“Serves her right!” Chen Lie began using a piece of gauze to clean the scrape on her ear, furiously declaring, “I can provide you a medical certificate for your injury. You can sue her for personal injury!”
Gu Nianzhi giggled and said, “Sure! Cai Shengnan even threatened to sue me for slapping her!”
“Then sue her first! Who’s afraid of her, anyway?” Chen Lie’s medical expertise trumped Yin Shixiong’s, and he promptly applied some more potent medicine to her wound. “Go home and rest for a few days. Don’t go to the Senate for a while.”
“OK. I was actually considering taking some time off.” Gu Nianzhi nodded. Her ulterior motive for going to the Parliament had already been achieved. If Speaker Long needed her to help out, of course she would lend a hand. However, the general preparations for the interim general election were nearly all set. It wouldn’t really matter whether or not she showed up.
Chen Lie finished applying ointment to her ear, then examined her face, including the area around her mouth. He then handed her a greenish-hued jelly-like bottle of ointment. “Since you’re not showing up at Parliament for a while, you don’t really need to wear your mask anymore. Here, take this. Apply it on the areas that are giving you discomfort, and it’ll heal in a few days.”
Gu Nianzhi accepted it and said, “Thanks, brother Chen.”
However, when she turned around and caught sight of Huo Shaoheng nonchalantly standing by the window with his gaze fixed on her, she felt a subconscious urge to put the mask back on.
She was aware of how ghastly she appeared and therefore felt self-conscious looking like that in front of Huo Shaoheng.
Huo Shaoheng walked over and said to Chen Lie, “Replace this mask with one to wear when she’s outside.”
Chen Lie replaced her current when with a more attractive one. The new mask was composed of a softer and more lightweight fabric.
Gu Nianzhi instantly felt the difference in terms of comfort as soon as she put it on. No longer feeling self-conscious, she gleefully exclaimed, “Thanks, Chen Lie!” She then left the medical building along with Huo Shaoheng.
Returning to Huo Shaoheng’s official residence, Gu Nianzhi took advantage of the fact that they were alone and asked Huo Shaoheng, “Huo Shao, was that document really important? Did the delay in it being signed trouble you in any way?”
Huo Shaoheng personally did not think that it was that big of a deal, especially after he had thoroughly analyzed the data from Hong Kangquan’s microchip tracker. His intuition told him that even if they initiated full surveillance, it wouldn’t make that big of a difference in the grand scheme of things.
For a while then he had been aware of the fact that Hong Kangquan was aware of what they had been doing. After all, he was a pro as well.
Since he had been Huo Shaoheng’s former mentor after all. A lot of the things Huo Shaoheng knew, Hong Kangquan had taught to him.
Even though he was discharged from the military after a while, his current affairs were not that different in nature from military affairs.
If Hong Kangquan was indeed a shady figure, they wouldn’t be able to discover it that simply.
Besides, Hong Kangquan is a high-ranking ministerial figure. There would be a lot of obstacles along the way if they wanted to investigate him.
Up until now, the only slip Hong Kangquan had made concerned Cai Songyin.
If that really was a slip.
Huo Shaoheng moaned and led Gu Nianzhi to the corner sofa to sit down. “There are some obstacles, but they are not particularly cumbersome, so you need not worry,” he said calmly.
“Really?” Gu Nianzhi sighed in relief. “I would have hated to cause you trouble. Even though this matter was not my fault, I still indirectly caused it.”
If she hadn’t been at the Parliament secretariat, Special Assistant Yang wouldn’t have even thought to use that document to get to her.
“You’re overthinking it,” Huo Shaoheng said, objecting to her blaming herself. “Special Assistant Yang had malignant intentions from the start. They had nothing to do with you.”
Yin Shixiong had specified that the document needed to be delivered quickly, yet Special Assistant Yang still obstinately chose to lie and neglect to do so, so who was there to blame but himself?
Besides, it is the essence of Parliament to endlessly bicker over trivial matters, as it was pretty much the only way for them to exercise their supreme authorities.
Huo Shaoheng was aware that Gu Nianzhi had practically zero experience in that field, and therefore still required more first-hand knowledge. Only with more experience would she really understand what it was like to work at the Parliament on an intuitive level.
IQ could be god-given, yet emotional intelligence could not be naturally derived.
Suppressing the feelings of guilt inside, Gu Nianzhi let out a deep sigh and said, “If all is well, then it’s fine, though I thought that if I had really caused you trouble, I would beg for your forgiveness.”
Huo Shaoheng suddenly felt like he had consoled her a little too soon.
Nevertheless, it was too late for regret, since Gu Nianzhi definitely wouldn’t beg for his forgiveness now.
“Then stay here for a couple of days.” Huo Shaoheng patted her head. “Wait until your injury heals completely before you leave.”
Lest the Cai family go looking for her to cause trouble again.
Cai Shengnan’s actions today had set off a warning bell inside Huo Shaoheng’s head.
Why would someone pay so much attention to the wound on Gu Nianzhi’s face? Or were they interested in the healing progress?
