Hearing Gu Yanran’s voice, Huo Shaoheng had no choice but to turn around. He could not be impolite in public.
Huo Shaoheng lowered his head and told Gu Nianzhi, “Something’s up. Got to go.”
He switched off his earpiece and stood up from the sofa. Turning around, he saw Gu Yanran being blocked by Yin Shixiong and Zhao Liangze behind a huge bonsai.
“Miss Gu is leaving?” Huo Shaoheng walked over. “That’s early.”
“Yeah. Something cropped up at home. My father will be heading to America soon. I’ll send him over before returning to settle the funerals of our servants.” Gu Yanran looked serious. “Our family suffered a great loss this time around. I’ll demand all the compensations from them for all the people I lost in my family.”
“Does this mean that Miss Gu already knows who sent the masked snipers?” Huo Shaoheng put both his hands into the pockets of his tuxedo and looked at Gu Yanran attentively. “You won’t be safe no matter where you go if you don’t know who those people are.”
Gu Yanran laughed bitterly. “I think we can just wait to die if we still cannot be safe in America.”
“Theoretically, everyone is waiting to die the moment they are born. Therefore, Miss Gu, you don’t have to feel too worried,” Yin Shixiong joked in an attempt to lighten the mood.
Gu Yanran forced a smile again and curtseyed to Huo Shaoheng. “Mr. Huo, farewell.” With that, she turned and left.
Huo Shaoheng looked at Gu Yanran exiting the hall of the Governor’s mansion and looked at Yin Shixiong. Yin Shixiong understood what Huo Shaoheng wanted and left the hall as well.
After they were gone, Huo Shaoheng returned to the seat and called Gu Nianzhi again.
Gu Nianzhi was sitting on her bed in the dormitory, hugging her knees, looking sad.
Ma Qiqi called out to her from the door, “Nianzhi? It’s time for breakfast! There’s pork soup dumplings today! Your favorite! And they have mixed grain porridge as well. I went outside to get it for you specially!”
Gu Nianzhi felt hungry the moment she heard Ma Qiqi’s voice. Heaving a long sigh, she hit her head a couple of times and scolded herself for letting herself go hungry…
Getting off her bed, her phone rang again. She picked it up. “…Huo Shao?”
Seeing that it was already rather late, Huo Shaoheng asked quickly, “Nianzhi, do you know that Professor He looked for Gu Yanran before?”
Initially upset, Gu Nianzhi forgot all about being unhappy the moment Huo Shaoheng asked about this. “Yes he did,” she said honestly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Huo Shaoheng lowered his voice. “I’ve told you many times; tell me if anything happened and don’t hide anything from me. Do you even remember?”
Gu Nianzhi felt extremely wronged. She leaned against the wall with her phone and grumbled, “Didn’t you guys test for our DNA before and realize that we were not related? So when Professor He asked Gu Yanran for the details of her family doctor and dentist, I felt that he was just wasting his time and would never find any outcome. So I kept quiet about it.”
Nothing would have come out of it even if she had told him. Moreover, did she really have to tell him every minute detail of her life? Would he even be able to take it?
Huo Shaoheng felt that Gu Nianzhi’s reasoning made sense, but the relationship between He Zhichu and Gu Yanran—or the relationship between the Hes and the Gus—was the main focus of their investigation. Therefore, everything regarding this would be good if he got to know them.
However, he could not reveal too much detail to Gu Nianzhi, either. So, after thinking about it for a while, he decided not to harp on about this anymore. Softening his tone, he asked Gu Nianzhi, “Nianzhi, did you miss me while I’ve been gone for these few days?”
Gu Nianzhi felt engulfed by sweetness all of a sudden. “Yes, I did… Every day, every moment…” Then she asked Huo Shaoheng, “You? Did you miss me?”
“What do you think?” Huo Shaoheng felt himself going weak every time he thought of Gu Nianzhi when he was on the island. That feeling was so alien to him, who was used to being cold, aloof, and serious. His very first reaction was to suppress that warm and fuzzy feeling immediately. A while later, he had accepted it gradually as the feeling he would have solely between Gu Nianzhi and himself.
Gu Nianzhi smiled and began whining. “I don’t know. I want you to say it… Say it, pleeease?”
That dragging of the last word tugged at his heartstrings repeatedly.
“Yes,” Huo Shaoheng replied, and returned to his calm demeanor. “I have to toast to the governor now. You should be going to class soon, shouldn’t you?”
Gu Nianzhi had no choice but to give up. “Then please take care…” Then she continued, full of reluctance. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
“Good girl.”
Through the phone, the mountains, and the oceans, Gu Nianzhi actually felt the warmth of Huo Shaoheng’s big hand caressing her head. She closed her eyes and felt far better than she had just now. She felt like a new person! With a happy mood, she felt that this world had become an even more beautiful place.
Opening the door, she took a long whiff of the table that was covered in breakfast. This had to be the smell of love.
…
Huo Shaoheng only left the governor’s mansion late into the night. Upon returning to the hotel, Huo Shaoheng received a phone call. He understood immediately why Gu Yanran had looked so confident at the dinner.
The call was from General Ji. His first sentence was, “Shaoheng, the Army will be giving you a task. You’re to escort Gu Yanran’s father, Gu Xiangwen, to America. You are to ensure his safety and not have any miscalculations on your end.”
Huo Shaoheng was speechless.
What was this? What was going on?
Hearing silence from the other end, General Ji knew that Huo Shaoheng was not happy with the mission he had been tasked with. Gu Yanran had sent someone to speak to him on her behalf and had even given the Hua Xia Empire a huge gift. It was a nuclear laser firer, more commonly known as a “satellite killer.” The Hua Xia Empire had been doing research on this for a long time but could not figure out a better technology for its aiming. Then Gu Yanran had sent an email containing the technology which they could not solve this afternoon.
Gu Yanran had had contacts with the higher authorities in the Hua Xia Empire all along. The previous donation had caused some unhappiness between the two parties, but Gu Yanran had apologized sincerely this time around and had even sent such a huge gift first. Her only condition was that she wanted Huo Shaoheng to bring his people to escort her father to America.
From Barbados to America, they would have already completed half of the mission the moment they boarded the plane. The issue now was that Gu Yanran was still hiding her father somewhere. Somewhere even the masked snipers could not find.
Huo Shaoheng asked General Ji, “Do you know that she was being chased for her life? Do you know why she was being chased for her life?”
General Ji was taken aback. “I know that there were people who sought her life. I wouldn’t have asked for your help if not for this. Shaoheng, you’re wrong to behave like that. Since she needed our help, how could you just leave things as it is?”
Huo Shaoheng wanted to say that he had plans, but with the higher authorities from the army now involved in this, it was clear that his plans had been interrupted. He could not request for the army’s higher authorities to listen to his command as well.
After being silent for a while, Huo Shaoheng nodded. “Fine. I can escort him but not to America. He has to come to the Hua Xia Empire.”
