Qiming Chapter 96

Chapter 96

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The kitchen stove had a pot of lamb stewing with carrots. Gu Yunfeng had added too much cooking wine, and the smell of alcohol gradually overpowered the mutton’s gamey scent, turning into a rich aroma. In cold weather, one should eat more lamb, it nourishes the body, soothes the stomach, and invigorates the heart.

He had opened all the cupboards and pulled out the drawers one by one, their contents scattered haphazardly across the floor. Kneeling on one knee, he rummaged through everything, recalling the medicine bottle he had seen over a week ago.

Where had Xu Chengyue hidden that little bottle?

Sitting silently on the edge of the bed, Gu Yunfeng stared at the floor, his thoughts adrift. A few minutes later, an urgent knock pounded on the door like a death knell. He suddenly looked up, glanced at the blank walls, then stood up to open the door.

"Boss, we've got a case." Shu Pan stood at the door. Before Gu Yunfeng could speak, Shu Pan had already stepped inside, glancing around the bedroom, his eyes locking on the mess scattered across the floor as he rubbed his head.

"It's a burglary case."

"I'm still on holiday..." Gu Yunfeng had managed to string together ten days of leave, and now on the ninth day, they were already urging him to return to work. This was just a way to exploit labour, wasn't it? And it was just a burglary case, it didn't interest him much at all.

"Just two days left, forget it, don't bother resting, we need you." Shu Pan looked at him with eyes full of expectation.

The weather had finally improved these past few days, with temperatures rising and no more rain or snow. The warm sunlight filled the room, turning the chaotic mess on the floor into a golden scene.

Gu Yunfeng shot a glare at Shu Pan, kicked the drawer beside him, and pointed at the mess on the floor, "Help me find something first."

"What is it?"

"A white bottle, with oval-shaped pills inside, the pills are red."

"So, it's medicine?"

"Something like that," Gu Yunfeng nodded.

"Boss, you could at least tell me the name of the medicine, how do you expect anyone to recognise it with such a vague description?" Shu Pan protested weakly, scanning the room before crouching down to help search.

"No name, packaging was torn off, just the bottle left," Gu Yunfeng replied absent-mindedly while continuing to search through the drawers. After a while, a thought struck him, "There might not be just one bottle, so look carefully, find them all."

"How long have you been searching?" Shu Pan asked, rubbing his hands together as he stood up to survey the room.

"Almost an hour."

"Then you're probably searching in too small a space."

"Huh?"

Gu Yunfeng had a bad feeling as he looked up to see Shu Pan holding a wrench in his right hand and a screwdriver in his left. He walked over to the TV in the living room, crouched down, and started tinkering with the screws on various appliances and pieces of furniture.

He had started dismantling the furniture.

The TV stand was dismantled.

The sofa was dismantled.

The dining table was in the process of being dismantled.

"Are you planning to take apart my entire house?" Gu Yunfeng couldn't laugh or cry as he watched Shu Pan seriously disassemble the furniture. He had never imagined Shu Pan’s destructive capabilities would be this impressive, he could dismantle large pieces of furniture with lightning speed and even reassemble them afterwards.

“No, it’s just that from your expression, I thought it was something really important...” Shu Pan shrugged. “Sometimes things fall into cracks or corners, and you need to take apart the immovable furniture to find them.”

“It is important, but have you found it yet?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find it... probably, we probably will.” Shu Pan wiped the sweat from his forehead and moved to a different area, running from the living room to the second bedroom. He pulled back the curtains, and sunlight instantly flooded the previously dark north-facing room.

Gu Yunfeng's gaze landed on the small wooden bed that had been recently assembled in the bedroom. He walked over, took a wrench, and began unscrewing the bolts on the bed frame. Soon, the bed collapsed.

Knocking on one of the wooden slats, he discovered that one of the frame’s beams was hollow. Gu Yunfeng bent down, removed the beam, and found a white medicine bottle inside.

He then proceeded to break the remaining dozen or so slats in half, eventually uncovering four identical bottles, all with their packaging torn off.

Opening the bottles, he found that three were sealed, while the one he had deliberately opened that morning still remained. The red pills inside hadn’t been touched, indicating that Professor Xu hadn’t taken any.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Gu Yunfeng examined the bottle carefully before placing it on the nearby table. He glanced at Shu Pan, who had taken off his jacket and was now sweating profusely, "How do you think these bottles got in there?"

Shu Pan, bewildered, shook his head and stared at him incredulously, "Didn't you put them there yourself, Captain Gu?"

"Of course not."

"Then who?"

Gu Yunfeng didn’t answer, instead bending down to clean up the room’s mess. "Hidden this deep, almost impossible to retrieve, it’s clear they weren’t meant to be used..."

According to Ying Xizi, the real effect of this drug was to destroy the central nervous system, causing the user to fall into a prolonged sleep or coma, ultimately leading to complete brain damage.

What would happen to Xu Chengyue if he took this drug for a long time?

His central nervous system was controlled by an AI chip, so it was Xu Chengyue's original brain that would be damaged, not his current self, but the Xu Chengyue from before, the one Gu Yunfeng had never met.

Long-term use of this drug would result in the complete death of the old Xu Chengyue, and the current one would fully replace his past self, living out a life that didn’t originally belong to him.

