Part 2
Qi En pressed his earpiece and wiped a layer of cold sweat from his forehead.
The facial muscles under his mask were tense, and his lips trembled slightly.
He pinched his own face through the mask.
Then he bent down to hammer his legs and knees. His legs had lost all sensation just now; it was purely his body reacting subconsciously. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have reacted in time and would have walked straight into the elevator.
Now that he had slowed down, his mind was full of the image that had flashed by.
He hadn’t paid attention to the glasses-wearing boy closest to him; his gaze had instantly locked onto Cheng Xun standing in the middle of the elevator.
Cheng Xun had both hands in his pockets and was just stretching his neck. Before his head lowered, he cast a sideways glance at Qi En at the elevator entrance.
That expression was a bit impatient, seemingly disliking waiting for people, and disliking speaking humbly to others.
Only in the elevator, when stopping to rest for a moment, could he put away that hypocritical mask.
That look in his eyes was truly cold.
Different from the Cheng Xun he had seen before.
It seemed this Cheng Xun was the real Cheng Xun, the appearance seen without rose-colored glasses.
Qi En also took an elevator upstairs, but he didn’t take the elevators coming down from the upper floors. Instead, he took another elevator coming up from the underground parking lot.
Being cautious was always good. What if the door opened and he ran right into Cheng Xun coming downstairs again?
Qi En shuddered.
As soon as the elevator door opened, he walked out quickly.
He didn’t go to the restaurant where Cheng Xun was but went to the dessert shop next to it.
These two shops were directly opposite each other. The spot Cheng Xun chose was a private room, but as long as he came out, Qi En would be able to see him.
Qi En took a seat in the dessert shop first.
He took out his phone to scan the code and order, keeping an eye on the restaurant entrance out of his peripheral vision.
His ears were filled with the sounds of girls chatting and laughing. Qi En, dressed simply, was a bit out of place here.
Qi En pressed his earpiece:
“Little D, it feels so weird for me to be here. A bit jarring.”
“Why?”
“This is an internet-famous photo spot, right? There are so many girls taking pictures here…”
Qi En couldn’t sit still, shifting left and right.
At this moment, a fragrance wafted over, and a gentle voice sounded diagonally above him: “Hello, is anyone sitting here?”
Simultaneously, Dai Mu said in the earpiece: “Not jarring. If you take off your mask, it won’t be jarring.”
Qi En hesitated, pinching the edge of his mask, not knowing whether to listen to Dai Mu.
Seeing Qi En didn’t speak, the girl said again, “We want to take pictures here, is that okay?”
To make his presence less suspicious, Qi En decided to pull down his mask, revealing his whole face.
He smiled at the two girls and said, “No one, you can take pictures.”
The two girls’ reserved smiles widened. “Thank you, you’re really good-looking.”
“We’ll finish shooting very quickly. Our seat is also quite nice for photos. When your dessert arrives, we’ll give it to you to take photos.”
Qi En smiled at them. “Thank you, but no need.”
But Qi En still didn’t quite understand. He asked Dai Mu, “Why is it not jarring if I take off my mask?”
“Because your face matches this place very well,” Dai Mu said.
After Qi En’s dessert arrived, he ate two bites, then asked the staff where the restroom was. After asking the staff to watch his seat, he walked out of the dessert shop.
Dai Mu reminded him in the earpiece: “The restaurant’s back door is over by the fire escape channel. Turn left at the intersection ahead.”
The restaurant’s back door wasn’t exclusively for employees; there was an elevator here too, but this elevator came up from outside the tower. Many guests also entered through the back door.
Qi En mingled with the crowd of guests. When the restaurant staff came forward to speak, he pointed inside, pretending he had already booked a table and had just gone downstairs for something in the middle.
Sure enough, the waiter let him pass and even pointed out the way, “The private rooms are over there.”
Seems he mistook Qi En for a guest who had booked a private room.
After that, the waiter went to attend to new guests.
Qi En looked around; no one was paying attention to him at the moment.
He immediately ducked into the staff lounge.
Unfortunately, he ran right into a waiter who was slacking off and playing on his phone inside.
The two looked at each other in dismay.
Qi En’s brain went into overload, freezing in place without reaction.
