A ghost face fell from the sky.
"Few of them can imagine that what is hard-won for ordinary people is just a matter of lifting a finger or opening a mouth for some. Even getting justice is difficult. How many people have been wronged and their names have been cleared? It's impossible to count."
The heavy topic caused a brief silence in the car. After a moment, Chen Sizhe smiled and said, "But there are always some upright and honest people. A group of people won't only have bad ones. Blueberries spoil easily, but if you buy a box of blueberries, not every single one will be rotten. That would be self-destructive for smugglers or supermarkets."
As if finding it novel, Wen Dai twisted her body under the seatbelt, turned to face him, her peach blossom eyes trying to be round and full, and teased in a tone: "Hey? Chen Sizhe, I didn't expect you to be so positive, huh? No wonder you're an idealistic lawyer."
The idealistic lawyer Chen ignored her.
There was a sentence that Wen Dai kept to herself: If you want to be an idealist, you probably can't have too many "dead ends" in life.
In the end, Wen Dai was one of the extra people who went to the restaurant.
She followed behind Chen Sizhe like a parrot, circling him left and right in a semi-circular motion—the kind that moves forward.
"Sister Qian Yan cooked me a meal at home, so I can't just leave those dishes there unattended, can I?"
"Is she waiting for you to have dinner at home?"
"No, she just cooks the meal and leaves. She has to go to the funeral home, so she doesn't have time to wait for me at home to eat."
"Isn't that enough? You'll be faced with cold food when you get back, which you'll need to heat up; since you'll have to heat it up anyway, it's the same if you eat it later. Besides, she has to be both a part-time housekeeper and cook for you... Are you some kind of landlord?" Chen Sizhe, who had suddenly stopped in his tracks, was hit on the back by something.
He glanced back and saw Wen Dai, who hadn't stopped herself; her weapon was her head.
Wen Dai, who may not have harmed the enemy but suffered heavy losses herself, was miserably rubbing her nose. The stinging sensation caused tears to well up uncontrollably. She muttered, "Why did you suddenly stop..."
Chen Sizhe, who was standing in front of her, took a step to the left, withdrew his hand from the elevator up button, turned his face toward the elevator with its doors closed, and sneered, "Because I'm not like you, I won't crash into it."
...Humiliation! Utter humiliation!
Wen Dai choked on her words and changed the subject: "I'm not a landlord. It's Sister Qian Yan. She probably thinks she owes me a lot. Anyway, she's treating me like a maid."
The characters lingering on the back of her teeth made Wen Dai hesitant to speak. She licked her lips a few times and then said shyly, "It's like she's serving me. I plan to have a good talk with her tonight."
The elevator doors opened with a ding, and the person standing inside walked out unhurriedly. Only the two of them went in next.
Chen Sizhe pressed the floor button again, then took out an alcohol swab from his pocket and wiped his fingers. He lowered his chin slightly and said slowly, "To deal with her, I don't recommend using gentle words and actions. Instead, express your refusal firmly, otherwise she won't give up easily."
A few words struck a chord with Wen Dai, who had already sensed something was amiss. Just like yesterday when Qian Tong had passed away, her gentleness had no effect, but Chen Sizhe, whose words were like a slap on the back, had persuaded Qian Yan.
Chen Sizhe keenly noticed the dejected look on the man beside him. He glanced at the person with his head down, and as the elevator doors opened, he grabbed the man and dragged him out. "Thinking of Qian Tong?"
A few heavy, stale breaths escaped through her nostrils. Wen Dai nodded and mechanically followed him, saying sadly, "I knew he would leave... and we've only known each other for a few years. When I don't think about it, it's like I don't feel anything, but when I do, my heart feels heavy."
This was true for Qian Tong and her parents.
"Life must go on. As long as I'm alive, I can't stop for those who have left. Rather than making myself sad for a day, I'd rather be happy for a day. If thinking about it will make me sad, I simply won't think about it and will try my best not to think about it."
With her upper eyelids lowered, her words seemed less like they were being spoken to Chen Sizhe, who was negotiating with the waiter, and more like they were being spoken to herself, her voice growing increasingly soft.
But Chen Sizhe overheard everything clearly.
He grabbed her arm, using just the right amount of strength to pull her along, and they sat down in a small, private cubicle.
He sat down opposite her, flipping through the menu on the table with his slender fingers. He didn't look at her, but his words were directed at her: "Be sad when you should be sad. Suppressing sadness only makes it more likely to backfire. Is the happiness you get by forcibly forgetting sadness really happiness? I don't know about you. You'll have to ask yourself that."
