Gu Yan didn't expect the question. He paused mid-step and glanced at the innocent pot of evergreen bamboo that had, for no good reason, met its maker. "Are you changing the subject or are you trying to settle old scores?"
Yan Suizhi tch'ed. Student Gu was so charming last night, doing his best to refrain from anything more yet also being a bit clingy; he had needled him to go to bed in fear that he'd fall sick, yet also sent him off with his eyes lidded, his gaze heavy, and his arms folded.
Even when he first sneezed downstairs this morning, revealing the first symptoms of a cold, Gu Yan's response was especially amusing. He earnestly went through his medicine boxes for half a minute, then silently put a hand to his forehead, starting to reflect on himself.
Yan Suizhi, watching this from the byline, could barely suppress his laughter.
In truth, although he was used to playing the bushy-tailed wolf, he still did feel a bit awkward when he woke up in the morning. However, Lawyer Gu's series of actions pulled him out of it. The awkwardness only made a token appearance for no more than half an hour before it disappeared into the wind.
After that, all the way to the law firm, he had a fixation on a particularly entertaining pastime—teasing Gu Yan.
In actuality, he had already mastered this art ten years ago. He just didn't expect that after ten years, this fixation had only intensified.
The only difference now was that Gu Yan would no longer storm away in anger.
Resisting the urge to smile, he said to Gu Yan, "Why did you suddenly turn so stern during the day, even suspecting me of impure motives? I'm only curious to hear your thoughts."
Yan Suizhi paused for a beat after saying this. He smiled guilelessly. "Actually, I'm very curious about many things involving you."
Such an inclination was probably unprecedented for him.
In truth, he was never an easy one to get close to. He always wandered a respectable distance away from others, never giving them any opportunities to enter his life, nor did he impinge on their lives.
"You don't have to explain your thoughts because people would always have divergent opinions. As long as you feel that it's worth doing and not one you'll regret in the future, then you can give it a try..." This was something he used to say frequently.
And Gu Yan was once audience to it, too.
But it was different now. It was as if he had stepped into a domain where the door was left open just for him, and, after settling down, finally began taking the initiative to get closer to someone.
This could probably be considered a unique type of special treatment. Gu Yan naturally wouldn't refuse it.
"There indeed was a time when our ideologies clashed..." He repeated in a low voice. After ruminating for a moment, he said, "It wasn't a particularly pleasant experience for me at that time. So... I'm a little unsure where to start."
"I remember that one time, when I was enjoying the evening view on the balcony at a soiree, you came over to ask me something about... preserving your aspirations?" Yan Suizhi attempted to recall for a while and chuckled lightly, "My memory of it is a bit fuzzy. Was it then?"
"You remember that?" Gu Yan was startled.
Yan Suizhi, "The things I remember might be much more than you'd expect."
Gu Yan regarded him for a while before nodding and saying, "Somewhat. But that was only the trigger..."
"There's actually a chain reaction to this?" Yan Suizhi's brows lifted.
Gu Yan, "..."
Actually, it couldn't really be counted as a chain reaction. Rather than saying Gu Yan had abruptly discovered that his ideologies were incongruent to Yan Suizhi's, it was better put this way—he had abruptly gained perspective that the aspirations he had always carried close to heart weren't enough to completely project into reality.
Without him having to elaborate further, Yan Suizhi had already astutely pinpointed the source.
Even if Dean Yan kept people at a distance, he did have an understanding of the emotional turmoil and shifts that a student might experience in those years.
He asked Gu Yan a seemingly irrelevant question. "If I'm not mistaken, your parents are... in the military?"
Maze University respected De Carma's customs and never paid undue attention to students' backgrounds. This wasn't a topic that would normally be broached between teachers and students. However, Yan Suizhi still gained a smattering of information from a few isolated words and phrases in his conversations with Gu Yan.
But it was just that, and nothing more.
While others might have limited knowledge of Helan, Yan Suizhi was different. He was even well aware that there was a major conflict involving interstellar pirates less than thirty years ago. It was the largest armed conflict in centuries, involving and claiming the lives of countless soldiers. Of course, many more pirates were also killed.
After that conflict, Helan received a formal oath of cessation of hostilities for the next three hundred years from the pirate commander. The number of orphans arising from this were also in the hundred thousands, all descendants of soldiers.
So, he had always tacitly taken this as a sensitive subject inappropriate for mere university professors to broach with their students.
Hearing this, Gu Yan nodded, replying in affirmation to his conjecture. "Mn. They served in the military, but they've passed on."
