Chapter 8
Drawing on years of experience in missions, and the thick skin honed from years as a salaryman, Gu Ze Xi’s gaze was deep, but on the surface, he remained calm.
Embarrassment was hidden beneath his nonchalant exterior.
“Sorry, I lost my composure. I’m a folk singer-songwriter, and I’m pleased and surprised that young people are so enthusiastic about folk music.” He paused, picked up the microphone, stared at Berlin on stage for a while, and showed a hint of perfectly appropriate surprise. “It’s you, what a coincidence.”
The deputy officer, monitoring the situation in a low-key business car outside the school and ready to rush in to support at any time: “…”
He silently pressed his headset, sat up straighter, and felt a somewhat inappropriate curiosity and gossip about this unexpected development.
What was going on? Did the boss’s social circle include high school students?
It had only been a week since their last encounter, and Berlin clearly remembered Gu Ze Xi, but only now did he notice. “Ah.”
Gu Ze Xi remained calm, his attitude somewhere between familiar and unfamiliar. “I went to eat instant noodles again later, and I didn’t see you.”
Berlin scratched his head. “Oh, I don’t go every day.”
A school teacher immediately stepped in to smooth things over, preventing the atmosphere from becoming tense or veering off course.
Whether the others thought Gu Ze Xi was a strange person with poor manners didn’t matter to him. What mattered was that Berlin seemed to believe his explanation and didn’t dwell on the incident.
Gu Ze Xi thus realized that Berlin had a good attitude and didn’t hold grudges.
His professional habit kicked in again. Gu Ze Xi quickly analyzed it in his mind, preliminarily judging Berlin to have a relatively unassuming personality. He wasn’t embarrassed by the interruption; given a reasonable explanation, he wouldn’t pursue it.
That’s good. For ordinary people, such a personality makes life easier and happier.
Gu Ze Xi inconspicuously put down the microphone, pondering how to solve the immediate crisis.
He was equipped with a protective barrier designed by the Bureau’s research institute specifically for mutated carnivorous plants. It could isolate mental interference and prevent him from being affected by the plant’s intoxicating scent and losing his mind.
The institute was highly efficient and capable; this time, Gu Ze Xi carried a special mechanical cage for capturing carnivorous plants; it was simple, convenient, and effective.
With the right tools, capturing it should be easy. The problem was that the plant was in Berlin’s school uniform pocket. If it was alarmed, and the carnivorous plant panicked and tried to take someone down with it, Berlin would be injured or killed.
At the thought of Berlin being injured, Gu Ze Xi felt inexplicably uncomfortable.
He suppressed his slight anxiety and patiently observed and waited for the opportunity.
While Berlin continued introducing his song, the carnivorous plant cautiously probed out a tiny leaf.
The disguised mutated carnivorous plant could freely control its size. The leaf that peeked out of the pocket was only as big as a fingernail; even when moving, it would only look like wind, and no one but Gu Ze Xi noticed it.
The guitar music started, and Berlin’s unadorned voice was clean and calm.
“People ask me…”
“How I should live…”
Gu Ze Xi, concentrating on his thoughts, was startled by the excited screams erupting from all sides behind him, almost reaching for his gun.
Fortunately, he wasn’t the only one startled by the enthusiastic cries; it didn’t seem out of place.
The school teachers and judges exchanged glances, infected by the youthful excitement, shaking their heads and smiling.
Given Berlin’s appearance, it wasn’t surprising that he was popular at school.
Gu Ze Xi had sharp ears. The girls sitting not far behind him were excitedly discussing, without trying to control their volume. He didn’t intend to eavesdrop, but he didn’t need to cover his ears either.
“Wow, this is the first time I’ve heard Berlin sing. I’m shocked; his live performance is pretty good.”
“Honestly, Berlin is way more handsome than many of the little heartthrobs I’ve been into. Those who are popular now, without filters and Photoshop, probably wouldn’t win against Berlin.”
“My junior high classmate was in the same class as Berlin. He said that he went out to eat with Berlin on weekends, and a talent scout from an agency gave Berlin a business card! But Berlin didn’t accept it; he said he would consider it.”
“Wow, really? It’s like a story made up by those marketing accounts coming to life; I don’t know why I’m so excited. If Berlin really debuts and becomes popular in the future, won’t we be the classmates that other fans would be jealous of?”
“Imagine that, it’s exciting. Take more pictures; I have a feeling I can blow up my Moments…Did anyone record a video from the beginning? Send me a copy!”
The teenage girls were lost in their hazy and beautiful fantasies. Gu Ze Xi’s spirit remained tense, never letting his gaze leave the carnivorous plant.
He stared at Berlin’s school uniform pocket; Berlin’s singing filled his ears.
It was…really good.
Gu Ze Xi rarely got sidetracked during missions. A moment of bewilderment flashed through his mind, reminding him to stay focused.
