Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
It was Huo Shaoheng’s voice! Gu Nianzhi sighed deeply before hugging her baseball bat and sliding down against the wall. She wasn’t being sensitive but had truly been too anxious earlier. She thought that Ishihara Taro was all-powerful enough to be able to use common thieves as well. There were many cases of break-ins, robbery, and murder. As a single woman living there, she feared nothing more than that.
Huo Shaoheng probably understood her psyche well, so he immediately called out his name when he opened the door.
Gu Nianzhi called out, “Huo Shao? It’s so late. What are you doing here?”
Huo Shaoheng pressed the wall switch to turn on the living room lights. The recessed ceiling lights instantly illuminated the dark living room like it was daylight. Sitting against the bedroom wall, Gu Nianzhi rubbed her eyes. When she put her arms down, there was already a pair of long legs before her.
Huo Shaoheng still wore his military-style uniform coat and stood before her as he looked down from above. His expression was the same as usual—warm yet distant, calm but solemn. He stared silently at Gu Nianzhi just like that. However, Gu Nianzhi could sense the range rolling off his body. She couldn’t help but hug the baseball bat closer.
Huo Shaoheng stared at Gu Nianzhi for a while more before reaching out helplessly. “Why are you sitting on the floor? Get up now.”
Gu Nianzhi carefully studied his hand. His palm was slightly wide, and there were faint calluses on the center of his palm. A subtle scent of nitrate was on his fingers—the smell of gunpowder.
His fingers were slender and strong, the knuckles not visible, yet she could see that the bones of his fingers were very straight. He didn’t grow out his nails. They were trimmed neatly, and when he reached out to her, it was like he could give her the entire world…
Gu Nianzhi didn’t want to take his hand and stand up to begin with, but somehow she was entranced by his perfectly shaped hands and placed her little hand in his. Huo Shaoheng squeezed her hand tightly, and his heart trembled faintly.
Her small hand was soft as silk yet carried a sense of resilience within the tenderness. Such soft and small hands should be properly protected and kept away so she didn’t suffer battering from the wind and rain. However, this thought only appeared fleetingly in Huo Shaoheng’s mind before he rejected it. Gu Nianzhi was a not a shivering damsel in distress who only knew how to hide behind him. He also didn’t want to break her wings that longed to take flight. But before her wings were fully grown, she could only dream of flying out of his palms.
Huo Shaoheng calmly pulled Gu Nianzhi up from the floor and smoothly pushed forward. Unsteady on her feet, Gu Nianzhi hugged the baseball bat and collapsed in Huo Shaoheng’s arms. Huo Shaoheng embraced her and smiled faintly. “Darling, you don’t need to be so eager.”
Gu Nianzhi was speechless. Luckily, she had the baseball bat between them. Otherwise, Gu Nianzhi felt she really couldn’t explain herself. Pressing the baseball bat against Huo Shaoheng’s chest, she slowly pushed him away and glanced at him with a half smile. “What business does Huo Shao have coming to my home so late?”
Huo Shaoheng’s smile faded and his expression grew solemn. “I should be asking you that. What are you trying to do?”
She had suddenly stopped living at the dorm and was attending day school by returning to her Hepingli District apartment. In the past, she didn’t like driving the Ferrari because it was too flashy. Now she drove it to and from school everyday. All these things indicated something was not normal.
Huo Shaoheng was very familiar with Gu Nianzhi and also knew she was not someone to suddenly change 180 degrees on a whim one day. She always had her own reasons for doing something, and although Huo Shaoheng thought some of those reasons were too childish, he typically made no comments.
Gu Nianzhi pursed her lips. In the half-dark, half-bright bedroom, both she and Huo Shaoheng were standing in half darkness and half light. Huo Shaoheng had his back to the light, so Gu Nianzhi couldn’t clearly see the expression on his face. She only saw that his eyes were very bright, like navigation stars in the darkness illuminating her path ahead.
She knew that Huo Shaoheng could clearly see her face, so she was very careful and vigilant about not revealing any strange expressions. She must not let Huo Shaoheng learn about what she needed to do. If he found out, there was no telling whether he would risk committing an error by going against Ishihara Taro.
Gu Nianzhi definitely didn’t want Huo Shaoheng to fall into any passive situations because of her. This man protected her, so she must also silently protect him as well. Perhaps she didn’t dare to love him again, but she must still protect him.
