Chapter 1469: New and Old Friends
Qin Zhining held Gu Nianzhi’s hand and followed a man who looked like a butler into a small European-style building.
Just as Gu Nianzhi had Guessed, this was indeed a restaurant, but it was a very high-end club restaurant.
Gu Nianzhi saw a dark purple wooden sign at the door. On It was engraved the members.h.i.+p rules in white Wei Bei characters. Her eyes instantly almost popped out of their sockets.
“… An annual members.h.i.+p fee of 200,000 US dollars?! Why don’t they just commit robbery?” Gu Nianzhi muttered to herself.
Not only that, but they also needed the referrals a million dollars to qualify from at least two member, as well as an annual charity donation of at least for an initial members.h.i.+p.
This was even more impressive than the “Lu Huitou” restaurant in the western hills of the imperial capital…
Ordinary people wouldn’t be able to enter even if they were rich.
Gu Nianzhi glanced at Qin Zhining.
His surname was Qin, and this restaurant was called “Qin Ji”. Was that just a coincidence?
The man who looked like a butler looked to be in his fifties or sixties. He was dressed in an old-fas.h.i.+oned Tangzhuang, and his movements were very in character.
He led them to a large door with the words “Happy Family” written on it. He pushed the door open and bowed to Qin Zhining. “Thank you for your hard work, Young Master Qin. Please rest here for a while. I’ll get the kitchen to serve the dishes immediately.”
Gu Nianzhi stood at the door and asked with a smile, “May I know where your restroom is?”
Qin Zhining knew that Gu Nianzhi had not answered nature’s call for more than 20 hours, so he did not look back but simply raised his hand and said in an imposing manner, “Take Miss Gu to the restroom.”
A young woman in a white s.h.i.+rt and black pants walked out from the shadows by the door and smiled at Gu Nianzhi. “Miss Gu, this way please.”
She had honey-colored skin, an oval face, and almond-shaped eyes. When she smiled, her two faint dimples appeared at the corners of her lips, which were very similar to Gu Nianzhi’s dimples.
Gu Nianzhi had a good impression of her.
The two of them walked into the ladies’ bathroom.
Gu Nianzhi quickly scanned the room.
The bathroom was like an ordinary living room, with a large screen separating the room into two parts.
There was a corner sofa in the outer room, and newspapers, magazines, and iPads on the coffee table in front of the sofa, and a large-screen TV on the wall.
The inner room was where one would answer nature’s call.
Gu Nianzhi looked away and smiled as she raised her hand to stroke her hair. “Do you have a charger here? My phone is out of battery.”
The waitress quickly said, “Yes.” Then she pointed to a circular object placed on the mahogany table that was half the height of a person in the corner and said, “You can charge it here.”
Gu Nianzhi remembered that she did not bring her phone charger, so she casually said, “Do you have a charger? I forgot to bring one.”
“Oh, we don’t use chargers here,” The waitress smiled perfunctorily. “You can charge it with electromagnetic induction here.”
Gu Nianzhi said, “…”
Wasn’t that just wireless charging?
Gu Nianzhi knew that the latest iPhone could be charged wirelessly, but it also needed a charger to do so. She didn’t appreciate being treated like a fool.
Seeing Gu Nianzhi’s stunned expression, the waitress seemed to have understood something, and the corners of her mouth twitched. “It’s very simple, I’ll help you charge it.”
Gu Nianzhi subconsciously held onto the phone and didn’t let go. She muttered, “… I can do it myself.”
How could she hand her phone over to a stranger?
In modern society, the things that women couldn’t lend had progressed from their husbands, toothbrushes, and cars to include their phones.
The waitress didn’t insist. She reached out and pressed a b.u.t.ton on the wall.
The circular object on the table that was half the height of a person in the corner suddenly emitted a faint blue light.
The waitress gestured, “Please point your phone here.”
Gu Nianzhi tried to send her phone into the range of the blue light.
There was a ding, and in less than five seconds, her phone was fully charged.
Gu Nianzhi was instantly elated. “This thing is amazing. Where did you buy it? I want to buy one too!”
The waitress smiled and stood with her hands folded. Her tone was already disdainful. “It’s everywhere. You can buy it online or at a convenience store.”
“That convenient? How come I’ve never seen one before?” Gu Nianzhi was even more curious.
Could it be a specialty of Z City?
But how could only one city know about something so useful?
It was the age of the internet. How could any secrets be hidden?
Such a wonderful charger would be in the “Hot” section on Weibo immediately, and end up in the most searched product on Taobao within a day. Everyone in Huaxia would be selling it within a month.
The waitress still said nonchalantly, “They’re already everywhere…”
Gu Nianzhi replied, “…”
It seemed like nowadays it was impossible to chat.
The waitress’s politeness was tinged with a subtle sense of contempt, just like how people who appeared to be cultured looked at their poor relatives in the countryside.
It did not feel good.
Gu Nianzhi’s smile faded. “You can go out now. I need to be alone for a while.”
