Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Thirty minutes later, Chi Tuo had called An Ye’s phone ten times in the underground parking lot, but no one answered.

He started to suspect he was being tricked, but he couldn’t figure out why someone he hadn’t been in contact with for five years would do that to him. They were both adults now, and she never played such childish pranks when she was younger. Besides, her asking for his legal advice should have been real.

So, he leaned against the car with a grim expression and dialed the eleventh call, thinking that if she kept not answering, maybe he should call her manager, Yan Wan, to check if something had happened to her.

He had already saved the number, and the excuse was easy to find—after all, they had been childhood friends, the kind who reconnect after a long time.

On the thirteenth call, a chime sounded from the entrance of the parking lot.

Chi Tuo looked up, and a girl with a red knitted hat peeked through the glass door, holding a phone. She hesitated, looking at him and then at the phone, confirming the details at least three or four times before running over to him.

“Excuse me... could you wait a moment?” The girl in the red hat seemed especially polite, her face carrying an awkward smile.

But her hands never stopped moving. She dialed Chi Tuo’s phone first, saw him check it, then hung up quickly with an awkward, polite smile. She then immediately video-called him on WeChat.

After confirming both, she zoomed in and out of a photo on her phone, examining it twice.

Chi Tuo saw the photo—it was a picture from his high school sports meet, taken by An Jiu Jiu. It was one of her proudest works, capturing him at the moment he was soaring through the air during pole vaulting.

Chi Tuo: "…"

It must have been difficult for the girl in the red hat. The photo, taken with no regard for gravity, now had to be used for identification.

“This is me,” Chi Tuo helped her out, pointing to the photo, introducing himself, “I’m Chi Tuo.”

“Ah?” The girl in the red hat froze for a moment, then nodded. “Ah!”

She finally gave up on trying to figure it out, maintaining her awkward smile and politely asked, “Could I see your ID?”

As a lawyer, Chi Tuo was sensitive about this kind of information, so he didn’t immediately respond.

“This is my ID.” The girl in the red hat still held onto that awkward smile, reaching into her coat pocket to pull out some things. “Here’s my business card and work ID. Oh, by the way, I’m An Ye’s assistant, Lan Yifang. Just call me Xiao Lan.”

After handing over her ID, business card, and work ID, she pulled out a phone from her pocket, unlocked it, opened WeChat, and handed it to Chi Tuo. “This is my work number, you can check the enterprise certification.”

Chi Tuo took the pile of identification documents from her.

Lan Yifang, with her standard awkward smile, blinked at him.

The expression was easy to read—it was almost like saying, "You should prove yourself just like I did."

Chi Tuo: "…"

As one of An Ye's biggest fans, he knew who Lan Yifang was, but he had never interacted with her before. He didn’t realize that An Ye’s close assistant was so... straightforward.

But he didn’t give her his ID directly. Instead, he kept his guard up and didn’t reveal his job as a lawyer. He pulled up a photo of his ID from his phone and showed it to Lan Yifang, then picked out two pictures from his high school days with An Jiu Jiu—there weren’t many pictures of them together, just two shots taken when they first entered their secret base, both wearing school uniforms and grinning foolishly.

Maybe it was the ID or the photos Chi Tuo provided that made his features seem more accurate, as Lan Yifang finally confirmed his identity. She glanced around a few times, seemingly to ensure there was no one else around, then used the door card to open the glass door and let him in.

An Ye lived on the 19th floor, the top floor, the most expensive one with a large terrace.

The elevator required a card swipe or password to access the corresponding floor. Lan Yifang seemed more nervous than Chi Tuo, constantly using the reflection in the elevator doors to observe him.

The whole ride was silent—Lan Yifang was nervous, and Chi Tuo was nervous because of her nerves. Every time he shifted slightly, she would flinch.

When the elevator doors opened, they stepped into the lobby. Lan Yifang hesitated as she entered the password for the front door, then handed Chi Tuo a pair of thick disposable slippers, the kind you'd find in a hotel."Please... come in." Inside, it was pitch dark, but when Lan Yifang stepped in, the motion-sensor lights came on. Chi Tuo stood at the doorway, not moving.

"You should come in first." Lan Yifang turned to look at him. "Otherwise, the cat will run out."

Chi Tuo then noticed a white cat crouching in the corner of the hallway. It had blue eyes, was a bit thin, and was looking at him with its belly pressed to the floor, clearly on guard.

Chi Tuo closed the door behind him.

