Chapter 26: “Seeing How Engrossed You Were, I Thought…”
In the office on the third floor, there were security cameras, so Tian Luxin couldn’t conduct a thorough search.
But fortunately, Tong Yishuai was a clean freak. His demand for the cleanliness of the office environment was so stringent it was almost perverted. Like a wicked stepmother from a fairy tale, he would deduct pay if he found even a speck of dust on his finger. The other cleaners all complained about this, but Tian Luxin was quite satisfied with the boss’s perversion. Holding a rag, she spent the entire morning polishing every corner to a shine, and also capturing every corner on the memory card.
In terms of aesthetics, Tong Yishuai could be considered a maximalist. The bar’s decor was filled with all sorts of dazzling elements that made one’s head spin, and the office was no exception.
One side of the shelving unit was filled with expensive crafts he had collected from all over the world. Among them was a crystal glass, so clear and sparkling. Yi Ke pressed the pause button.
“This brand of glass, I remember they are only sold in pairs. Did he give the other one to You Hong?”
“He’s not that love-addled. Tong Yishuai smashed a lot of things on the shelf when he argued with A’Jie before. You might not have noticed just now, but Xiao Tian also swept up a pile of glass shards of the same color as the crystal glass from under the cabinet.”
Zhuang Ningyu continued to drag the mouse. The camera moved up. He asked, “This painting in the very middle, it’s very eye-catching. Do you recognize it?”
“‘The Morphine Girl,’ a printed replica.” The fragile girl, after taking the drug, sank deep into the bed, as relaxed as if she were resting on the white wings of a butterfly. Yi Ke rested one hand on the back of Zhuang Ningyu’s chair. “Don’t you think she looks a lot like Wen Yue?”
This resemblance wasn’t in facial features, but in an infinitely converging temperament—fair, slender, beautiful. From this, it seemed Tong Yishuai’s preference for women was as consistent as ever.
Zhuang Ningyu said: “So You Hong was his only aesthetic exception.”
Yi Ke continued to watch the screen. Tian Luxin was wiping a beautiful, large leather photo frame. Inside was a photo of You Hong and Tong Yishuai, the same one imitating “Salome with the Head of John the Baptist.” It was clear that both of them were very satisfied with this photo. After wiping the dust clean, Tian Luxin placed the frame back where it was—face down, neatly laid flat in the dark corner of the bottom shelf.
This position… it seemed this exception wasn’t very “exceptional.” But it was also possible that after the two argued, Tong Yishuai’s anger hadn’t subsided, so he had tossed the frame to the bottom of the cabinet to get it out of sight.
Whether it was love, lack thereof, or some other emotion, more evidence was needed to prove it.
On the screen, Tian Luxin’s hands were still busy. She took another disposable cloth and carefully wiped a whole row of unevenly sized medicine bottles—vitamins, fish oil, coenzyme Q10, glucosamine, fruit and vegetable powder… The sheer number made it seem like he was taking supplements as a main meal. Zhuang Ningyu didn’t understand this method of health preservation, which involved forgoing proper meals in favor of taking pills. He casually asked, “Is this considered a kind of mental illness?”
Yi Ke replied: “No, because I take them too.”
Zhuang Ningyu was surprised: “You’re a young man in your prime, how did you also become a target customer for brain-boosting supplements?”
Yi Ke was at a loss for whether to laugh or cry. He actually pulled out a blister pack of fish oil capsules from his pocket. “No joke, I’ve been taking it for several years. I have a friend who is the national general agent for this brand. The quality of his fish oil is good. Can you please not look at me with that ‘police catching a pyramid scheme’ look?”
Zhuang Ningyu couldn’t. He knew very little about the health supplement field, and the words “national general agent” sounded full of the vibe of a micro-businessperson, the kind who would pose with a Rolls-Royce at a 4S dealership every few days, holding flowers.
Yi Ke looked at those skeptical, black-and-white eyes. The words he wanted to use to explain got stuck in his throat. He simply squeezed out a fish oil capsule and pretended to feed it to him. But as luck would have it, Zhuang Ningyu happened to be raising a cup to drink water at that moment. Catching Yi Ke’s movement out of the corner of his eye, he lost his grip, and all the water went down the wrong pipe.
