The red-haired face turned red with anger, and her eyes were still glaring at him fiercely. Luo Binhan couldn't help but feel a little puzzled. He admitted that he was at fault for this matter, but to be honest, this was the first time that he had encountered an adult man getting so angry because of some second-hand smoke.
"Sorry," he said, "I forgot that smoking is not allowed indoors."
"I see that you just discussed some important secrets." The red-haired man said coldly, "How about we go to a VIP box next time?"
Luo Binhan looked at him thoughtfully. Nan Mingguang always spoke in a soft and slow tone. And even though there was no music playing in the store, there were all kinds of movements on the street outside the store. He didn't think the red-haired man could hear all the conversation they just had. Maybe a word or two occasionally slips out, but how much can one understand without understanding the context? He didn't mind being overheard by strangers.
"There's no forbidden conversation here," he said. "My business won't get in the way of you, right?"
The red-haired man still looked at him with a very guarded look. His complexion was very bad, and his appearance had obvious foreign features. Luo Binhan was not sure about this man's age for a while, and could only roughly infer that he was still young. He won't be over forty, and it's not impossible to be in his early twenties. He has seen how much emotion and lifestyle can affect a person's outward appearance.
He could see that for a moment the other person seemed to want to just walk away, but some kind of concern was at work. Finally, the redhead stood up from his seat rather hesitantly.
"You'd better be careful when doing business." The red-haired person avoided his gaze and said, "A dangerous business is prone to accidents, isn't it?"
Curiosity made Luo Binhan's ideas come alive again. Nothing could be more meaningful tonight than solving this mystery. He poured himself a full glass of wine and calmly walked back to the red-haired man and sat down.
The other person stared at him with an expression as if he had seen a ghost.
"Want a drink?" Luo Binhan asked with a smile.
"We don't accept credit here," said the red-haired man. His eyes glanced at the wine bottle left by Luo Binhan.
"I'm actually not short of money." Luo Binhan said. He waited for the redhead to question, but the other party didn't seem to have any objection to this. Maybe this person really heard the content of his chat with Nan Mingguang. But it was hard for Luo Binhan to imagine who arranged for him to wait for him here. No, this address was given to him by Fake. No matter who went to the investigation company, they could not have expected that he would walk into such a hidden shop last night. Besides, foreigners are a bad choice, because the eye-catching features are easy for anyone to remember.
"I'm not from here," said the red-haired man. "It's not my job to check out. And there are enough empty seats here. Do you mind giving me a break? Thank you. If you want to know what kind of person the store owner is, you can Come here earlier next time, or wait at the door until dawn. No need to ask me."
If Luo Binhan was really a person who cared about face, he felt that he would definitely blush when his little trick was discovered. But he is not that kind of person now, and now he is not particularly worried about the police, and he is also convinced that the other party is no match for him in a fight. This is a perfect opportunity for a rich second generation to take advantage of their drunkenness and act like a gangster. So he pretended not to hear the hint of chasing people away, and still stared at the other person a little rudely.
"I seem to have seen you somewhere," he said. "Where are you from?"
"It's none of your business."
"It's hard to tell. Maybe you're still friends with my sister. She doesn't live in this country, and she quite likes to make friends with weirdos."
"I don't know her. And even if I did, I don't need to know all her family members."
"If you know her, you must know her mother. She is a lawyer and is very strict with her daughter. If my sister did something behind her back, she would definitely get angry, and maybe someone would be sued."
The expression on the red-haired face began to change from simple annoyance to confusion. Either he has extraordinary acting skills, or he really doesn't understand the meaning of these words. Luo Binhan had to cross out that tiny possibility in his mind: Xie Zhenwan would not go to a foreign investigation company, and the other party was not at all like the kind of private detective Yu Qingshu would use - too unsophisticated and so tempting. People pay attention. This is indeed a person who is completely unsociable. If anyone around him is likely to befriend such a person, Yu Xiaorong seems to be the biggest suspect. And Luo Binhan could completely imagine that she could do such a thing, as long as she had enough opportunities.
However, now it seems that even this possibility is slim. The red-haired man had no reaction at all to his tentative warning, more like thinking that he was making trouble out of nothing.
