Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

The elevator went up to He Zhichu’s floor very quickly. “We’ll talk inside.” He used his room card to open his room. He turned sideways to let Smith and the others in. They went in single file. He Zhichu went in last and closed the door. His group of bodyguards waited outside the door.

Smith and the rest finally stopped holding their breath after entering his room. “Lawyer… Lawyer He, outside… those people outside…” Smith stuttered and asked the question that was pestering him the most.

They had thought he was just a rich family’s son, but now it looked like it was really not that simple. It looked like when Lawyer He brought them to Munich, he must have hidden his identity.

He Zhichu didn’t like to talk about his family much. He simply said, “It’s a friend of the family that helped because I was in a hurry to get back home.”

“Oh…” So it was for Gu Nianzhi again. Everyone expressed their understanding.

“What happened?” He Zhichu sat on the armchair while gesturing for them to sit down.

The four lawyers sat in their usual spots, then Smith started telling him things pertaining to Gu Nianzhi. “The second day after you left, Gu Nianzhi said she was going to see a friend. She texted us four saying she’d be back after ten days,” Smith said while showing He Zhichu the text from Gu Nianzhi. “This is my smartphone that received Lawyer Gu’s text. The other three got the exact same text. They were all sent from Lawyer Gu’s smartphone.” The other three also took out their own smartphones for He Zhichu to look at.

He Zhichu only took a quick glance. Without any expression on his face he said, “Who has nothing better to do than send the same text to everyone? Are you close with Gu Nianzhi?”

Just based on that one sentence, Smith and the others came to a sudden realization and felt ashamed. It was true that they hadn’t thought of it from that angle. At the time, they thought Gu Nianzhi just wanted to let them know what was going on, that was why she sent them all a text.

But that was unusual.

Normally, even if she asked for ten days off, she would only contact her superior and the colleague she was closest to. Some didn’t even tell their colleagues. They only needed to ask their superior for the time off. More than half of those who contacted their colleagues only contacted them to stay on top of things that were related to work. It was obvious that Gu Nianzhi didn’t need Smith and the others to stay on top of things.

He Zhichu wasn’t there at the time, and Gu Nianzhi was closest to Smith, so there was nothing strange about her texting him. However, what was strange was that the other three lawyers she wasn’t that close with also got the same message. If they had been more vigilant then and asked what was going on, maybe it wouldn’t have been so hopeless right now.

He Zhichu gestured for Smith’s phone. After Smith handed it to him, he tapped on a few things, checked the settings, and returned the phone. “Someone installed an intercepting Trojan on your phone. I’m guessing Gu Nianzhi probably called you before, but it got redirected, and then she gave up.”

“Ah?! Trojan? That can’t be! I didn’t go to any phishing websites.” Smith yelled, “You must believe me, Lawyer He! I really didn’t.”

Looking dismayed, the other three took out their phones and slid them open for He Zhichu to take a look at. “Lawyer He, please take a look at ours.”

He Zhichu looked at each of their phones and returned them. “All of your phones are the same. They have the same intercepting Trojan.”

The four lawyers’ faces turned pale. In this modern age, smartphones were the same as one’s most confidential thing containing one’s secrets. There were some things on it that you didn’t want others to see. Knowing there was a Trojan virus on their phones was like being naked in broad daylight with nowhere to hide their shame.

He Zhichu was originally going to urge them to change their phones, but if they did, Gu Nianzhi would not know their new numbers. In case she got the chance to call for help, then wouldn’t she have no number to call?

He Zhichu changed his mind immediately and extended his hand to Smith. “Give me your phone. I’ll get rid of the Trojan, then install an app that blocks Trojans. That way, if anyone tries to do anything to your phone, you’ll know it immediately.”

He Zhichu would also be the first to know, because he sneaked his number into the list of contacts that needed to be informed on the app that intercepted Trojans on their phones. He Zhichu also had that app on his own phone. It was this software that made him realize that the Hua Xia Empire’s Zhao Liangze had attempted to do something to his phone.

Smith was happy. He nodded hastily. “Thank you so much, Lawyer He. Thank you so much, Lawyer He.” With such a good app, one would never have to worry if someone installed a Trojan on one’s phone.

He Zhichu repeated this action and got rid of the Trojan on the other three lawyers’ phones and installed the app that intercepted the Trojan. While he was installing the app, he analyzed the messages Gu Nianzhi had sent Smith. He Zhichu happily discovered that they were not from Gu Nianzhi’s phone number!

Smith and the others’ phones displayed Gu Nianzhi’s number, but it was all fake. Like many emails that had viruses, the senders could use a fake email to disguise themselves. The person that sent them the text used a fake number to hide behind as a disguise. It was just that mails with viruses did not have much technological content. One just had to be more thorough to find the clue. However, the text’s fake number was a lot harder to look into.