Yan Suizhi gazed at him, suddenly understanding why he would struggle with his ideologies. The military creed of Helan prized absolute loyalty, absolute righteousness, and absolute sacrifice.
If his parents were both soldiers, and also ones who had sacrificed their lives in battle for the people of their motherland, then their convictions would have a high likelihood of being dissolved in the blood of their future generations, deeply ingrained in them.
Before, he had come across many descendants of soldiers in welfare homes on Helan. This held true without exception.
Gu Yan saw Yan Suizhi's expression.
It was weird. It seemed as though after all that had happened last night, he could now clearly discern what he was thinking without the other having to speak, even skipping the guessing step. Perhaps Yan Suizhi's response to him last night had given him sufficient confidence.
He supplemented, "But I'm not really an orphan. After my parents passed on, I lived with my grandfather. He's a judge."
A very austere and uncompromising judge.
So, Gu Yan's bones were imbued with an extremely distinctive, near-mule-stubborn ideology that stemmed from soldiers' loyalty, righteousness, and sacrifice, as well as judges' justice and diligence.
Even after being admitted to university, after having decided to become a lawyer long ago, he had never once wavered in his ideals.
It wasn't that he was oblivious to the nuances of this profession. On the contrary, as a result of his association with his grandfather, his understanding ran much deeper than others'.
But people were always like this, especially when flourishing with youth and that bit of harmless arrogance in their spirits. When envisioning hypothetical scenarios, they'd always subconsciously craft idealised situations and outcomes, confidently assuming that they'd act and achieve what they had set out to if it ever occurred to them.
Gu Yan, as a student, was much steadier and self-possessed than many others. But people never lacked that bit of arrogance in their youths, and him perhaps even more so. Moreover, he took those convictions much more to heart than many others.
And this was the true starting point of the incongruity.
"I attended a lecture of yours in high school," Gu Yan said. "You mentioned that lawyers deal with all sorts of lies every day, some of whom would even tell lies themselves. Many people knew that their clients were guilty, but from when they took on defence counsel to the end, they would often forget that, as if their clients were more innocent than anyone else. Over time, problems of 'who is deserving of trust and who is just' wouldn't even occur to them, because this would make it difficult for them to savour their victories..."
His cadence was measured, neither hurried nor slow, speaking as he immersed himself in his memories.
What surprised Yan Suizhi was the clarity of his recollection. What he touched on barely differed from reality. In his memory, that student, who was seated in the first row, frosty as a mint leaf, had never moved his pen to note anything down.
"...You told the student who raised the question that you hope that we can keep this in mind and occasionally reflect on it. Because this represented the aspirations that would guide us in our schooling days, and you hoped that all of us could preserve this as best we could." Gu Yan was silent for a few seconds after he spoke. Then, he said, "It was very much a pleasant surprise for me then."
Yan Suizhi arched a brow, gave restraining himself a valiant attempt before succumbing, and said, "As it happens, I do remember that lecture, and... incidentally, I remember you as well. Forgive my bluntness, but I thought you went there to waste time and claim academic credits. I couldn't make out even a smidge of your pleasant surprise at all."
Gu Yan, "..."
However, due to Professor Yan's half-joking diversion, Gu Yan, whose eyebrows had furrowed from the recollection, smoothed, and he appeared somewhat exasperated.
Yan Suizhi lifted his chin. "Keep going. You were expressionless, but you were actually pleasantly surprised, and then?"
For that fleeting moment, Gu Yan seemed to want to snipe back or do a little something to block a certain someone's mouth but he eventually went on. "At that time, I thought that I had met someone whose ideology was completely congruent with mine. Furthermore, I did happen to have some impression of you from before, so this made me happy. But in retrospect, I realised that you neatly avoided addressing the contradiction therein."
Because, in actuality, the suggestion that Yan Suizhi gave those young students didn't truly address the girl's question, nor did it contain any of his thoughts.
Yan Suizhi contemplated it, then said, "Actually, that question is very difficult to answer. There are some who avoid ever trying to answer it to save themselves the frustration, and there are some who dwell on it for decades, never able to find an answer. At that age in particular, my words would easily carry considerable sway. Any answer I gave could very possibly have limited your thinking in the decades after."
"Mn."
Gu Yan nodded.
He naturally understood this logic. He knew it even without needing Yan Suizhi to say it.
But he hadn't considered it in that way at that time. He only felt that Yan Suizhi's words had moved his subconscious mind.
That was until he came across that old case.
