Chapter 74 Red and Black Soup, but it wasn't the first time.

"Poisoned? How could that be?" Wen Han said angrily, "He clearly wanted to bully you!"

Are you feeling dizzy right now?

A little.

"Then you should get some sleep. I'm not going to talk to you anymore." Wen Han tucked him in. "Your face is so pale."

He sat beside Liu Chuanze for a while. Liu Chuanze had indeed been forcing himself to stay awake, and he quickly fell asleep after closing his eyes.

Wen Han gently closed the door. The doctor was still examining Gu Cheng. When Wen Han saw his face, she wanted to pounce on him and punch him.

Gu Cheng's face was flushed. Under the doctor's questioning, he admitted that he had been easily angered lately and had also been experiencing headaches.

"Hmph, I've noticed he's been really irritable the whole time." Wen Han crossed her arms. "He's been pretending at home for so long, and now his true colors have finally come out, haven't they?"

Wen Han never expected that the final test results showed that Gu Cheng was indeed poisoned.

"It's a cardiac glycoside." The doctor asked Gu Cheng, "Young Master Gu, have you recently mistakenly taken a cardiac glycoside?"

Gu Cheng said impatiently, "No."

Wen Han noticed that Gu Cheng's pupils had also dilated slightly. Gu Zong asked, "What have you been doing this past week?"

Gu Cheng avoided eye contact: "No, I just go to and from school normally."

Gu Zong said calmly, "Oh? Then what happened to the injury on your arm?"

"They got into a fight. Isn't fighting normal?"

The butler looked worried and said, "Young master, who did you fight with this time? What if the other party poisoned you?"

A thought suddenly popped into Wen Han's mind: Could Jing Yu's injury be caused by Gu Cheng and his men?

He was about to question them, but then he swallowed the words back down.

The doctor prescribed some medicine. While they were questioning Gu Cheng, Wen Han went to see the doctor off: "Doctor, is the cardiac glycoside you mentioned only accessible through medication?"

The doctor chuckled, "That's not necessarily true. Some poisonous flowers also contain cardiac glycosides, but Young Master Gu can't possibly eat those flowers, can he?"

After the doctor left, Wen Han hid in a corner and took out her phone.

Which flowers contain cardiac glycosides?

He looked at the search results: foxglove, oleander, lily of the valley...

Wen Han pursed her lips and deleted the search history.

*

"What...what is this?"

The red and black soup beckons towards Yanagawa Sawa.

"Red date and black chicken soup, it's good for replenishing blood." Wen Han served him a bowl. "They say pork liver is even better for replenishing blood, but you probably won't like red date and pork liver soup, right? I cooked it for a long time."

Liu Chuanze nodded silently; the black-boned chicken looked like it had been drowned by the red dates.

"Drink it." Wen Han sat down next to him and remained silent for a while before saying, "Gu Cheng is really poisoned."

“I could tell something was off about him,” Liu Chuanze said. “By the way, things haven’t been peaceful at Gu’s Company lately.”

"With billions going down the drain, how can we remain calm?"

Liu Chuanze whispered, "I can't go to the company for the time being, but many shareholders want Gu Yuan to withdraw."

Just as Wen Han was about to gloat, Liu Chuanze suddenly put down his bowl and spoon.

"Why did you only drink a little and then stop?"

Liu Chuanze took Wen Han's hand, and Wen Han followed his gaze to the door. In just a few seconds, Gu Zong appeared at the door.

Fortunately, Yanagawa reacted quickly, otherwise he would have been exposed.

Are you feeling better?

Liu Chuanze calmly replied, "It's nothing serious."

Wen Han could sense the distance and politeness between the two. But so what? Gu Zong didn't care about any of that; he only cared about who was qualified to be the heir of the Gu family.

“Now that he’s alright, you can come out,” Gu Zong said. “You practically turn the kitchen upside down just to make a soup.”

Wen Han snorted defiantly, "Does Gu Zong even know what it means to pursue quality ingredients?"

——

Wen Han guessed that Gu Yuan was probably overwhelmed with work at the company since he hadn't come home so late.

He was reading that boring book again when suddenly there was a crackling sound. Wen Han was startled and thought the system had returned.

"Uncle, what should we do now?" Gu Cheng sighed in frustration. "Those old geezers all want to exile you now."

"Gu Cheng," Gu Yuan paused for a moment before saying, "Do you think your father did it on purpose back then?"

Gu Cheng was stunned: "What?"

"He was on the phone with the Jing family at the time, and they agreed to contract the project together," Gu Yuan said through gritted teeth. "Later, I snatched the opportunity, and he had to rush off to do something else. Now that I think about it, did he know we had installed listening devices and deliberately say that to make us grab the opportunity?"

