Gu Qingjiao could not afford to die just yet.
The truth behind Uncle Long’s watermelon poison had not been uncovered yet; what if someone else was trying to frame him? An old man who lived peacefully and farmed quietly in the Shi Family’s South Manor would not go out of his way to kill a young girl. Besides, she was the one who had proactively run over to the farm in the first place.
Leaving the stunned Shi Lijin behind in the old house, Gu Qingjiao headed back by herself.
The next day, after searching high and low, she managed to get her hands on a syringe and headed back to the farm once again.
As luck would have it, the area was completely deserted. Gu Qingjiao cautiously peered around and discovered that Uncle Long was taking a nap in the nearby break room.
Taking a chance, she sneaked into the greenhouse, randomly selected one of the many watermelons, and used the syringe to extract a large portion of its juice so she could take it back and study it properly.
At that moment, a small black ball suddenly darted in. The moment Gu Qingjiao stood up, the little fellow started barking incessantly around her. This gave her a fright, so she immediately squatted back down to soothe it, noticing that the microchip collar was still hanging around the puppy’s neck.
When sneaking back out, Gu Qingjiao deliberately checked in on the break room.
Uncle Long’s eyes were half-closed, and his head was tilted toward the wall; he looked to be fast asleep.
Just like her grandfather, even while sleeping, he refused to take off that precious hat of his. More than half of the brim was squished and wrinkled. Gu Qingjiao suddenly remembered how, back in the day when she would run off to play and forget to return home, her grandfather would tilt his hat sideways just like that, glaring with wide eyes as he shouted for her all over the streets.
Who knows where she suddenly got the courage, but Gu Qingjiao quietly took a few steps inside. Noticing that a corner of the blanket covering Uncle Long had dragged onto the floor, she stepped forward to pull it up, gently draping it back over him.
Meanwhile, after finishing the tasks at hand, Shi Lijin took a moment of free time to pick up his tablet and take a look.
On the Shi Family South Manor’s mapping software, Gu Qingjiao was wandering back and forth outside the East Courtyard’s private farm, pacing around for reasons unknown.
Frowning thoughtfully, a profound look crossed his face.
Fifteen minutes later, Shi Lijin arrived at the East Courtyard farm, only to find that Gu Qingjiao was nowhere to be found.
Just then, Uncle Long had finished tidying up his bed and stepped out of the break room. The moment he raised his eyes, two pairs of deep, dark gazes suddenly met.
After a few seconds of silence, Uncle Long gave a nod of greeting and asked, “Second Young Master, what brings you over here?”
Shi Lijin answered, “Just taking a walk.”
Uncle Long looked somewhat surprised. “Taking a walk at the farm?”
“Mm.”
Not asking any further, Uncle Long walked straight toward the greenhouse and brought out a watermelon. “These are all pretty much fully grown. Second Young Master, take one back to taste, but the weather is cold now, so do not eat too much.”
Shi Lijin quietly stared at the watermelon in the old man’s hands. He hesitated for a long time before taking it, though he did not refuse it either.
He figured that if he took a walk without bringing anything back, it might look like he had made the trip for nothing.
Seeing that Shi Lijin had finally accepted the melon, Uncle Long took the opportunity to bring up another matter. “Some people from the North Manor are coming over in a few days, and I am planning to share the remaining fruits and vegetables with everyone. Second Young Master, they can also be considered your distant relatives. Ever since the head of the family passed away, many people have been keeping an eye on you, so make sure nothing goes wrong.”
Shi Lijin was unbothered by the warning, since entertaining guests was not his responsibility anyway; he would only need to show his face when the time came.
Nodding, he turned and left with the watermelon.
After bringing the extracted watermelon juice back, Gu Qingjiao immediately called out to the system: Little crashing machine, help me check if there is poison in this.
System: [Detection system has encountered a glitch and requires two days of repairs before it can resume function.]
Gu Qingjiao asked, “When did you glitch out?”
