National treasure

At sunset, Cheng Ling had probably finished his work, and pondered some details in his mind about the finishing work for tomorrow.

Mr. Zhong found him and told him that it was time for dinner.

Cheng Ling followed Mr. Zhong through the back garden and returned to the small gray building.

There is a fireplace in the small living room, and various family photos are scattered on the shelf and the low table beside it.

Cheng Ling met the young Zhong Zhe's parents in the photo frame. Zhong Zhe's father was tall and well-defined.Zhong Zhe is only five points similar to his father, his eyes and nose are inherited from his mother, and he was born brighter and more eye-catching.

According to the information, Zhong Zhe's mother died of a rare postpartum complication when Zhong Zhe's younger sister was just born.

In the most recent photo on the desk, the brother and sister took a group photo in front of the Mingsha Mountain in Dunhuang. The girl is already slim, and her eyes and eyebrows are a replica of her father.

Elder Zhong entered the living room again, indicating that dinner was ready.

On the linen tablecloth with handmade lace, Christofle's engraved tableware is paired with a romantic Asprey tulip set.

As the guest's first dinner, the cook Ajin's mother put a lot of thought into it.

The streamlined five-course menu is a fusion of Chinese and Western, with some exotic features, and pays more attention to the traditional taste of customers.

Zhong Zhe drank some wine, and only talked about interesting stories about art history during the dinner, ignoring his current worries.Every time Cheng Ling looked at him, those eyes jumped into them like flames on a candlestick, swaying all the way, straight into the heart.

At night, Zhong Zhe let Cheng Ling sleep in his own room, while he slept in his sister's room.

"Coco goes to a boarding school in Switzerland and only comes back for long vacations."

This is a double-connected bedroom with a door in the middle to communicate with each other.With the door open like this, it is equivalent to being in a room, the place is spacious and safe.

"You brothers and sisters have a good relationship?" Although Cheng Ling used a question, his tone was basically affirmative.

Zhong Zhe looked at the pile of girls' pillows temporarily placed on the couch, and said softly: "Yes. She was only two years old when her father passed away. Strictly speaking, Ke Ke didn't have much impression of her parents. When she was in her teens , her grandmother has always been healthy and healthy, and she passed away two years ago, she was brought up by her grandmother alone." Zhong Zhe said with a self-deprecating smile, "I am her unqualified playmate and the most unqualified substitute for fatherly love. Taste."

The expression on his face turned gloomy, he lowered his head slightly and stopped making a sound.

The room was quiet, save for the occasional flickering fire in the fireplace.

Cheng Ling spoke in the darkness, "I was orphaned when I was five years old, and my parents were martyrs."

Zhong Zhe had already turned around and walked into the room from the next door. He stopped, turned around, and looked at Cheng Ling with a little surprise, "This is the first time you have voluntarily revealed something about yourself."

"Codename."

"what?"

"The code name was the first thing I said about myself."

Zhong Zhe laughed, "That doesn't count, that's official business."

There was still the aftertaste of laughter in the room, and Cheng Ling's deep voice had already sounded.

"Zhong Zhe."

In fact, Cheng Ling seldom calls Zhong Zhe by his name. The two of them move together all day long, and they speak directly when they have something to say, let alone such a solemn one.

When Zhong Zhe reminded him that it was the first time to talk about private matters, Cheng Ling suddenly realized that he had crossed the line, and he had to make amends immediately to make up for it.

"I don't talk about myself because, in the mission, 'I'—is unimportant, or even non-existent."

Standing by the door with his back to the light, he looked taller and silent. Even if he couldn't see him, Zhong Zhe could clearly feel his gaze on him.

"Whether it's hiding during the mission or disappearing after the mission. There is no need for me to exist, and there is no need to leave any traces. Do you understand?"

Zhong Zhe's breathing was heavy, and he turned sideways, not letting Cheng Ling see the expression on his face, and said, "I understand, just like a lone wolf in the snow will carefully sweep away all the things he walks by with his tail. It doesn’t want to be found and tracked by any animal or human, even its own kind.”

After hearing this, Cheng Ling felt suffocated for a moment. He intuitively felt that the fire in the fireplace was too hot, and he had an illusion.

Zhong Zhe has turned around completely, "You are just my temporary worker, nothing else, I know this, and I am very clear."

In the middle of the night, as usual, Cheng Ling waited until Zhong Zhe fell asleep before getting ready to rest.Listening to the occasional wind outside the window, he firmly believed that this was another decisive and successful decision.

Persevere rationally, retreat emotionally, and isolate all things that cause emotional ups and downs outside the boundaries.

It is the iron-like restraint and self-discipline that enable him to always stabilize his emotions, calmly deal with all possible extreme situations, make the most accurate and professional judgments, and retreat unscathed from mission to mission.

He slightly turned his head to look at the sleeping person in the other room, and it was definitely not the other person's fault that he felt close and fond of one person, but he himself didn't know how to make Zhong Zhe understand more gently that he would never Not intentionally, but he needs him to step back beyond his boundaries.

He suddenly realized that he was lying on the other party's bed, and his five keen senses became active uncontrollably, the soft bed under the limbs and back, and the breath in the room lingering at the tip of his nose.

It took Cheng Ling several deep breaths to calm down.

There are too many things waiting to be done tomorrow.

The next morning, when the two were sitting at the breakfast table, Zhong Zhe didn't look any different, but compared to last night, his smile became much lighter.

For the next whole day, Zhong Zhe spent his time in the study and his father's research room.

The research room occupies the entire top attic of the old house, and there are large bundles of notes and materials everywhere.Not only did Zhong Zhe find the envelope with the scarlet bird pattern again, but he also found a box that he had missed in the stack room in the attic.He found a tool to pry open the key, and there was a seal very similar to the scarlet bird pattern inside.

The patterns of the two seals are very similar in terms of pattern design and sense of age. The difference is that the one my father kept in the box is painted with snake patterns and a black dragon-like totem with a human head and a snake body.

When Zhong Zhe took out the wooden box, he heard a noise inside the box, but he had clearly seen it just now, and there was only this seal in the box.After carefully studying the wooden box, he found that there was a tiny mechanism at the bottom, and when he pressed it down, there was a soft clicking sound.

Zhong Zhe looked down, a gap popped up on the side of the box, he carefully pulled it open, and there was a notebook lying in the interlayer.

On the yellowish solid color cover, there is a pattern of that human head and snake body printed in the middle.

Opening the inside, my father's handwriting appeared vividly on the paper. The beginning of the first page read:

"According to the practice of past dynasties, Zhong Jiming, the 109th generation successor, recorded the information of the 110th generation successor as evidence."

The following first records Zhong Zhe's birth information.A few lines apart, there are completely different depths of ink, which record Zhong Ke's birth information. Obviously, the two records have been separated for a long time.

Just as Zhong Zhe was about to turn down, "Boom—" the explosion sounded suddenly.

Zhong Zhe dropped his notes, and got out of the closed stacking room. Outside the slanted window of the attic, it was already dark at some point, and the fire outside the window was burning into the sky.