Those Classmates who Suddenly Disappeared
Chapter 212: Is it Just a Coincidence?

Chapter 212: Chapter 212: Is it Just a Coincidence?

The today was terrible. The sun was shining gloriously, birds were chirping, and flowers were in bloom. It was an ideal day for a date. Nevertheless, Gu Fan cast all his worries and troubles aside and rushed to Leng Le’s place, banging on the door of her office.

Leng Le opened the door. Seeing that it was Gu Fan, she crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe, her face emotionless. "What brings you here?" she asked.

Seeing Leng Le’s unwelcoming demeanor, Gu Fan felt disheartened. He wondered what he’d done wrong recently. Had they not seen each other for so long that Leng Le felt neglected and upset?

Gu Fan presented a gift box: "I came to give my beautiful girlfriend a small gift."

"Thanks!" Leng Le took it with disinterest, showing no signs of happiness. She even went on to say, "Gu Fan, even though we are close, this is a workplace, so be mindful of your behavior."

"Fine, fine, I will be careful." Gu Fan felt the atmosphere become exceedingly awkward. He and Leng Le used to flirt in the restaurant quite often. Today, something was off about her.

Gu Fan wondered if he’d done something wrong or if there’d been a misunderstanding — he wanted to clear things up. But then Leng Le huffed and asked, "Where were you last night?"

"Last night, I..." Gu Fan certainly couldn’t disclose that he’d been to a nightclub. Leng Le would most likely assume Gu Fan was misbehaving. Gu Fan had initially planned on saying that he was studying at home, but looking at Leng Le’s countenance today, his intuition warned him not to lie.

"Well..." Gu Fan scratched his head, unable to look directly at Leng Le’s questioning gaze, as if she had already seen through his little scheme.

In fact... I and Lu Yi..." Gu Fan felt uneasy. Should he tell the truth or not... meanwhile, he felt the pressure piling up on him.

Seeing Gu Fan stuttering and stumbling over his words, Leng Le couldn’t bear it any longer and blurted out, "Let me help you speak... Yesterday, you enjoyed yourself quite a bit in the club."

"No, no I didn’t..." Feeling puzzled, Gu Fan couldn’t resist asking, "How do you even know that I was at the nightclub? Were you there too?"

At this, Leng Le shook her head. "I didn’t go, it was one of our colleagues who went and saw you there."

"Oh, what a coincidence." Gu Fan laughed hollowly, incredulous at his rotten luck. The one time he went to a nightclub, someone familiar saw him and even reported back to Leng Le.

Gu Fan wanted to explain, but Leng Le was cold as ice: "Okay, we should behave professionally at work. Are you free? I have loads of work to do."

"Okay, you get back to work, I won’t disturb you, I need to work too." As soon as Gu Fan finished talking, he saw Leng Le slam the door shut. The anger in the gesture was clearly conveyed to Gu Fan.

Gu Fan massaged his troubled forehead, sighing internally that if he didn’t handle this matter well, his future days would be tough. After all, he thought, he hadn’t done anything at the nightclub. That colleague who saw him should vouch for him.

So Gu Fan pondered, which colleague spotted him in the nightclub last night? He had to clear things up, but he just couldn’t pinpoint the person.

In reality, Leng Le lied when she said a colleague had spotted Gu Fan in the nightclub. She couldn’t very well admit that she had installed a tracker on Gu Fan’s cell phone, hence knowing that he’d been to the nightclub.

Suddenly, Gu Fan found a male colleague who, like him, worked part-time at the restaurant while attending university.

Gu Fan called him aside and inquired, "Buddy, did you go partying at the nightclub last night?"

The male colleague shook his head immediately: "No, I had to work late last night, and then I went back to school."

"Really?" After some thought, Gu Fan asked the others who had worked the night before, thereby eliminating them from the list of suspects. He was left with one-third of the people.

The male colleague was perplexed and asked, "What happened, Gu Fan? When Sister Leng came to work today, I noticed her expression wasn’t good."

"Well, that’s a story for another time." Gu Fan didn’t know how to explain, but the male colleague couldn’t resist prying, "Gu Fan, you didn’t have a falling out with Sister Leng, did you? We all root for your love. Besides, you’re dating the boss, we really admire you for that."

"Enough of that. Let’s get back to work now." Thinking to put an end to the topic, Gu Fan was interrupted when a female supervisor noticed and reprimanded them, "How long do you intend on idle chit-chatting during work hours? Get back to work already."

