Chapter 288: Could It Be Love? [2 in 1]

This was the rumor among the circle, but they could not be completely believed. At the same time, they could not be deemed as nothing more than rumor as well. For example, the Pai Hau Zi—the initial rumors shrouded them in absolute mystery. Apparently, all the human traffickers had access to this special hypnotizing technique. Many hypnotizers relied on this technique to do their work, and with this, they were allowed to put people under their control with a pat of the target's head or shoulder.

After the knowledge spread and information became more common, the public started to have their questions. Plenty of proof was explained and pointed out. This was a sign that a rumor could do a lot of harm to the public. Then it led to the state of semi believability...

Ye Shuang had no idea how other people might view this, but Ye Shuang herself was confident about the validity of this sedative. Veritaserum, also known as truth serum, was used by the American government starting from the twenties, and it was once even used by the court during the interrogation of the criminals. It was not until the fifties that its use was questioned, and the testimony provided by the criminals under the influence of this medication was put under the spotlight.

However, this did not represent thiopental's departure from the historical stage. It was merely transferred to another form of usage. It was used by the intelligence department and even criminals at certain unique stages.

After she became a middle-tier agent, due to the complicated nature of the job scope and range, Han Chu had once used a free period of his schedule to take Ye Shuang to a chemical lab. Han Chu had taken out the series of medicines and chemicals that were not that famous but were being used on the market for Ye Shuang to familiarize herself with. Among them had been this thiopental that the man had tried to use on her earlier...

"Just what is inside the phone?" If Ye Shuang had only been thirty percent intrigued before, it had now risen up to seventy or eighty percent. The man wheezed. He was about to speak when Ye Shuang interrupted him by claiming, "Never mind, I know you will never tell me!"

After thinking about it, Ye Shuang said, "Actually I have not seen the stuff inside the phone. Do you believe me or not?"

Of course, not! The man finally found an opening, which he filled with a cold scoff. With a twist of his wrist, he pulled out a new spray can. "If you let me spray this on you and ask, then I'll believe you!"

"Do you think I'm stupid?" Ye Shuang looked down on him. "Lowering the brain activity can merely lower the guard of a normal person. Even a truth serum is not one hundred percent accurate—there are people with special training who can override its effect quite easily!"

"You have a point. I actually do not plan to completely trust your words even when you are under the influence of the chemical." To her surprise, the man agreed with her opinion.

Ye Shuang sighed. "Furthermore, I have already seen you use this thing. I have already told you, I really do not know anything, but I am sure you will not let this go so easily. Regardless, you are not going to succeed in spraying that thing on me because I move too fast for you to keep up."

The effect of the truth serum was actually not that different from making a person drunk. The person not only would not lose their speech, but one would have a hard time to stop talking. On top of that, the whole part of that memory would be lost when the person woke up.

In other words, if there was a bottom line for the man, or if he did not want to create a bigger trouble, after confirming that Ye Shuang was unfamiliar with the secrets, he might have just let her go.

Unfortunately for him, Ye Shuang had alien-like reflexes. With a turn of her hand, she interrupted the man's skill. When both of them calmed down and assessed the situation calmly, it was impossible to play dumb and act like nothing had happened.

The man looked so conflicted. "You are not wrong about that either."

Ye Shuang thought about it and then sighed with sadness. "There are security cameras in the hospital parking lot. It would have been another story if you had succeeded inside the car, but if we get into an altercation now, even if you manage to spray me with the thing, you are not going to escape unscathed. So, what are you going to do now?"

Indeed, what do I do now? The man hugged his head and punched the top of his car for half a minute before turning around to roar, "Wouldn't it have been so much easier if you had allowed me to succeed inside the car‽"

"Then, why don't you reflect on the sneakiness in your personality and your urgency to get things done‽" Ye Shuang also had a limit to her patience, and this unreasonable man was really testing it.

