11
Ruan Yu wore an expression of earnestness, eager to learn.
Xu Huaisong interlaced his fingers, his back straight as he explained the key points to her: "For a valid phone recording, the first step is to guide the other party to confirm their identity. You must seize the initiative the moment the call connects."
She nodded and asked, "And then?"
"Recordings submitted to the court cannot be edited, but trial time is limited. So, you need to control the call duration and get straight to the point without arousing suspicion."
In other words, since they strongly suspected that Cen Sisi had maliciously hired internet trolls and bought trending hashtags, they needed to coax her into admitting the truth.
Ruan Yu frowned. "Would anyone really be foolish enough to confess outright?"
"Normally, no. That’s precisely the challenge." As Xu Huaisong spoke, he glanced at her empty hands.
Ruan Yu quickly understood and grabbed the notepad and pen from the table, staring at him intently. "Please continue, Lawyer Xu. Go on."
Half an hour later, her notepad was densely filled with notes. Seeing that Xu Huaisong had finished, she asked, "Should I call now?"
He shook his head. "At twelve o'clock Beijing time."
That was right after lunch when blood flow to the brain was reduced, lowering the other party’s alertness and making them less likely to suspect anything.
"But at that time, won’t my own IQ drop too?"
Xu Huaisong choked slightly. How had he never noticed before that she could be this adorably clueless...
He looked up and said, "Can’t you eat earlier?"
"..." Fair point.
Ruan Yu awkwardly covered her forehead, then suddenly remembered something and looked up.
When she did, she noticed Xu Huaisong was staring at the screen.
She froze, about to ask what was wrong, but then saw his right hand scrolling the mouse—likely reviewing some document.
Not looking at her.
Ruan Yu felt a pang of embarrassment and cleared her throat. "Lawyer Xu."
Xu Huaisong gave a slight nod, probably too lazy to speak, signaling her to get to the point.
"Later, during the call recording, I’m not sure if unexpected situations might arise that I can’t handle. So, um..." She pointed at the screen. "Could you keep the video call on?"
Ruan Yu’s mindset was simply that of a patient trusting a professional—like relying on a doctor. But to Xu Huaisong, her dependence on him seemed to carry a different implication.
He gave a faint "Mm," tilting his head to take a sip of coffee, trying to suppress the strange feeling in his chest.
Reassured, Ruan Yu silently rehearsed the conversation in her mind. Over half an hour later, she heard Xu Huaisong tap the table.
"Ten-thirty," he said.
"Then I’ll go make something to eat." She set down the notepad and pointed at the screen. "Should I turn off the video?"
"No need. I’m going to eat too."
Ruan Yu paused slightly.
It was already 7:30 p.m. in San Francisco. Had he not eaten yet? And he drank coffee on an empty stomach just now?
While she was still processing this, Xu Huaisong had already gotten up and left his seat. Not wanting to abruptly end the call, Ruan Yu turned and headed to the kitchen, opening the fridge to decide what to make.
But perhaps due to nerves, she had no appetite. She grabbed a cup of yogurt, added a few spoonfuls of granola, and returned to her computer.
She wanted to review the conversation again—after all, Xu Huaisong wasn’t there.
Or so she thought, until she met a pair of eyes on the screen.
"..."
"..."
Xu Huaisong hadn’t left at all. He was sitting in front of his computer, eating pasta.
Ruan Yu’s eyes slowly widened.
What happened to going to eat? Why did he bring his food to the computer? Was he trying to spy on her privacy while she was away?She stood frozen in front of her computer, while Xu Huaisong appeared completely unperturbed. After a brief pause, he continued eating gracefully, chewing slowly as he flipped through documents beside him.
So he was multitasking—eating while working.
Realizing she'd once again misread the situation, Ruan Yu awkwardly sat down. She opened her notepad with one hand while slowly stirring her yogurt with the other.
But when she lifted a spoonful to her mouth, she froze again.
