Refusing Tea

Lingren was drinking tea in his room.

The shabby room looked no different from the first day, except that although the cabinet stood neatly in place, there was more dust around it than elsewhere.

As if it had been scattered when something bumped into it and moved it.

Yu Xing and Zhao Yijiu had taken the chance to look around carefully when they came in, since they hadn't had the opportunity to enter Lingren's private quarters before.

—Perhaps they'd had the opportunity, but compared with the price they might have had to pay, they hadn't chosen to take the risk.

Yu Xing was a little curious about what Lingren had mentioned. He glanced at Lingren's bed. There did seem to be some disorderly strips of torn bedsheet left on it. There must have been a struggle.

He tried to imagine what had happened, and his expression turned a little strange.

He couldn't picture it...

"Did you come to make a deal with me?" Lingren set down his teacup with an air of composure, propped his chin on one hand, and regarded the two of them as if sizing them up.

He seemed a little languid, but his back was ramrod straight, and he carried an innate poise that seemed rooted in his bones.

"Deal." Yu Xing didn't approach either. He stood where he was, hands in his pockets. "Yiqing wouldn't agree to it, and I'm the one making the deal with you. I won't drag anyone else into it."

In other words, even if Lingren wanted Zhao Yijiu to do something, that wasn't going to happen.

"All right." Lingren agreed readily. He tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear, raised his eyes, and stared fixedly at Yu Xing with his pale irises. "Then trade information with me using