First-Class Lawyer

On this morning, Yan Suizhi didn’t awaken any later than he usually did. The biological clock that had been ingrained in him over the years made it difficult for him to stay asleep for too long.

The curtains had actually been left open the entire night. The sun peeked into the room especially early, the bright light casting long shadows. 

Gu Yan’s arm was wound around him, but their fingers were still clasped together.

As long as he could remember, he had always occupied a whole bed alone.  Last night, he was certain that he would be unused to sleeping otherwise but he didn’t expect to actually adapt to it quite well.

It was also possible that a certain student’s arm that was wrapped around him was too heavy, giving him no choice but to shape up.

Though the sunlight hit him at an angle that was a bit blinding, he only squinted lazily, not letting go of the hand that held Gu Yan’s to block his eyes. 

“Awake?” A low voice drifted into his ear.

Gu Yan’s arm moved, but it was to hold him even more tightly.

Yan Suizhi hummed without opening his eyes, asking indolently, “How did you know? I didn’t move at all.”

“I could sense it.” Gu Yan’s voice was devoid of any hint of drowsiness.

Yan Suizhi was puzzled. “What time did you wake up?”

“Around five.”

“Aren’t you tired? Sleeping at two and waking at five.”

“I’m okay,” Lawyer Gu gave it a thought, then added, “Maybe because I regularly exercise and go on morning runs.” 

“…”

Professor Yan didn’t want to speak.

Gu Yan asked, “Are you getting up?”

“No,” Yan Suizhi said incisively. 

Gu Yan, “Didn’t you plan to meet the landlord? There’s also the firm’s dinner in the evening.”

Yan Suizhi, “I wouldn’t meet the chairman of the alliance even if he came.”

Somewhat huffily, he turned his head to ask Gu Yan, “Do you know how I feel now?”

“How do you feel?” 

“Like I did five hundred sit-ups while carrying the entire weight of De Carma,” Yan Suizhi’s voice was without a billow.

Gu Yan, “…”

This was probably a common problem of excessive exercise. He didn’t sense much of it during which, but upon waking up, the body beneath his neck didn’t feel it belonged to him.

Gu Yan helped to massage him, but he caught hold of the hand. 

“Move your hand away,” Yan Suizhi tsk’ed, saying snippily, “Incubus concubine that devastated the continent… My will is very easily swayed right now. Tempt me twice more and I might just drop into the marsh of dissipation.”

“…”

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“Are you really not going to get up?” Gu Yan asked.

“Why don’t you find a shovel and give it a try,” Yan Suizhi said. “In any case, I’m not moving.”

Gu Yan, “…” 

Any student from Maze University was aware that Dean Yan always spoke with assertion. But probably only Gu Yan could witness him speaking so assertively about not getting up from bed in this lifetime.

He was not only a witness to it, but also the chief culprit.

Gu · Fake Incubus Concubine · Yan obviously couldn’t find a shovel able to heft up a human, nor did he intend to try. He could only ‘make do’ with his hands instead.

A certain incompetent monarch, to save his kidneys, hastily scampered out of bed. 

Gu Yan was the one who prepared breakfast today, and he secretly added a bit of anti-inflammatory medicine into Yan Suizhi’s milk again.

He placed breakfast on the table. Yan Suizhi was fastening the cuffs of his shirt as he came down, his posture remaining relaxed and elegant; nothing out of the ordinary could be noticed on him.

“Did you cook this?” He stood next to the dining table, sweeping his eyes over the surprisingly hearty breakfast on it, which was even rather deceiving at first glance.

In the end, when he lifted his gaze, he glimpsed Lawyer Gu closing a screen on his smart device. 

Though he didn’t read the words, the colourful pictures on it were unmistakable…

“Last-minute cramming?” Professor Yan still had a bone to pick from the exercise and denounced him without a modicum of tact, yet his eyes had curved into crescents.

Gu Yan coughed once, covered his thin lips with the back of his hand, and sat down. He nudged the warm milk towards the other. “I can’t really guarantee the taste. Give it a try. If it’s bad, we can have breakfast out instead.”

Standing next to the table, Yan Suizhi took a fork and sampled a bite. “It tastes surprisingly good.” 

Just like that, he continued to stand as he gracefully and leisurely sampled half the plate, and he wasn’t sparing with his praise. “It’s really quite good.”

Gu Yan, “…You can sit down and enjoy it slowly.”

Yan Suizhi calmly sipped his milk. “I probably shouldn’t be sitting.”

Gu Yan, “Why?” 

Yan Suizhi’s eyelids flicked up. “Why do you think?”

Lawyer Gu, “…”

Sudden condemnation.

Yan Suizhi swiped through the morning news, taking in ten sentences at a glance, quickly skimming through the headlines. Before he could process the article contents, he noticed the figure in front of him shift. 

He looked up and found that Gu Yan had stood up as well.

“What are you doing?” Yan Suizhi asked doubtfully.

“Reflecting on myself,” Gu Yan said indifferently.

