Chapter 110: The Red-Haired Female Detective

Gu Yebai’s trembling finger finally pressed the accept button.

The screen lit up.

Gao Hongyi’s stunningly beautiful face filled the entire frame.

She was wearing the navy blue St. George International School uniform, a wine-red silk scarf tied at her collar, leaning against the classroom window.

The afternoon sunlight slanted across her deep cherry-blossom-colored hair, as if coated with a thin layer of soft light, making her look both holy and dangerous.

She was smiling.

The smile was as sweet as melted honey, the curve of her lips flawless.

But there was no trace of laughter in her eyes.

Something dark lurked deep in her pupils, making Gu Yebai instinctively afraid to meet her gaze.

“Wow, Uncle Bai finally agreed to answer my video call. I’m so happy.”

“Seeing Uncle Bai’s face on the screen makes me feel like the whole day is blissful~”

Gu Yebai’s heart sank.

Praise first, then crush.

That was his most common technique when writing novels: give the reader a little sweetness first, then deliver a vicious blow.

Right now, that blade was hanging over his own neck.

“Hongyi…”

“I just went out for a cup of coffee. You’re overreacting. I’ll go back soon.”

“So… where is she hiding?”

“She?”

“The girl you’re having coffee with?”

Gao Hongyi tilted her head.

Her tone was innocent and naive, like a curious little girl asking the simplest question.

But Gu Yebai’s spine went cold in an instant.

“Hongyi, what are you talking about? What girl?”

“Look at me. What girl would want to have coffee with someone like me? Don’t joke. The only person willing to be with me is you.”

He immediately followed up, speaking rapidly, as if afraid that slowing down even a second would get him caught.

Ah—

At this point, he had no choice but to lie.

If a lie benefits both parties, then it can’t really be called a lie.

That was the “white lie” maxim Bai Xialin had left behind before she left.

“Hongyi, I’m just drinking a lonely cup of coffee by myself. I’ll go back and write my novel when I’m done.”

“Just like the famous writer Balzac—I’m either in a café or on my way to one! Oh, coffee provides me with a constant stream of inspiration. I have an author friend who’s the same way, except he’s addicted to barley tea—”

“So this is just a case of writer’s block. I went out for coffee to find inspiration. That’s all.”

“It took you a full twenty seconds to answer my call, and now you’re rambling on about Balzac.”

“Uncle Bai…”

Gao Hongyi’s smile deepened.

And became more terrifying.

“You’re not treating me like an idiot, are you?”

“Twenty seconds is plenty of time to get a lot of things done…”

“She’s hiding under the table, right? No, maybe she’s in the restroom. Or maybe she just ran out the door, planning to come back and continue sneaking around after I end the call. Am I right?”

Terrifying.

“But—”

“I can’t exactly ask Uncle Bai to go into the women’s restroom to verify my guess.”

“Oh, so she’s in the women’s restroom, right?”

That detective novel he’d written had really taught her a thing or two.

“Come on, be good. Point the phone at your surroundings and do a full three-sixty rotation.”

“Hongyi, let me explain—”

“Hurry! Don’t waste my patience, okay, Uncle Bai?”

“Three, two—”

Gu Yebai had no choice but to raise his phone above his head and slowly turn it around.

The camera swept across the café’s wooden tables and chairs, the green plants in the corner, the shadows of the phoenix trees outside the window… Luckily, Bai Xialin had already ducked into the restroom.

That is, the evidence of the crime had been temporarily destroyed.

He aimed the phone back at himself and forced a smile.

“See? Look? What girl?”

“Hongyi, you’re just overthinking it. When I go out alone, I really am just alone.”

At that moment, Gu Yebai inexplicably felt like a villain in a detective novel, with that unique sense of fate….

Ahahaha!

Detective, you’ve got nothing on me, right?

I told you there was no decisive evidence!

Now this is all baseless slander!

Some detective you are!

Thank you for hiding in the women’s restroom in time, Bai Xialin.

I’m going to write this part into my novel as source material…

“Uncle Bai!”

Gao Hongyi’s voice suddenly rose, carrying a barely perceptible tremor.

As if, in the next second, the prosecutor was about to produce a decisive photograph, shredding the suspect’s smug and arrogant expression into pieces.

“What’s wrong, Hongyi?”

“Uncle Bai, you’re at a café right now, aren’t you?”

“Ah, yes.”

“Let me see the table. Since you’re at a café, you must have ordered coffee, right?”

The table?

Gu Yebai instinctively glanced at the tabletop with his peripheral vision.

He was doomed.

When Bai Xialin had gone to the restroom, she’d panicked and forgotten to take away the half-drunk iced Americano and the half-eaten strawberry mille-feuille cake.

Two cups of coffee sat side by side.

Condensation beaded on the iced Americano’s cup.

The hot latte was half spilled.

The strawberry mille-feuille had a corner gouged out by a fork, bright red jam bleeding into the cream like bloodstains at a crime scene.

On the other end of the video call, the red-haired female detective had already backed him into a corner.

Stay calm!

He could still weasel his way out!

Gu Yebai took a deep breath and slowly pressed the phone’s camera downward.

Gao Hongyi saw it.

She didn’t scream, nor did she immediately lose her temper.

It was like the final stillness before a storm.

“Hey, Uncle Bai.”

Gao Hongyi was still beautiful.

But an earthquake seemed to be happening in her pupils.

Sometimes they morphed into an eerie wine red, other times returning to a plain black… like two competing consciousnesses fighting for dominance inside her mind.

“Uncle Bai…”

Her voice was very low, yet gentler than ever before.

“What else is there to say?”

The invisible red thread coiled around again…

A thin, burning sensation wrapped around him like a python silently encircling its prey’s waist.

Gao Hongyi tilted her head.

“Uncle Bai, you know what?”

“The thing I hate most in this world is when someone touches something of mine without permission.”

“Especially something I love most.”

“Can you lower your phone a little?”

“Let me take a closer look at that cake…”

Gu Yebai slowly lowered his phone, letting the camera focus more clearly on the table.

“It looks so delicious…”

“Eating strawberry mille-feuille cake, laughing and chatting with a girl, while I’m alone at school with a one-sided crush, thinking about Uncle Bai at home, thinking until I feel like I’m going crazy…”

“Is that fair, Uncle Bai?”

Cold sweat beaded on Gu Yebai’s forehead.

So terrifying.

If Gao Hongyi had exploded right then, it wouldn’t have been as frightening as this.

She was just saying the most heartbreaking things in the calmest tone.

The light in her pupils had gone out.

Ah, she had the vibe of a vengeful female ghost… beautiful, but terrifying…

“Xiao Gu!”

Just then, a man’s voice called out from a short distance away.

Gu Yebai looked up.

It was Gao Hongzhi.

At this time, Gao Hongzhi should have still been at the company.

Yet he had appeared at the café.

What perfect timing.

Gu Yebai looked at him like he was looking at his savior.

“Who knew these little sweets would taste so delicious,” Gao Hongzhi said as he walked toward Gu Yebai, giving him a wink.

“Uncle Gao…”

“We’ll have to buy you some decent clothes later. School will be starting soon, after all. Getting prepared early can’t hurt. Finished your coffee?”

“Hm? Are you on a call with someone?”

“It’s Hongyi.”

Hearing the voice on the other end of the video call, Gao Hongyi’s expression, which had been on the verge of collapse, seemed to ease somewhat.

And Gu Yebai finally felt a weight lift off his shoulders.