“Keep going,” Luo Wenzhou instructed. “Go back a decade… No, two. Keep going until the year of the Lianhuashan case!”
No one was sleepy anymore. The meeting room that had become their makeshift office was suddenly blanketed by heavy silence.
✦ ✦ ✦
EARLY IN THE MORNING, Fei Du asked his assistant, Miss Miao, to bring him fresh clothes. He cleaned himself up and had her drive him to Dr. Bai’s place, but when he knocked on the door, it was a middle-aged man who greeted him. The man had a medium build, square face, and wide shoulders; he wore glasses, and his clothes were simple to the point of being almost completely unremarkable. His eyes were like a pair of very thin needles, piercing silently through Fei Du’s skin. Fei Du’s brow furrowed.
He recovered quickly, however, and said politely, “Hello. I’m here to see Dr. Bai. We made plans yesterday.”
“Oh.” The man adjusted his glasses. “Mr. Fei, right? Bai Qian is my wife. Please come in.”
As they spoke, Dr. Bai emerged. Her husband seemed to be in a rush to leave. He said a gentle goodbye to Dr. Bai, then left, carrying his briefcase.
When Dr. Bai noticed Fei Du looking back at the man as he left, she offered a brief explanation. “He works at the Yancheng Public Security University. But he’s really just a nerd. He doesn’t know how to do anything but teach and work on papers. Actually, he edited the book you want to borrow.”
Fei Du looked at the book in Dr. Bai’s hand: The Psychology of Victims in Criminal Cases (Third Edition). His gaze landed on the name of the editor, “Pan Yunteng.”
“How have you been lately?” Dr. Bai asked as she poured him some tea. “Before, you told me that you wanted to do a postgraduate program. That really surprised me. I’d never heard of such a successful man-about-town having a life plan so unconnected to his social sphere. Surely it’s not because you’ve been going over so much academic material with me?”
“I’m just a mascot for the Fei Corporation anyway,” Fei Du said unconcernedly. “My father left me an excellent management team. They collaborate well and balance each other out. I don’t need to do everything myself, and the other shareholders would prefer I not get in the way with my ideas. They want me to just collect my dividends like a good little boy. They’d love it if the useless nepo baby would go study somewhere proper instead of embarrassing himself with a certificate from some diploma mill.”
“Given your circumstances, wouldn’t it be better to go abroad and do an MBA?” Dr. Bai asked, confused. “My field is a bit too different, don’t you think?”
Fei Du laughed. “Dr. Bai, plenty of rich young masters like me take something like ‘Paranormal Studies’ or major in the Beatles. Compared to that, my interests aren’t that niche.”
That made Dr. Bai burst out laughing too. “True. And I suppose you guys don’t have to worry about finding work either way. Which aspect interests you? Perhaps I can introduce you to a mentor.”
“This is pretty interesting to me.” Fei Du shook the thick book in his hand. Dr. Bai was taken aback until she noticed the expression on the young man’s face, which suggested that he was half laughing at himself.
“I hear that plenty of beauties with good reputations are studying psych,” Fei Du continued. “This would give me a chance to be around them, right?”
It was afternoon by the time Fei Du left Dr. Bai’s place. His phone, which was fully charged, had lain quietly in his pocket the whole time. He thought for a while, then told Miss Miao, “Head to the municipal bureau.”
Miss Miao froze. “Fei-zong, did something happen? Do we need to report something?”
Fei Du smiled at her, and Miss Miao shivered. After several years of working with him, she was adept at reading this young master’s different smiles. The young lord’s tastes, in her opinion, were getting wilder and wilder.
Seeing her expression and the way she kept biting her tongue, Fei Du knew immediately what she wanted to say. “If any documents need my signature, just put them on my desk,” he said kindly. “I’ll return tonight to sign anything urgent.”
“There are a few emails from partners that you might also need to respond to personally,” Miss Miao replied. “When’s a good time for me to come pick you up this evening?”
“There will never be a good time.” Laughing at her offer, Fei Du pushed open the car door. “I’ll call a taxi. What would I do if I got in the way of a date with your boyfriend after work, and you held a grudge against me for it?”
“That bastard doesn’t have money or looks!” Miss Miao proclaimed bluntly. “I don’t even know why I’m keeping him around! Give me the word, and I’ll get rid of him immediately!”
“I hope you’ll have mercy on the men kneeling at your feet. Besides, your makeup looks too good today to show only me and the computer. That would be a crime against the heavens.” Fei Du got out of the car. Before he left, he leaned back down and reminded her, his hand on the door, “Drive safe on the way back. Text me when you reach the office.”
✦ ✦ ✦
MISS MIAO AUTOMATICALLY CHECKED her makeup in the rearview mirror and noticed that her lip color was a little faded. After Fei Du left, she whipped out her lipstick to touch it up, then peeked out at Fei Du’s disappearing back. His demeanor was uniquely carefree; from behind, the way he held his casted arm looked no different from the way one would hold a champagne bottle. He strolled into the municipal bureau like a guest attending a dinner banquet.
Miss Miao was different from the “palace steward”—the secretary in charge of various trivial matters around the office. Miss Miao had graduated from a renowned university, and she was very capable. She had offended someone at some point, though, so her career hadn’t taken off initially; it was Fei Du, who thought highly of her, who’d promoted her to her current position.
The younger Fei-zong was known to be “a girl’s guy.” He could tease any girl playfully as if they were friends, but in reality, few people truly understood him. Fei Du did things by the book and rarely overruled upper management’s decisions. He understood that professional matters should be left to the relevant professionals, though in other areas, his rich-playboy energy was very apparent. He was incapable of greed, perhaps because he’d always been well fed and taken care of; he was happy to relinquish some insignificant benefits so that his relationships with shareholders remained amicable. Handling both people and business with ease, he would have seemed like a very “safe” heir…if Miss Miao hadn’t personally witnessed the way he single-handedly gathered all the Fei Corporation’s power.
To Miss Miao’s mind, the strange thing was that their young master wasn’t the type of leader who was determined to forge a new path. He wasn’t ambitious about taking the business global. All he wanted was enough money to spend. It seemed like the way he’d demonstrated his power when he first inherited the role was by intimidating others so that they wouldn’t deceive him. Once he’d familiarized himself with the company’s operations, he’d never overstepped—not even once. In the last six months, the situation had become even more dire: He was out of the office more often than in, and he seemed to be on the verge of leaving everything to his employees.
Apparently, as a twenty-two-year-old, he hadn’t yet figured out what he wanted to do with his life.
But Miss Miao had always had the sense that Fei Du was crafty—that he was someone with a plan. He wasn’t the fickle or flaky type. She glanced toward the municipal bureau, bewildered, and noticed that the building was quite busy today. Then, she drove away with a weight on her mind.