The cereal hadn't softened yet—chewing it would produce rather lively crunching sounds that didn't quite suit the atmosphere.
After all, she and Xu Huaisong had barely exchanged words back in high school, let alone now. Sitting face-to-face across screens while eating, with her crunching away so conspicuously, felt unbearably awkward...
Ruan Yu suffered through the mouthful of yogurt, holding it until the cereal softened enough before chewing it carefully. Then she cleared her throat and asked, "Lawyer Xu, you seem quite busy?"
Xu Huaisong happened to have just taken a bite of pasta and couldn't speak, so he simply nodded.
Ruan Yu brightened visibly. "Then you should focus on your work first. I'll contact you again at the scheduled time!"
His mouth still full of pasta with no way to refuse, he could only nod again.
Ruan Yu exhaled in profound relief and quickly clicked to end the call.
It wasn't until 12:15 Beijing time that they reconnected via video.
Ruan Yu clutched her phone, taking deep breaths.
Xu Huaisong could clearly see how nervous she was—if they proceeded like this, she'd surely give herself away. But they only had one shot at gathering evidence—there wouldn't be another opportunity.
After some thought, he countered with a question instead of answering hers: "How about doing some eye exercises?"
"Huh?"
He held up the manuscript beside him and waved it. "Seems effective."
Ah, he was referring to that scene in "I Long to Whisper in Your Ear" where the female lead, after holding hands with the male lead, became so excited she couldn't sleep and had to do over a dozen rounds of eye exercises to calm down enough to rest.
But that was her embellished, fictional version.
Ruan Yu forced a smile. "Novels are all lies."
The truth was, she'd woken up near dawn that day thinking—since Xu Huaisong said it was a mistake, he must have liked someone else. Then she'd angrily and tearfully cursed him a hundred times as a scumbag before finally falling back asleep.
Eighteen-year-old girls could be so unreasonable. Looking back now, what was wrong with Xu Huaisong not liking her?
At least she hadn't written that "scumbag" line into the novel.
Unaware of her mental gymnastics, Xu Huaisong paused slightly at her "novels are all lies" comment and lowered his eyes.
Meanwhile, Ruan Yu had relaxed considerably. Gripping her phone, she asked, "Should I make the call now?"
He refocused. "Mm."
Ruan Yu opened the recording app, dialed Cen Sisi's number, and put it on speaker.
Ten seconds later, the call connected.
She spoke first: "Hello, this is Ruan Yu. Is this Cen Sisi?"
The reply came immediately: "Yes, senior! I have your number saved!"
Identity confirmed.
Glancing at Xu Huaisong's approving nod on screen, Ruan Yu continued, "Are you free to talk now?"
"Of course, go ahead."
"It's about the settlement. Originally, I planned to have a lawyer discuss it with you tomorrow, but on second thought, I felt I should speak with you first myself."
"Oh?"
"Actually, some time ago, a film production company contacted me about adapting the copyright."
Cen Sisi let out a quiet "ah," seeming to anticipate where this was headed."They want me to handle this scandal properly, otherwise the film adaptation will be ruined. So this time, my lawyer isn’t just representing my personal interests—they’re demanding that in your apology statement, you admit to not only posting that suggestive long Weibo but also inciting trolls and buying trending topics to attack me."
"I... I didn’t do that, Senior!"
The conversation reached a critical point here, and Ruan Yu’s nervousness flared up again. Clutching her phone, she instinctively glanced at Xu Huaisong.
Unable to speak, he merely nodded at her and mouthed: Continue.
Ruan Yu pressed her lips together. "This statement is indeed difficult, but the production company’s stance is clear—if we can’t settle, they’ll proceed with the lawsuit."
"But Senior, I really didn’t intentionally attack you..."
"I know. After all, you didn’t realize Wen Xiang was me at the time. Since I’m making this call, I want to hear your side. We’re from the same school—businesspeople might not care about sentiment, but can I really ignore it?"
