Made him cry again

Ji Yanzhi glared at Ji Ting, his anger still simmering, then told Liao Kai, "Let him in."

They waited in the dining room for a while before Xu Ren came in, sniffling with his head hanging low.

Both of them noticed that something was off with his mood. Ji Ting stood up. "Xu Ren, what's wrong?"

"I, I..." The moment he saw Ji Ting, Xu Ren could no longer hold back his sobs. "It's gone. It's all gone..."

Ji Yanzhi frowned. "What's gone? Explain clearly."

"My computer's gone, and my phone's... gone too. All the experimental data was on them... There's... there's nothing left..."

Ji Yanzhi's gaze sharpened, his voice turning stern. "Where did you lose them? Didn't you back up research data that important?"

"I... I did." He sobbed. "But the external hard drive was stolen too. I only saved some of it to cloud storage."

Ji Yanzhi's temper flared at once. Xu Ren was a researcher, for heaven's sake. Couldn't he even handle something as important as protecting his data?

He was about to speak when Ji Ting turned to him. "Don't get worked up. Let him settle down first."

Then he guided Xu Ren into a chair and asked the butler to bring him a glass of warm water.

Only after several minutes did Xu Ren gradually calm down enough to tell them what had happened.

After parting ways with Ji Ting yesterday, he had gone to his advisor's house. The two of them had spent the day organizing experimental data, then continued their work after dinner.

Xu Ren recalled that he had been unbearably sleepy before nine, probably because he had stayed up late the night before, so his advisor's wife had arranged for him to sleep in the spare bedroom.

The next time he opened his eyes, he had been woken by a commotion early that morning. When he got up, he discovered that the rooms had been ransacked. His advisor and his wife both looked shaken, and only after Xu Ren reminded them did the three hurry to check whether their belongings were missing.

"Everything valuable in my advisor's house was stolen. Laptops, phones, cash-even the jewelry his wife kept in a drawer in the wardrobe was gone."

"What about everyone there? Was anyone hurt?"

Xu Ren shook his head and said in a nasal voice, "No. My advisor even said it was lucky we were all sleeping soundly. If we'd woken up and run into the burglar, the consequences could have been disastrous."

Ji Yanzhi's brow was gradually furrowing. He asked, "Didn't you call the police?"

"We did, but before the police arrived, my advisor told me to leave."

A scrutinizing look immediately entered Ji Yanzhi's eyes. "Why did he tell you to leave?"

Xu Ren sniffled and lowered his head. "He said I was an outsider, after all, and this happened just after I arrived. He was worried the police would suspect me first."

At first, there seemed to be nothing wrong with that explanation. It sounded like a teacher simply looking out for his student. But the more Ji Yanzhi thought about it, the more he felt...

[Something's wrong.]

He turned to look at Ji Ting beside him. There wasn't a trace of expression on his face; he didn't look as though he was thinking at all.

Ji Yanzhi waited a little longer, but heard no explanation of what exactly was wrong. He decided Ji Ting had merely stumbled onto the right answer by chance.

Ji Yanzhi turned back to Xu Ren, but Ji Ting suddenly spoke. "Leaving your own computer aside, when you conduct experiments at school, you should have uploaded the data to the lab's server, right?"

Xu Ren's mouth crumpled, and he nearly burst into tears again. "The Computer Center has been upgrading the NAS Equipment lately, and the network connection is terribly slow, so we've mostly been saving everything on our own computers."

Ji Yanzhi abruptly let out a cold laugh. "Heh. What a coincidence."

Xu Ren's expression instantly tightened, and he said urgently, "It's true! I'm not lying. You can ask anyone at my school!"

Ji Ting said evenly, "He wasn't talking about you."

Of course Ji Yanzhi wasn't targeting Xu Ren. He simply thought that with so many coincidences, there was no way someone hadn't orchestrated this.

Every valuable in the house had been stolen, which meant the thief must have spent a long time rummaging through drawers and cupboards. Xu Ren sleeping like a log was one thing, but how could his advisor and his wife have heard nothing the entire time?

Besides, his advisor taught at a university and surely wasn't ignorant of the law. Why would he think to send Xu Ren away after calling the police?

Ji Yanzhi's expression grew colder. He suddenly said, "Get yourself ready. I'll have someone take you to the Public Security Bureau that received the report."

Xu Ren started. "I..."

"Don't be afraid. I'll send the group's legal team and bodyguards with you. As long as you haven't done anything illegal, they'll bring you back safe and sound."

Even assuming Xu Ren and his advisor's family were all victims, his departure would leave a great many things difficult to explain.

Xu Ren looked uneasily at Ji Ting, who said, "Do as he says. I'll figure out a way to help with the rest."

"What could you possibly do to help him?" Ji Yanzhi snapped. "Stay home and behave. Don't make trouble!"

Ji Ting chose not to argue with him, and Ji Yanzhi stepped aside to make a call.

Even with something this serious happening to him, Xu Ren still remembered his agreement with Ji Ting. "Teacher Ji, if I can get back before noon, I'll help you deliver the things to Mr. Lu."

Ji Ting thought that if things really were as he suspected, Xu Ren probably wouldn't be back anytime soon.

"You don't need to worry about Lu Yanchu. I'll handle it myself." Then he took out his phone. "Give me your advisor's address. I'll help you recover your stolen things first."

"Can you really get them back?" Xu Ren asked, his eyes full of hope.

"Yes. It shouldn't be a problem."

Xu Ren took his phone and entered the address and the models of his phone and computer into the notes app. He also wrote down his login details and the like.

"Xu Ren."

Xu Ren lifted his red, swollen eyes. "Yes?"

After thinking it over carefully, Ji Ting felt he ought to prepare him for certain possibilities. "If the technology has been leaked, don't blame yourself or get upset. Don't forget, I told you there are materials better than single-walled nanocarbon."

Xu Ren stared at him blankly. Although the words were meant to comfort him, enormous tears welled up in his eyes.

"But that belonged to the two of us... It's all my fault... It's all... all my fault..."

Ji Yanzhi returned to find Xu Ren bawling. His cold gaze swept toward Ji Ting. "Why did you make him cry again?"

Ji Ting looked up, a rare hint of helplessness in his expression. "I was trying to comfort him."

He didn't know what he had said wrong. Perhaps his illness was acting up again, leaving him unable to empathize with someone else's sorrow.

Ji Yanzhi irritably pulled out a chair and sat down, then said to Xu Ren, "You're a grown man. What are you crying for? Even if your experimental data has been stolen, it doesn't matter. I'll still let you join Shili."

"Hic... Waaah-"

Xu Ren's sobs caught for a moment before he cried even harder. Ji Ting looked calmly at Ji Yanzhi. "You're the one who made him cry this time."

Ji Yanzhi: "..."

The butler standing nearby shook his head in dismay. Each had less emotional intelligence than the other. What was he going to do with these two young masters?