Chapter 68#
Chapter 68: Outside the Window
“Knock knock!”
“Knock knock!”
“Knock knock knock!”
It was already one o’clock in the morning. Wei Xiangjin, who was halfway through his sleep, suddenly sat up in bed.
He heard noises outside in his drowsy state. He was about to get up, but then he thought, he was at home now, not in the army. What could happen? Even if something happened, it wouldn’t be his turn to deal with it. So he turned over and continued to sleep. But that faint knocking sound wouldn’t let him go; it just kept ringing rhythmically…
The room door was closed. Half of the curtains were drawn, and faint light shone in through the other half, illuminating some of the furnishings in the room.
Wei Xiangjin sat for a while, first determining that the sound didn’t come from outside the door, then determining that it wasn’t a mouse drilling a hole. Finally, he lifted the quilt, walked to the window, and pulled open the curtains with a swoosh—then he bit his tongue:
“…Xiao Zhou?”
“Yeah.” Gu Chenzhou looked a bit lazy. His voice came in through the window, sounding a bit muffled, “Open up?”
Wei Xiangjin really felt that even seeing a ghost floating outside wouldn’t be as thrilling as seeing Gu Chenzhou lying on the window sill. He pushed open the window, pulling the person into the room while complaining: “What if there were security bars installed?”
“Easier to climb?” Gu Chenzhou replied.
Wei Xiangjin was stunned and looked at the other person carefully: “Are you drunk?”
Gu Chenzhou said: “Just a little bit…”
A little bit x10! Wei Xiangjin automatically completed the other person’s sentence, then shook his head: “Come on, sit here for a while. I’ll go get you a towel.”
“Don’t bother, I said I’m not drunk,” Gu Chenzhou said lazily.
Wei Xiangjin thought to himself, if you really weren’t drunk, with your pretentiousness since you were fifteen, would you climb through a window? He ignored the other person, walked into the bathroom on his own, soaked his towel in water, didn’t wring it out, just took it out dripping wet and threw it onto Gu Chenzhou’s face.
With a loud “smack”, all of Gu Chenzhou’s sounds were slapped back. About thirty to fifty seconds later, the person who was slouching straightened up, took the towel off his face, and put on his usual pretentious face: “…Sober now.”
Wei Xiangjin whistled: “Instant effect! Why did you suddenly come here?”
“To find you.” Gu Chenzhou replied with one sentence, then carried the dripping towel that had wet most of his collar, walked back to the bathroom connected to the room, wrung out the water, washed his face again, and then walked out and said, “I didn’t plan to come over tonight, but I was seen when I went to the hotel to book a room. They insisted on dragging me to drink. After drinking for two or three hours, we finally dispersed…”
“And then you came over?” Wei Xiangjin asked.
“I even climbed your window…” Gu Chenzhou said.
Wei Xiangjin felt that if he laughed now, his childhood friend would definitely fly into a rage out of humiliation: “Seriously, I haven’t even climbed it!”
Gu Chenzhou: “If you really want to climb, I can create an opportunity for you even if there isn’t one.”
Wei Xiangjin straightened his face: “What are you thinking! Just you? The attraction is still a bit lacking!”
“…” Gu Chenzhou changed the subject, “Uncle Wei should have told you the matter, right?”
“He did.” Wei Xiangjin answered briefly.
“So…” Gu Chenzhou rarely spoke with such lack of confidence.
Wei Xiangjin walked back to the bed and sat down. Being dug out of bed in the middle of the night and busy for a while, he wasn’t sleepy anymore: “When did you agree on it? Before going to Dechang County?”
“Which point are you talking about? If it’s calculating He Hailou, it started from when I smashed his car,” Gu Chenzhou said. “He Hailou has a good brain, but with his temper and personality, being someone who refuses to suffer even a little loss, I just need to provoke his anger slightly, and he can burn happily by himself. If someone else made a move, He Hailou might play some dirty tricks; but if I do it myself…” Gu Chenzhou smiled, but it seemed a bit cold, “If he wants to compete with me, he will definitely choose to fight back himself, and for certain purposes, he will definitely play a big game.”
Gu Chenzhou used “definitely” twice in a row, then continued: “Then Dechang County came out. The matter here was after calling you.” He said calmly, “Following that, I told my dad about this. As for Uncle Wei’s side, my dad told him afterward, but it should also be before we went to Dechang County.” This was so that if Wei Chengbo disagreed, they could cancel the trip temporarily.
“Just kept it from me?” Wei Xiangjin asked.
