CH 99

Those who worked in this profession long enough always tended to develop some occupational diseases. It was highly taboo for them to make unsubstantiated inferences.

When most people made associations between separate matters, if there was evidence to back it up, it was called following the breadcrumb trail; if there was none, it was called having a sixth sense. Of those belonging to the latter, some would voice their thoughts, almost mockingly, whereas some would keep these thoughts in their hearts. 

Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan were different. These two chronic patients of an occupational disease that was passed down the tutelage would always subconsciously seek corroborating evidence. If any was found, these hunches would be preserved as speculations; if none were, they would rationally be ignored.

Mayhaps this was the everyday life version of ‘presumption of innocence’.

But this time was an exception. Ever since they received the basic case information in the morning, Ke Jin kept appearing in their minds. And even after they were done with their appointment with Horace Lee, this baseless association didn’t wane.

It was around ten in the morning when the two of them came out of the patient ward, exactly an hour after they’d gone in, not a minute less and not a minute more. 

They weren’t at a detention centre. There actually wasn’t an issue if they wanted to drag it out for another five minutes.

However, to them, there wasn’t really any need to drag it out at all.

This was because Horace Lee had yattered on for a full hour, fabricating story after story that was so fake that it couldn’t be any more fake. The basic jotting paper that Yan Suizhi kept was as clean as when he had taken it out, not a single word on it.

But this situation wasn’t unexpected for them.

Anyone with a mouth that couldn’t be pried open had their secrets. How was it possible that he’d let the truth slip so easily?

They had come across so many similar situations that they didn’t even turn a hair, calmly listening throughout. Yan Suizhi even casually asked a few questions, just as if he’d believed him. So, Horace Lee began to weave his stories with even more vigour, and, after drinking two mouthfuls of water, bullshitted to the very last minute.

Before they left, Horace Lee pointed at Yan Suizhi’s jotting paper, asking, “Don’t you have to note anything down?”

Holding the door frame, Yan Suizhi glanced back at him, saying wryly, “That isn’t necessary. Even before the interstellar alliance was established, the history books didn’t need to record every detail of the various galactic monarchs breaking wind when using the lavatory.” 

With that, he waved and closed the door behind him as he left.

Horace Lee sat alone on the bedside, stunned for two seconds before howling out a curse, “Fuck—”

What else could breaking wind mean when in a lavatory? Wasn’t he just calling him full of shit?!

The police officers outside the door gave a start when they saw them come out. “You’re done already?” 

Gu Yan nodded. “Mn.”

Immediately after, Horace Lee’s angry howl indistinctly drifted outside.

The police officers, “…”

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Conversely, his acting like this made those police officers feel slightly shamefaced. After all, they had glared at the two men for a time before they entered the ward. 

They went “oh”, then thought to awkwardly tag on a “take care.”

They passed by the nurses’ station and bumped into the young nurse in the ward earlier. The other hastily ran over, stuffing slips into their hands. “One hour exactly. These are your number slips; go over to take your tests. The test centre is on the third floor. If… by any chance, I mean, there are any issues, the hospital will assume full responsibility.”

“Thank you,” Gu Yan said. “The surveillance on the ward can be turned on now.”

They were the only two in the elevator. Yan Suizhi leaned against the handrail. “Horace Lee is a rather interesting guy. He seems irascible but also not.” 

A casual sentence or two would easily trigger him, yet he was always able to quickly suppress his temper, and wouldn’t run his mouth from the rush of anger to his head.

His lies were so terrible that they could be immediately unraveled. This actually caused him to appear guileless, as though they only had to find a flaw or refute a few sentences for his defences to crumble and start speaking the truth.

But, in tune with each other, neither Yan Suizhi nor Gu Yan refuted him.

Because they both knew that he only ‘appeared’ so. 

“Did you come across clients like this before?” Yan Suizhi asked.

“On occasion,” Gu Yan said. “But you seem to have come across many.”

Yan Suizhi froze for a moment, and his brows raised.

The elevator descended very quickly. 

He glanced at the number that had jumped to ‘3’ in a twinkling, asking with a teasing note in his tone, “Didn’t you cut off all contact with me after graduation? Why are you so clear on what cases and clients I’d come across?”

Gu Yan, “…”

Ding.

The elevator chimed, its doors opened, and, undaunted, the distinguished Lawyer Gu walked off without a pause. 

Yan Suizhi wanted to laugh a little.

When a certain student spoke to irrelevant people, the words “He’s my intern” popped from his mouth at the drop of a hat, sounding all calm and aboveboard, even more naturally than a habit could be. So why was it that when it came to talking to him, the person in question, his lips were sealed shut?

Oh, right. Aside from when he was feverish or in the quiet of the night.

A perfect paradigm of how deep still waters could run. 

The test centre was very hectic; after all, people were contracting the virus in waves now.

People holding slips had already taken all the seats in the waiting area outside. Yan Suizhi glanced at their number and didn’t go over to squeeze with the crowd, simply standing with Gu Yan next to the window walls faraway.