Ishihara Taro was too cunning. Even with Gu Nianzhi’s legal literacy, she couldn’t find a single law that could officially convict Ishihara Taro. Even if they caught him throwing the coin, even if she proved that Ishihara Taro’s throwing of the coin had caused the series of subsequent events, the courts would be unable to convict him. The connection was too weak and could hardly be regarded as “corpus delicti.”
Under these circumstances, it was even more reason to not get Huo Shaoheng dragged into the mess. A person within the system could not do what she was about to—not even a little bit.
Huo Shaoheng looked down at Gu Nianzhi, and it was no surprise that he saw her stubborn look that he was very familiar with—just like when she first came under his care when she was only 12 years old, yet was so stubborn she gave people headaches.
Even though he told her countless times to go back to her room to sleep at night, he would always find her hugging her tiny blanket and sleeping at the door of his suite at midnight. He carried her back and often slept there as he watched her all night.
Later on she grew up a bit, so he couldn’t exactly sleep at her bedside with her. Finally, he had no choice but to move her to the room directly across from his. Both their doors were left open when they slept at night. Gu Nianzhi could not sleep peacefully until she could instantly see the light glowing in the room across from hers.
“Nianzhi, I know you’re very smart and very brave, too. But I hope that you can understand that people can’t do things on a burst of bravado.” Huo Shaoheng pointed at his head. “You must carefully think about the cause and effect.”
“I’ve thought about it carefully,” Gu Nianzhi answered instinctively.
Huo Shaoheng’s expression instantly turned frigid. “So you are scheming about something?”
Gu Nianzhi frowned. How many times had it been? This person was truly too cunning. He could get her to slip up so easily! Gu Nianzhi turned her head away and refused to look at Huo Shaoheng.
Huo Shaoheng had a headache as he pulled her to the bed inside the room and lifted the blankets up. “You’re not wearing enough. Get in now.”
Gu Nianzhi set the baseball bat next to the bed and took off her shoes. She crawled into bed and used the blanket to cover herself. Huo Shaoheng helped her adjust her blankets and sat on her bedside to look at her. Late at night, his deep voice echoed in the bedroom, and Gu Nianzhi’s ears were growing red from listening to it.
“Nianzhi, your situation is very dangerous.”
Gu Nianzhi blinked and whispered quietly, “I know. I can handle it.” No one knew about her situation better than she did.
“You can really handle it?” Huo Shaoheng’s voice grew quiet. “According to news from Japan, they found out the inside story behind Ishihara Baisan’s suicide all those years ago.”
Gu Nianzhi’s eyes instantly lit up as she anxiously asked, “What was the reason?!”
Huo Shaoheng enunciated each word. “Ishihara Baisan committed seppuku as the result of direct provocation by your father, Gu Xiangwen.”
Gu Nianzhi was dumbstruck. She quickly recovered and said, “Little Japan’s mental capacity was too poor, and he was also envious of merit and ability. How can they blame my father?” Gu Nianzhi snorted derisively. “I don’t believe that.”
“Your father said this to Ishihara Baisan, in front of many people in the Ishihara family: ‘Useless! You think you’re worthy of competing against my progress?!’ It was this one sentence that humiliated Ishihara Baisan so extremely, he directly committed seppuku. Nianzhi, do you know what this means?”
Gu Nianzhi began to laugh and clapped her hands. “This means that Little Japan’s magnetic field research directly regressed by 50 years! Great, that’s indeed my father! He insulted Little Japan to death with one sentence! I am proud of him!”
Huo Shaoheng stiffened slightly. He didn’t expect this reason, but as soon as Gu Nianzhi said it, he was also instantly enlightened and couldn’t help but feel great respect for Gu Xiangwen.
After a period of silence, he replied even more calmly, “Nianzhi, there is no reconciliation for hatred towards the one who slays another’s father. The Ishihara family will never let you go.”
Gu Nianzhi didn’t expect Huo Shaoheng to be able to predict that the Ishihara family was the mastermind, despite not knowing the connection between Ishihara Taro and the gold coin. Her entire body shivered as she used all her strength to calm her wildly thumping heartbeat. She sneered. “Then let them come at me. Who’s scared of who?!”
