novelaction Chapter 1278 Yun Rui's sincerity: What are you looking forward to?
Chapter 1278 Yun Rui's sincerity: What are you looking forward to?
The winter rain in Cambridge wrapped in ice particles hit the iron roof of the warehouse. Lin Xu tightened her faded scarf again, and the incandescent lamp cast a hazy halo in the humid air.
He stroked the centrifuge on the laboratory table. The metal shell was cold, as if the suspicious gaze of the anonymous partner just now was still lingering on it.
At this moment, the heavy iron door of the warehouse made a harsh creaking sound, and Gu Yunqian's figure walked in with a cold cedar scent, followed by two bodyguards in black.
"Five hundred thousand pounds is exactly twice the cost of your study abroad." Gu Yunqian took off his cashmere gloves and glanced at the moldy sleeping bag in the corner. "You are good at calculating."
His Oxford leather shoes rolled over the gravel on the ground and stopped in front of Lin Xu's homemade laboratory table. His fingertips ran across the scratched operating table. "I heard that you rejected all investment invitations?"
Lin Xu straightened his back, the cuffs of his carefully ironed shirt still showed frayed threads. He thought of the black coffee he bought with his last coin this morning, the bitterness still lingering on his tongue: "Mr. Gu flew all the way here just to settle this account?"
His eyes met the scrutiny behind the other person's lenses. In the dim light of the basement, the dark patterns on Gu Yunqian's suit looked like a fine spider web.
"You are very smart." Gu Yunqian suddenly chuckled, pulled out a checkbook from his suit pocket, and held the tip of his pen over the paper. "A smart person should know that returning the prize money to me is just a delaying tactic. The professors at Cambridge have already said that they will no longer provide you with a laboratory." The tip of the pen fell, and the ink spread on the paper. "I can give you three times the funds, provided that -"
"The prerequisite is that I completely cut off contact with Yunxi?" Lin Xu interrupted him, his Adam's apple rolling as he swallowed the bitterness in his heart.
"I tried but I couldn't do it. Saying love might be too heavy. I like her so I couldn't help but contact her in the afternoon!"
In an instant, Gu Yunqian's memory suddenly flashed back to the pearl earrings that Gu Yunxi was shaking at the birthday party. What was Lin Xu doing at that time?
He was chewing cold, hard bread in the basement, staring at the rain-soaked words on the postcard.
Gu Yunqian's pen paused in mid-air, his jade cufflinks glowing coldly under the light: "It seems you don't understand your situation yet." He tore the unfinished check in half, and the pieces fell into the vent of the centrifuge. "As long as I don't give in, you will continue to be destitute in this foreign country. The money you return to me will be your last meal in this industry!"
He took a step closer, and the smell of expensive perfume on his body almost enveloped Lin Xu. "I thought you were a capable person, but I overestimated you!"
"Mr. Gu, as someone who has been through this, can you really not understand my thoughts at all?" Lin Xu suddenly laughed, and his laughter echoed in the empty warehouse.
He stretched out his hand to loosen his tight tie, revealing the frostbite on his collarbone that had not yet healed. "Mr. Gu, why don't you give it a try and see if there will be more 'caring people' willing to help me when everyone thinks I'm a lost dog banned by the Gu family."
He bent down and picked up the broken check on the ground. "To me, half a million is just a bargaining chip to prove my ability. But to Mr. Gu," he threw the piece of paper into the air, "it is the sword of Damocles hanging over your head. After all, everyone wants to know why the Gu family wanted to kill a poor student."
Gu Yunqian's pupils shrank slightly. The burning heat in the eyes of this person who had once been stepped on by him was unfamiliar to him.
He thought of the ginkgo leaf necklace around his sister's neck that she stubbornly refused to take off, and of his father's repeated warnings in the study: "Don't do anything too extreme."
The cold wind blew in from the crack in the door, blowing up the dust in the corner and forming a blurry barrier between the two people.