“Cough, cough, cough, cough!”
Zhuang Ningyu dropped the teacup and coughed violently, holding onto the table with one hand. Yi Ke had only meant to tease him and never expected to cause such a disaster. But regret was useless now. He could only frantically pat his back for a long time. “Are you better?”
You… Zhuang Ningyu was still short of breath. When he stood up, his vision went black and his throat was dry.
Yi Ke wavered between running away and continuing to work for a long time. In the end, bound by a man’s sense of responsibility and a civil servant’s conscience, he acted as if nothing had happened, patting his head and smoothly pocketing the fish oil from the table. He had intended to destroy the evidence, but when he looked up, he saw Zhuang Ningyu staring at him. So he could only ask with an innocent face, “Are you still going to eat it?”
Zhuang Ningyu mercilessly refused: “I’m allergic.”
But Yi Ke didn’t believe him. He pulled out a tissue to wipe his chin. How could he be allergic? Didn’t you already eat the lemon salmon, pan-fried silver cod, spicy anchovies, and sardines in tomato sauce that I made when you were in the Taoli community? You were fine all along.
Zhuang Ningyu didn’t want to listen to this cat-food menu in detail. He dodged Yi Ke’s arm and wiped his mouth haphazardly with his own hand.
His lips, which usually lacked color, were now quite vivid from coughing, looking exceptionally soft. When his hand brushed past them, there was a glistening, moist sheen.
Yi Ke’s Adam’s apple bobbed slightly. He suppressed the urge to lean in for a taste. He sat back down on the sofa and drank the cold fruit tea on the table in one gulp, but it was no use.
The images in his mind were still vivid and fresh—the other’s reddened eyes from coughing, the rare sight of his fragile vulnerability, and the patch of delicate white skin hidden deep within his shirt collar when he bent over.
A dark shadow flew straight at him.
Yi Ke didn’t reach out to catch it, nor did he block it. He closed his eyes for a moment and let the sofa cushion hit his hard abdomen.
Zhuang Ningyu was furious, wanting to curse but not knowing where to start. He sat on the chair, pointed at Yi Ke, pointed at this shameless man, pointed for a long time, and finally, his anger boiling over, he concluded: “It’s the health supplements!”
Yi Ke hugged the cushion, his voice a little helpless: “I’m in my twenties, healthy, and so in love with you. It would be abnormal if I didn’t have a reaction, right?”
Zhuang Ningyu had no desire to discuss sexual health and love with him, but for a moment, he couldn’t remember what they were talking about before, making him quite frustrated. In the end, it was Yi Ke who couldn’t bear to watch and reminded him: “There’s something wrong with the medicine.”
“…What’s wrong?”
Yi Ke tossed the cushion aside and came over to sit back in the chair next to the computer. Zhuang Ningyu instinctively dodged in the opposite direction. Yi Ke immediately showed a hurt expression, but Zhuang Ningyu was unmoved, thinking to himself, you’re the one acting like a hooligan, and you’re the one feeling wronged?
He collected himself and asked in a business-like tone, “Tell me, what’s wrong with the medicine?”
“The medicine in this bottle of Vitamin D3 has been replaced.” Yi Ke pointed to the brown, semi-transparent bottle in the middle of the shelf, paused and enlarged the image, then searched for the version being sold on a foreign website on his phone. “It was originally supposed to be small, round softgels, but now it’s clearly filled with large white tablets.”
Many adults are deficient in calcium, especially night owls like Tong Yishuai who don’t exercise or get much sun. He was a high-risk candidate for osteoporosis. A daily dose of Vitamin D would be beneficial for his health, but now, the medicine had been swapped.
Two possibilities: first, he knew; second, he didn’t.
“If Tong Yishuai didn’t know, then the biggest suspect for swapping the medicine would be You Hong. Currently, only she satisfies both conditions of having medical knowledge and being able to freely enter and exit the office,” Yi Ke said. “And if Tong Yishuai did know, then the illness he has is probably something shameful, at least something that would face discrimination and prejudice in the current social environment. Otherwise, there would be no need to be so secretive about taking medicine… A contagious disease?”