He forced himself to clear his mind and quickly noticed something unusual—
According to previous observations of other mutated carnivorous plants, the disguised leaves were blue, and the petals were golden.
But after Berlin started singing, the color of the petals protruding from the pocket changed.
The golden petals were dyed a dark crimson; the blue leaves were gradually submerged in black spiderwebs.
Luscious and terrifyingly eerie.
Gu Ze Xi: “…”
Gu Ze Xi: wtf.
According to the report from the research institute, this change only meant one thing: The carnivorous plant was in heat. Supernatural creatures couldn’t be explained by common sense; it wasn’t a real plant; it had the ability to think and some animal characteristics. It could be reasonably inferred that it also had its own emotional system.
In simpler terms, this mutated carnivorous plant was in love.
Once the carnivorous plant showed this special form, it was equivalent to being completely defenseless. This was a display of trust and fascination toward its beloved.
Using a human analogy, it was like a ferocious Tibetan Mastiff lying down in front of someone close to it, revealing its harmless belly, raising its paws above its head, almost shouting: Come on! Rub my chubby belly! It’s soft, don’t be afraid. The first time, the second time, the third time will be addictive.
Gu Ze Xi made sure he wasn’t mistaken, his face livid, his expression almost cracking: “…”
This was Gu Ze Xi, the iron-blooded elite of the Bureau, for the first time deeply doubting his logical judgment.
The bloodthirsty and terrifying carnivorous plant was full of flaws. From its behavior, it wouldn’t harm Berlin at all. This meant the robber had no threat to the hostage, and the capture would be easy—Gu Ze Xi should have breathed a sigh of relief, but his heart was racing.
He tried to think calmly and rationally.
Perhaps the singing was the carnivorous plant’s weakness.
However, Gu Ze Xi then uncontrollably imagined a scene. To subdue the carnivorous plant, he had to sing a song to it?
Gu Ze Xi twitched his lips; a pain shot through his temples.
His past missions were always serious, tense, and sometimes even life-or-death situations. Now, Gu Ze Xi felt an absurd and whimsical helplessness, as if someone had played an inexplicable joke on him.
The mission ended in an unbelievable way.
Gu Ze Xi wasn’t injured at all and didn’t use any field team members or special tools; it was as easy as drinking water—after Berlin got off stage, he talked to him for a few moments and, without him noticing, moved the carnivorous plant, which was as drunk and dazed.
Berlin didn’t know anything from beginning to end. In his eyes, Gu Ze Xi was someone he ate instant noodles with and who happened to be a judge at his campus singing competition.
This time they exchanged names, but given their age difference and different backgrounds, the conversation didn’t go deeper.
Out of caution, Gu Ze Xi secretly performed an abnormality test on Berlin again.
The source energy value and abnormality value were still 0; Berlin was undoubtedly an ordinary human.
Gu Ze Xi had a lot on his mind and didn’t think about getting Berlin’s contact information. For peace of mind, he specially returned to headquarters and confirmed with the research institute whether the detection device could have malfunctioned.
The answer was that the possibility of an error was negligible. The reason they didn’t say it was 100% certain was that no errors had been found so far, but it was unclear whether problems might arise in the future due to factors such as age.
The people in the research institute were too cautious; Gu Ze Xi understood what they meant—the detection device wouldn’t be wrong.
For some reason, Gu Ze Xi hesitated and concealed the possible abnormality in Berlin, not mentioning a word.
But from then on, Berlin began to frequently appear at mission sites.
At first, Gu Ze Xi would test him again each time he saw him; later, he stopped wasting his time. Because facts and time proved that Berlin was harmless.
His attitude towards Berlin changed from the scrutinizing “Why is it him again?” to gradually getting used to it, occasionally thinking about asking Berlin to eat instant noodles together the next time they met.
After so many chance encounters, the missions with Berlin present were always risk-free and easy to complete, so Gu Ze Xi’s flimsy identity hadn’t been exposed.
He added Berlin’s WeChat, paused in the remarks section, and finally wrote: [Catnip].
To Berlin, Gu Ze Xi was a folk singer; occasionally, he would treat him as a teacher and friend, discussing issues related to music creation. To keep up the conversation, Gu Ze Xi used his spare time to catch up on relevant professional knowledge and even learned to draw musical notation.
God knows how shocked the deputy officer was when he saw Gu Ze Xi intently reading a music theory book; his jaw almost dropped.
As for why Berlin was always at the scene, it was probably just extremely bad luck. Such people exist, the kind who have trouble even with drinking water, such inexplicable things happen in life, but the probability is very low.
This went on for a long time until Gu Ze Xi realized something was wrong, about half a month ago.
Another time they met Berlin, the deputy officer jokingly said, “Boss, you’re looking at Berlin again. If I didn’t know you’ve been in this line for a long time and are a little suspicious, I’d think you were interested in him.”