With her back against the soft seat, Wen Dai slightly twisted her neck and lowered her gaze to the world outside the window. People were constantly coming and going in the city, and cars on the road were going left or right, forward or backward.
Fortunately, Chen Sizhe didn't press her for answers. He tapped the menu on the table to make a sound, and as she looked up blankly, the man across from her met her gaze, raised his chin, and said, "Look at the menu."
Her hungry stomach was indeed in dire need of filling, so Wen Dai roused herself to look at the menu again. After seeing the prices of the dishes, she felt that she could live on air.
Wen Dai swallowed twice, biting her lower lip, remembering what Qian Yan had told her—that the food outside wasn't cheap.
"...I don't think I'm that hungry." A weak and feeble statement.
"I'll pay." Without hesitation.
If only she were the kind of person who could comfortably enjoy being treated by others, but she isn't.
Wen Dai mentally calculated how much money she still had left that she could spend. She knew she would have to pay Chen Sizhe's lawyer fees, as well as those from Lai's father, Chen Wenkang, and Li Chengjian. Since Cui Lin and Qian Yan were willing to be her witnesses, she should also give them something in return.
Finally, Wen Dai ordered a vegetable salad.
As Wen Dai was ordering her food from the waiter, Chen Sizhe's gaze burned into her face, but she really didn't dare to look at him.
They've practically made their intention to split the bill open.
Fortunately, Chen Sizhe didn't say anything. After the dishes were served, he pushed some of the savory and dessert dishes in front of her and simply said, "Eat."
Not wanting to pay more, Wen Dai pushed the food in front of her back, saying, "I'm on a diet, I'll just have a salad."
Chen Sizhe seemed to have genuinely begun to consider the veracity of her reason. His gaze swept over her openly, then his brows furrowed. "Your dream is to become the White Bone Demon?"
Wen Dai, who had almost broken her back molar, gave a forced smile.
Chen Sizhe, who was practically blind to her displeasure, either didn't notice it or pretended not to. He continued, "..."
“Eat up, don’t feel like you owe me anything. I’m not so stingy as to haggle over a meal. If I happen to encounter a hungry beggar on the street, I’ll give him food if I have any. Of course, I’ll have him sign a waiver beforehand that I won’t be responsible for any reactions after he eats it. I’m not implying that you’re a beggar.”
The final supplementary sentence is simply a case of protesting too much.
Wen Dai picked up her fork, deciding to treat the food as compensation for the personal insults Chen Sizhe had inflicted on her.
Driver Chen was responsible for taking her home.
Wen Dai turned the doorknob and then closed it. She changed her shoes and looked up to find herself in a room filled with sunlight.
There was no one in the house, a feeling that vaguely overlapped with the feeling of living alone in the past. Turning my head, I caught a glimpse of the neatly folded sheets on the sofa and the bag next to them, yet it was different again.
The dishes on the table were placed in dish covers, which were probably bought by Qian Yan as well; Wen Dai usually didn't need such things.
The dishes, which included both meat and vegetables, were like a leap of faith compared to the food Qian Yan used to cook for herself and Qian Tong in the shantytown.
Wen Dai stayed up from afternoon until nightfall. After taking a shower, she immediately washed her clothes. It was a good habit, otherwise she estimated that Qian Yan would have taken over the laundry as well.
The dishes on the table smelled delicious again after being reheated. Wen Dai sat at the table, with Qian Yan, who had just returned and had red eyes, beside her. She pushed the bowl of food in front of her toward Qian Yan, saying, "Don't starve yourself. Eat something. There must be a lot of things to do tomorrow."
A few breaths mixed with sobs, Qian Yan raised her hand and wiped away her tears with her fingers. Her coughing as she cleared her throat echoed in the small, open-plan restaurant. Her long sigh did not bring relief.
She tilted her head slightly, her other hand weakly reaching for the chopsticks, her voice barely audible: "Yes, I understand."
The scariest thing isn't stopping, it's wanting to stop but still having to keep moving forward.
Although Wen Dai could see that Qian Yan was not in a good state, she still needed to discuss it. She noticed that Qian Yan's gaze was somewhat serious. "Sister Qian Yan, there is something else I think I need to talk to you about."
Meeting the pair of tearful eyes that turned towards her, Wen Dai suppressed the emotions in her heart and solemnly said, "Don't think of yourself as my nanny. When I helped you, I didn't expect you to repay me. I just wanted to help, so I helped you. Even if you want to repay me, I hope it's not in this way."