Gu Chenzhou looked at Wei Xiangjin for a while.
Wei Xiangjin said: “Every time you look at me like this, nothing good happens… You’re not going to say you hinted at me, are you?”
Gu Chenzhou shook his head: “When we were traveling together, I misled you. But after entering the investigation, Adjutant Zhang actually hinted at you—of course, he didn’t know it himself—our two families have been friends for so many years, and we grew up together. How could it be that when something happened, before the two families did anything, they pushed it onto the other child’s head?” Not to mention feelings, this IQ is also a bit insufficient.
Wei Xiangjin was speechless for a moment: “I thought it was Adjutant Zhang’s own idea.”
“How is that possible?” Gu Chenzhou laughed. Why would Adjutant Zhang have his own idea? He worked under Wei Chengbo, so naturally, all his actions followed Wei Chengbo’s command. To put it bluntly, for these third-generation heirs, before they established their own positions, if they didn’t have a good father, who would pay attention to them?
“Yeah, how is that possible.” Wei Xiangjin also shook his head, stood up and said, “Are you hungry? I’ll go down and get something to eat.”
“Yeah, I only drank alcohol,” Gu Chenzhou said.
“Wait.” Wei Xiangjin said a word, then walked out of the room, went downstairs, opened the refrigerator and cupboards, rummaged for a long time, and only found a bottle of wine and a few bags of packaged braised food.
He took these things, found two more glasses, and walked back upstairs. Gu Chenzhou had already turned on the lights in the room and was sitting on a chair facing the window, lost in thought.
Wei Xiangjin put the things on the table and pulled up a chair to sit down himself: “Do you still want to drink? Or water?” There was an unopened bottle of mineral water at home, which he had also brought up just now.
Anyway, having drunk alcohol before, he couldn’t sleep tonight. Gu Chenzhou didn’t care: “If you want to drink, I’ll accompany you.” Saying that, he picked up the bottle from the table, opened it, and poured a little wine for each of them.
Of course, it was impossible for the two brothers to urge each other to drink in private. Gu Chenzhou and Wei Xiangjin basically treated it as drinking a beverage. Wei Xiangjin said: “How did you get forced to drink like this, running over drunk in the middle of the night?” What he wanted to ask more was who had such great face to get Gu Chenzhou drunk?
Gu Chenzhou picked up the glass, took a sip of cold beer, paused for a while before saying: “It was a nephew of the Yu family. I couldn’t refuse, so I went.”
Wei Xiangjin frowned: “Which one of the Yu family?”
“Yu Zhijie,” Gu Chenzhou said.
Wei Xiangjin recalled this person after a little thought: He wasn’t a direct descendant of Yu Shuifeng, but the grandson of Yu Shuifeng’s uncle. Plus, he didn’t enter officialdom but chose to go into business. Overall, he wasn’t considered part of their circle: “Does he have such great face?”
Gu Chenzhou smiled without speaking.
Wei Xiangjin said: “Stop smiling, you look like you’re full of bad ideas.”
Gu Chenzhou said helplessly: “It was just a chance to understand the Yu surname from the side. Yu Zhijie himself is nothing, but it is said that he is very much liked by Yu Yuanpei, the son of that person in the Yu faction. He can freely enter and exit Yu Yuanpei’s house without saying hello.”
“Why did he seek you out?” Wei Xiangjin said.
Gu Chenzhou said: “He wanted to see me himself, or Yu Yuanpei asked him to come see me. Which one do you choose?”
“The latter,” Wei Xiangjin replied, frowning again, “The Yu family has been quiet all along, and now they’ve finally started?”
Gu Chenzhou was noncommittal. He was more inclined to believe that the person in the Yu faction didn’t know about this matter at all. However, if the other party was willing to move, it was a good thing… Like a hedgehog, when it doesn’t move, no one knows where to bite, but once it moves, although the lethality is greater, it always allows people to see an opportunity.
“Tell me,” Wei Xiangjin suddenly asked Gu Chenzhou softly, “My family is out, what about your family?”
“Retreat. But to retreat, we have to get rid of He Nanshan,” Gu Chenzhou replied. “Otherwise, we will be reckoned with sooner or later.”
“Is there no chance for the Wang faction?” Wei Xiangjin asked.
Gu Chenzhou pondered for a moment: “Who knows… We always have to leave a way out for our two families. Actually, if it weren’t for your car accident, since the Wei family isn’t in the administrative system after all, no one would have deliberately dragged the Wei family in.”