Gu Fan immediately nodded, "Sure, we’re getting back to it now."

Once the female supervisor left, one male staff grumbled, "Why does she have to act so high and mighty? She’s just one rank above us, still a wage earner like us all."

Gu Fan reassured him, "Well, that’s the office culture everywhere. Don’t let it get to you."

The male colleague scoffed, "You probably wouldn’t know this, Gu Fan. Back during the summer vacation, Leng Le disappeared somewhere, leaving the restaurant in the hands of the female supervisor we just spoke about. Boy did she take charge like she owns the place, ordering us around all day. I don’t get what she was trying to prove. Thankfully Sister Leng came back, or I don’t know how long that would’ve continued."

"Okay, let it go. It’s not worth arguing with people like that," Gu Fan responded, trying to avoid the topic. But what his colleague had just told him piqued his interest. He couldn’t help but ask, "You said Sister Leng was gone for a while during the summer vacation?"

The male colleague nodded, "Yeah, shortly after you quit the restaurant job, Sister Leng also disappeared. When she returned, I noticed she was much tanned. Then you came back to work here and I noticed you were even tanner than Sister Leng. You two ended up together, and for a while, I suspected you both might have secretly spent the summer break together."

"Of course not, it was scorching hot during the summer, everyone got tanned," Gu Fan laughed off the suspicion. Something seemed odd to him, but he didn’t give it much thought.

When it was time to clock out, Gu Fan intentionally waited by Leng Le’s office door, hoping to have a word with her. He had spent all day thinking about how to explain himself and had come up with a good excuse.

When Leng Le came out of her office, spotting Gu Fan, she looked briefly surprised before masking her expression and locking her office door.

"We haven’t had dinner together in a while. I know of a new place that serves really good food," Gu Fan pleaded, hoping that Leng Le would agree. But she shot him a cold look, "We own a restaurant, and you want to take me to dine at a competitor’s place and fill their pockets? What’s your game? Hoping for our restaurant to close down?"

Confused, Gu Fan was patient, "Of course not. Our restaurant is here, and that place is far from here. We’re not in competition."

Leng Le looked unimpressed, "Firstly, if their business is good, they’ll definitely open chains. Today they open one there, tomorrow they could open one here. As long as they draw customers, they will eventually be our competitor. Secondly, this is my restaurant, not ours. Even though it will be ours someday, considering the stunt you pulled last night, partying behind my back and not owning up, it seems pretty unlikely."

Gu Fan quickly admitted his mistake, "Alright, alright. My bad. I shouldn’t have gone there without letting you know. But you have to believe me, the coworker who saw me there can testify for me. I was just sitting there doing nothing. I did nothing to betray your trust."

"Even if you didn’t do anything wrong, you still should have told me about going to such a place. It was your mistake," Leng Le snapped, still looking angry. But then, Gu Fan hugged her from behind, his voice soft and sincere beside her ear, "Okay, I admit it was my mistake. I promise it won’t happen again. You’re absolutely right to rebuke me."

For some reason, she felt her anger soften. She didn’t understand why she got so angry, and why she was now feeling so soft-hearted. Being in Gu Fan’s embrace felt incredibly comforting.

At Gu Fan’s insistence, Leng Le finally agreed to follow him. They hadn’t been on a date in a long time, so Gu Fan made special efforts to make up for his mistakes. His sincere apologies and dedicated efforts to change made her forgive him at last.

When Gu Fan walked Leng Le home after their wonderful date, they bid goodbye to each other. Things seemed back on track, and Gu Fan finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"At last, it’s all sorted," Gu Fan sighed in exhaustion as he wandered back home. On the way, he passed by a mobile shop and remembered how he dropped his phone in the water back in Qianye Country, which put his mobile out of order. He went in to see if it could be repaired.

He walked into the mobile shop and pulled out the water-damaged phone from his bag, asking the store people if there was any chance of repairing it.

When the repairman unboxed the phone, he found a strange object within and pulled it out with tweezers. He examined it for a while before shooting Gu Fan a peculiar glance.

Feeling strange, Gu Fan asked him, "Is there something wrong with this thing?"

The repairman gave a sly smile and responded, "My lad, has your girlfriend installed this to keep an eye on you because you’ve been playing around?"

"What?! Are you saying this thing is a tracker? Are you sure?" Gu Fan was in disbelief. After triple-checking and getting the repairman’s confirmation, he had to accept the fact.

He couldn’t think of who could have done this, except Lin Xi. Only she had access to his phone. But he couldn’t think of anyone else.