Of course, there was a third possibility: that the matter was not as complicated as everyone thought. It was simply that the original bottle was broken, so Tong Yishuai casually found another empty bottle to use.
“Let’s first see what’s actually in there,” Zhuang Ningyu sent a message to the three-person group chat. Tian Luxin quickly replied with an “OK” emoji. She said: “I have to go water the flowers again this afternoon. I’ll see if I can get a chance to take a photo then. By the way, Captain Zhuang, I just saw A’Lin send a few large sheets of coated paper to the office. It should be the new poster mock-ups.”
The poster was the final part of this rule incident. Yi Ke called Wen Yue again, but it still indicated that she was out of the service area. Zhuang Ningyu said: “Try every hour. She should appear along with the rule.”
…
Because the VIP area was closed, the promoters’ work enthusiasm had dropped significantly recently. They all slept until just before their afternoon shift and came out of the dorm yawning, making the corridor a bit crowded for a while.
A’Lin waited for the elevator for a while. Unable to stand the two resentful gazes from his side, he asked very sincerely, “Excuse me, did I offend you in some way?”
“Not really,” Tian Luxin accused bluntly. “It’s just that you guys get up too late, which seriously affects my sweeping career. Please get up a little earlier tomorrow.”
“Pfft.” A laugh came from the side. The bartender walked over, tying his tie, and leaned down to tease, “Well, I’m terribly sorry about that.”
When he smiled, he actually looked a bit like Yi Ke. Both had the kind of handsome features that bordered on devilish. And facing such a genuinely handsome guy, it was only natural for Tian Luxin, as a girl with normal aesthetics, to feel her ears burn. The rush of blood to her head was too obvious, and in a daze, a strong thought suddenly sprouted in her mind, like a giant tree’s roots tightly twisting around her blood vessels, then shaking and roaring upwards!
The rapid growth caused a sharp pain in her chest, so painful her vision went black, but the echo in her mind did not stop for a moment. Instead, it grew louder and clearer—
She wanted to stay here forever.
But, no.
Tian Luxin’s breathing quickened. In a panic, she clenched her fists tightly. The broken nail pierced her palm. In the moment of clarity brought by the sting, she relied on the muscle memory honed from years of school and slapped open her protective bracelet! The clamor instantly dispersed. Only her heart was still pounding like a drowning person who had been rescued from a river, beating abnormally fast, thump, thump!
She leaned against the wall, unable to believe her own ridiculous reaction just now. After a moment of daze, she looked down at the bracelet and saw the number on the screen rapidly decreasing—103… 101… 93… 88…
Until finally, it stopped at “5”.
In the international standard, the mental contamination index is generally divided into five major levels: uncontrollable (value ≥ 1000), severe (999 ≥ value ≥ 500), serious (499 ≥ value ≥ 100), normal (99 ≥ value ≥ 20), and none (value ≤ 19). Each major level has its own sub-levels. Tian Luxin had unknowingly walked on the edge of serious mental contamination just now.
The elevator “dinged” and stopped on the fifth floor. The bartender and A’Lin walked in, talking and laughing.
The door closed completely.
Tian Luxin took a bottle of mineral water from her supplies and chugged more than half of it. Only after completely calming down did she push her cleaning cart and continue her work. The promoters’ dorms were mostly tidy, so the workload wasn’t large. There were no high standards or cameras. A quick vacuum and taking out the trash was all it took. The work was done quickly.
A’Lin and the bartender’s rooms were next to each other, 501 and 502 respectively. Unlike the other promoters’ rooms, which were filled with luxury goods, theirs were as plain as a high school boy’s dorm. Tian Luxin put on her gloves and used a long-handled clamp to clean the trash can in the bartender’s bathroom. Halfway through, a small white medicine bottle inside caught her attention. Most of the label had been torn off, as if to deliberately hide its purpose.
As she put the medicine bottle into a sealed plastic bag, Tian Luxin’s hand was a little unsteady. This scene should have been very cool, since she had loved watching “Forensic Heroes” with her parents since she was a child. Collecting evidence was a dream come true. But after her experience in the hallway just now, this behavior felt a bit like a perverted stalker who had a crush on the bartender and was rummaging through his trash—it seemed handsome guys really did affect the work experience.