Just as the battle was about to start, the phone in the man's pocket rang at the right moment to break up the tense atmosphere. The phone belonged to the girl who was still lying in bed. The man looked at Ye Shuang with caution. He pulled out the phone and then turned his glare to it. Ye Shuang shrugged. "Go and answer it. I promise you, I will not run away."

If she did not settle this issue on the spot and ran away, it would only lead to more trouble. After all, when she sent the girl to the hospital the previous night, Ye Shuang had jotted down her personal information on the registration book.

After hearing what Ye Shuang had to say, the man's expression looked much better. With some anger, he answered the phone and walked to a spot further away. "Hello!"

"I noticed you were taking a while, so I borrowed the phone from my neighbor." The girl's slow and easy voice came out from the phone. "From the sound of it, you do not sound so happy... Hmm, is it because you suspect that the girl has looked through our messages?"

"You were out for it the entire night. Who knows how much she has found out after such a long time?" The man did not care that Ye Shuang was just standing about two meters behind him, and he admitted his thought easily.

On the other end of the phone, the girl was not affected by the man's loud voice at all. The sound of the medical cart being pushed through the hospital corridors came through the phone. "Have you forgotten about the fact that one needs to use a password to open my phone messages?"

The man instantly choked on his words—he had indeed forgotten all about that. He had been too focused on checking how much confidential information was inside the messages that he did not realize that he had completed the step of unlocking the messages with a password before reading the messages.

With the silence as her answer, the girl sighed. "That is why I said you suffer from low intelligence..."

"Even... even so, the woman might have a special technique that can allow her to hack through the password!" The man used a shrill and loud voice to try to cover up the guilt and shame in his conscience.

Ye Shuang raised her hand to place some input in the conversation. "I have not really studied a skill like that—you are overestimating me."

The man turned to glare at her. Ye Shuang noticed that the man did not seem interested in continuing this discussion with her, so she shrugged and made a pose that said, "Well, your loss."

The girl did not have Ye Shuang's super hearing, so naturally, she would not have heard the voice that came from behind the man. She continued her assessment of the man. "Since you have admitted to making trouble for the girl, combined with the disgruntled voice that you are using now, I dare to make a prediction that you have failed to do what you planned to do."

It is really no fun when your partner is so sharp!

The girl sighed again. "Fine, I really should not place any expectations on your intelligence. The best outcome is for you to have not started your plan yet, and the worst outcome is that you have already made the move but failed... Hmm, to put it simply, you have been exposed, right‽"

The first half of the sentence was voiced in a question format, but when she got to the latter half of the sentence, the girl was using an affirmative tone. Since the girl was too correct with her assessment, for that moment, the man had nothing to say for himself.

"...Come and help me finish the procedure to get out from the hospital." The girl was silent for half a second and then came to this conclusion. "I have faith that your mess can still be fixed, but it all depends on whether the girl is willing to sit down for a negotiation or not."

...

Ye Shuang was willing to settle this issue peacefully and very gladly accepted the invitation from the girl. After the man helped the girl finish the procedure to get out from the hospital, the three took Ye Shuang's car and left the hospital. With regard to the car that the man drove, it would probably be fine. At most, he would need to pay a little extra to the hospital for the parking fee.

Since they were only going for a negotiation, the three did not need to go through the trouble of finding some high-class location to have a sit-down. The moment that Ye Shuang's car left the perimeter of the hospital, the girl started to say slowly, "Big sister, you are not a normal citizen, right?"

"Hmm... I suppose you can say that." In fact, she was not even a normal human being. Ye Shuang thought about it seriously. She held the steering wheel and then glanced at the rear-view mirror. "But I am a lawful citizen. I just have a better body reaction and good reflexes; my background is not as complicated as you think."

"As complicated as we think?" The girl titled her head, and the curiosity in her eyes was bright as day. "Why would you have a misunderstanding like that? We have not made any kind of assumption about you."

"Oh, that is mainly due to your friend's reaction..." Ye Shuang tried to explain it in a more roundabout way. "You saw it for yourself. The reaction that he had once he ran into the hospital room. And then his plan to assault me with the truth serum without understanding the situation..."