System: [At eight o’clock this morning.]
Recalling the events of the day, Gu Qingjiao figured it did not add up. If the system had only malfunctioned at eight o’clock this morning, why hadn’t it issued any warnings last night when Shi Lijin threatened to hang her?
Knowing how much the system cared about its pride, she never expected it to be this prideful, refusing to even honestly admit the time it broke down.
Still, she figured the system had a hard job, constantly monitoring the host’s status while scrambling to fix bugs. Though it was stubborn with its words, it was quite protective of her, so Gu Qingjiao let it slide and decided to wait until the system finished its repairs.
With the remaining time, she opened the audiobook app on her phone and casually clicked on a romance novel to pass the time.
It turned out this new phone was not completely useless. While Shi Lijin forbade her from playing video games, routine entertainment apps could still be downloaded without issue. That meant she could listen to audiobooks, scroll through short videos, browse online shopping sites, and even binge-watch TV shows and movies.
Yet, less than ten minutes into the romance novel, Gu Qingjiao found herself drifting off into a deep sleep.
Shi Lijin took the final batch of documents for the day and casually asked Jason beside him, “Where is Wei Sheng?”
Jason reacted a beat too late, only then remembering that the Second Young Master was asking about the butler from the North Manor. He quickly opened up the mapping software to check and replied, “He is in the basement room.”
“People from the North Manor are coming over in a couple of days. Keep a close eye on him.”
“Rest assured, Second Young Master! If he dares to spout a single word of nonsense, I will rip his tongue out! Though he has become quite a coward lately; he does not even dare to go near Gu Qingjiao’s side anymore.”
Hearing that name, Shi Lijin subconsciously massaged his temples. “What about her? Where is she this time?”
Jason’s Chinese was decent, but he always tripped up over gender pronouns. After a moment of thought, he honestly repeated, “He is in the basement room!”
Closing his eyes, Shi Lijin let out a weary sigh and softly reminded him, “Use the female character radical.”
“Oh, right, right, right!” Jason nodded repeatedly, searched for the other person’s name on the software, and answered a few seconds later, “Miss Gu is wandering all over the backyard bamboo grove.”
Shi Lijin: “?”
Jason remained completely oblivious to the shift in the atmosphere opposite him, and instead chuckled good-naturedly as he praised himself, “How is that, Second Young Master? I just learned a brand new word today, wandering.”
Shi Lijin stared straight at him with a gaze full of utter distrust. Deciding to check for himself, he pulled over the tablet, only to discover that Gu Qingjiao really was wandering around the bamboo grove.
Outside the pavilion, beside the bamboo grove, a small black puppy was hopping back and forth with boundless energy, splashing in the water one second and burrowing in the mud the next, leaping up and down with inexhaustible joy.
After a moment of silence, Shi Lijin tapped on the screen contents for Gu Qingjiao.
On the page, a small disc resembling a gramophone was slowly spinning in the center, while dense blocks of scrolling viewer comments surged across the top:
[ Wow wow wow, big bro is so smooth! So sweet, so sweet! ]
[ I dare say Huaiyan’s technique remains unmatched by anyone to this day! ]
[ I am so jealous of the female voice actor paired with him. I wonder how the two of them recorded this scene in the same recording booth. ]
Shi Lijin could not make heads or tails of it, nor did he understand what those people were getting so excited about. Therefore, he tapped the speaker button in the bottom right corner to turn on the software’s audio-visual synchronization feature.
What was currently playing through the phone was, in fact, an audio novel.
A series of intense, rhythmic crashing sounds echoed through his ears, making it clear that the situation on the scene was exceptionally fierce. Following that came a succession of wet sucking tooth sounds and muffled lip smacks. Both parties sounded as though they were suffering immensely, and only after a long while did human voices finally emerge:
[ Male: Don’t leave me again, okay? ]
[ Female: I do not know. I do not know.]
[ Male: Baby, forget him, stay with me. ]
Shi Lijin: “?”