After tidying up the cleaning cart, she scanned the room again. Only after confirming that there was nothing unusual did she lock the door and leave, handing over what she had found to Zhuang Ningyu.
The wind blew through the long corridor, causing the blinds on both sides to rise and fall, hitting the wall with a rhythmic “clack, clack” sound.
Later, after the group meeting, Zhuang Ningyu and Yi Ke tacitly returned to their old spot at the corner of the bar.
The desolation of the second floor didn’t affect the liveliness of the first floor. Business was good tonight, and the bartender was so busy he couldn’t touch the ground, completely unable to attend to the two of them. Yi Ke slipped behind the long bar himself, preparing to mix two non-alcoholic sweet drinks. “Has Dean Pei replied?”
“Not yet.” Zhuang Ningyu propped his head up, glanced at the motionless phone on the bar, then at the bartender flirting with a group of beautiful women at the other end of the bar.
He marveled at the other’s strong physique and vigorous energy. How could he also be secretly taking medicine? Was this profession really that damaging to one’s health?
“It’s normal. Irregular day and night schedules, excessive smoking and drinking, a life of debauchery—it’s easy to lose balance both physically and mentally.” Yi Ke busied himself for a while, then finally pushed a glass over and invited, “Try it.”
The collision of lime juice and ginger ale created an indescribably strange taste.
Zhuang Ningyu first frowned in disgust, but after the aftertaste passed, he felt like he could have another sip. So he raised the glass and cautiously brought it back to his lips. Yi Ke smiled the whole time. He loved watching him eat, like some kind of small feline.
The phone screen lit up briefly, showing a new message. Zhuang Ningyu glanced at it and motioned for Yi Ke to come over and look—
Pei Yuan: From the remaining packaging, it should be Diazepam tablets.
Pei Yuan: Anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, sedative, and hypnotic drug.
Below was a large, complete drug instruction manual.
A person could have ten thousand reasons for being anxious. It was impossible to guess. The bartender, having dealt with a wave of customers, came over to pour himself a glass of room-temperature water and chatted casually: “What’s wrong with you two? You look listless.”
Zhuang Ningyu sighed, “It’s nothing. Just feeling a bit dizzy and weak lately, no energy for anything. It might be the side effects of the anti-anxiety medication. I need to see a doctor to adjust it.”
The bartender’s hand paused. He turned to look at him. “Anxious about what? You have family problems too?”
Zhuang Ningyu’s eyes flickered, and he didn’t answer.
Seeing that he didn’t seem to want to talk, the bartender didn’t say much more, just poured another glass of room-temperature water and pushed it over. “Don’t drink alcohol if you’re on medication. Are you trying to kill yourself?”
Zhuang Ningyu thanked him, then asked, “Bro, do you know when the boss plans to reopen the second-floor VIP area? He’s not really going to keep it closed until after the anniversary, is he?”
“Not likely. The anniversary is a big event. Closing the VIP area would be hard to explain to the Gold Card VIPs.”
The bartender looked around. Seeing that no one was paying attention, he lowered his voice and continued, “The boss was just angry when he argued with You Zong and said things he didn’t mean. He’s probably starting to regret it now, but he can’t take back what he said, so he’s taken a more compromising approach.”
“Holding a separate anniversary party just for VIP customers?”
“Not bad, you guessed that too.” The bartender looked at him with new admiration. “You got it. That’s exactly it. Everyone thinks this is a good idea. It saves the boss’s face, gets another round of trending topics on social media, and makes another round of money.”
The world within the rule zone was gradually converging with the key points of the incident from five years ago.
“Another party, is there enough time to prepare?” Zhuang Ningyu asked again, his eyes filled with the sincere worry of a pure white flower. His looks were so deceptive that even though he knew this worry was entirely out of a vulgar consideration for making money, the bartender still unconsciously softened his voice and patiently reassured him: “Of course there’s enough time. I heard the boss has given all the VIP customer preparations to You Zong. He’s only responsible for the doll party himself.”
As expected, it was still You Hong.