She looked at the waitress quietly.
The waitress understood and bowed with a smile. “Miss Gu, please take your time. I’ll be waiting for you at the door. If you need anything, please ring this bell.”
She pointed at the little angel sculpture on the coffee table. It was an electric bell.
Gu Nianzhi nodded, her face expressionless. “Alright, I’ll call you if I need anything.”
The waitress smiled at Gu Nianzhi, bowed again, and pushed the door open to leave.
She was the only one left in the bathroom.
She knew that there would be no surveillance cameras in a place like this, so she immediately grabbed her phone and walked into the isolated cubicle in the inner room, intending to call Huo Shaoheng.
But when she looked at her phone, she realized that her phone had no signal at all!
She couldn’t make a call.
How was that possible?
Wasn’t it already fully charged?
She didn’t have any outstanding fees either.
Had her phone service stopped?
Gu Nianzhi couldn’t figure it out.
She fiddled with her phone in the isolated room for a long time, but in the end, there was nothing she could do. She came out and rang the bell.
The waitress in white and black pants pushed the door open and came in. “Miss Gu, what can I do for you?”
“What’s your WIFI pa.s.sword here?” Gu Nianzhi’s finger tapped lightly on the phone screen as she asked quietly.
She didn’t want to connect to the WiFi here because there would be too many vulnerabilities, and most hackers could take advantage of it to hack into the phone.
But now she couldn’t care less.
She had to send a message to Huo Shaoheng right away. He must be worried sick…
Gu Nianzhi was burning with anxiety.
The waitress quickly gave her the pa.s.sword.
Gu Nianzhi connected to the WIFI and waved the waitress out. She sat alone on the sofa and opened her QQ app, intending to contact Ma Qiqi first.
However, she had just logged in when the app returned “Wrong pa.s.sword.”
After a long struggle, the QQ app finally said that she was trying to steal an account and warned her to stop her “Illegal actions”.
Gu Nianzhi was dumbfounded.
She then tried to log into her Weibo account, WeChat account, as well as her foreign Facebook, Twitter, Instagram…
All of them returned pa.s.sword errors. There was even an account that said “No such account has been found”!
Gu Nianzhi’s entire body was trembling.
She recalled that back in Germany, there had been a similar situation. She had been unable to log into the external network, so she had only been able to “wreak havoc” on the internal network of the federal intelligence agency of Germany …
But this time, it wasn’t like she was unable to log on to the external network.
She could register a new account and use a guest account to browse Weibo.
But she couldn’t use her own account.
What the h.e.l.l was going on?
Even if she was hacked, how could they hack all of her social media accounts?!
Even she herself wasn’t that capable!
Gu Nianzhi refused to give up and continued to search for Ma Qiqi’s number.
She had a good memory and remembered that Ma Qiqi had spent a lot of money to buy a six-digit number.
However, after searching for a while, the other party had explicitly rejected her friend request and even called her a “Lunatic”…
Gu Nianzhi immediately understood that Ma Qiqi was definitely not on the other end of the line.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have refused to add her as a friend after seeing her friend request or call her crazy…
Should she look up Huo Shaoheng again?
Her fingers caressed her phone. She suddenly didn’t dare to search here anymore.
Whatever she searched for on someone else’s WiFi network could be seen by the WiFi host.
She couldn’t cause Huo Shaoheng any trouble.
Besides, no matter how resourceful the other party was, it was impossible for them to have hacked all of Ma Qiqi’s accounts.
There must be something else going on here.
Gu Nianzhi put away her phone and suppressed the uneasiness and panic in her heart. She walked out of the bathroom with a solemn face.
“Miss Gu, let me take you there,” The waitress was still waiting at the door and said respectfully to her.
Gu Nianzhi followed the waitress into the “Happy Family” private room without saying a word.
Qin Zhining rested one hand on his seat and held a cigarette between his fingers. He rested his other hand on his knee and crossed his legs. He looked at her with a smile and said, “What took you so long? Where did you go?”
Gu Nianzhi smiled and sat down. “This place is so beautiful. I was curious and sat in the bathroom for a while.”
Qin Zhining knew she had charged her phone, but he didn’t expose her. He shook the ashes into the ashtray and said, “You’re hungry, right? Let’s eat.”
He waved to the others. “Serve the food.”
Gu Nianzhi had not eaten anything for more than twenty hours, but she was not hungry at all.
Her body burned a lot of calories because of her anxiety. Her heart was beating so fast that it almost jumped out of her throat.
“Brother Little Ning, are you familiar with the people here?”Gu Nianzhi decided to take things slowly. She would first seek out as much information as she could before thinking about a counter measure.
She couldn’t afford to be rash.
Qin Zhining nodded. “I think I’m quite familiar with them.”
As he said this, his expression froze for a moment.
Gu Nianzhi keenly sensed it and thought that there was a chance.
