"I'm at school, Brother An. Is something the matter?" Wei Zhao gave a cold laugh to himself. This An Jianwen was probably up to something again.

"Ha-ha, I drank far too much last night. Toward the end I blacked out completely and made a fool of myself. Sorry about that!" An Jianwen said with a laugh. "Are you free? Come out and have a meal?"

"Now?" Wei Zhao asked.

"Mm, I'm at the gate of Songshan No.1 High School. How about it, will you do me the honor?" An Jianwen asked with a smile.

"Fine, wait for me. I'm coming out now!" If Wei Zhao had not had a grudge against An Jianwen, he might have thanked him in that moment. That one phone call had gotten him out of a bind and given him an excuse to slip away.

After hanging up, Wei Zhao said to Gu Mengyao and Tang Yun, "Something has come up and I need to step out. You go ahead and eat?"

"Oh, Shield Bro, you didn't set your phone alarm yourself on purpose because you don't want to eat with us, did you?" Shen Yushu asked.

"Ha, it's An Jianwen." Wei Zhao was long used to Shen Yushu by now.

Gu Mengyao said nothing. Since Wei Zhao had business, she could hardly keep him from leaving, and said only lightly, "Then be careful."

Tang Yun also breathed a sigh of relief. With Wei Zhao called away on business, she would not have to make a choice. In truth she had been on edge just now. After all, Gu Mengyao was Wei Zhao's employer, and if she insisted that Wei Zhao stay and eat with them, Tang Yun would have been angry, but she was not someone who ignored the bigger picture, and she would not have clung to Wei Zhao and refused to let go.

But that would still have left Tang Yun feeling uneasy, as if she had lost to Gu Mengyao. Now that Wei Zhao had something to do, that awkward outcome could be avoided.

"Go if you have something to do. I'll eat by myself." Tang Yun smiled faintly, trying to make her smile look happy and proud.

"Mm, we'll talk by phone." Wei Zhao nodded, then turned and strode quickly out of the cafeteria.

"Ordered all these dishes for nothing, huh?" Liu Xinwen glanced at the spread on Gu Mengyao's table and teased, "No one is eating with you now. What a waste of food!"

"We'll eat it ourselves, what's wrong with that?" Gu Mengyao glanced at Shen Yushu and said, "Xiaoshu, the two of us will finish all these dishes!"

"Oh... but I don't dare eat too much, or I'll die again!" Shen Yushu thought of the last time she had stuffed herself sick, and felt a lingering fear.

"Then I'll eat!" Unwilling to be looked down on by Liu Xinwen and Tang Yun, Gu Mengyao picked up her chopsticks and dug in with big bites.

Liu Xinwen curled her lip, pulled Tang Yun along, and went with Kang Xiaobo to another table.

Kang Xiaobo, meanwhile, was a little dumbstruck, and only came to himself when Liu Xinwen tugged at him. He said in surprise, "Boss... with them?"

Kang Xiaobo did not know about Wei Zhao's relationship with Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu, and Liu Xinwen explained as they walked. The situation was rather complicated, not something that could be made clear in a few words...

When Wei Zhao came out of the school, he saw An Jianwen's car parked at the gate. An Jianwen honked twice and stuck his head out. "Brother Wei Zhao, over here!"

Wei Zhao got in, and An Jianwen started the car. "Sorry about yesterday. I drank too much and made a fool of myself. Let's get something to eat and talk?"

"Whatever." Wei Zhao could already guess that An Jianwen meant no good. Yesterday Shen Yushu's words had nearly sent An Jianwen into a rage, and from the faint hatred flickering in An Jianwen's eyes now, Wei Zhao knew the man had already taken him for a rival in love.

But Wei Zhao was too lazy to explain. He had come in the first place to pry into Qiu Lingshan's whereabouts from An Jianwen.

An Jianwen nodded. "The Starlight Grand Hotel, just the two of us. Let's have a heart-to-heart, brother to brother."

All the way there, An Jianwen made idle small talk about everyday things and never touched on anything important, and Wei Zhao answered indifferently. The car stopped in the parking lot of the Starlight Grand Hotel, the two got out together, and under An Jianwen's guidance they went to a private room a little smaller than yesterday's.

Clearly the food had been ordered in advance. The wine was already laid out in the room, and not long after the two sat down, the dishes were brought up.

"Brother Wei Zhao, I'll drink this first cup as punishment for making a fool of myself yesterday!" An Jianwen raised his glass and drained it in one gulp.

Wei Zhao did not lift his cup, but waited until An Jianwen had finished and asked, "Brother An, asking me out at this hour, is there something going on?"

"There is... but, Brother Wei Zhao, let's drink first and talk about the rest later!" As he spoke, An Jianwen picked up the bottle, poured Wei Zhao a glass, and filled his own as well. "Come on, let's have a drink!"

Wei Zhao nodded and picked up his glass, but the jade pendant on his body reacted at once, sending out a warning.

Wei Zhao sneered inwardly. Sure enough, An Jianwen was not reconciled and was pulling tricks on him again. But Wei Zhao did not expose him. He still raised the glass, barely tasted the wine with the tip of his tongue, then set the glass down and began turning over countermeasures in his mind.

What An Jianwen had slipped into the glass was a very common knockout drug. Once drunk, drowsiness would soon set in, followed by unconsciousness.

At Xuan-level strength, he had not yet reached the realm where he could force poison out with inner force. Without the aid of silver needles, even Wei Zhao could not expel poison from his body, so he would not be foolish enough to drink the drugged wine straight down.

This kind of knockout drug was utterly ordinary, and an antidote of Wei Zhao's own making could neutralize it. When he had been carrying out missions in the primeval forests of Africa, where there were so many hallucinogenic poisonous plants and insects, it would have been very dangerous not to carry such medicine on him. But back in the city, that need no longer existed, and Wei Zhao had not brought the antidote with him. Now he rather regretted it.

"What's wrong, Brother Wei Zhao? Won't you do me the honor?" Seeing that Wei Zhao had not drained his glass but had set it down instead, An Jianwen grew anxious at once.

"Brother An, I feel uneasy. There's nothing wrong with this wine this time, is there?" Wei Zhao asked, putting on a worried look.

"Ha, how could there be?" An Jianwen gave a start inwardly, but his face remained impassive as he waved his hand. "Didn't I just drink too? It all came from the same bottle. If there were a problem, wouldn't I be in trouble as well? Besides, this time I sincerely wanted to ask you out, Brother Wei Zhao, for a talk. How could I harm you?"

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