"I repeat," the man said in a tone that was tired of dealing with madmen, "I don't know any lawyer's daughter. I don't know anyone's daughter because I don't have any friends of the opposite sex. Please leave my table, I still have to work."
"What do you do?" Luo Binhan asked with a smile on his face.
Now the red-haired man began to look at him carefully up and down, no doubt weighing who would be more likely to suffer if they fought next moment. Even though Luo Binhan wore a loose casual jacket, he still wisely judged that he was not very advantageous in terms of physique and exercise. Finally, he glanced at Luo Binhan's large pocket with suspicion, as if he suspected that there might be some weapon hidden inside.
In fact, Luo Binhan didn't bring any weapons. Both of his belongings were kept at home. However, he could tell that the red-haired man also didn't bring anything for self-defense. This man was still wearing the dark black pullover T-shirt that said "Silence" from yesterday, with only two shallow outer pockets. Before approaching the other party, Luo Binhan had also studied his old blue and black jeans with the legs off. One of the pockets on one side was softly bulging. He guessed it was a wallet or key pouch, but it was definitely not something that could be used to open a spoon. From this, he was also convinced that this person lived nearby, in a hotel or rented a B&B. In short, he didn't need to hang around outside for too long, otherwise no one would go out at night in thin clothes in today's weather.
Ultimately, the redhead decided not to take any risks. He directly picked up his computer and went to the counter to pay, and then walked quickly to the door of the store. Luo Binhan put down his wine glass and followed him calmly. The red-haired man stopped immediately, his face already flushed.
"What do you want to do?" he asked as he hid the computer behind his back. "You want money? Or something else?"
Luo Binhan suddenly became interested in the hidden computer - if he was pestered by a strange man who seemed to have a mental problem, he would not hide the only heavy and strong metal product he had at hand behind his back. Woolen cloth. But there was nothing he could do. After all, it's one thing to stalk someone without doing anything, and quite another to brazenly snatch property on a downtown street.
"Actually, I'm quite rich." Luo Binhan said, "I just...well, I really think you look familiar. I'm sorry, but this is really important to me. I thought maybe you could help me."
This rhetoric is not necessarily more clever than the previous routine, but he is quickly thinking about what to say next. The best time has passed, deliberately irritating the other party has no obvious effect, so now he should change his approach. He could tell that this man was not short of money, but he just didn't like to talk to him very much. Needless to say, he was a person who rarely needed to participate in formal social situations. It didn't look like industry research or legal work, because he was sure that the foreign language document he glanced at yesterday had neither diagrams nor clause numbers. Another point that might be interesting was that he remembered that this man did not ask for an invoice or bill when he left last night, but that didn't prove anything at the moment.
When Luo Binhan was thinking about these things, he did not forget to put a hesitant look on his face, so that his expression could slowly transition from frivolous to serious without appearing too deliberate. Just when he thought the atmosphere was not too abrupt, new words were brewing on his lips. He took a step back, distanced himself from the redhead, and raised his hands in front of his chest.
"I apologize for what I just said," he said earnestly, "but I'm in trouble, and you might be able to help me... I can pay you for it, and you'll give me the price. It's not a danger or anything. It's illegal. I just need you to tell me something. This is just...if I say it, you will definitely find it very strange. It is true. You will not believe it. It is difficult for anyone to believe it. But I am really willing to do it for you. Pay for this. What do you think?"
As he had observed before, when he mentioned the reward, the other party behaved extremely blandly. It was difficult to sway this man's wariness with money, but when he emphasized that this incident was very bizarre and unbelievable, the red-haired man's right toe, which was facing the door, slightly twisted and shifted his weight to his left foot. This person has been living a life out of order recently, and as expected, he is more interested in extraordinary things.
"Money is not important," the red-haired person blurted out, but then hesitated, "I'm still... not very short of money, so I can put the remuneration aside for now. I noticed that you just told me about this store. Things..."
"I want to know the news about this store." Luo Binhan rushed to say, "I just wanted to ask you about this store, because it is very important to me! But I'm afraid I can't tell you the reason."
"Why?"
"You won't believe it if I tell you. You will think I am scamming you. I just want to know something about the owner of this store. There is no malice at all.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. You'd think I was scamming you. But I really just want to know about the owner of this store. I mean no harm at all. And you seem to be a regular here. I thought maybe you I've been seen here before. I need to know if I've been here before."