Despite saying that he was reflecting, all he did was stand with Yan Suizhi. The distinguished Lawyer Gu had always taken fairness as his imperative, and at this time, he was all the more willing to accompany him. 

Yan Suizhi was startled for a moment before he was unable to resist putting a hand on Gu Yan’s shoulder and laughing. “Are you going to make corrections after you’re done reflecting?”

Lawyer Gu silently sipped his coffee. Dressed in a tailored suit, he appeared handsome and imposing, reminiscent of the solemnity of court, saying evenly, “No.”

“…”

Yan Suizhi silently sent himself a white stalk of flower in tribute. 

But at the same time, he was glad. He was glad that Gu Yan had relaxed, and that so-called carefulness seemed to have dissolved in the rain that poured down the whole of last night, slowly shedding from Gu Yan.

It’d best not appear again.

Today’s morning news was still the same humdrum, the space dominated by talk about the contagion and the remaining about the Elderly Bobblehead case.

Yan Suizhi casually tapped into the top story regarding the virus and found that not much headway was made from before. 

Thus, he didn’t read it in detail but randomly picked an article on the Elderly Bobblehead case.

News of this topic didn’t stray far from Gu Yan. They went from analysing his past achievements to his bid for First-Class Lawyer, as well as speculations about him accepting the case… practically writing a small dissertation essay.

Completely baseless, all of it bullshit.

Yan Suizhi critiqued this to himself but didn’t bring them up to Gu Yan. He trusted that such reports lacking in subsistence would not affect Gu Yan, but would just be a waste of his time. 

Even then, he still read through each article that touched on Gu Yan, then noticed a small headline nestled in an obscure corner of the page.

After glancing through its contents, his brows furrowed.

“Look at this.” He tapped the fingers resting on Gu Yan’s shoulder. “The cooling core of space shuttle no. 2 flying from Helan to De Carma had failed, causing the temperature of cabin 12 to spiral…”

“Which flight was it?” Gu Yan’s brows furrowed as well. 

Yan Suizhi jumped to a particular line in the report and showed it to him, “DH42. It was supposed to arrive in De Carma yesterday morning.”

“Was anyone injured?”

“Yeah. Passengers from cabin 12 are suffering from varying degrees of burnings. The most critically injured are those on seats 22-28 as they were closest to the engines when the cooling mechanisms failed.”

All the passengers in the cabin happened to be sleeping when the accident occurred, with the seats turned to bunk mode, which aggravated the extent of injury. 

After they finished going through the key points of the article, they exchanged a look.

Yan Suizhi immediately dialled his landlord.

When the line connected, his landlord’s enunciation was vague, as though he was eating. “S’up?”

“Have you arrived to De Carma?” Yan Suizhi asked. 

His landlord grumbled, “Don’t bring it up. I should have been back by now, but I ended up getting jammed on the orbital route. Something happened to the space shuttle in front of mine.”

“Which flight did you originally book?”

His landlord snorted. “What do you think?”

“DH42?” 

“Yeah, isn’t it really coincidental?” His landlord said, “I only just heard the announcement this morning as well. I haven’t even refunded my ticket for that flight yet. And do you know what’s even more coincidental?”

Yan Suizhi could guess it by now. “Your seat is in cabin 12? Which one?”

“Seat 24.”

“As expected…” 

Yan Suizhi gave Gu Yan a look.

If it weren’t for his landlord’s mother holding him back a day, forcing him to postpone his return trip, he could be the one lying in the medical bay receiving emergency care at this moment.

His landlord said, “We can’t rule out that it’s really just a coincidence, but… let’s all take more caution.”

Yan Suizhi, “You especially.” 

“That’s where you’re wrong,” his landlord said, “I’ve got ample experience in being careful and evading such things, you can rest assured. Whereas you are the one with ample experience in getting into trouble.”

Yan Suizhi, “…”

He was amused and vexed, yet completely unable to retort.

“I’m doing a-okay. To compensate for the delay and calm everyone, my shuttle has fed us three breakfasts in two hours.” His landlord said, “The biggest risk I run right now is the possibility of turning into a pig from overeating. Don’t worry. All I have to do now is wheedle my mother into spilling who caused her leg pain. The rest can wait until I get back to De Carma; I’ll contact you when I do.” 

—

The meeting with his landlord failed to actualise, but unexpected people appeared at the company event arranged by Southcross Law Firm.

When evening came, Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan bumped into two people who had just gotten out of a car.

“Joe?” Gu Yan gave a start. “Why have you come here?” 

Wasn’t this an internal event?

Edited by snoflakesun

–

Opening early access to chapters (: it isn’t much, but wanted to do a little something to actively encourage people to purchase the novel. 

What: Verified readers who have bought the novel will get to read chapters in advance. These chapters will still eventually be opened up to public access at the original schedule.

How: Purchase the novel on jjwxc (roughly USD 3.5 on ios app, USD 5.7 on desktop), and submit your proof of purchase here. Links to guides can be found through the form as well.