Gu Yunfeng sat lost in thought amidst the dismantled bed frame, the sunlight streaming across his face. He stared quietly at the chaos around him, his trembling hand reaching through the shadows. If everything was as he suspected, what would he want Xu Chengyue to choose?

To kill his past self? Or to kill his current self?

But it seemed like Xu Chengyue had already made his decision.

He had hidden the medicine in a place where it was nearly impossible to retrieve, likely intending to give his past self a chance at survival.

"Who’s taking this medicine anyway? You, Captain? Are you sick?" Shu Pan opened one of the bottles, took out a pill, sniffed it, and then wrinkled his nose at the red pill, about to take a bite.

"Is this really medicine?"

"It’s poison, I was debating whether to destroy it."

“Pei–” Shu Pan jumped, the bottle falling from his hand as pills scattered all over the floor. He hurried to gather them up, putting them back into the bottle.

"Seriously?"

"Anyway, just don’t eat it."

"I won't, of course I won’t, I was just going through the motions, okay? I’m not sick, and I don’t even know what it cures... or, um, poisons!" Shu Pan, clearly shaken, capped the bottle and collapsed onto a chair, spacing out, "So whose medicine is it, anyway?"

"Professor Xu's."

"Oh..." Shu Pan drew out the sound, then suddenly jumped up after a few seconds, "Wait, he’s still staying with you?"

"Is there a problem? I live closer to his school."

"Of course there is! He has his own place, why would he stay here with you? And besides, he’s already broken up with us, so how thick-skinned is he to stick around?" Shu Pan protested, glancing around the room before noticing that the closet contained many clothes that were clearly not Gu Yunfeng’s style.

A sudden thought jolted Shu Pan out of his chair. He rushed to the bathroom, flicked on the light, and stared in shock at the matching toothbrushes and cups on the sink.

No wonder he’s still staying here.

"Boss, you didn’t..."

"You didn’t, like, get so hungry being single that you’ve stopped caring about gender, did you?" Shu Pan immediately slapped his hand over his mouth after blurting that out, his wide eyes fixed on Gu Yunfeng.

"......" Gu Yunfeng initially thought about laughing it off, but seeing the way things were going, he couldn’t deny it anymore. He cast a sidelong glance at Shu Pan.

"What if it’s real love?"

"Fuck! Love!" Shu Pan's eyes bulged in disbelief. "Love? Boss, are you seriously telling me you’re in love with Professor Xu?!"

"He’s a man, and you’re a man!"

"Nonsense! Obviously, I know that."

"Does your dad know?"

"He doesn’t," Gu Yunfeng sighed, "I’ll need to ease him into the idea."

"Oh, don't go out and talk nonsense," Gu Yunfeng said as he tried to reassemble the bed frame. He placed the four medicine bottles back where they had been. Since Xu Chengyue wasn’t planning on using the drugs, Gu Yunfeng decided not to interfere. The choice was ultimately Xu Chengyue’s to make.

After all, all the effects and consequences were only Gu Yunfeng’s speculation.

"Oh... I won’t say anything," Shu Pan replied numbly, his wide-eyed shock gradually fading into blankness, as though he’d just experienced something too overwhelming to process.

"You said love, love," he muttered repeatedly, still covering his face, his expression twisted. After about ten minutes, he waved weakly at Gu Yunfeng, "No, I need time to process this, Boss, give me a minute, give me a minute."

Seeing Shu Pan’s distressed expression, Gu Yunfeng couldn’t help but chuckle. He glanced at the pot of lamb stew simmering in the kitchen, turned down the heat, and took a taste, adding some seasoning before closing the lid again. It would need another half-hour of stewing.

Looking up at the clock, it was nearly noon. Shu Pan will definitely have to rely on him to eat, fortunately, he cooked a lot of food, and Xu Chengyue wouldn't be home until later. Gu Yunfeng brought the stew to the table, served the rice, and asked Shu Pan, who still hadn’t fully recovered, "You mentioned a burglary case when you came in, what are the details?"

"The details..." Shu Pan blinked in confusion at the stew before finally snapping back to reality.

"A university nearby had its lab equipment stolen."

"Nanpu University? Which lab?" Hearing this, Gu Yunfeng’s brow furrowed as he instinctively asked for more details.

"The artificial intelligence... lab?"

Clang–

The ladle fell into the stew, and Gu Yunfeng froze for a few seconds before fishing it out with a pair of chopsticks.

"Why didn’t you say so earlier?" He served a bowl of rice for Shu Pan, "Who reported the case?"

The atmosphere suddenly grew heavy, and the ticking of the clock became eerily audible. A cold breeze swept through, dispersing the fragrant scent of the stew that filled the table.

"A man named... Lu Yong?" Shu Pan stammered under the sudden intensity, "Aiyo Captain, he came in to report it this morning, and I ran straight here to tell you, but as soon as I arrived, you asked me to find something for you."

He buried his head and took a few bites of rice, shovelling some food into his mouth, though he barely tasted it. His eyes kept darting towards Gu Yunfeng.

"Are you still on leave?"

He eyed Gu Yunfeng, who was absent-mindedly eating his rice without chewing much.

"Forget it, it’s only two days."

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: September 21, 2024 by Angel

Edited: January 7, 2025 by Angel