The girl's turned her accusatory gaze slowly to the man who sat beside her, who was sweating in guilt.

"What... what are you looking at‽" The man turned his shame into anger. The girl's gaze was still calm, but her expression was slowly colored with a trace of pain and sadness. "I was merely making a prediction to see how long I would need to be bogged down by your lack of intelligence."

The man finally lost his temper. "Can you stop making this about my intellect?"

"Calm down!" Ye Shuang roared back. "This car is not mine; I borrowed it from a friend! Are you going to pay me if it's scratched‽"

Counting the time that she had been awake, Ye Shuang had interacted with this duo for less than an hour, but in this short amount of time, she had already gotten a clear grasp of the duo's personality. If the two were really a pair of working partners like they said, then the one who was responsible for coming up with the plan and thinking would be the girl.

The man was an action-based person, but the girl's logical ability and emotional control were very good. Just like she said, her intelligence was much higher than the man's, so that was enough to complement the man's lack of little gray cells. She was able to deal with the mess that the man made and the daily chores.

Similarly, if they were talking about mobility and action, it was definitely the man who did most of the work. The girl loved to drag things out so much that it had become an illness, whereas the man had to be on the move constantly. This could be a good thing or a bad thing. Therefore, when the girl was feeling lazy or swamped under her work load and wanted to pretend to not notice stuff, the man would be there to pick up the workload of two people.

Since the two were paired together despite their completely opposite personalities, this could be called a tragedy. However, if one overlooked the friction that might come from their opposing personalities, this pairing was actually surprising complementary.

After five minutes of the man blaming the girl for dragging things out and being lazy and then the girl blaming the man for his lack of intellect, in the end, it was the slow-speaking but sharp-tongued girl who had the final victory. Then she abandoned her partner, who she had stepped all over, and turned her focus back to Ye Shuang.

"Big sister, listen to me, everyone has their secrets that they cannot reveal to other people." Half of the girl's small face was buried inside her blanket, and she looked so surprisingly obedient. However, the serenity that she wrapped around her was merely a shell. "We do not wish to find out the origin of your expertise, and I am sure that you still do not know a thing about our actual job..."

After a small pause for the girl to decide on the tone and terms that she should be using, she continued to speak slowly. "So, if I am not mistaken, we can put things this way—other than the fact that we know that neither party is a normal citizen, there is no reason for us to be cautious of each other, right? There is definitely no reason for us to have hostility against each other, right?"

"Yes, that would be correct." Ye Shuang now had already completely skipped over the man. It was too tiring to reason with that man, so she decided to just focus on the girl. "I actually am not that curious, and if you are going to ignore meeting me, then it would be perfect. After all, this is merely a chance encounter—there is no need to make a big deal out of this."

The man, who had made a big deal out of this, frowned and scratched his head. "For some reason, I suddenly feel like I was betrayed."

Ye Shuang had no comments for this man's intellect anymore. The girl also ignored his remark. After reaching a consensus and finding out that Ye Shuang did not have any intention of digging further into their background, the girl thought that this was the perfect place to end their encounter. "Then, big sister, if there is nothing else, can we trouble you to drop us at any location that you can park your car?"

"Oh, okay." Ye Shuang did not mind it. She could not wait to chase out this pair who came from a suspicious background but carried a buttload of trouble with them.

Yes, that was what Ye Shuang thought. However, before they reached the next place where Ye Shuang could stop the car, the call that entered the girl's phone made her change her mind.

After the girl answered the call, Ye Shuang could hear a very familiar voice say, "I hear you got into an accident and were sent to the hospital?"

"Yeah," the girl answered slowly, and then after a moment's silence, she probably realized how easily misunderstood her answer was, so she added expressionlessly "I stayed at the hospital overnight due to low blood sugar level. It was the driver who drove me to the hospital—it was not a car accident."