Smith and the others looked at He Zhichu with reverence. Their eyes lit up with admiration. No wonder he became a partner at the law firm before he was 30. He had family status, good looks, and intelligence, plus he was a hard worker. They had originally thought it was because of his family that he became a partner at the largest law firm in America in his twenties. Now they understood that even without his family’s social status, his more than sufficient skills would have been able to make him a partner.

He Zhichu felt odd with these four’s eyes on him. His brows furrowed, and he pointed at Smith and said, “Continue. And then what happened?”

Smith pulled himself together and promptly said, “After that, we waited for ten days and realized we couldn’t get in contact with Lawyer Gu. We asked the hotel for surveillance footage and found out that Lawyer Gu had left the hotel ten days before that and took the private car we rented. The driver of the car told us Lawyer Gu personally told him she was only going to stay at the Königssee for a day, and that she would call him that night to pick her up.” While Smith was talking about it, he showed He Zhichu the footage of the driver.

He Zhichu straightened up as he stared at the video and murmured, “Did Gu Nianzhi really go to the Königssee?”

“Yes. We checked the hotel’s surveillance for those ten days. Lawyer Gu left the hotel in the early morning ten days ago, got into the car, and disappeared.” Smith gave He Zhichu the surveillance footage he and the others had gotten from the Hilton. Of course, they only gave him the surveillance footage with Gu Nianzhi in it. He Zhichu didn’t have time for all the other surveillance footage.

He Zhichu’s brows furrowed when he saw Gu Nianzhi, who was only wearing a track suit and carrying her Hermes bag, walk lightly out of the Hilton and enter the rented car.

Smith pressed pause, and the video stopped at the point when Gu Nianzhi was getting into the car. He Zhichu stared at the picture for a long time, and his face went a bit pale. Smith and the others looked at each other and told He Zhichu one last thing. “…And on the second day Lawyer Gu went missing, Seth escaped from the hospital. He’s still at large.”

“What?!” He Zhichu stood up quickly. “Say that again! What does it have to do with Seth?” He formed a fist, and his peach blossom eyes narrowed, overflowing with danger. He was no longer calm and refined, but was brimming with suppressed and cruel violence.

Smith was a little scared and shifted back on the couch a bit as he said, “There’s no evidence that they are related to each other. I’m only letting you know.”

He Zhichu couldn’t calm down and walked back and forth around the living room while holding his arm and asking Smith, “Tell me in chronological order the things that happened again. Starting from when you and Gu Nianzhi went to the hospital to see Seth. Was that scum really hurt?”

Smith nodded and told the story from the beginning again without leaving anything out. He finally got up to the day Seth escaped. “The second day, Seth escaped from the hospital, and I went to Munich’s police station every day to urge them to catch him. However, the police used all kinds of methods to snub us, and even today there’s still no news of Seth.”

No one said a word, but they all knew if there was no news for so many days, Seth must have gotten away. Maybe he was hiding abroad at that moment.

“…And, the Munich police were rotten to the core. We went to report the case to them saying Lawyer Gu went missing and asked them to investigate immediately, but they… they wouldn’t investigate.” Smith was filled with indignation when he thought of what had happened yesterday at the Munich police station. He wanted to tell them the billion laws that they had broken.

He Zhichu’s brows stopped furrowing when he heard that, and he actually laughed. It made them shudder because they felt the cruelty behind it. His face slowly calmed down. I told myself that I’d use the law against you, but you started using your connections. I wanted to fight you fair and square, but you dared to use such shady tricks against my people. I gave you the carrot, but you chose the stick. There’s no other choice.

“That’s enough, I now know. You can all leave.” He Zhichu was determined. He shook his hands and said to the four lawyers, “First go investigate the driver. Let me know if anything unusual happened to him this month. Did he get in contact with the person we are up against? Does he have anything to do with them? Especially his bank account. Check to see if there are any odd changes in his accounts.”

“Huh? You’re saying the driver is dirty?” Smith was shocked. “No way, no way!” The driver the law firm hired was the kind that would break the law? Didn’t they have background checks? He was the last one to see Nianzhi, so it was reasonable. They shouldn’t overlook it.

He Zhichu coldly said, “Out.”

Smith and the other lawyers all looked at each other in dismay and left, abashed. When they were out of He Zhichu’s room, Smith punched the wall hard and angrily said, “Don’t let me find anything dirty with this driver. Otherwise, he will be in jail for the rest of his life.”

The other three lawyers were also uneasy. These past ten days they had been driven around by the driver many times. They never once thought he had any hidden agendas.