"I'd rather see you take care of yourself than take care of me. Sister Qian Yan, you should find your own direction, move forward, and live. Going around in circles aimlessly or wandering aimlessly will only make it hard to move forward. You'll just want to sit down and rest for a while, and in the end, you'll gain less than the negative emotions that accumulate in your heart."
Tears welled up in Qian Yan's eyes. She put her hand on her forehead, stretched her head forward to support her raised palm, and held the chopsticks in her hand, which were sticking up.
She choked up as she said, "Sister, I feel so sorry for you..."
A sudden statement cut Qian Yan off: "You've wronged yourself."
Actually, there were still many things she wanted to say to her. Glancing at Qian Yan's current state of being trapped in pain and sorrow, Wen Dai's lips parted and closed again. She lowered her eyelashes, loosened her back support, and leaned back in her chair.
"Let's eat first. Nothing can be achieved overnight. I won't force you, and you shouldn't force yourself either. But stop treating yourself like my maid; you don't need to serve me."
"..."
Spring departed quietly, and summer arrived suddenly. As the heat filled the air, Wen Dai seized hope.
Some time ago, Qian Yan and Cui Lin both received phone calls asking them to come in and give statements. After all, the video evidence only showed that the two of them were there, and the prosecutor's office and the director-general still needed to observe their behavior and reactions on site.
According to Qian Yan, who rushed back, He Shaoyang was also summoned and looked to be in extremely poor condition, practically skin and bones.
The message from Li Chengjian is still on my phone screen.
[I personally dealt with your case. There's joint supervision from the [relevant authorities] and the Supreme People's Procuratorate. The current special investigation team has reviewed the evidence; it's not complex and the leads are clear enough. This case is a clear miscarriage of justice due to favoritism and abuse of power. The original investigators and suspects involved have been criminally detained and are under control. The propaganda department has also exercised control over public opinion…]
It was a rather long passage, but Wen Dai only clearly remembered one paragraph—
The trial will officially begin as early as autumn, or at the latest, winter.
Even the preceding "I expect" was automatically ignored by Wen Dai's eyes.
Because Lai's father had sent a similar message to Li Chengjian a couple of days earlier, Wen Dai reasonably concluded that it was a positive prediction based on these two conflicting expectations.
Holding her phone, Wen Dai suddenly chuckled to herself, her unconsciously upturned lips revealing an even more intense smile.
Glancing strangely at the passenger side, Chen Sizhe's lips twitched, and he raised his chin slightly, saying disdainfully, "Do you know that kind of smile makes people suspect you're possessed by a ghost?"
Surprisingly, Wen Dai didn't retort. Instead, she cheerfully placed her phone back on her lap, tapping the phone case with her fingertips, her eyes sparkling with a smile.
"Hmph, you wouldn't understand me. But Bay City is pretty nice, the coastal highway is really nice, and the sea is right next to the food street, such a refreshing place." She leaned against the window, the window was still open, she didn't want to feel the temperature outside.
The driver, Xiao Chen, merely glanced at her, his lips twitching slightly without opening, yet giving off an air of amusement.
Unfortunately, the refreshing coastal scenery didn't last Wen Dai long. This time, the host stayed in a villa complex deep in the mountains. The villas built against the mountain were all multi-story villas—the kind that are horizontally divided.
The road leading to the villa complex no longer leads to the sea, but instead follows a line of undulating mountains that are not very high. Even in summer, the grass along the roadside still exudes a desolate feel. Next to the road are several abandoned cars, their bodies just like sheet metal, with several flat spots, flat tires, and broken windows.
If Wen Dai hadn't known that she was going to handle matters for the client, she would have thought she was going to a crime scene or a desolate graveyard to die.
The asphalt road leading up the mountain, combined with the surrounding lush green trees, created an eerie atmosphere. The sun hadn't emerged from behind the clouds, its pale light mostly blocked by the trees.
Touching the goosebumps on her arms, Wen Dai, who had been in a good mood a while ago, sighed and muttered to herself, "This kind of environment and atmosphere is really hard to get used to."
Ever since she first witnessed spirits and heard their voices when she was a teenager, Wen Dai still hasn't gotten used to it. She firmly believes that such things are impossible to get used to. But fear can be worn down, and the reaction to fear can be changed.
Suddenly, an upside-down face with flat features appeared before Wen Dai's eyes—it was pressed tightly against the car window, with almost the entire eyeball exposed. The nose seemed to have no nasal bone, and the mouth was the same, making Wen Dai wonder if this person had ever had a bony protrusion of the mouth.
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