"You've changed." Gu Yunqian took a half step back, straightening the wrinkles on his sleeves, but his tone was still condescending, "It's just a trapped beast fighting back." He turned and walked towards the iron gate, and the bodyguard behind him immediately followed, "Remember, there are some boundaries, once you cross them, you can't come back."
The moment the iron door closed, Lin Xu slumped down on the folding chair.
He looked at the bloody mark on his palm caused by the edge of the check, and recalled Gu Yunqian's thoughtful look when he turned around. This confrontation seemed to be a lose-lose situation, but in fact he had already calculated it:
The fact that Gu Yunqian flew here in person was in itself a signal of weakness - the Gu family was wary of his determination to go all out, and even more afraid that his lingering relationship with Gu Yunxi would become a handle.
The unfinished check not only tore up the temptation of money, but also pushed the game into a more dangerous situation.
At this moment, Gu Yunqian was sitting on a private plane on its return trip, looking at the rolling clouds outside the window.
He stroked the half ginkgo leaf he brought back in his pocket - it was taken from Lin Xu's experimental diary.
The emerald cufflinks glowed warmly under the cabin lights, but he felt inexplicably irritated.
He had to admit that Lin Xu's action of returning the 500,000 yuan bonus was like a heavy punch, shattering his confidence in controlling the overall situation.
This chess piece that could once be manipulated at will has now become a bomb that could explode at any time.
And he personally flew this trip, not so much as a threat, but more of a test - to test Lin Xu's bottom line, and also to test how far he can go in this chess game of family interests and emotional entanglements...
When the wind from the Thames River wrapped in ice and penetrated into his collar, Lin Xu was curled up in the kitchen of a noodle shop in Chinatown.
He stared at the wrinkled corners of his passport in his palm. Steam rose from the noodle pot, blurring the crooked "Attract Wealth and Treasure" New Year picture on the wall.
After Gu Yunqian left three days ago, he no longer received any cooperation invitations in his email. The second-hand market he often went to suddenly closed its doors to him, and even the old man selling roasted chestnuts on the street corner hurriedly put away the charcoal fire when he saw him.
"Mr. Lin, the boat ticket you booked..." The proprietress leaned halfway in and stopped talking. Lin Xu turned back following her horrified gaze. Two men in suits and leather shoes were staring at him through the frosted glass, their sunglasses reflecting a dazzling white light.
He shoved his passport into his trouser pocket, and the metal zipper left a bloody mark on the inside of his thigh.
In the rental house late at night, moonlight leaked in through the gaps in the blinds, cutting pale stripes on the floor. Lin Xu tore the bed sheet into strips and sewed the important experimental data and Gu Yunxi's ginkgo leaf specimens into the lining of his down jacket. The sound of a car engine came from downstairs. He lay on the moldy windowsill and looked up. The outline of a black car was looming under the street lights, and the exhaust condensed into white mist in the cold night.
"Do you need help?" The landlady suddenly appeared at the door with a bowl of ginger tea in her hand.
Lin Xu froze in place, looking into the other person's cloudy eyes - hidden in those eyes was the same fear as that of all the people who had rejected him three days ago.
He took the bowl woodenly, not even noticing the scalding tea spilling on his hands.
When the wooden door closed again, he heard the sound of the lock turning, and the landlady's footsteps mixed with snow fell on the steps and gradually disappeared in the cold wind.
The snow on the banks of the Thames was already knee-deep. Lin Xu wrapped himself tightly in a stolen fisherman's coat, with his hat pulled so low that it almost covered his eyes.
The neon lights of the ferry terminal turned into an eerie purple in the snow. He fished out the ticket hidden in the lining of his underwear. The electronic screen at the ticket gate suddenly flashed with snowflakes, and all flights showed "suspended for maintenance."
He heard the sound of leather shoes breaking through thin ice behind him. He turned around and blended into the crowd, but found that every passerby he passed by was wearing black gloves - exactly the same as those worn by Gu Yunqian's bodyguards.
At three o'clock in the morning, the ice on the river surface made a teeth-grinding crisp sound.