Huo Shaoheng reached out to pat her back. He smiled and said, “…Drink slowly. No one is trying to take away your milk here.”
His voice and expression were gentler than ever before.
However, Gu Nianzhi rolled her eyes at Huo Shaoheng.
Was she worried about someone stealing the milk?!
She had obviously choked because of what he said…
She was sure that Huo Shaoheng knew the real reason, yet he purposefully twisted the truth because he had ulterior motives.
He Zhichu squeezed his cutlery harder, the veins on the back of his hands popping out.
He had lost control the moment he heard Huo Shaoheng say the words husband and wife.
He used to think that he could let go and be fine watching her living happily. But he finally realized that it wasn’t that easy to accept reality when he heard the words husband and wife.
She should have been his wife, yet she was smiling demurely and being so gentle as she sat next to someone else.
Endurance came with pain, so he had to stab the blades into his heart if he was really going to continue enduring.
Inhaling deeply, He Zhichu tried to use the calmest tone possible as he said, “Your current identity is the leader of the mercenary group I hired, so don’t you think that your identity will be revealed if you go out like this and pretend to be Nianzhi’s husband?”
“I can change my disguise.” Huo Shaoheng replied nonchalantly as he stared at the tall fish burger in front of him. He slowly picked it up, pressing it flat and taking a big bite.
“Also, the clinics must be under heavy surveillance if they are as problematic as you claim and have close ties to the Japanese Angels on Earth charity. What identity do you plan to use if you are going to waltz in like that suddenly?”
He Zhichu expressed concern while also quickly glancing at Huo Shaoheng and Gu Nianzhi across from him.
Gu Nianzhi wore a pale green lace dress that painfully complemented Huo Shaoheng’s camouflage outfit.
Huo Shaoheng finished half his fish burger before replying languidly, “We are obviously going to pretend to be Japanese since I speak a bit of their language.”
Gu Nianzhi shook her head immediately. “Oh? But I don’t speak any Japanese… Why do we have to pretend to be Japanese? Can’t we use Huaxia identities?”
Huo Shaoheng looked at her with a thoughtful expression and laughed as he said, “Believe me, we will get an unexpected result by pretending to be Japanese.”
It sounded like a double entendre.
Gu Nianzhi knew that Huo Shaoheng possessed more information than they did, so there must be a reason why he was saying this. She stopped speaking and agreed to the plan with her silence.
He Zhichu parted his lips, then swallowed the words back down his throat. He finally decided not to meddle in their business. He replied dryly, “I don’t know why you are using all this effort to investigate this charity if they paid so much money and worked for so many years without producing any results. Is it meaningful to do things without any results?”
His voice was like a bucket of cold water, splashing them over the head, cold and cruel. It sounded like the ringing noise of ice cubes colliding with jade.
Gu Nianzhi frowned. “Professor He has a point as well. Alex, are we making too big of a deal about this?”
Huo Shaoheng shook his head. “We need to go see if it’s actually a big deal or not.”
His eyes swept over Gu Nianzhi’s face briefly. “They are not successful right now, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t succeeded in the past. As long as they keep working, they will solve the problem one day and be continuously successful. We can’t wait for that day to come before making a move,” he said.
He still insisted on his perspective.
Technological advancement was unstoppable when humans put their minds to it.
But, for a country, crucial personnel were much too important.
Outstanding disciplines relied heavily on important scientists.
The loss of one scientist could cause a country’s technological advantages to regress at least ten years, and in serious cases, it could even regress 50 years.
Gu Nianzhi also thought that Huo Shaoheng had a good point.
She replied thoughtfully, “I remember that the United States, on the other side of Blue Planet, was able to send an astronaut to the moon and bring him back half a century ago. But now, they have issues with merely launching a spacecraft to the moon, let alone sending another astronaut into space and bringing them back to Earth again.”
If the moon landing was real and not fabricated, then that proved that technological losses were completely real.
Technological advancements were not reversible, but technological advances did not progress in a linear fashion. Instead, they rose in a spiral.
Gu Nianzhi thought about how Reinitz represented the Gestapo. Why was he pursuing a set of data lost half a century ago?
Gu Nianzhi felt an epiphany, then nodded earnestly and said, “We have to go see it ourselves.”
He Zhichu was silent for a long time before saying, “Then I will go with you.”
Huo Shaoheng’s lips curled in satisfaction. “…Professor He isn’t’ busy anymore?” he asked.
He Zhichu had used the excuse of being too busy to reject Gu Nianzhi’s earlier suggestion.
He Zhichu smirked, then viciously scraped his knife on the plate before saying, “You’ve made it sound so serious, so of course I need to go make time to look, even if I am very busy…”
Gu Nianzhi, …”
Huo Shaoheng was about to provoke He Zhichu some more when Gu Nianzhi discreetly kicked his foot. She frowned at him and made a dissatisfied face.
Huo Shaoheng glanced at her, raising his chin and purposely saying, “Why did you kick me? You want me to shut up? Fine, then I will shut up and stop fighting with Professor He. Are you happy now?”
Gu Nianzhi’s tiny face instantly flushed red. She was completely humiliated, and her naturally huge eyes widened even more.
What was wrong with this person?!
He was purposely arguing with her in front of other people, and even provoking Professor He.
He Zhichu couldn’t stand listening to this anymore, so he threw down his cutlery.
The knife landed on the half-empty plate and clanked loudly.
He stiffly retorted, “…Notify me what time are you leaving?” He left without looking back at the dining room.
When Gu Nianzhi turned around to see He Zhichu’s sad and lonely back disappear at the entrance of the dining room, she felt somewhat terrible.
She had no romantic feelings towards He Zhichu, but that didn’t mean that she could ignore He Zhichu and his feelings for her as if he were invisible.
When someone truly loved her, she would never tease or insult him, even if she couldn’t accept his feelings.
She thought that Huo Shaoheng took things too far, so she glared viciously at him and also set down her cutlery before getting up.
Huo Shaoheng sighed, then quickly grabbed Gu Nianzhi’s wrist and whispered, “…Are you angry? I will go apologize to Professor He, then.”
He only intended to probe He Zhichu and find out how much information he was hiding from them. However, He Zhichu was a very aloof person when it came to other people or matters, so it didn’t matter how much Huo Shaoheng provoked him. Gu Nianzhi was his only weakness.
They were both men, but Huo Shaoheng wasn’t fully convinced that He Zhichu had already given up his feelings for Gu Nianzhi.
This love seemed to be his only weakness.
For someone in Huo Shaoheng’s line of work, they must be experts in using someone’s weaknesses to provoke them in order to achieve goals. That was basically their instinct.
Gu Nianzhi didn’t even turn around and replied dryly, “Professor He helped us so much, so I hope that you will stop giving him trouble.”
“Ok, I understand.” Huo Shaoheng nodded and let it go. Gu Nianzhi immediately strode out.
As soon as she walked out of the dining room, she saw that He Zhichu hadn’t walked very far. His arms were crossed as he leaned against the wall of the dining room with a subtle smile on his face.
His shimmery, sultry eyes flickered briefly when he saw her come outside. “Nianzhi, I am very happy that you spoke up for me.”
The corners of Huo Shaoheng’s lips twitched briefly when he overheard this from the dining room.
He hadn’t suspected that He Zhichu had become so sly…