"..." Ye Shuang was really speechless. She really did not expect that she would hear a familiar voice from the girl's phone. Then the question became, what was the relationship between these two?

The next sentence that came from the phone answered Ye Shuang's question immediately. "In that case, stop your partner from sending scary messages to my phone next time. Even if you are my little sister, sending fake messages to ruin my schedule will need to be compensated with money."

The man whose ear was stuck to the back of the girl's phone tried to explain, "I was merely worried that something might happen, so I contacted you at the first notice. Furthermore, that barely constitutes a scary message, right?"

The pair of siblings on either end of the phone both decided to ignore the white noise. The girl answered with a grunt and then said, "If there's nothing else, I will hang up already."

Then, the call was really ended.

Having heard the entire phone conversation, Ye Shuang sighed wordlessly. She turned the steering wheel, and the car, which almost reached the parking lot, turned to reenter the traffic.

The girl looked at Ye Shuang silently, but the question in her eyes was loud.

"I feel like we might need to get to know each other again..." Ye Shuang sighed again. "My name is Ye Shuang, the middle-tier agent that is coincidentally working under your big brother, Han Chu."

The girl's expression was still like the surface of an old well, nary a ripple. However, the man almost jumped out from his seat from the initial shock. "What the f*ck! You are the agent working under that crazy man‽"

The girl slowly turned her gaze toward the man. The man froze, and Ye Shuang chuckled. "Shall we find a place to get to know each other again?"

...

After clearing that relationship, the relationship between the two parties turned from neutral to friendly. Even though the process was rather unexpected, considering the girl and the man's suspicious career, Ye Shuang thought that it would be beneficial for her to get to know these two people.

They got a private room in a restaurant to rest. After making their order, they introduced themselves again. Ye Shuang even took the time to call Han Chu to confirm her identity.

The girl confirmed that Ye Shuang was not lying without any urgency and then hung up the phone. She sipped on the coffee slowly and ate the cake slowly. She arranged her thoughts for several minutes and then finally raised her head. Under the man's careful scrutiny, she openly berated Ye Shuang. "Since you are my big brother's employee, why did you only buy me food from a roadside stall this morning?"

"Because I did not know your real identity this morning." Ye Shuang had another helpless feeling, facing the change in the girl's thinking. "Furthermore, I am a newbie at this job, so it's understandable that I have not met you before. However, Xiao Su... Oh, that was the other girl who was in the car with me last night. She has been in a middle-tier agent's team for years already, and she doesn't know you. So, that can be barely considered our problem anymore, right?"

It was obvious that the girl did not like to communicate with others normally. Along with the man's decision to use the serum earlier without checking for details, the line of work that these two were involved in seemed to be under the counter as well. Since there was a lack of interaction between family members, how could she blame the family member's employee for not knowing her?

The girl thought about it. "Fine, you have a point. I'll let it go this time."

"...Then should I pay for the bill this time?"

"That's not necessary." The girl held the coffee cup and sipped the drink slowly. After she had a few sips, she curled her fingers around the cup to warm her hands. Then she turned to look at the man next to her. "Did you bring the catalogue?"

"I did not. I left it in the car," the man admitted easily.

The girl thought about it and then tilted her head to the side to ask, "...The e-catalogue?"

The man grumbled for a while before pulling out his phone with some unwillingness. He turned on the Bluetooth function. "Er... Ye Shuang, is it? Turn on your Bluetooth, I'll send you a document."

Ye Shuang obliged, and she soon received a file. She opened it to take a look, and it was a list of various items, each one marked with its price. This was obviously a sale catalogue, but the items on sale made Ye Shuang quite speechless.

"I am Han Su." The girl nodded at Ye Shuang and introduced herself in a calm manner. "As you can see, my big brother is in the talent scouting business, and I am in the product scouting business... Hmm, I suppose you can see it as intermediate purchaser."