He muttered, “It’s a good thing Berlin is already an adult, otherwise, I might want to call the police for him sometimes.”
Gu Ze Xi opened his mouth to scoff at the other’s overthinking, but paused in confusion, eventually saying nothing: “…”
The deputy officer, ready to be scolded by his boss for his joke, waited for a while, finding that Gu Ze Xi didn’t immediately refute him, and was unusually stunned. When he realized it, he turned his head to look at Gu Ze Xi in shock, almost twisting his neck: “…Boss, are you serious?!”
Gu Ze Xi was silent for a moment, wanting to say: What do you know, I just want to pet a cat. This is a once-in-a-blue-moon human catnip.
But before he could speak, he himself denied this answer.
Except for the first time, every time he met Berlin, there were no cats present.
But he still felt confused and a little…happy? when he saw Berlin.
Gu Ze Xi finally realized that he had been paying too much attention to Berlin.
He wasn’t particularly interested in other people’s affairs, yet he had focused too much on Berlin, showing an unusual concern for things related to him.
His behavior towards Berlin couldn’t be explained simply as ‘vigilance toward anomalies.’ Berlin was harmless, and the Bureau’s principle was that only supernatural creatures that posed a threat to humans would be monitored or captured. Even if Berlin really had a problem, as long as he didn’t show hostility towards humans or do anything harmful to them, the Bureau had no reason to restrict his actions.
So he couldn’t attribute his excessive attention to simply being meticulous in his work.
It wasn’t out of professional concern…then why?
For the first time, Gu Ze Xi had this behavior he didn’t understand; his analytical ability seemed to fail, and he couldn’t figure out his own logical behavior.
He met the deputy officer’s shocked gaze, glared at him coldly, and kicked him impatiently: “Stop guessing, that’s not it. Get lost.”
The deputy officer looked at his face, saluted with a grin, and quickly left.
Back in his office, Gu Ze Xi relaxed in his swivel chair, his feet resting on the ground, stared blankly at the ceiling for a while, and picked up his phone.
As a member of Skye, Berlin was very popular; a simple search revealed a lot of information.
He searched for Berlin, silently scrolling down, pausing hesitantly when he saw a video.
On the cover image of the video, Gu Ze Xi saw the back of his own head.
Right. Berlin was discovered by his current company because of this campus singing competition and debuted in the group Skye. Many students uploaded videos they recorded on their phones, from various angles; they briefly became popular online.
Many people recorded videos; to prevent Gu Ze Xi’s face from being widely circulated, the online videos were processed, and only a back view, the back of his head, was left of Gu Ze Xi. The parts where his face was shown were cut out.
Including the part where he explained things to Berlin and eased the tension, it was cut clean.
The video he saw was uploaded by a fan; Gu Ze Xi looked at the caption.
[Protecting Xiao Lin’s Smile V: #Berlin Archaeological Must-See Series#[heart]#Thirty Days to Promote Berlin Challenge#
Everyone knows that Xiao Lin is like a little sun, bringing everyone healing smiles every day [hug.jpg]
But Xiao Lin’s path to us wasn’t smooth; he also experienced many grievances that we didn’t see. Where the cameras aren’t, we don’t know what happened, but at least from this video, we can catch a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg.
iLin knows that Xiao Lin entered the public eye starting from the campus singing competition, and the first time Xiao Lin went on stage, he was unfairly looked down upon by a judge.]
At this point, Gu Ze Xi had a premonition.
He confirmed that it was a 15-second video.
Gu Ze Xi didn’t want to relive the embarrassing experience, so he didn’t open the video that he could guess the content of and continued reading the last part of the fan’s post.
[……Fortunately, now he has us.
Gu Da, who made things difficult for Xiao Lin for no reason, is an unknown nobody, while our Xiao Lin is already at the top of the pyramid.
To that, I want to say—Thirty years in the East, thirty years in the West, don’t bully young people when they’re poor!!]
Gu Ze Xi: “…”
Gu Ze Xi exited Weibo.
At that time, he was pretending to be a folk singer using a stage name.
The Bureau was very perfunctory and gave him a random name—Gu Da.
Gu Ze Xi calmly turned his phone upside down and calmly closed his eyes.
It’s fine.
What Gu Da did had nothing to do with Gu Ze Xi.
Author’s Note:
Gu Da: I really appreciate it. (.)
Thank you to the little angels who threw me king bombs or irrigated nutrient solution between 2022-11-12 22:28:31 and 2022-11-13 21:41:26!
Thank you to the little angels who threw landmines: Wen Chi Mu 2; Qiji Ccx confirmed, don’t hide it 1;
Thank you to the little angels who irrigated nutrient solution: bu Guilu ε=(?o｀) 30 bottles; Xunli 20 bottles; lsp 2 bottles; garbage truck, meow meow meow meow meow, (○｀ε?○), Qin Family Little Nine 1 bottle;
Thank you very much for your support, I will continue to work hard!