"need?"
"I lost my memory." Luo Binhan said, "There was an accident. I can't remember anything about the past few months."
The redhead's tense shoulders slumped, as if that was a better answer than attempted robbery or a history of mental illness. Before he had time to think about it, Luo Binhan said first: "I know it sounds cliché, but it's true. Ever since I recovered, I knew that I had forgotten something. The doctor said that recovery takes time. I have I’ve been recuperating for a while, but I can’t think of anything.”
He stopped and looked at the other person earnestly. The red-haired man hesitated and said, "Well, okay, I'm very sorry for you..."
"But I passed by here yesterday." Luo Binhan continued, "I immediately felt that I must have been here! The name and facade of this store made me feel very friendly. So I walked in, saw the furnishings and layout, and... With you. I feel like this has all been experienced before, like some kind of replay of the past."
"Maybe it's the hippocampus effect." The red hair said.
"What effect?"
"Brain neurological disorder means that when you are exposed to a new environment, you will feel that you have been there before. This is because your neurons have a problem with information processing, allowing new memory information to recall old ones, although They're not actually the same thing. It makes you mistake newly exposed information for old, like faking the creation date of a document... Okay, that's just a hypothetical explanation, but that's what I think anyway of."
Luo Binhan asked with great interest: "You are not engaged in medical research, are you?"
"No. I was just saying casually. It has nothing to do with my job."
"Then what do you do? Programmer?"
"That's not called programming." The redhead said quickly.
Luo Binhan wanted to continue asking, but the other party was obviously unwilling to talk about him in depth. So he immediately brought the topic back to himself.
"I know the effect you just mentioned," he explained, "the sense of déjà vu, or whatever it is. I know many people have this experience. But my feeling about this store is completely different. I Just been here.”
"With the girl from yesterday?"
"Oh, no. She is just...a relative of my friend. We happened to meet each other on the street yesterday. She said she had found a new store to work in, so she invited me to come and have a look. I followed her. But wait for me As soon as I got here, I knew I'd been here before. I also asked her if she knew anything about this store, but she didn't want to tell me more."
"Aren't you friends?"
"I was begging her about this yesterday, but she felt that it was not good for my health, saying that it would irritate my brain nerves and so on. But she is not a doctor, right? And you should also know that she is actually I have only been here a few days and don’t know much about this place. And I heard that she is not a serious employee and was only introduced to help with a few days. Anyway, she is unwilling to help me. So I can only find you. help."
Luo Binhan could see obvious doubts in the red-haired eyes. But he wasn't worried about the lie he had told, even though it sounded so flawed. So what does it matter? Real life is also full of loopholes if viewed from a rational perspective. What he was thinking of were all kinds of world-famous scams. If a lie tried its best to follow simple and plain common sense, its anomalies would be easily exposed. But if the lie is unique, weird, impressive, even grand and glorious, people will want to believe it. Big lies are more tempting than anything else, because people long for abnormality, long for beyond order, long for transcending themselves. People crave myths.
"Let's sit down and talk." Luo Binhan said, "I'm treating you. And I promise I will never follow you after I leave this store. The only thing I want to know is who is the owner of this store and where are you?" I've seen someone else in this store. I wonder why I remember this store, and I'd pay good money to find out about it - and if you're not interested in this, I'll remember that I owe you a favor. I can still get something done here."
The red-haired man hesitated for half a minute, and something Luo Binhan said seemed to particularly attract his attention. He asked, "Do you know many people here?"
"Depends on how you define someone you know."
"Why do you have to remember this? I mean, your amnesia, does it affect your life? Why are you so anxious to find out?"
There are many reasons for dealing with this problem. Luo Binhan originally wanted to say that this involved a very important business project, so he would promote his recovery at all costs. He could also say that he found that there were more things at home than he should have, and he had debts that he shouldn't have, but just when he was about to weave a reasonable and sufficient lie, a picture suddenly flashed in his mind: before him During the conversation, the redhead looked at the paper rose bushes on the wall to escape him. That stare. That subtle boredom and irritability. Suddenly, a new idea replaced the excuse he originally wanted to say.
"This may be very important to me," Luo Binhan said slowly, "This is related to... a woman."