He Zhichu was alone in his room. He hugged his arms and looked gloomily at the French window. It was cloudy with no sun in sight. It was the end of September, and it was getting colder. At this time Nianzhi… Nianzhi… how was she doing?

He couldn’t think about it. The moment he thought about it, he felt like someone had gouged out his heart and was cruelly mincing it again and again before throwing it at his feet. He felt as if his body were badly mangled with penetrating pain in his chest. The person he wanted to protect the most was Nianzhi. What had gone wrong? She kept on slipping out of his grasp again and again.

If… if this time something had really happened to her, He Zhichu had already decided to live no more. If he didn’t protect her while she was alive, then he could only go after her in the afterlife and use his eternity to repay her. Then no one would be able to separate them.

After Smith and the rest returned to their rooms, they started to assign tasks. They needed to investigate everything the driver had done that month. They looked for Munich’s best detective agency and gave them an offer they couldn’t refuse. There was only one condition. It was to finish the investigation in two days and find out everything about this driver.

While Smith and the others were using grand ways to investigate the driver, He Zhichu also sent someone to investigate him. Not long after Smith and his colleagues left his room, He Zhichu called Felix, the American NATO supreme allied commander. NATO looked like it was only a military alliance organization that the Americans were in charge of, but the truth was, it was the supreme ruler of the European countries.

The supreme allied commander of NATO’s interests in Europe was unfathomable to most people. When He Zhichu called, Felix was very excited. He had heard of this American that worked closely with the American military, but he had never had the chance to get to know him. Now that He Zhichu had taken the initiative to hold out an olive branch, of course that’s exactly what Felix wanted.

“It’s not a problem at all. It’s only a few phone calls. I’ll assist you in contacting them immediately.” Felix was dying to bow to show his respect.

He Zhichu made an “Uh huh” sound and said, “I want them in front of the Munich police department at ten in the morning.”

“It’s only nine. There’s still one more hour. It’s not a problem at all. Even if the one you are looking for is in Berlin, I can ask them to transfer here immediately.” The sound of Felix pounding his chest could be heard on the other end.

“Thank you for your trouble. I’ll see you when you’re back in America.” He Zhichu’s promise to meet Felix in America was exactly what Felix needed.

He was delighted and suddenly stood up. “Mr. He, you’re too much. It’s only a few phone calls, but I heard Mr. He’s family dinner banquet is a thing to look forward to. I hope I will have this privilege and opportunity.”

He Zhichu chuckled. “Next month, it’s a deal. I’ll be holding a birthday banquet at the manor. I hope Mr. Felix will be able to make it. An invitation will arrive at your home in a few days.”

“Huh? Is it your birthday Mr. He?” Felix was beside himself with joy. Only close friends were invited to birthday banquets.

“No, it’s… my good friend’s birthday.” It would be Gu Nianzhi’s birthday. If she could come back safely this time, he would have her by his side again. This time, he would take action.

“I see.” Felix’s gut feeling told him this “good friend” was definitely a “girlfriend.” He was very surprised and continually said, “Thank you,” even though He Zhichu had already hung up.

Felix’s smile didn’t fade, and he immediately called the people He Zhichu wanted. It just so happened that he knew them quite well. Although they were not in the military, they were all powerful German politicians. Of course he had to have a good relationship with these overlords.

He Zhichu had asked him to make a few calls, one to Munich’s mayor, one to the German head of administration of justice, and one to the head member of parliament in the Munich district asking them to go to Munich’s police station.

After an hour, at exactly ten o’clock, He Zhichu came with his bodyguards to Munich district’s police station. Munich’s mayor, the German head of administration of justice, and the head member of parliament in the Munich district were all already there waiting for him.

“Mr. He, I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for a long time.” The head of Germany’s administration of justice, who had been going to Li Haiqin’s case hearing those few days, came immediately when he got the call from the supreme allied commander, Felix.

He Zhichu didn’t like to stand out in public, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t use his connections. His social status in America was enough for these German officials to be affable to him. He Zhichu’s smile was aloof, and then he walked away after he casually shook hands with the head member of parliament in the Munich district.

Munich’s mayor and the head member of parliament in the Munich district walked over to He Zhichu’s side in a respectful manner. They shook his hand and exchanged pleasantries. They then asked with concern, “May I ask what honorable business does Mr. He have at Munich’s police station?”

They all knew He Zhichu came to Germany on behalf of the American law firm on a case a month ago. However, none knew of He Zhichu’s other identity. At that moment, it was only because He Zhichu had taken the initiative to reveal his status that the supreme allied commander, Felix, and these German politicians discovered his other identity.