Wei Xiangjin took a sip of wine, thoughtful: “He Nanshan is the backbone of the Yu faction. If we move against He Nanshan, isn’t that equivalent to directly confronting the Yu faction?”
“So the timing must be precise,” Gu Chenzhou said. To his family, whether it was Gu Xinjun or Old Master Gu, he only had this sentence. But to Wei Xiangjin, he fell silent for a moment, then added, “Or pry out the one behind him together.”
Wei Xiangjin wasn’t surprised at all. He glanced at Gu Chenzhou and laughed: “I thought you lost your temper after going abroad and coming back.”
Which third-generation heir in the circle didn’t have a temper? Gu Chenzhou shook his head and said: “If we want power, we don’t have enough power. If we want means, we don’t have enough means. Without any signs, what do we have to fight against the Yu faction? The real contest here is still between Yu Shuifeng and Wang Boyuan… I only say this in front of you. Even in my own home, it’s just a sentence of ’not steady enough’.”
The time for the change of term was too tight, and Gu Chenzhou hadn’t entered politics yet. To increase the weight of his words at home, one was to show the ability recognized by Gu Xinjun and Old Master Gu, and the other was to be steady, steady, and steady again. He had to look three steps ahead for every step he took, but when speaking, he could only call a spade a spade.
“Do you have any ideas?” Wei Xiangjin asked.
“My only idea is to take one step and look at the next,” Gu Chenzhou said. “Minister Gu doesn’t have ideas in the political arena. What ideas can I have outside besides beating the side drum?”
Wei Xiangjin hummed, then suddenly said: “I think something is wrong!”
Gu Chenzhou was stunned: “What is it?”
Wei Xiangjin glanced sideways at Gu Chenzhou: “You came to apologize today, right? You’re off topic! Do you think climbing the window and forcing me to let you in can solve the problem?”
“Then you say?” Gu Chenzhou asked.
Wei Xiangjin thought for a moment: “How about you climb again, and I push you out?”
Gu Chenzhou: “…Not a cold joke?”
“Of course not.” Wei Xiangjin had a serious face.
Gu Chenzhou drank the beer in the glass, stood up, and walked towards the window.
“…What are you doing?” Wei Xiangjin asked.
“Letting you push once,” Gu Chenzhou said.
Wei Xiangjin thought Gu Chenzhou was joking and intended to say a few more words. As a result, the next second he saw Gu Chenzhou really push open the window and intend to climb out.
Playing for real? Wei Xiangjin’s hair stood on end: “This is the third floor!”
“Less than ten meters, probably won’t fall into trouble.” Gu Chenzhou said as he took out his phone, “I’ll call an ambulance first.”
Wei Xiangjin’s face stiffened: “Are you really completely sober? How about I cook some hangover soup for you?”
Gu Chenzhou looked back at Wei Xiangjin, suddenly laughed, and jumped down from the window sill easily: “Just kidding! I don’t have brain problems. Calling an ambulance in the middle of the night, you can make the headlines of this compound tomorrow!”
“Before making the headlines, I would be beaten into the hospital by my dad.” Wei Xiangjin complained, “When my dad told me that day we arrived here, I didn’t know what to say. In the end, he even scolded me for kicking too hard. My mom heard it from the side and also scolded me… Fuck, why don’t they recognize you as their own son!” He paused, then asked, “Why didn’t you come the day I moved? You could have said it privately then, right?”
Gu Chenzhou: “Ask you a question.”
“Hmm?”
“If I went that day, would you really blame me?” Gu Chenzhou asked.
Wei Xiangjin was stunned for a moment: “No, coming out of the military region that day, I was just angry that you didn’t even give a reason.”
Gu Chenzhou said: “So I think it’s better to find you after the facts come out… You have too little principle towards me, this pressure is also a bit big.”
Wei Xiangjin: “…”
Time unknowingly passed three o’clock in the morning.
Separated by most of the courtyard and a street, He Hailou, sitting in the car, could also clearly see the room that had been lit for more than two hours.
That must be Wei Xiangjin’s room.
He Hailou thought to himself.
What would Gu Chenzhou be doing with the other person inside?
Chatting and laughing? Sleeping in the same bed?
He Hailou turned his stiff neck, yawned a little, and slowly started the car preparing to leave. Suddenly, he didn’t quite understand why he insisted on following Gu Chenzhou personally, flying for two hours and then running here in the middle of the night to stake out…
Wouldn’t it be much better to find a professional?
And…
That delicious giant lobster, He Hailou felt somewhat gloomy and depressed, when exactly could he truly eat it into his mouth?