Surveilling Hong Kangquan required so many official procedures. Doing the same with Cai Shengnan did not need such formality.
The reason was that Cai Shengnan was already under their jurisdiction, since she was a citizen of China that had been living overseas, and it hadn’t even been three months since she had returned.
“Alright then, I’ll leave you to your own work. You do not need to worry about me.” Gu Nianzhi yawned and considered taking a nap.
She had been on guard for those past few days due to tense circumstances, and as a result, had been suffering from insomnia.
Returning to this familiar place enabled her to sleep soundly.
After Gu Nianzhi fell asleep, Huo Shaoheng began planning a new task. He was going to place Cai Shengnan under surveillance.
…
When she awoke, Gu Nianzhi discovered that it was already past 6:00 pm and that it was dinner time.
Her stomach grumbled. She had not eaten for an entire day.
She got up and headed for the restroom to start washing up. When she looked in the mirror, she discovered that her wound had improved significantly.
After not wearing her mask for an entire afternoon, you could barely see the bruises anymore. Only a tiny red mark remained as evidence that a bruise had once been there.
Her scraped ear had healed significantly, as well.
Gu Nianzhi applied the green, jelly-like ointment that Chen Lie had given her and brought her phone with her downstairs for dinner.
She was the only one in the cafeteria.
Huo Shaoheng had not returned from the office, Yin Shixiong was stuck at the Parliament building for the time being, and Zhao Liangze was at the Cape of Good Hope experiencing the hardships of the wilderness.
Gu Nianzhi sat alone in the empty cafeteria, reminiscing about the good old days when meals were times that were filled with laughter.
Since nobody was eating with her, she began to scroll through her phone while she chewed.
She hadn’t been on Weibo for quite a few days, and after logging into her account, she began browsing the latest news.
Suddenly, she discovered that a blogger she used to follow was tagged by police officer Bo.
What had happened?
She clicked to find out, yet discovered that it was an obituary!
The blogger that went by the name Lu Dayong had committed suicide by jumping off a building in order to avoid loan sharks?
What on earth was this?
Gu Nianzhi felt confused.
As far as she knew, that blogger was definitely not someone that would easily end his life.
Even when he faced the threat of being sued by both the Prime Minister and his wife, he didn’t resort to suicide. How come some mere debt collectors were able to back him far enough into a corner that he decided to commit suicide?
Besides, Gu Nianzhi also recalled that as a result of accepting a short article with a designated outline from Cai Songyin, he had made quite a lot of money.
How come he had needed to borrow money from loan sharks?
He had no wife or children, nor did he have a mortgage to pay, so why had he needed high-interest loans so badly?
The more she contemplated the matter, the sketchier it seemed. She reexamined the content of the official police blog.
According to the content, yesterday, a fire had occurred at a residential community near the imperial subway station. The scene was the rented room of the very same blogger.
Then, the blogger’s body was discovered on the sidewalk.
The coroner concluded that Lu Dayong had died via suicide by jumping.
All the cops managed to find in the wreckage was a severely burnt hard drive.
After data repair, it was discovered that various web accounts served as his primary income, especially the blogging handle ‘Churchill’s Garden.’
That was his sole income source.
“If he was going to jump, then why would he set his home on fire?” Gu Nianzhi muttered to herself as she tapped her phone screen.
Also featured below the official blog content seemed to be comments from Lu Dayong’s neighbors. All of them seem to have witnessed, to some extent, the heated argument between Lu Dayong and the loan shark. It was reportedly so loud that almost the entire floor had heard it.
As a practitioner of law, when Gu Nianzhi saw the blog, her occupational instincts kicked in, and she started drawing conclusions.
The loan shark tried to collect a debt. In order to avoid the loan shark, he committed suicide. From an evidential vantage point, it seemed reasonably logical.
But then why would he burn his house? That aspect was utterly illogical.
Did he burn it himself? Or did someone else start the fire?
If it were indeed someone else, then it would be even more dubious to claim that he had committed suicide.
When she thought about how the fire had completely incinerated everything, she couldn’t help but recall how the Prime Minister’s wife, Cai Songyin, had frequently been in contact with the blogger.
Cai Songyin reportedly threatened to sue him and was willing to blackmail him into revealing the short essay scandal.
Now that the blogger was dead, how else could Cai Songyin stir up trouble?
When she thought about that, she also remembered the text message Cai Songyin had sent her, as well as Tan Guiren’s autobiography video!
When she had sent the text message, the IP address had been carefully disguised, and her tone had been imitating that of the blogger.
No matter who read that text message, they would have been deluded into thinking that the blogger had sent it.
She still remembered the content of that text message. It had said: “Lady Tan, if your mind is still set on suing the blogger, then your daughter’s sex tape will be widely distributed across the web.”
Gu Nianzhi anxiously stood up and began to pace around the cafeteria.
She wasn’t sure whether or not she was overthinking it, but she couldn’t rule out the possibility that perhaps that text message had contributed to the blogger’s death!
