First-Class Lawyer

The young nurse thought to herself that the character looked well-written; she couldn’t see any issue with it at all.

The column for the patient’s name turned blank again. Holding the pen, Gu Yan filled in the two characters for ‘Ruan Ye [阮野]’. 

No matter which way the nurse looked at it, sideways or upside down, she couldn’t understand how he had mixed up those two characters with ‘Yan [燕]’. However, she didn’t touch on it, simply maintaining a bright and beautiful smile as she waited by the side.

Gu Yan swiftly filled the form out and submitted it, then stepped aside.

The young nurse adeptly operated the photon computer.

No more than a moment later, it showed the hospital records Spring Ivy had associated with this ID. It was just that, under the identity of ‘Ruan Ye’, the medical history interface was clean as a whistle, with not a single line of historical diagnosis or treatment to it at all. 

None from Spring Ivy Hospital, nor from any others.

This obviously wasn’t normal.

“Um…” Even the young nurse grew dumbfounded seeing this interface. She subconsciously clicked on refresh several times, murmuring, “Has the interface hung? Why doesn’t anything come up?”

Gu Yan glanced at the interface without much surprise on his face.

The smart device on his finger suddenly began to buzz. Gu Yan took out an earpiece from his coat pocket. As he took the call, he asked the nurse, “Has it been bound?”

Seeing that he appeared to be busy and wasn’t worried about the blank hospital records, the young nurse nodded and exited the interface. She said, “Yes, it has. You can head to the payment booths to make payment now.”

“Thank you,” Gu Yan said before tapping on the earpiece to activate the voice controls. “Hello? Joe?”

“Yo! I can’t believe busy man Gu actually has the time to talk to me,” the man at the other end of the call said with a boisterous laugh. 

Gu Yan, “Mn. I didn’t look at the caller ID.”

Joe, “What do you mean by that. So what if you’d seen the caller ID?”

Gu Yan said, “Reject.”

Joe, “…Alright, alright. You’re a busy man, whatever works for you. I only called to confirm that you’re really not coming to Yaba Island on the 5th?” 

Gu Yan tapped open the hologram and checked the time conversion between the different stellar systems. He said, “I won’t be going. I’ve to appear in court.”

Joe wasn’t willing to give up. “It isn’t often that I throw a celebratory party, do you really have the heart to tell me that you won’t be coming on such an important day for me? If the 5th won’t do, you can just show your face on the 4th too! It’s been so long since I last saw you! Any longer, you can say adieu to this friendship, I’m telling you.”

“Ktf 4at?” Xe Tjc mtfmxfv tlr rmtfveif jujlc, yea yfobgf tf mbeiv jcrkfg, atf batfg rqbxf jujlc.

“Zs ubv. Cgf atfgf j iba bo qfbqif jgbecv sbe? Pa’r rb cblrs, ktfgf jgf sbe?” 

Xe Tjc jcrkfgfv, “Qlcf Jlas.”

“Qtja jgf sbe vblcu lc Qlcf Jlas? Dgfjatlcu atf ogfrt jlg?”

Gu Yan, “…”

He thought for a second before replying, “I took on a case over here. And watching a play, in passing.” 

Since the great Lawyer Gu harped on about his cases 365 days a year, Joe wasn’t in the slightest interested in that. He was more interested in the latter half of the sentence. “Watching a play? You even have the time to watch a play, I didn’t hear you wrong, did I? Are there any theatres for regular people in Wine City? What kind of play are you watching?”

“The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

Joe, “??”

Gu Yan walked over to the payment booth and paid the bill. The machine beeped, and a pile of medicine was spat out into the compartment by his hand. “Your medicine has been dispensed. Please check if any have been left out.” 

Joe was even more baffled. “Medicine? Aren’t you watching a play? Why do I hear the sounds of a hospital? Have you gone to Spring Ivy?”

“Mn,” Gu Yan calmly said. “The emperor burned his leg. I’m collecting his medicine for him.”

Joe, “??????”

Gu Yan kept the medicine and closed the smart device interface showing the time zone conversions. “I’m free from the 3rd to the afternoon of the 4th. Will everyone be at Yaba?” 

Hearing this, Joe immediately said, “Yes! Of course we’ll be. I’ll be staying at Yaba for a month before heading back. So that’s settled, then? I know you can’t be bothered to meet that many people on the 5th. So come on the 3rd, you don’t have to worry about meals and board, just bring yourself and that’ll do.”

By the time Gu Yan returned to the consultation room, Yan Suizhi had already struck up conversation with that doctor. The burn running down the calf to his ankle was wrapped in medicated gauze. It wasn’t too convenient for him to put weight on it, so he could only have it propped up with his legs crossed. But this did not in the least impede Professor Yan from calmly and leisurely joking around with the other.

Just as if that leg wasn’t his.

That doctor said with a smile, “My mother’s side is also surnamed Ruan, who knows, perhaps eight hundred years ago we were all one family. 

And Gu Yan had never in eight hundred years heard someone try this hard to chummy up with another.

Gu Yan entered the room. He placed the medicine on Yan Suizhi’s leg, his eyes lowered as he gazed at the interface on the photon computer by the doctor’s hand.

Yan Suizhi was rifling through the medicine when he heard the doctor say, “Hang on, the nurse had just sent your medical information over, let me log this consultation in.”

Joshua Dale was a blockhead who liked harping on people’s inadequacies. Holding his bandaged paw, he glanced at the doctor’s photon computer and went, “Huh? You look like such a pushover, but your body is so weird. How can you not have any medical history?” 

Incredulous, he gave Yan Suizhi a lookover after saying this. His lips curled. “Dang it, seriously. And here I thought my history was short enough already.”

