CH 79

After Dr Lin was done explaining all of this, he smiled politely at them. “I’m going to make a trip down to the wards, but my office is room 1207, diagonally across from here. If you encounter any issues or require a professional opinion, you can wait there for me. But if you don’t need any other help, just press these two buttons when you’re done. One is to turn off the machine, the other is to start an encryptor. Your data will be cleared; you can rest assured about that.”

With this, he walked out of the lab. Only, just after leaving the room, he hesitated in his steps, poking his head back in. 

Yan Suizhi turned over to look at him.

Dr Lin thought about it and warned, “Be careful.”

Eight out of ten doctors who worked with expensive medical equipment loved these equipment especially dearly. They would always be unable to set their minds at ease when handing it over to others to use. However, feeling like this was completely understandable, so both of them nodded. “We will, thank you.”

Click. The door was closed from outside, and the sound of Lin Yuan’s footsteps faded off into the distance. He was probably walking towards the elevator down the corridor. 

Yan Suizhi was reading the instruction sheet.

Gu Yan was also reading the instruction sheet.

Neither of them said anything. For a time, the room was absolutely silent…

However, Yan Suizhi wasn’t concentrating on the word ‘strip’ in the first line. Frankly, there wasn’t anything wrong with the description in that line; it wasn’t as if he needed to strip completely bare, so he could still accept it. Professor Yan had always been very composed. Even when meeting something unexpected, he would swiftly adjust his mental state, accepting things as they came, and could ultimately remain without any misgivings.

Instead, his gaze fell on the last line. It said that after the prep work was done, the machine would display both numerical and informative data on the screen, including the number of times genetic modification surgery had been performed, how long the traces had existed, the length of the effective period, the type, as well as all sorts of numerical and graphical data.

Slightly spellbound, Yan Suizhi gazed at this last line, as if immersing in a recollection.

Until Gu Yan suddenly spoke. “Run the test, then. I’ll wait for you outside.”

Saying this, he stood up. 

“Eh—” Yan Suizhi reached over and caught hold of the shirt sleeve at his lower arm, thoughtlessly tugging it lightly towards himself.

This action caused Gu Yan to pause.

“Don’t run. Dear student, please look at this picture.” Yan Suizhi had already let go of that sleeve, pointing to a supplementary pictorial of a human figure by the side. The pictorial marked out several vital positions on the human body, on which the metal plates of the machine had to be stuck. Annotations were made beside them, namely:

This spot is 3 notches down from the cervical vertebrae (use the first knuckle of the index finger as a reference) 

About 25cm below the left scapula

Clavicle (left), 15cm down

Three knuckles on each side of the lumbar spine

… 

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Gu Yan looked as if he couldn’t smooth it out.

But all the more, he didn’t have an excuse not to help.

So the two men stared each other down with wooden faces, the atmosphere fermenting in the silence. Gu Yan used his knuckles to massage his temples, then expressionlessly walked up to the machine, using the instruction sheet to figure out where each of the metal plates connected on tubes belonged.

“Sit over,” he said as he examined the tubings. 

Yan Suizhi took off his scarf and coat, hanging it on a clothes rack by the side, leaving only a dress shirt.

Unbuttoning his cufflinks, he walked over to the machine and sat down, his entire back facing Gu Yan. Then, he took off his smart device to prevent it from interfering with the machine.

“Here.” Without turning his head back, he passed the ring behind him.

Two seconds later, he felt his own fingertips brush against Gu Yan’s warm fingers, and the ring was taken away. 

Beep, beep, beep.

The temperature panel in the room rang a few times in succession. Someone was adjusting the room temperature higher.

Yan Suizhi folded up his sleeves, exposing his wrists and his lower arms. Behind him, Gu Yan also took off his coat, his footsteps rustling towards the clothes rack then turning back.

Yan Suizhi was entirely able to do the two points on his wrists himself. 

The tubings were hanging down from diagonally behind him. When his hand reached backwards to grab them, the back of his head, shoulders, and back leaned against a warm body.