An Jiu Jiu raised a cat?

"It’s deaf," Lan Yifang explained when she saw Chi Tuo staring at the cat. "An Ye found it downstairs. It was sick and just recovered recently. She’ll keep it for a few more months, and when it’s completely healthy, she plans to send it to someone else."

"She doesn’t keep it herself?" Chi Tuo asked casually.

Considering how much she used to love cats—her WeChat profile picture and nickname had never changed in years, and her occasional photos on Moments often showed her playing with stray cats on the street—he thought she still liked them a lot.

It was a very casual question, but because Lan Yifang had been so nervous, Chi Tuo had been patient and refrained from asking about An Jiu Jiu. He thought he’d wait until she was less nervous to ask, otherwise, his question might come out all wrong.

But just this casual question made Lan Yifang fall silent.

She pouted and stood there, looking at Chi Tuo. The awkward smile on her face faded, and the calm she had been trying to maintain earlier completely disappeared, as if she was about to break down and cry at any moment.

Chi Tuo: "…"

He finally gave up on trying to be considerate of the staff around An Jiu Jiu and directly asked, "Where is An Ye?"

Lan Yifang sniffed, her voice quivering, "She's sleeping."

Chi Tuo paused before asking, "How long has she been sleeping?"

It was also a very conservative question. To an outsider, it wouldn’t seem strange.

But Lan Yifang’s shoulders immediately slumped, and she burst into tears.

"Since... the evening," she seemed to have been holding it all in, and when she finally let it out, her words were unclear. "But... she’s not really asleep yet."

"Aunt Wang isn’t here..."

"She... she can’t... she can’t tell...," Lan Yifang hiccupped, trying to regain her composure. She realized that talking too deeply wasn’t appropriate, so after crying a little, she quickly changed the subject. "At first, she wasn’t really asleep... she even left you a..."

She stood up barefoot and walked to a room. She quickly returned with two sheets of paper in hand, handing them to Chi Tuo.

The papers were densely printed with writing.

It looked a bit like the note that Wang Shanshan had left on the fridge door after An Jiu Jiu had fallen asleep, but this one was also full of random thoughts, clearly written as she thought of them. It couldn’t have been written after she fell asleep, as she wasn’t that patient; at most, she’d wake up to use the bathroom or eat, but anything more than that would be annoying.

The writing was small, with a lot of it, and the only light came from the motion-sensor light in the hallway. Lan Yifang was crying loudly beside him, and the light kept flickering. Chi Tuo felt a bit annoyed.

"Why did she call me over if she’s asleep?" He asked Lan Yifang.

"Because... wah, wah, wah... Aunt Wang isn’t here..." Lan Yifang was clearly in a state of collapse, unable to hold herself together.

An Ye had fallen ill, Aunt Wang wasn’t around, and she didn’t want to tell Yan Wan, so she called him.

Chi Tuo understood this much in his mind and finally stepped into the spacious apartment.

It was huge—enough room for a bicycle to run in the living room, but it only had a sofa and coffee table. The area next to the floor-to-ceiling windows appeared to be the white cat’s territory, with a cat tower, bowls, and toys, which seemed to be the most lived-in space.

The dining room had no table, just a row of bar counters connected to the kitchen, all filled with bottles of liquor, showing no signs of dining.The room had four doors, all closed. The place where Lan Yifang had taken the paper from earlier was likely the study, as Chi Tuo had seen an entire wall of books and trophies when she opened and closed the door.

Chi Tuo looked around and went to turn on all the lights in the living room, brightening up the space. He casually sat on a sofa, ready to start reading the two sheets of paper.

Lan Yifang obviously hadn’t been through much. He didn’t want to put any more pressure on her.

The two pieces of paper weren’t written specifically for him. They contained various notes on what to do after An Ye fell asleep, though these weren’t the usual sticky notes like Wang Shanshan’s on the fridge. They were very private, including things like the door’s passcode and where the keycards were kept.

It started with her emergency contact list.

Wang Shanshan, Chi Tuo.

Wang Shanshan's contact was a phone number; Chi Tuo’s was a WeChat ID.

In that moment, Chi Tuo felt like someone had punched him in the nose. His heart ached, a deep, uncomfortable feeling.

Ten years. It had been ten years since they last saw each other, yet he was still on her emergency contact list. The formatting was different from the rest of the list, the first line of the first page clearly marked as the first thing she wrote when making these notes.