The doctor hadn’t noticed this at first, but now that this bratty kid Joshua Dale had reminded him, the fingers busy typing suddenly stopped. “Tss—you’re right. I just noticed. How can you never have had any prior medical history?”

Yan Suizhi, “…” If he had a rope, he’d hang this jinxed kid and beat him up.

He unconsciously shot Gu Yan a swift sidelong glance and saw that Lawyer Gu was frowning at him. 

Yan Suizhi quickly readjusted his expression and gave a dry smile. “Don’t bring it up. I was targeted by a thief the other day. Not only did I have a lot of my possessions stolen from me, but he had also cleared all sorts of identity-binding information under me. Maybe he was afraid of being tracked. There are still a lot of gaps even after reapplying, something probably went wrong with the syncing.”

Doctors, after all, didn’t deal with investigations. When he listened to Yan Suizhi, his attention was obviously caught by the word ‘thief’. He sighed. “November is nearing the end of the year, it’s indeed the season for thieves to come out of hiding. You’d better be a bit more careful. You’re still studying, right? Choose a safer neighbourhood to live in when you graduate.”

Yan Suizhi smiled. From his peripheral vision, he saw Gu Yan shift his gaze away, seemingly satisfied with his explanation.

That doctor was probably unused to seeing such a blank interface; he’d actually divided up the written diagnosis of this one burn into three, occupying three record spaces so that it looked somewhat less offensive to his eye. 

Yan Suizhi smiled and nodded at him. In his head, he awarded this doctor a medal for his medical ethics; he worried for his patients and would think about what his patients needed, truly a doctor with a consideration for his patients that went above and beyond.

After filling out the final diagnosis, the doctor pointed to that pile of medicine on Yan Suizhi’s leg and told Gu Yan, “Apply this red ointment first. The wound on the child’s hand isn’t big, he only has to apply it for two days. This guy with a leg injury needs four days. Afterwards you can start applying this blue ointment until all traces of the wound disappear. Come back for a check-up in a week, but it should be another doctor here by then. I had only come down from the headquarters for a visit today and would be heading back tomorrow morning.”

Yan Suizhi, “…” Just look over and tell me this, doc.

After the doctor finished explaining the prescription, he smiled at them and rang the bell; the queue number outside jumped to display the next number. 

The three of them carried the medicine and made to leave. Yan Suizhi supported himself up with the table. He’d only put just a bit of weight on that injured foot when needle-sharp pain tore through it. In that fleeting moment, he frowned very slightly, but his face turned back to normal right after and he resolved to simply head out like this.

But before he could even take a step, Gu Yan ended up grabbing his wrist.

“What?” Yan Suizhi froze. Then, he waved a hand, saying, “It’s nothing, it’s only a surface wound not a broken leg. Is there really a need for you to support me?”

“It’s hard to put weight onto this leg. Are you intending to hop or limp your way out?” 

Yan Suizhi imagined that scene—it truly wasn’t at all a nice sight. It would be very difficult for him to walk with any dignity.  So, he could only stop nitpicking and hold on to Gu Yan’s arm, using him as a support to walk out.

The dean was a fastidious dean. Even if his leg was about to boil from the searing heat, he would still be particular not to walk in too undignified a manner. So, his every step was very steady, just that he would also have to walk very, very slowly. They took a long time to leave the consultation room.

Right as they got to the door, they saw a curly-haired doctor hurrying over, a gust of wind following after and his white lab coat fluttering behind him. That curly-haired doctor was blocked by Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan at the door. He turned sideways and squeezed into the consultation room. “Lin, are you busy?”

The curly-haired doctor spoke, then suddenly appeared to think of something and looked back at Yan Suizhi. His gaze glanced past the wound on Yan Suizhi’s leg before pausing for a second on Yan Suizhi’s face. 

Finally, he looked away, saying to Dr Lin who had helped treat Yan Suizhi, “Is that the person scalded by boiling water on the third floor just now?”

Dr Lin nodded. “Why do you look to be in such a hurry?”

“Oh. Not really. Earlier, the headquarters…”

— 

Yan Suizhi took five minutes to walk to Spring Ivy Hospital’s infusion room. Joshua Dale almost kneeled in respect. “I could’ve made two trips in that time even if I’d crawled.”

The esteemed Professor Yan said lightly, “Really? Let me see you crawling then.”

Joshua Dale, “…”

He twisted his head away and went into the infusion room, picking up his sister Rosie who had finished her infusion drip. Then, with a green face, he continued to follow Yan Suizhi to crawl towards the exit of the hospital. 

When they reached the door, Gu Yan went ahead to hail a taxi.

Without conscious thought, as the taxi made a U-turn over to them, Yan Suizhi looked back towards the building.

Perhaps it was true that humans had an extrasensory intuition of knowing when others were staring at them. In any case, he immediately caught sight of a person standing by a certain window on the third floor—the youth who had flung boiling water over them just now.

Belatedly, he remembered. That youth was the victim’s, Kitty Bell’s, only family. The police had pulled him away after he’d flung the water. Perhaps he had just finished being schooled and was now sending off the purported ‘scoundrels’ with his eyes. 

Yan Suizhi looked at him for a while, then turned back to see Joshua Dale also turn his head over. The little bit of energy he had when fleeing in a panic earlier had vanished. His head drooped, and his eyes lowered. His expression was ugly, looking overcast and aggrieved.

“Why did you tell the police he had slipped earlier?” Joshua said, his voice low.

“Because the trial isn’t over. Letting the victim’s family build up even more resentment would be unconducive to the trial.” Yan Suizhi’s tone was light and airy. Yet his deep gaze stared far off into the void, slightly lost in thought. “I’ve seen many of such situations before, so I know how to handle them. You’re still young. Next time… don’t make trouble. Just keep your mouth shut.”

Joshua Dale, “…” Why the hell is there still a ‘next time’?!