Gu Yan’s movements stilled for a very slight moment. Following which, through the air and their touching skin, his low-pitched voice passed into Yan Suizhi’s ears. “Which one do you want?”

“Wrist.”

The corresponding tube was placed in Yan Suizhi’s hand. 

Pinching the tubing, he sat back upright, and that warmth subsequently faded away.

After that, he no longer needed to lean back for whatever it was he needed; he simply had to spread open his palm over his shoulder, say the placement, and Gu Yan would pick the tubing for him, bringing it to his hand.

An acupuncture needle was attached to each metal plate, barely a millimetre thin and around two to three millimetres in length. When pricked into the skin, it hardly felt any different from a mosquito bite. Yan Suizhi didn’t even bat an eyelid, pressing both metal plates onto his wrists, then beneath his sternum, and at his waist approximately 3cm down from his ribs.

After sticking on the last plate, he inclined his head to the side, joking, “Are you asleep? Hurry up and help.” 

“…”

Gu Yan didn’t bother answering him.

The metal plates tinkled together. Then, fingers gently pressed his nape. “Lower your head.”

Yan Suizhi very cooperatively lowered his head, the outlines of the bones at his nape carving out a beautiful radian. Just now when sticking on the metal pieces in front, he had undone several of the buttons near the top of his shirt. With this action, the collar and the shoulderline slid back a little, exposing the hollow of his shoulders and the ridgeline of the dip between his two wing bones. 

Warm fingers pressed on the slight protrusion of his cervical vertebra, immediately flitting off upon contact, then skimming three knuckles down. During this process of measurement, Gu Yan’s fingers very deliberately avoided direct contact with his skin. But Yan Suizhi could still clearly sense each and every one of his actions…

One notch, two notches, three.

Thereupon, the minuscule needle gently pricked his skin…

He thought that the metal plates would be startlingly cold when contacting his skin, yet in reality, it wasn’t. When the metal plates were stuck on, they carried Gu Yan’s warmth. 

After the shoulder blades, it was to the middle of his back.

Then to his lower back.

Yan Suizhi squinted his eyes slightly—that subtle sensation of ants treading with their tiny feet was back again…

For this, he clearly didn’t have to move his hands or his mouth. It was extremely effortless. Yet, every second pulled slender and long, passing like a long journey across mountain after mountain. This was probably the most acute his senses had been in his entire lifetime; he was practically able to sense movement through the empty space. 

When the last metal plate was stuck on, Yan Suizhi’s slightly hooded eyes quivered.

Then he raised his gaze a moment later, inclining his head to the side. He asked, “Done?”

“Mn,” Gu Yan responded. After making sure the last tube was secure, he straightened back up and took a step back.

Yan Suizhi tugged at his shirt, pulling the collar that had drooped significantly backwards back to its proper position. Due to the etiquette deeply ingrained in his bones, he didn’t simply take off his shirt even at a time like this, but buttoned most of it back up again, maintaining the barest semblance of being neatly attired. 

He turned over, sitting per how the seat was built for, leaning against the backrest.

Dozens of tubings trailed over from the machine, extending under his shirt. Vaguely contoured through the cloth, they spread open the nominally closed collar and lifted the slack hems.

This appearance was possibly a little difficult to describe… Gu Yan only glanced at it once, then averted his gaze, never looking back. He kept a hand supported against the display screen of the machine, his lowered gaze meticulously studying the fluctuations of the numerical data.

The readings didn’t come instantaneously. The machine seemed to have several stages of detection, and in the split second each time it activated, the skin where the minuscule needles entered would turn a prickly sort of numb. Yan Suizhi knew that this was the latest technology to detect gene fragments, but how should he put it… 

It was annoying.

He endured two rounds of it but still clicked his tongue in the end, complaining to Gu Yan, “These cursed things really feel like they’re leaking electricity.”

“…”

Hearing this, Lawyer Gu’s eyelids flicked up. He still didn’t look over, but his expression was more paralysed now than it had ever been before.