The suspect was an acclaimed deputy director of a hospital who was involved in a homicide case. On this topic, it was actually a little similar to the Elderly Bobblehead case in the present. The suspect's attitude was abhorrent, and the public opinion tipped overwhelmingly to one side.
However, Yan Suizhi had proved on the defence counsel that holes existed in the prosecution's evidence.
If everyone's experience and intuition, the direction of the existing evidence, and even the suspect's reaction pointed towards his guilt, then the happiest solution would be for him to be put on death row for his crime. And yet, there just had to be holes in the evidence.
How should it be handled, in that case?
When Gu Yan had first come across that past case, it wasn't simply a difference in ideologies that caused a change in his attitude and for him to turn to reticence. Rather, it was the contradictions it had with his own ideology that overwhelmed him.
The character he inherited from his parents was the most simple and pure views of morality and righteousness. Based on this, he'd wish to see that suspect left without any way out, thrown into prison for good.
But the justice of the court, which his grandfather had taught to him by example, made him pay particular mind to the perfection of evidence.
And also the presumption of innocence, a principle that should never be discarded.
"It was more than just doing case analysis to me. During that period... I was endlessly drawing hypotheticals. Such as, if I received that case, would I make the same choice you did, and whether that choice could convince me and conform to all of my convictions," said Gu Yan.
In fact, that period had whittled away a tremendous amount of his energy. The final analysis he produced was enough to convince himself, and in the process of analysing the case, his spirit had sharpened and transformed beyond anything else ever had.
And then, at its close, he happened to attend that particular soiree Yan Suizhi put together.
He asked Yan Suizhi that question, really only wanting to affirm his thoughts. Yet, Yan Suizhi said that he didn't even consider the dilemma of aspirations conflicting with reality.
"I was bogged in a bottleneck at that time, or maybe better put... stuck on an unsolvable problem?" Gu Yan said. "So when I heard your answer, I felt like I was truly stupid to have spent all that time conflicted over that case analysis."
Hark, the analysis he worked so hard and long on was an argument that the other never considered.
It was also that particular period that he realised he was harbouring some absurd ideas for Yan Suizhi, and took his every word with exceptional seriousness.
Yan Suizhi associated this with Gu Yan's previous answer and nodded his head, illuminated. His expression changed minutely. "So once you graduated, carrying those less-than-decent ideas and conveniently ticked off at me, you ran away, never to be heard from again?"
Gu Yan, "..."
"However..." Yan Suizhi suddenly smiled. "I'm glad."
"Why are you glad?" Gu Yan gazed at him.
"Because you're definitely not the type to distort your ideologies to force-fit reality for peace of mind," Yan Suizhi said. "You're my student; I know at least this much."
In fact, in the ten or so years that followed, Gu Yan, whose thoughts had been further steeled into calmness and maturity, was actually grateful for the old case back then. If it weren't for that self-tormenting argument and analysis, it probably would have taken him much longer to give himself an answer.
Yan Suizhi returned Gu Yan's gaze, a smile shining in his eyes.
This was a student he had looked very well upon at one time. After many years of grinding through reality, he still remained as strong at heart and as pure in integrity.
It was only natural that he was so easy to love.
But Professor Yan had a loose tongue. After saying all this, he couldn't resist poking fun at Gu Yan again. "What about now?"
Gu Yan, "Hm?"
"Do you still think that our ideologies clash?" Yan Suizhi asked leisurely, "Make sure you answer properly."
"..."
What did 'answer properly' mean?
"And what if they still do?" Gu Yan's gaze sharpened, turning the question back onto him.
The esteemed Professor Yan said, his eyes crinkling merrily, "That'd be unfortunate. It's hard to say, I might first drown the plants in your courtyard to death, then look and see if there are any others who want to develop more intimate relations with me. After all, having clashing ideologies is a major obstacle."
"..."
Ten years ago, when someone, half-seriously but not-at-all-jokingly, caused him to seethe, Gu Yan would slam the door in his wake as he stormed off.
But the times were different now. This was his office; he didn't need to storm off. But he also couldn't bear to drive this someone out.
The only solution that remained was to seal his lips.
Five minutes later, Miss Fitz came knocking on the door with the legal fees from the Notice of Commission that had just arrived. But by then, the loose-tongued Professor Yan was pinned against the door with his tongue tied up, being kissed out of his life, unable to find the breathing space to answer.
He pressed a thumb to Gu Yan's attractive jawline, parting the two of them slightly. He said in a low voice, his eyes crinkled, "Do tell, how are you going to explain it if we're caught one day? Hm? The office is a place to conduct business, but you're actually using it for misconduct that disrespects your teacher."