Gu Cheng said decisively, "Impossible. If he finds out, how can we be okay? The butler also confirmed today that the location of the listening device has not changed."

Upon hearing this, Wen Han looked up and saw that Gu Zong was staring at her.

He quickly looked away, lowered his head, and remained expressionless.

The two were wary and didn't discuss anything about the lab. Gu Yuan asked, "By the way, you were poisoned this afternoon, what happened?"

"I don't know, I only fought with that kid Jingyu these past few days."

Wen Han dared not look up under Gu Zong's stern gaze.

"You were too impulsive," Gu Yuan sighed. "Although he's not the eldest son, he's still a direct descendant. The Jing family is currently only managed by his father and brother, right? If things get out of hand, you'll be in big trouble!"

The two exchanged a few hurried words and then hung up the phone. Wen Han then looked up, feigning calmness, and said, "You're listening in on them."

"Um."

"Is it okay for me to listen to these?"

"It doesn't matter," Gu Zong said with interest. "Didn't you cause them a lot of trouble too?"

Wen Han didn't believe that he was telling her these things to form a united front with him. As a powerless high school student, she would rather talk to Jing Yu about these things than to him, since Jing Yu had the Jing family behind him.

"I can't figure out what you mean." Wen Han gave up. "Just tell me."

"I don't care who you deal with, and I won't interfere with your underhanded tactics," Gu Zong said softly. "But you're not allowed to target the Gu family, understand?"

The Gu family is Gu Cheng's backer. If I want to deal with Gu Cheng, how can I bypass the Gu family?

Wen Han was inwardly turbulent, but she honestly replied, "I understand."

*

Fei Nai'er's cat food is all gone, so Wen Han is going to the supermarket to buy her some more. She'll also buy some freeze-dried food; Fei Nai'er seems to have lost weight.

The supermarket is having a flower sale, and the staff are enthusiastically introducing the flowers that are imported from all over the country and even from abroad. Many customers buy flowers and also get an exquisite vase with them.

Normally, Wen Han would walk away from her, but today she took a couple of glances at it.

Seeing his hesitation, the shop assistant came over to make a sales pitch, but Wen Han waved his hand and said, "No need, I'll take a look myself first."

On a shelf were displayed lilies of the valley, their pure and lovely blossoms resembling shy little bells.

Wen Han tried to take it but was stopped by the shop assistant: "I'm sorry, we don't usually stock these kinds of flowers. We only stock them because a customer pre-ordered them."

Wen Han glanced at the price; a small bouquet of flowers actually cost four figures!

Wen Han put his hands behind his back and lowered his head slightly. This was the first time he had smelled the fragrance of lily of the valley.

However, this isn't the first time.

——

"What's this?" Wen Qingke asked in surprise. "Did you pack this up from outside?"

Wen Han poured the soup into a bowl. He had cooked two pots of soup for Liu Chuanze because he was afraid of ruining it.

Originally, it was meant for Liu Chuanze to eat tomorrow, but before leaving, Gu Zong told him to throw away that "disgusting soup".

The soup was cooked for too long, and the ingredients were basically overcooked. Plus, the journey home was bumpy, so the red date and black chicken soup turned into red date and black chicken stew. Now Wen Han doesn't want to eat a single bite.

Wen Ruo glanced at the red and black soup and fell silent. Just as she was about to retreat to her room, Wen Han grabbed her by the collar.

What are you going to do?

Wen Han said, "Since you haven't had dinner yet, why don't you drink it?"

"You can't even bring yourself to drink this soup, and you expect me to?"

“This is black chicken soup! Do you know how expensive black chicken is? We’re just lucky to have any!” Wen Han said. “I’ve been cooking it for ages.”

"Why don't you drink it yourself since it's so expensive?"

"I've already eaten."

"I won't drink it."

Wen Qingke took the soup to heat it up: "It's okay, it's just been cooked for a while, it's still very fresh."

Wen Ruo had no way to express her suffering, and Wen Ruan made an excuse that she didn't like eating red dates. In the end, Wen Qingke ate most of them for Wen Ruo under the pretext of nourishing her body.

Wen Han had already retreated to his room. He opened his chat with Jing Yu, typed for a long time, and then deleted it.

Jing Yu had just finished showering. He was waiting for Wen Han to come home and send him a message. After seeing that the other person was typing for a few minutes, he took the initiative to send a message.

Jingyu: Are you home?

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The author says: Red date and black chicken soup is normal, but Wen Han added a lethal amount of red dates and cooked them all until they were mushy... The visual effect should be black chicken pieces floating in a piece of red date skin.