Ji Tingzhou's body was still weak, and to avoid disturbing Wei Yang's sleep, only a few medical staff remained in the room; everyone else had left.
Ji Tingzhou knew Bruce had something to say to him, so he handed Ji Nian over to his assistant, instructing him to take her out for something to eat.
As soon as Ji Nian heard there was food, she immediately jumped out of Ji Tingzhou's arms and made a dash for it.
Only to have the back of her neck firmly grasped by Ji Tingzhou.
Ji Nian: "……"
She sighed heavily in her heart.
Then, with an obedient expression, she turned to look at Ji Tingzhou: "Daddy, I'm going to play, okay?"
Ji Tingzhou finally let go: "Go ahead."
Bruce: "……"
He winced.
Should he also consider having a child?
"Go on," Ji Tingzhou said, his demeanor shifting to a businesslike tone once Ji Nian was gone.
Bruce sat down across from him, placing his coffee on the table.
Ji Tingzhou knew Bruce might have noticed something off about his reaction to that serum.
He was also prepared to cover for Ji Nian.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have deleted all the recordings.
"Last night was strange. I only remember walking into the lab, and then everything after that is a blur, like my mind was foggy."
"Besides the serum, I also found marks on myself."
He rolled up his sleeve to show Ji Tingzhou the bruise on his wrist.
Pointing at it, he said in a low voice, "Someone injected me with something."
And it was highly likely that whatever he was injected with was the reason he couldn’t remember anything from last night.
However, after a night had passed, he couldn’t find any trace of it in his blood.
While waiting for the blood test results, Bruce checked the surveillance footage and looked for audio recordings.
But all the video and audio from last night were gone.
In the entire base, only two people could have done that: Bruce and Ji Tingzhou.
Ji Tingzhou seemed to have anticipated Bruce's discovery and had already prepared his explanation.
Unexpectedly, Bruce's first words were: "Do you have another pharmacist behind my back, is that it?"
His blue eyes were filled with resentment, tears welling up.
As if Ji Tingzhou were some heartless scoundrel.
Ji Tingzhou didn’t disappoint him, crossing his long legs, leaning back on the sofa, and with a look that said, "Let’s just lay it all out," he tilted his chin and said, "Yes."
And she’s only five years old, with a promising future.
Bruce buried his face in his hands, his shoulders trembling for a moment. When he looked up again, his eyes were filled with fervor.
"Was my memory loss also her doing? Is it a serum specifically targeting the hippocampus? Is she a witch? How could she be so precise? How did she do it?"
"Such a genius, why have I never heard of her before? Does she have some reason for keeping her identity a secret?"
"Can you introduce her to me? Dear boss, for the sake of our years of friendship! I really want to meet this... teacher."
Ji Tingzhou thought, *You’ve already met her.*
Just a moment ago, you even asked if she still wears diapers at her age.
"Your memory loss was indeed her doing," Ji Tingzhou said, glancing subtly at the needle mark on Bruce’s wrist, which showed signs of rough handling.
So it was also done with a serum...
"As for meeting her, we’ll see," Ji Tingzhou said ambiguously.
Bruce’s resentment seemed to solidify, almost poking at Ji Tingzhou’s face.
Ji Tingzhou waved it away, sending it bouncing back, leaving Bruce slumped in defeat.
"You heartless man, I’m never working for you again."
Ji Tingzhou stood up, adjusting his glasses: "Good, then I’ll give that batch of equipment to someone else."
Bruce sprang up like a carp leaping out of water: "I’m alive again! I feel refreshed and ready to work for my dear boss for another hundred years!!"
Ji Tingzhou let out a soft scoff.
Bruce might not have achieved much, but he had worked hard. His mental stress these past few days was no less than Ji Tingzhou’s, and he had barely slept, looking like he might drop dead at any moment.
Ji Tingzhou noticed all this and didn’t disregard Bruce just because his results weren’t as impressive as Ji Nian’s.
Sigh, what could he do?
His Ji Nian was a little genius. The child took after him—smart, and there was nothing he could do about it.
"Sigh..." Ji Tingzhou sighed, though there was no trace of sorrow on his face.
...
Meanwhile, the assistant tasked with looking after Ji Nian was a young man who spoke Chinese.
Munching on the snacks the young man had brought back, Ji Nian skillfully put on gloves and took a bite of the freshly fried chicken, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, coated in sauce.
As she ate, she noticed a few people in black work uniforms walking in, carrying toolboxes.
They paused for a moment when they saw Ji Nian, a child, sitting there.
Ji Nian smiled at them, and they, not expecting her to acknowledge them, smiled back shyly.
She continued watching cartoons and eating snacks, occasionally catching snippets of their conversation.
"I’ve been saying it should’ve been replaced a long time ago, but you insisted on delaying it until now. The surveillance system is completely unusable now."
So the surveillance system was broken, and they were replacing it.
"Fool, this wire is for connecting the pickup. How many times have I told you?"
Ji Nian’s happy chewing paused.
When not being abstract, she understood English perfectly.
And she understood what "pickup" meant.
The joy from Wei Yang’s recovery and the happiness from the fried chicken were shattered by an invisible punch.
Ji Nian felt her hands trembling.
Pickup.
Now she finally understood why Ji Tingzhou had been so accepting of that serum.
In Bruce’s lab, besides the surveillance cameras, was there also a separate pickup installed?
The answer was yes.
Last night, she had only stopped Ji Tingzhou from going to check in person, but she had forgotten about the possibility of remote access!
And what did Ji Tingzhou’s complete lack of concealment imply?
1. He thought Ji Nian wouldn’t figure it out.
2. He didn’t care if Ji Nian knew he had already discovered the truth.
Ji Nian felt her entire world crumbling.
Last night’s heavy rain had left her feeling as if she were standing in the downpour, cold to her core, even though she was in a comfortably warm room.
In this state, Ji Tingzhou arrived.
"Stop eating. Go wash your hands. We’re leaving."
Hearing his emotionless voice, Ji Nian snapped out of her daze.
Ji Tingzhou looked the same as always, his eyes fixed on the sauce residue on Ji Nian’s disposable gloves, a hint of disdain in his expression.
"Are we leaving now?"
She put on the face of someone too engrossed in cartoons to care.
Ji Tingzhou pinched her recently chubbier cheek absentmindedly, responding with a nonchalant "Hmm," as if lost in thought.
Ji Nian thought about her threatening behavior toward Bruce last night—like a devil in a child’s skin.
Then she thought about the persona she had crafted in front of Ji Tingzhou and the reason he had taken her in.
Her heart sank.
Was Ji Tingzhou now thinking about how to deal with her once they got back?
Would she be sent back to that little building? Or would he just kill her outright...
Ji Nian tossed the unfinished fried chicken back, her emerald-green eyes dark and gloomy.
Meanwhile, Ji Tingzhou, who was idly playing with the child’s braid, thought: *She’s eaten so much today, why hasn’t she complained about needing to poop yet?*
