Chapter 643 — Is the Liquor All Right?

"I'm at school, An. What is it?" Wei Zhao sneered inwardly. This An Liwen was probably up to something again.

"Heh, I drank far too much last night — by the end I didn't know a thing. I must have made a fool of myself. My apologies!" An Liwen said with a laugh. "Got any time? Come out and have a meal?"

"Now?" Wei Zhao asked.

"Yeah, I'm at the gate of Songshan No. 1 Middle School. How about it, do me the honor?" An Liwen asked with a smile.

"Fine, then wait for me. I'll be right out!" Had Wei Zhao not harbored a grudge against An Liwen, he might at this moment have actually thanked him; this one phone call had bailed Wei Zhao out, giving him a pretext to slip away.

After hanging up, Wei Zhao said to Gu Mengyao and Tang Zhi, "I've got a bit of business to take care of, I need to go out. You two go ahead and eat?"

"Oh, so the Arrow-brand guy couldn't just set his phone alarm on purpose because he didn't want to eat with us?" Shen Yushu asked.

"Ha, it's An Liwen." Wei Zhao was already used to Shen Yushu.

Gu Mengyao said nothing. Since Wei Zhao had business, she naturally could not hold him back; she only said mildly, "Then be careful."

Tang Zhi, however, breathed a sigh of relief as well. Wei Zhao had business to go out for, so she would not have to make any choice. In truth, Tang Zhi had been quite tense before this; after all, Gu Mengyao was Wei Zhao's employer, and if she had insisted that Wei Zhao stay and eat with them, Tang Zhi would have been annoyed, but she was not one to ignore the bigger picture, nor would she have forcibly clung to Wei Zhao and refused to let him go.

Still, that would have left Tang Zhi uncomfortable, as though she had lost to Gu Mengyao. Now, though, Wei Zhao had business, and this situation could be avoided.

"If you have business, then go. I'll eat by myself." Tang Zhi gave a faint smile, trying hard to make her smile happier, prouder.

"Mm. We'll keep in touch by phone." Wei Zhao nodded, turned, and walked briskly out of the cafeteria.

"Ordered all this food, and it's all for nothing, huh?" Liu Xinlan glanced at the dishes on Gu Mengyao's table and said mockingly, "No one's left to eat with you. What a waste of food!"

"Can't we just eat it ourselves?" Gu Mengyao glanced at Shen Yushu and said, "Xiaoshu, the two of us are going to finish every one of these dishes!"

"Oh... but I don't dare eat too much, or I'll die again!" Shen Yushu still felt a lingering dread when she thought of how stuffed she had been last time.

"Then I'll eat!" Gu Mengyao, unwilling to let Liu Xinlan and Tang Zhi look down on her, picked up her chopsticks and began eating in big bites.

Liu Xinlan pursed her lips, took Tang Zhi by the arm, and went with Kang Xiaofeng to another table.

Kang Xiaofeng was somewhat dumbstruck; only when Liu Xinlan tugged at him did he come back to himself and say in surprise, "Boss... and them?"

Kang Xiaofeng did not know the relationship between Wei Zhao and Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu. Liu Xinlan explained as they walked; the situation was rather complicated, not something that could be made clear in a few words...

Once out of the school, Wei Zhao saw An Liwen's car parked at the gate. An Liwen honked twice and stuck his head out. "Wei Zhao, my brother, over here!"

Wei Zhao got in, and An Liwen started the car. "Sorry about yesterday — I'd had a bit too much to drink and made a fool of myself. Let's have a meal and a talk?"

"Whatever you like." Wei Zhao could more or less guess that An Liwen meant no good. Yesterday Shen Yushu's words had nearly driven An Liwen into a rage, and from the faint hatred flickering in An Liwen's eyes at this moment, Wei Zhao knew the man had already cast him as a rival in love.

But Wei Zhao could not be bothered to explain; he had come to An Liwen in the first place to ferret out Qiu Lingshan's whereabouts.

An Liwen nodded. "The Starlight Grand Hotel. Just the two of us — let us brothers have a heart-to-heart."

Along the way, An Liwen made idle small talk with Wei Zhao, touching on nothing of substance. Wei Zhao responded with indifference, not much caring either way. The car pulled into the parking lot of the Starlight Grand Hotel, and the two of them got out together. Following An Liwen's lead, they went into a private room somewhat smaller than the one from the day before.

The dishes had clearly been ordered in advance; the liquor was already laid out in the room, and they had barely sat down before the food began arriving.

"Brother Wei Zhao, allow me to drink this first cup in your honor — call it my own penalty for losing my head yesterday." An Liwen raised his glass and drained it in one go.

Wei Zhao did not lift his cup. He waited until An Liwen had finished, then asked, "Brother An, calling me out at this hour — is there something you want?"

"There is, as it happens... but Brother Wei Zhao, let's drink first and talk business later!" As he spoke, An Liwen picked up the bottle, poured Wei Zhao a cup, and filled his own as well. "Come, let's drink!"

Wei Zhao nodded and picked up his cup — but at once the jade pendant on his person reacted and began to sound its warning.

Wei Zhao laughed coldly to himself. As expected, An Liwen was not willing to let it go and had started playing his tricks again. Wei Zhao said nothing of it, though; he still raised his cup, took a tiny sip to taste the liquor, then set the cup back down and began turning over countermeasures in his mind.

What An Liwen had put into the cup was a very common knockout drug; once swallowed, drowsiness would soon set in, followed by unconsciousness.

At the Profound rank, one had not yet reached the level of forcing poison out with internal energy; without silver needles, Wei Zhao had no way to expel the drug from his body either. So he was not foolish enough to drink down a cup of drugged liquor straight.

The drug was utterly ordinary, and the antidote Wei Zhao had compounded himself could neutralize it. When he had run missions in the primeval forests of Africa, those places had teemed with toxic plants and insects with stupefying and hallucinogenic effects; going in without such medicine on hand would have been dangerous indeed. It was only that, back in the city, such situations no longer arose, and Wei Zhao had not carried the antidote with him — a fact he rather regretted now.

"What's the matter, Brother Wei Zhao? Surely you're not going to give me the cold shoulder?" Seeing that Wei Zhao had not drained his cup but set it down, An Liwen grew anxious at once.

"Brother An, I'm feeling a little uneasy. There's nothing wrong with this liquor, is there?" Wei Zhao asked, putting on the appearance of a man ill at ease.

"Ha, how could there be?" An Liwen's heart gave a start, but his face betrayed nothing; he waved a hand. "Didn't I just drink some myself? It all came out of the same bottle — if there were a problem, wouldn't I be in trouble too? Besides, this time I sincerely wanted to invite you out, Brother Wei Zhao, just to talk. Why would I do you harm?"