Just like the emergency contacts set on his own phone—Zhang Rou, An Jiu Jiu.

When they first got their phones, they had set each other as contacts, trying out every function the phones offered.

Neither of them had changed those contacts.

"That..." Lan Yifang, perhaps tired from crying or maybe now calming down, timidly called out, "Chi Tuo."

"I can’t stay here too long." Lan Yifang finally managed to say, though still hesitating, "An Ye doesn’t like staff staying in her home for too long…"

So if Lan Yifang stayed, Yan Wan might suspect something.

Chi Tuo nodded, signaling that he understood.

Lan Yifang placed the keycard and An Ye’s phone in front of Chi Tuo and gestured around. "An Ye has full-house surveillance. It runs on an uninterrupted power supply, so even if you disconnect it, it won’t work. It will trigger an alarm."

So, no messing around. If you did, there would be evidence.

Chi Tuo nodded again.

"In the kitchen, there’s her meal plan. She has to lose five pounds for a role, so you’ll have to follow the meal plan strictly when she wakes up."

Lan Yifang paused, then added, "It’s a must. Otherwise, when she wakes up and finds she’s gained weight, she’ll use extreme methods to lose it."

Chi Tuo agreed. "Understood."

Lan Yifang seemed to relax a little, glancing around again. "The cat’s cans are in this cabinet. Give it two a day, divided into four meals."

"The cat litter is in this cabinet, just scoop it once a day."

"I’ll come by every day," Lan Yifang said hesitantly, her voice low. "I don’t trust you..."

But his name was still on An Ye’s emergency contact list, right alongside her mother.

Earlier today, when An Ye was disoriented, she drank a whole bottle of iced water to try and wake herself up, then messaged Chi Tuo. She said, "Xiao Lan, you can’t be here. I can’t let Yan Wan know I’m sick. Just let Chi Tuo stay."

An Ye couldn’t be left alone when she was asleep.

But Chi Tuo was a man.

Lan Yifang anxiously scratched her head, thinking for a long time, then asked, "Could you give me a guarantee, a letter of assurance for An Ye’s safety during this time?""You’re using it wrongly."

Huan Zhou Entertainment really didn’t value An Ye, so the assistant assigned to her wasn’t professional—young, inexperienced, but sincere. She could have just walked away, and though she was completely at a loss about An Ye’s condition, she was still doing everything she needed to do.

Chi Tuo sighed and asked her, "Do you have a printer at home? A computer as well?"

"Ah?" Lan Yifang opened her mouth, processing the question, then nodded absently and pointed toward the study. "It’s all in there."

The two pieces of paper also contained her computer’s startup password, so Chi Tuo opened the study door and turned on the computer.

Lan Yifang stood next to him, looking like she was either watching him or still dazed.

Chi Tuo opened the document without looking aside, typing:

Guarantor: Chi Tuo

ID Number: ×××××

Lan Yifang sniffled behind him.

This was something Chi Tuo often did, but to prevent Lan Yifang from guessing his occupation, he didn’t write the format in a formal way. However, all the related guarantees and terms were included.

Guarantee the personal and property safety of An Ye.

Confidentiality.

Voluntarily accept the full-house surveillance and guarantee not to dismantle it.

Others: If he violates the above guarantees, he promises to willingly give all his property to An Ye.

Each main point was followed by detailed explanations.

Lan Yifang sniffed behind him and hesitated before saying, "...That... you don’t have to..."

But perhaps it was because of this guarantee letter that Lan Yifang’s wariness was almost completely dispelled. After the document was finished, she quietly added, "For the first point, if Yan Wan comes knocking, don’t open the door."

Chi Tuo responded, "Mm."

Lan Yifang tugged at her clothes, thought for a moment, and added, "An Ye has had a stalker fan harassing her for four or five years. He sends her strange things. The previous house we lived in was even broken into, and they installed surveillance. So, if you need to order food while you're here, please have it left at the downstairs housekeeper’s place, not brought directly to you."

Chi Tuo glanced at her and nodded.

After finishing the guarantee letter, he printed it out in duplicate, signed it, and pressed his fingerprint. He also copied his ID card, wrote the purpose on it, and handed one copy to Lan Yifang.

He exchanged contact details with her.

Finally, Lan Yifang relaxed and walked away, glancing back every few steps.

Chi Tuo sat down on the living room sofa, staring at the deaf white cat for a long while, and finally, he had time to look down and begin examining the two pieces of paper.