In the end, it was the waiter who put away his phone first and asked, “Excuse me, are you looking for the restroom?”
He mistook Qi En for a guest who couldn’t find the bathroom.
Qi En shook his head instinctively. “No, I’m here to work as a temp. The manager told me to come here and change c-clothes…”
He couldn’t even complete a sentence, nearly biting his own tongue.
Maybe because Qi En looked a bit clumsy, the waiter didn’t suspect he was faking his identity.
Instead, he lowered the hand reaching for his walkie-talkie and extended it towards Qi En.
Qi En instinctively dodged backward.
The waiter called out to him, “Hey, don’t move.”
Qi En really stopped moving, standing obediently and letting the guy tidy his hair.
“Don’t be so reckless. We’ll talk about being late after work; your wages will be recalculated then.”
“Tsk, hair is messy too. It’s bad if guests see this image.”
“Mn, okay.” Qi En replied robotically.
Afterward, he was pushed out by the waiter. “Go to the liquor counter; they’re swamped there. Once you go, say you’re the hourly worker, and someone will arrange things for you.”
After Qi En left, he could still hear the waiter speaking into the walkie-talkie: “I sent an hourly worker over to you. Let him help out in a bit.”
Dai Mu: “Reaction was pretty good. Very green.”
Qi En was becoming immune to Dai Mu’s praise. “Are you praising me?” Is ‘green’ a good word?
“Yes.”
“Alright.” Qi En pursed his lips and said.
Dai Mu: “The liquor section is good too. I originally wanted you to go to logistics and deliver dishes.”
Qi En: “So do I listen to him and go to the liquor section now?”
“Yes.” Dai Mu continued to give him instructions in the earpiece. “The liquor counter is on your left. In a moment, a waiter will push a cart to deliver drinks to the private rooms. Two private rooms just ordered drinks. It’s unclear which ones are for which room, so you try both.”
Try both?
How to try both? Does he have to drug both?
Qi En became even more apprehensive.
A thought of retreating surged from the bottom of his heart.
But he didn’t know how to drug someone.
He rehearsed the drugging process in his head, but he couldn’t imagine how to do it successfully without being discovered.
Let’s just take it one step at a time.
As a result, Qi En pushed the small cart and walked a dozen steps without finding a suitable opportunity.
Ahead were the two private rooms he needed to deliver to.
Once inside, finding a chance to drug the drinks would be even harder, right?
But there was an advantage: he could confirm with his own eyes which room Cheng Xun was in.
This way, when drugging, he wouldn’t drug the wrong person.
Dai Mu said this was just a drug to make people drunk faster, not poison. The standard dosage was two grams. As long as the dose was around two grams, it would be fine.
But Qi En was still uneasy.
Because he didn’t know how much a standard two grams was. If only Dai Mu had said “a fingernail size” or “as big as a booger.”
The wine on the top shelf is for room 999… Qi En mumbled in his heart, lest he forget in a moment.
He pushed the drink cart and entered the private room.
Upon entering, the first thing he saw was the meal prep area. There was a partition screen in the middle of the prep area. The sounds of conversation from the people inside came through the screen. Among them, there was a voice Qi En couldn’t be more familiar with.
He first took the wine out of the box, about to open it.
At this moment, two more waiters entered from outside.
They were delivering food.
Seeing Qi En’s action, they hurriedly stopped him. “Wine must be opened in front of the guests. You can’t open it here.”
Qi En: “Ah…?”
Of course Qi En knew he couldn’t do that; he was just surprised that these two waiters happened to come in at this moment.
One of the waiters had already carried the dishes inside. The other pushed Qi En’s back. “Go quickly. Or do you want me to help you?”
“No need, no need.”
Qi En bit the bullet and pushed the drink cart inside.
The people inside hadn’t sat at the dining table yet; instead, they were sitting on the sofas in the rest area to the side, talking. The waiter was pouring tea for them.
Qi En lowered his head, keeping his back to the group, fiddling with the work in his hands.
He struggled to open the wine and took out a small packet of powder from his pocket.
Opening the package, the powder granules inside were relatively large, like white sugar.
Just as he was about to shake it in, suddenly, a voice came from behind him:
“We meet again.”
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