The girl used a very calm and gentle tone to introduce some very scary content. "Guns, firearms, illegal drugs, surveillance cameras, various anti-terrorist gear... Other than atomic bombs, which are too hard to sell, you can come to me if you need to purchase anything."

Was their family background really that powerful?

The girl did not seem to mind Ye Shuang's shocked reaction. With her eyes lowered, she continued to explain the situation. "When big brother's middle-tier agents have a tool request, they make a request with big brother, and then he comes to me to drop an order. However, since we have gotten to know each other, you can directly contact me in the future."

At this point, the girl remembered some other details. She took out her phone and finally raised her head. "By the way, you can leave me with your phone number or email address as well. Every new season, we update our catalogue and send it to all our clients. Other than special items, we also do some overseas purchasing if there was a need."

After all, they were in the transportation of illegal items. If there was space in the transportation cargo, bringing some extra stuff was absolutely no problem.

Ye Shuang rattled off her phone number and email address. Looking at how seriously Sister Han Su jotted down her details, she finally could not resist the urge to ask, "Do your parents know that the two of you have such interesting careers?"

"Hmm? Of course, they do." The girl did not realize that it was a joke. She blinked and answered seriously, "When there was a problem at the initial stage of the business, it was my family who helped us venture out to scout ahead..."

Once more, Ye Shuang was speechless.

After the girl thought that she had expressed enough kindness, her expression softened. Ye Shuang naturally noticed that as well, and thus, the following conversation became more natural and relaxed.

After half an hour of conversation, Ye Shuang not only realized that the girl's name was Han Su, she also found out that she was Han Chu's cousin. The man's name was Mo Bei—he was the son of another agent working under Han Chu. During his period of unruly youth, he accidentally discovered his father's secret second job and decided to make it his life's mission to take up this 'cool' job.

Of course, the man's period of youth had gone on longer than usual. Others normally matured by the end of high school, but the man hung on until his university graduation.

"Big brother has been staying at San Lin City for quite some time." Han Su picked up a piece of the cake with her fork. She sent it into her mouth to chew and then turned to look at Ye Shuang. "Actually, I planned to go visit him after a while. After all, San Lin City is not really a well-developed location, and it doesn't make sense for him to stay here if he wants to expand his business. Then I found out that he has developed another middle-tier agent. But based on his history of promoting other agents, this kind of one-on-one observation and teaching has not happened before..."

Han Su was seriously thinking about it for a while. "Is it because you have great potential, or is it the complete opposite? Is it that your working ability is especially worrying for him?"

The initial reason for Han Chu going to San Lin City was to avoid his family, but the problem at his home was not really a big problem. Thus, everyone thought that he was merely using that as an excuse to escape. It came as a surprise to everyone that he would stay at San Lin City for so long. Everyone's initial prediction was actually not wrong—the main reason that Han Chu had stayed was because he found out about Ye Shuang's gender-swapping secret.

Therefore, Han Chu had decided to stay. After noticing that, the people from the Han family had started to realize things were different. They could not analyze what was so different about Han Chu, and Han Chu could not tell his family about this discovery. Therefore, with Han Chu's reticence and firmness for not giving an answer, his family got increasingly interested in his reason for staying in San Lin City.

Han Su happened to run into Ye Shuang, and Ye Shuang was the agent at San Lin City. With all the elements lining up, it would have been strange if she did not use this opportunity to find out more information. "Can Sister Ye answer my question? What is the real reason that my Brother Han has stayed at San Lin City?"

Ye Shuang was stumped. "You've been family with him for decades, and you cannot guess the answer—why do you think someone like me who has known him for less than a year would know the answer?"

"My initial guess is because of Anthony, but after some observation, it does not feel like it." Han Su bit on the fork and frowned. "If I look at it from a logical perspective, none of the possibilities have enough validity to be true. Yet, if I look at it outside the usual logic..."

Han Su suddenly raised her head to study Ye Shuang for half a minute before saying hesitantly, "Could it be because of love?"

Ye Shuang scowled. That's enough out of you!