Using the tactics of a white lotus to counter a green tea—Ruan Yu was almost moved by her own words. Xu Huaisong’s soap opera-worthy script was truly seamless.
"But what about the production company? If you consider sentiment, how will they react?"
This question wasn’t part of the plan. Ruan Yu hesitated briefly before seeing a message pop up on her screen from Xu Huaisong: Sigh.
She immediately conjured up a sigh.
On the other end, Cen Sisi seemed to sense her dilemma and played the emotional card. "Senior, I never expected things to escalate like this. At the time, I only hired a small group of trolls to test the waters—I had no idea it would spiral out of control and shoot to the top of the trending list... You have to help me, persuade them to be lenient. Otherwise, I... I’ll be ruined..."
Xu Huaisong signaled stop here.
Ruan Yu glanced at him and quickly replied, "Alright, I’ll do what I can. I’ll talk to the lawyers again."
After hanging up, she carefully stopped the recording and leaned toward the camera. "Was that okay?"
Xu Huaisong nodded. "Send the recording to Liu Mao."
Ruan Yu exhaled in relief.
The logic behind this interrogation wasn’t complicated. As Xu Huaisong had explained, the law stipulated that only the original author could file a copyright infringement claim. Cen Sisi herself had no standing to sue—her two-faced act was merely a stalling tactic, buying time for the "poet" to sue first.
In this scenario, if Ruan Yu showed signs of wavering on the settlement, Cen Sisi would inevitably make verbal concessions to placate her, believing them harmless.
Reality unfolded exactly as Xu Huaisong had predicted.
With the tension gone, Ruan Yu felt an overwhelming sense of relief.
Why did this feel so deviously satisfying? Was it really this thrilling to do legally ambiguous things with a lawyer?
Her good mood made her a little reckless. "Was my acting soap opera-worthy enough?"
Xu Huaisong kept his eyes on his keyboard, preoccupied with something, and replied offhandedly, "Enough to fool amateurs."
She stiffened. So was he an expert in this field?
Just as she began doubting whether her acting had been unconvincing in his eyes, his phone rang.
Without ending the video call, Xu Huaisong answered in Chinese: "I’m home."Ruan Yu couldn't hear the other side of the phone call, only catching his fragmented responses: "We can't rule out retaliatory actions by the defendant. The higher-ups at s.g would know best—the defendant has the capability to remotely control the bomb via computer."
Xu Huaisong's tone was calm, but Ruan Yu was startled.
Noticing her alarm, he glanced at her, picked up his phone, and walked to the window. "That's the police's business..."
Ruan Yu could no longer make out what he was saying. When he returned, she couldn't help but ask, "Did something happen?"
Xu Huaisong shook his head, indicating no.
She let out an "Oh," then said, "Thank you for today, Lawyer Xu."
Xu Huaisong lifted his eyelids slightly. Was this her way of brushing him off after getting what she needed?
When he didn't respond, Ruan Yu continued on her own, "We were supposed to discuss the case, but it's already late over there..."
Just then, a faint "meow" sounded from somewhere.
She paused and glanced around.
Of course, it wasn't from her side.
There were no cats in her home anymore. She had adopted one right after graduation, but it later fell ill and passed away. The loss had devastated her, and though she still loved cats, she couldn't bring herself to care for another one.
So, the sound must have come from Xu Huaisong's side?
As she wondered, the man on the screen left his seat again. When he returned, he was holding a cat—a bright orange kitten, barely two or three months old.
Ruan Yu's gaze locked onto it instantly.
Xu Huaisong stroked the kitten's fur and glanced at her. "What were you saying?"
She stared at the kitten for five full seconds, her resistance crumbling. With a gulp, she swallowed hard and said, "I was saying it's late over there... but would you still be willing to discuss the case?"
Xu Huaisong gave a reluctant nod. "Fine."
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