your role.”
Yan Suizhi beat up this scheming student in his head but merely smiled on the outside. He patiently straightened his posture and turned to enter the hall.
A cacophony of noise immediately blasted him in the face.
He side-stepped the crowd of people signing holographic papers everywhere, making his way to the counter.
A young lady dressed in formal wear was standing behind it. These responsibilities were mostly assumed by young people who had just started working at the courthouse. She eyed Yan Suizhi and reflexively tapped the virtual keyboard in front of her. “Bail application?”
“Yes. Coldlake Detention Centre, Joshua Dale. He’s been accused of burglary.”
She entered the information he gave her, tapping against the virtual keys. She affirmed again. “Dale… 14 years old?”
“That’s correct.”
“Please take the application form.”
The photon computer ejected a holographic paper right after she finished speaking. The first section of the form clearly stated Joshua’s personal information, and the rest of it was the standard legal language for applications.
As far as the alliance was concerned, in the present, bail wasn’t something that needed to be requested. Rather, the review officer would take the initiative to confirm whether or not a suspected convict was fit for bail. It was only when the review officer deemed a person ineligible for bail that a lawyer would be required to apply for bail. Then, the court would arrange for a hearing on the same day, or on the next day, according to the queue order.
Therefore, submitting an application was an exceedingly simple procedure that was mostly managed by interns. In any case, it wasn’t something anyone had to fret over.
Yan Suizhi scanned through Joshua’s information and nodded. “There are no mistakes.”
“Sign the form, then.” The lady pointed at the tables where many people crowded around. “There’s an electronic pen over there. Or you can just sign with your finger.”
The sight of that crowd of people was enough to make Yan Suizhi’s scalp go numb. He said, smiling, “I’ll sign with my hand.”
The lady huffed in laughter. “You look just like a fresh grad. Are you an intern?”
“Mhm,” Yan Suizhi responded.
“That’s not too bad, at least you can go out and get some exercise. I’m an intern, too. I’ve been standing here for close to a month now.” This lady had been standing here for close to a month but had never wanted to chat with anyone of her own accord. Yet, she now suddenly had the itch to make small talk. It was probably the natural instinct of face-cons.
Yan Suizhi looked up and smiled at her. “And before this? Tidying files for a whole month?”
“How did you know?”
“I had also interned in a courthouse a very long time ago.”
“A very long time ago?” She couldn’t quite make sense of his words.
“Mm.” He casually replied without a lift of his head, raising his hand to sign, his signature coming out with a beautiful flourish.
But no more than a few strokes into his signature, he abruptly stopped, and silently tapped to cancel it.
“Why did you cancel it?”
The person who almost signed his name as ‘Yan Suizhi’, “…”
He said with a smile, “The strokes were too ugly.” Following this, he carefully wrote the two characters for ‘Ruan Ye’ and confirmed the application.
“Great, that’s all.”
Yan Suizhi lifted his eyes, smiling at the lady behind the counter, “Thanks.”
“Bye,” she smiled.
“As someone who has been in your shoes before, you’ll be able to start doing proper work come next month,” Yan Suizhi waved, then turned around and left.
Gu Yan had already worn his patience thin from the wait by the time he stepped out of the doorway. Of course, not a trace of this could be picked out from his expression.
“We should make a move on,” Yan Suizhi inclined his head. “Go up and take a look at the result.”
Gu Yan pointed at the hologram with a look of admiration plastered over his face, “Ruan Ye. You took five minutes just to sign two characters.”
Yan Suizhi raised his brows. “This name isn’t easy to sign, it looked ugly the first time I did it.”
Gu Yan said blandly, “How can it still turn out ugly after twenty years of signing your name. Don’t simply blame the characters for being hard to write.”
Yan Suizhi, “?”
Whose handwriting are you calling ugly?
He really wanted to rub the signature framed by the law school in this particular student’s face.
