Chapter 116: You Owe Me
The doors to the Pei Corp secret vault slid open soundlessly the moment Wen Yan pressed his finger against the scanner.
Wen Yan glanced at Pei Zhouye. The latter feigned ignorance of the look, yet the corners of his mouth arched upward in an irrepressible curve.
Wen Yan didn’t bother asking how his fingerprints could still unlock such a critical location. Given his history as an intern at Pei Corp, it wasn’t surprising that Pei Zhouye still possessed his biometric records. He even thought, with a touch of narcissism, that his fingerprints probably granted him unimpeded access to every door in the Pei household—perhaps even to Pei Zhouye’s private safe.
Yet, he couldn’t help the thoughts drifting through his mind; after all, so much time had passed…
“What are you thinking about?” Pei Zhouye sensed his silence. Fearing he might be stirring up unpleasant memories, Pei Zhouye mentally added another mark against his own tally. This was, once again, something he had done without Wen Yan’s consent.
“I was thinking,” Wen Yan paused deliberately under the man’s burning gaze before stepping into the vault, “that you owe me.”
Pei Zhouye froze in place. A few seconds later, he lowered his head and chuckled to himself before slowly following him inside.
The place resembled a massive laboratory. Rows of towering glass display cases and endless bookshelves created an atmosphere thick with the scent of aged paper and cold steel, housing the most core secrets of Pei Corp, the industry’s leading tech giant.
As they strolled through the silent vault, Wen Yan came to a stop at a particular display. Pei Zhouye stopped beside him.
In an era where humanoid robots underwent rapid iterations and many former “star products” were left to gather dust and be forgotten, the one inside this glass case was different. Wen Yan had seen its name mentioned repeatedly in recent authoritative reports: Morning Star 3.0.
The robot inside lay in a quiet slumber. Its silver-gray mechanical muscles and the lines of its skull were cold and rigid, its eyes lightly closed. This was the very first prototype of Morning Star 3.0.
The first time he saw it, it had been sleeping in a glass case just like this. Back then, he was fueled by adolescent ambition; the echo of that excitement seemed to still vibrate faintly in his chest. But now, staring levelly at this mechanical body again, he felt nothing but a quiet sense of peace.
Because of this robot, he had won first place, secured an internship at Pei Corp, and was subsequently forced into Pei Zhouye’s trap. From that moment until now, he didn’t know if he had ever truly managed to escape.
A hand lightly brushed against the back of his. Wen Yan snapped back to reality and met a pair of dark eyes filled with a complex whirlpool of emotions.
“Wen Yan, you said you would give me a chance,” Pei Zhouye whispered, his tone tinged with a hint of pleading and grievance.
“I wasn’t planning on going back on my word. Let’s go get the files.” Wen Yan quickened his pace. He had come here primarily to review core data, yet his mind had been hijacked by messy emotions regarding Pei Zhouye. He felt a flicker of annoyance.
“Stop being so paranoid all the time.”
Pei Zhouye was just about to catch up when the remark hit him head-on.
He smiled and accepted the rebuke, feeling a wave of relief in his heart. He had guessed correctly; if he hadn’t spoken up just then, Wen Yan likely would have taken another step away from him.
Once they retrieved the files, Wen Yan ignored Pei Zhouye entirely. He lowered his head and studied the documents intently, jotting things down in a notebook he carried with him.
Pei Zhouye leaned against a bookshelf, his gaze fixed on Wen Yan’s lowered eyelashes and the focused tip of his pen. He felt a pang of regret for finding the files so quickly. Now, he could only stand there like a pocket of thin air, completely ignored.
This was the Pei Corp high-security vault. Anyone entering had to undergo layer after layer of inspections. Signals were strictly jammed within the perimeter; nothing could be brought in, and certainly nothing could be taken out.
“Wen-Laoshi, why don’t you take them home to read?” Pei Zhouye leaned against the shelf, watching Wen Yan with a trace of languid testing in his voice. “It’s getting late. We should go eat dinner.”
Wen Yan’s pen paused for a split second, but he didn’t even look up. “Psychopath.”
By the time everything was organized and recorded, it was nearly ten o’clock at night.
Wen Yan eventually succumbed to Pei Zhouye’s persistence, tacitly agreeing to his invitation for dinner.
Not long after the car pulled away from the building, a phone rang.
Pei Zhouye was about to impatiently hang up when he saw the caller ID. After a two-second pause, he answered.
“Something wrong?”
He listened to the other side for a moment before replying decisively, “No.”
Before the person on the other end could speak further, Pei Zhouye hung up.
“What did Shen Yao say to you?” Wen Yan asked suddenly.
Pei Zhouye was about to answer when a thought struck him, and his tone turned a bit sour. “How did you know it was him?”
Wen Yan looked at him with sheer exasperation, giving a perfunctory reply, “I guessed.”
“Why didn’t you guess it was someone else? It’s been so long, yet you still remember his voice.”
Pei Zhouye knew he was just picking a fight. His phone was specially modified, and he had even turned the volume down before answering; Wen Yan shouldn’t have been able to hear anything.
And Wen Yan indeed hadn’t heard a thing. It wasn’t that he still remembered Shen Yao’s voice after all this time; it was that he still understood Pei Zhouye too well. He could deduce who was on the other end simply by observing a few of Pei Zhouye’s reactions.
Of course, he would never admit how he had actually figured it out.
“Are you going to tell me or not? If not, forget it.”
“I’ll tell you!”
The moment Wen Yan spoke, he moved to turn his head away, but the man beside him already caught his hand to stop him.
“Shen Yao invested in a restaurant. He said if we’re going to eat, we should bring him and Wang Shu along.” Pei Zhouye looked reluctant. This was a hard-won chance for a date with Wen Yan, yet that heartless Shen Yao just had to barge in now.
“Then let’s all go together,” Wen Yan replied flatly, pulling his left hand out of Pei Zhouye’s right.
It was the response Pei Zhouye had expected.
Gritting his teeth, he picked up his phone and called back. The moment the call connected, he barked out a stiff sentence: “He agreed. Just wait.”
He cut the call again before the other side could cheer, irritably loosening his collar.
Just as the car came to a stop at a red light, two crisp honks sounded from behind. An eye-catching sapphire-blue Ferrari nimbly merged lanes to pull up level with them.
The window rolled down, revealing Shen Yao’s excessively radiant smile. In the passenger seat, Wang Shu gave a slightly helpless nod, acknowledging them as a greeting.
Wen Yan and Pei Zhouye exchanged a look, seeing the same mixture of realization and resignation in each other’s eyes.
“Late-night coincidence,” my foot. This person had clearly calculated their route and was lying in wait on a side street.
Pei Zhouye gave a helpless shrug while Wen Yan let out a light laugh. The atmosphere was unexpectedly harmonious. The air inside the car seemed to soften through this unspoken understanding, becoming relaxed and peaceful.
The light turned green, and the car merged back into the glittering streets. Wen Yan suppressed his smile and was about to say something when he caught the gaze of the man beside him.
Pei Zhouye was watching him. All the usual arrogance had vanished from his seductive peach blossom eyes, leaving only a focused, tender smile that clearly reflected Wen Yan’s silhouette.
His heart skipped a beat. Wen Yan looked away almost in a panic, the tips of his ears flushing slightly.
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