About the average height of a man, the indoor plants were spaced a few metres apart from each other in front of the window walls. They were unaffected by the human activity, lush and green amidst their environment, chock full of the ‘infectious virus’. 

A natural space seemed to be partitioned in the space between every two plants. Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan looked out of the window, propping themselves against the railing that came up to their waist.

“No residual traces of the drug were found in the trough for food and drink. If that old man, Alden, had been found any later, the forensic investigators might not have been able to detect anything in his system.” Yan Suizhi said, “Then… the so-called psychedelic would have been perfectly concealed.”

Gu Yan nodded. “Without evidence to support otherwise, I’m afraid both the police and the public would have assumed that those elderly’s abnormal mental condition was induced by excessive panic and fear.”

“I wasn’t in De Carma when Ke Jin’s condition first deteriorated,” Yan Suizhi said. “And I only heard a bit of it from your group of friends afterwards. Was he staying alone during those days?” 

Gu Yan recalled for a moment. “He should have been.”

When the man on the run, Lee Connor, sent him that letter, Gu Yan had visited him and drank with him a few times. While Ke Jin wasn’t in good health at that time, it wasn’t to the extent of being unable to care for himself. Moreover, Gu Yan also felt better knowing that Joe would be with him.

Due to having to handle a case afterwards, he left for a ten-day business trip, and on the return shuttle, he received a message from Joe saying that Ke Jin was admitted into a hospital.

When he rushed to the hospital, he found that Joe’s complexion looked paler than the wall. He sat on a long bench outside the ward, pulling his hair in uncharacteristic silence. 

Joe wasn’t like this back when Ke Jin was in poor health. He had no reason to watch Ke Jin’s every move; no matter how good their relationship was, it wasn’t right for him to follow at his heels from morning to night without giving any personal space at all. At that time, Joe didn’t get much rest and had a fever once. It switched to Ke Jin taking care of him for those two days. Maybe it was because he had something to distract him with or he was deliberately putting on a show, but either way, Ke Jin seemed to be back to normal again during those few days, even laughing at the embarrassing things Joe did on purpose.

After the fever subsided, Joe was notified of two critical investment seminars. He was going to skip them but Ke Jin stopped him, saying that he was much better now and that nothing could really happen just from a few days of separation.

Joe initially refused to set his mind at ease. But later, fearing that he would disturb the latter’s emotional state, also with the psychiatrist advising him not to deny his requests or give him pressure, Joe begrudgingly agreed.

Ke Jin was afraid that Joe would be worried, so he agreed to send Joe a message every night. 

In actuality, Ke Jin did more than just send a message before he went to bed. In the first few days, he would often chat a few sentences with Joe, saying that he had risen from bed, telling him what he was cooking, chatting about how beautiful the sunlight was and how he had ended up falling asleep while reading a book on the balcony, speaking of the bizarre dreams he’d had, even talking about how he really wouldn’t want to go back to work if his days continued to be this idyllic.

It was actually very difficult to tell how he was doing through these simple texts, because emotions were too easily disguised in messages.

But Joe was very easily duped back then.

He so ardently hoped for Ke Jin’s recovery that he’d always subconsciously kept a more optimistic mindset. 

After that, the number of messages Ke Jin sent sharply decreased, and he would only say a sentence or two just before going to bed.

Joe started to fret again. During the whole investment seminar the next day, his eyes were fixed on his smart device, as though he were sleepwalking. The message from Ke Jin he had waited for all day never came. As such, he wasn’t able to resist skipping the investment seminar at night, making a beeline for the port.

Even with the fastest space shuttle, it took him two days to travel from the planet where the seminar was held to De Carma. Those two days were probably the hardest he’d ever had to endure.

Only when the “goodnight” messages Ke Jin sent before bed came was he able to assuage his worries a little. 

It was 3:10 a.m. when Joe arrived at De Carma. The very moment the shuttle pulled into the port, he made a beeline straight for Ke Jin’s place on his podcar. And as he did, he received a message that he’d never forget all his life.

In the call, Ke Jin’s voice was very muted, evoking a sadness that couldn’t be put to words.

He said, “Joe, I don’t think I’m doing too well… Can you come and see me?”

Joe practically collected half a lifetime’s worth of speeding tickets that day. He drove the space podcar like it was a space shuttle, but even then, it still took half an hour for him to reach Ke Jin’s apartment. When he did, Ke Jin was already curled up on a corner of the carpet in the bedroom, asleep. 

And when he next awoke, that was the state he remained in ever since.

The message he sent at 3:10 a.m. became the last words he properly spoke.

In the many years after, Joe kept longing to him grumble in that indolent tone of his in the early mornings that his bones had fallen apart in his sleep, or that it was another sunny day but it was a rare day off and he didn’t want to step out of house, or that he had cooked a little something but it didn’t look very appetising, but if Joe didn’t mind, he could come over as well and steal a bite.

He wasn’t picky. Even the simplest “I’m going to bed now, goodnight” would do. 

But there was no more.