The deafening music softened. After a round of passion, the handsome men and beautiful women on the dance floor returned to their seats, and the bar was suddenly crowded. A group of pretty girls were chattering. One of them fiddled with her phone and turned to her companion to complain, “Why isn’t Alice answering her phone? She promised to shoot a video with me last time.”
“Just shoot it yourself. You don’t have to have her with you. Maybe she’s busy lately.”
Alice? Yi Ke remembered the name from the documents and leaned over to strike up a conversation. “Is it Alice Wen from online?”
“Yeah. You’re friends with her too?” The girls were very friendly to this handsome man who had appeared out of nowhere. “Alice has been missing for several days. I don’t know what she’s up to.”
“So what are you going to do? Have you asked her family?”
The girls looked at each other and shook their heads. They were just temporary friends from getting drunk at the bar. They hadn’t developed to the point of shopping, eating, and shooting videos together. Who would have her family’s contact information?
Seeing that they didn’t know any more, Yi Ke smiled politely and was about to go back to his seat, but the girls invited him: “Handsome, don’t sit there all by yourself. Come have a drink with us.”
Yi Ke glanced at the drink menu on the bar and said he was powerless to help. “Sorry, I’m working. I haven’t made a sale tonight. Why don’t you guys order a few bottles of Rémy Martin to boost my performance?”
The girls laughed and clamored, chattering about how no one tries to sell drinks right off the bat like that, not even pretending.
Seeing that this handsome guy couldn’t be moved, they turned their attention to Zhuang Ningyu. But Yi Ke moved to the side, discreetly blocking him from view, and said seriously, “He’s more expensive than me. Rémy Martin probably won’t cut it. His appearance fee starts at seven figures.”
This brought another round of laughter. The music grew louder, and the girls could no longer be bothered to tease the handsome guy. They all dropped their glasses and went to the center of the dance floor, excitedly getting ready to play games. Only then did Yi Ke return to his seat and ask, “Why were you staring at me just now?”
Zhuang Ningyu didn’t quite understand the question. “Because you were chatting with them. Who else would I look at?”
Yi Ke said “oh,” his gaze full of meaning. “Seeing how engrossed you were, I thought you were jealous.”
You’ve got quite the imagination. Zhuang Ningyu wrapped his hands around his glass. “I wish you would chat more with pretty young girls so you can discover a beautiful new world besides me sooner.”
“Useless.” Yi Ke took a sip of his drink. “I don’t like young girls.”
Zhuang Ningyu didn’t ask further. He even wanted to stand up and run away to avoid another round of confession, but he didn’t succeed.
Yi Ke wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “I’ve already been upfront with my parents about my standards for a partner. They have to be an S-rank evolver with high education, high intelligence, super high looks, a stable job, a happy family, who doesn’t smoke, drink, or stay up late, and loves to read. Not a single thing less.”
Zhuang Ningyu thought this person was truly superficial. “Why is there a ‘super’ only in front of ‘looks’?”
“Because a 985 university education only counts as ‘high.’ As for intelligence, only Einstein counts as ‘super’.” Yi Ke bent his index finger and touched his face with the back of it, smiling with satisfaction. “Only in the looks department are you truly deserving.”
In the ambiguous atmosphere of the bar, this scene was a bit much.
Zhuang Ningyu was so flustered he couldn’t catch his breath, so he picked up his thermos and planned to go find a place to cool down. But Yi Ke would absolutely not let him wander alone in such a place of debauchery.
What was the difference between that and letting a little lamb into a den of wolves? So he insisted on following, like a large, sweet, chewy, and soft piece of cowhide candy.
“Go away.”
“No.”
A’Lin watched the two of them from afar, his heart filled with emotion. “See? I told you Xiao Yu’s ‘tragic, weak white flower’ act is really effective. Poor Xiao Yi, he’s been played in the palm of his hand since the first day of work. I heard Xiao Yi ran back and forth to the kitchen several times today, insisting on making a loving meal himself.”
The bartender wiped a glass. “I’m impressed.”
After a while.
“How’s Xiao Mei today? I’ve been so busy I haven’t had a chance to ask.”
“Same as always.”
“Still the same, huh…”
“Yeah.”
After a long time, both of them sighed lightly, almost inaudibly.
The lights in the bar dimmed.