All kinds of information were screened on the large display board in the front hall of the courthouse. The schedule for bail hearings was shown in the lowest left corner.
Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan waited for no more than five minutes before Joshua Dale’s name appeared.
“Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock,” Yan Suizhi said. “Not too bad. It isn’t too near or too far off from lunchtime, the court wouldn’t be too annoyed by their hunger.”
“Mn. Let’s go.”
The two people left the courthouse and flagged down another taxi by the roadside.
This time, the taxi driver wasn’t much of a talker, but he also looked rather fierce for this reason.
There weren’t many wide roads in Wine City, thus the taxis here often preferred to step on the gas pedal and get on the road before asking for the destination. So it was only after this driver opened his mouth to speak that Yan Suizhi then understood why he didn’t like speaking much.
Because his voice was so hoarse that it sounded like his mouth was filled with grit. Listening to it made people feel uneasy.
“Where to?” the driver asked tersely.
“Kale Avenue,” Gu Yan zoomed in on the map on his smart device and said.
There were many unlicensed taxis scurrying about a place like Wine City; very few of them were registered. Therefore, the online booking system was poorly developed and it was almost impossible to book a taxi from it. Most of the time, people had to rely on a map to find the names of roads.
Yan Suizhi knew of Kale Avenue. If they were to talk about the only barely passable accommodations in this city, these would be located at Kale Avenue. There were a few hotels there that probably didn’t eat humans.
Evidently, Gu Yan was familiar with this and had likely booked accommodations there.
Yan Suizhi was right.
The place that Gu Yan booked was a respectable hotel called Silver Tea… well, as respectable as a hotel could be in Wine City. Put in other words, this was the equivalent to a non-seedy hotel.
And that was all it had going for it.
The person in charge of booking the two of them in at the front reception of the hotel was a young lad… with braids, a row of ear studs, and a lip stud.
He glanced at Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan. After openly surveying them, he laughed the same way the first taxi driver did.
Gu Yan had always treated these incomprehensible actions of others as non-existent. Without a flicker in his expression, he simply raised his eyes to look at the other, saying coldly, “I’ve a booking.”
Fortunately, this lad was more tactful than the previous taxi driver and was able to contain himself without them having to bring up the detention centre. He nodded, sobering up, and asked Gu Yan, “What’s your contact number?”
Gu Yan said, “1971182.”
“Got it, let me check you in. Just hang on a moment.” The lad tossed a piece of candy into his mouth, which muffled his voice.
Yan Suizhi paused for a beat, and suddenly he sucked in a sharp breath.
“What?” Gu Yan frowned at him, “Toothache?”
Yan Suizhi’s frown was even deeper than his. “What’s your contact number??? Say that again???”
wait, did he take over the deans contact number?
I wonder how he will react when he finds out who his intern in…
thanks for the chapter! <3
I think he already have suspicious about who he is since they saw each other on stairs. Remember that blonde intern Luke, he already said he look kinda similar like his dean. Yan suizhi only have young face(age regression) and gene modification. Gu yan also acting weird since the start. I think he already have few ideas but wasn’t sure I think.
Just wait till he gets distracted and calls himself Yan Suizhi out of nowhere sdfgh
Is this the number that called him, the one he mistook as the estate agency?
Oooh wonder what the number means to him🤔🤔🤔
Poor Gu Yan must be suffering from Deja Vu with Ysh as his intern haha!
Thank you for the chapter!!
He was the one who called him last time lmao
Thank you for the chapter
😊
i knew it! gu yan was the one who called yan suizhi the first time when he thought he was talking to a customer service from the estate agency, right??
Ohohoho someone finally realized it HAHAHAHAHHSHSHSH
How many chapters in before he’ll blow his cover ?? 😂😂
Loving Yan Suizhi’s smart mouth! 🤣
Thanks for the chapter 💞
waiting anxiously for gu yan to just. lose his shit. w yan suizhi. bound to be fun!
thank u ^3^