“What do you mean you’re “quite” familiar with them?” Gu Nianzhi tilted her head, “I saw their members.h.i.+p rules at the entrance. The members.h.i.+p fee alone is 200,000 US dollars a year, and there’s also a charity donation requirement of more than a million dollars a year. Anyone who can get in must be rich, right?”
And the “rich” here were not just “rich” in the ordinary sense of the word.
The so-called annual income of a million dollars was not even close to the requirements here.
Gu Nianzhi paused for a moment and asked again, “You’re a soldier, right? How are you this rich?”
Could it be that he was like Major General Hu, with a grandmother who could “buff” him with money?
Gu Nianzhi thought of Major General Huo, and the expression on her face involuntarily softened. She looked at Qin Zhining with a much gentler gaze.
Qin Zhining looked away uneasily and sneered. “You actually paid so much attention. All you see is money.”
“Am I wrong?” Gu Nianzhi ignored Qin Zhining’s teasing and knocked on the table with her slender fingers. “Would they let you in if you didn’t have money?”
“Your brother Little Ning really doesn’t have money,” Qin Zhining said bluntly. “But so what? Didn’t you see that they still let me in?”
Gu Nianzhi propped her chin on one hand and leaned against the dining table. She smiled. “Okay, even if you’re powerful and they let you in even if you don’t have money, they still treated you respectfully and call you ‘Second Young Master Qin’. Coincidentally, your surname is Qin. Could it be that you’re the Fuerdai here?”
Qin Zhining spat out a mouthful of tea.
He laughed so hard that he almost fell. “The Fuerdai of Qin Ji?! Your imagination is really vivid!”
“Aren’t you?” Gu Nianzhi didn’t believe such a coincidence.
Qin Zhining shook his head. “Even though this place is called Qin Ji and my surname is Qin, it has nothing to do with me.”
Gu Nianzhi replied, “…”
She still didn’t believe him.
She sniffled and felt wronged, “… It’s fine if you don’t want to say it, but wouldn’t your conscience hurt if you told such an obvious lie to humiliate my intelligence?”
Qin Zhining put down his legs and moved closer to Gu Nianzhi. He handed her a wet tissue and coaxed her in a low voice, “Don’t cry. I’m really not lying to you. This has nothing to do with our family. Our family is out of its league.”
Qin Zhining even admitted that his family was “out of its league”. It didn’t seem like he was lying to her.
Gu Nianzhi wiped the tears from her face. She was even more curious now. “But you can’t deny that they’re very respectful to you. Why? Do you know their boss?”
Qin Zhining replied, “…”
This little girl is really too sharp!
Qin Zhining nodded with a smile. “More or less. I do know their boss, but the more important reason is that even their boss doesn’t dare to be arrogant in front of our family.”
“Oh, so your family is very powerful?” Gu Nianzhi reasoned logically. “Since they’re acting like grandsons in front of you even if you don’t have money, then you must be using your power to overpower them.”
Qin Zhining tilted his head to look at her. The crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes curled up. His amorous eyes actually looked like He Zhichu’s.
Gu Nianzhi turned her head and looked at the huge curved wall TV hanging on the wall. She grabbed the remote control and turned on the TV.
Qin Zhining leaned back in his seat and shrugged. “If you say so. Anyway, this place has nothing to do with our family anymore.”
A hint of sadness flashed across his eyes.
Gu Nianzhi happened to turn around and saw that. She asked thoughtfully, “… you mean, there was a relations.h.i.+p in the past? There wasn’t a relations.h.i.+p in the future?”
Qin Zhining replied, “! ! !”
This Gu Nianzhi was really so intelligent she was almost a demon.
She had been frighteningly smart when she was young. Now that she had been out and experienced the world for a few years, she was even shrewder. She could decipher many things from small hints, and she could guess the meaning behind every sentence she said!
The next generation was indeed beginning to be better than the older generation.
There was no choice but to accept this hard truth!
Qin Zhining lamented and rang the bell.
The door of the private room was pushed open, and waitresses in white and black pants filed in, placing hot dishes on the table one after another.
The television on the wall that had just been turned on was broadcasting evening news.
The news anchor was sitting in the anchor room, reporting the news.
“… Comrade Putin, the leader of the Soviet Union and secretary-general of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, will begin his eight-day state visit to our country today. General He Chengjian, Speaker Long Zhixue, and Prime Minister Xie Beichen will personally welcome him at the airport.”
Gu Nianzhi looked up abruptly and stared blankly at the television. Her cute lips were almost gaped open.
What did she hear?!
What did she see?!
That man in the television; wasn’t he the Russian president who had promised to officiate her wedding, the Putin who wasn’t tall but had plenty of aura about him?!
How did he become the leader of the Soviet Union and the Secretary General of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party?!
Wasn’t the man standing behind him the Committee of State Security (KGB)’s second-in-command, Vladimir?
And the tall man with a bright smile standing diagonally behind Vladimir was the chauffeur, Ivan!
Wait!
Soviet … Union?!