CH 100

It was easy to become flustered when one cared too much.

For memories that were often dwelled upon, every time details were recalled, they would always feel that there was more than what met the eye, perhaps some deeper and more complex inside story that they were not privy to. 

In all these years, they had always believed that Ke Jin had been, due to his overly soft and compassionate nature, unable to come to terms with his beliefs and suffered from a mental breakdown. Now, it was nothing more than having glimpsed a flitting shadow, but they couldn’t help but think… what if it wasn’t a mental breakdown induced by himself, but instead something had happened during those days that he had stayed alone? What if someone had set their sights on him back then, administering him a similarly untraceable drug that was featured in the Elderly Bobblehead case?

“Set aside our professional obligations, and say we’re just having a casual chat; do you think that Ke Jin’s mental breakdown could have been orchestrated by someone?” Yan Suizhi watched the incessant stream of traffic outside the window. His tone was light, but his gaze was unfocused.

Gu Yan, “Maybe.”

He paused slightly, then said, “But I can’t find any motive.” 

Yan Suizhi nodded, “That’s true as well.”

Ke Jin was on extended leave at that time on account of his poor mental health. Without going to work or meeting others, it was unlikely for him to come across things that he shouldn’t have seen or heard about. What, then, 

“Joe actually did suspect that for a while,” Gu Yan said. “After Ke Jin settled down in the hospital, the first thing he did was to pull up and carefully comb through all the surveillance footage on that apartment block during that period of time. No one went to Ke Jin’s place.”

Yan Suizhi nodded.

He became lost in thought again, his right hand unconsciously tugging a leaf on the potted plant, stroking it absently.

Gu Yan gave it two seconds before catching hold of that miscreant hand by the wrist, shaking it like he was shaking off dust, saying, “Let go. Did your mysophobia suddenly choose to disappear at this time?”

Yan Suizhi started and silently released his fingers, letting that pitiful leaf go. After all, it mustn’t have been easy for a hospital to raise such luxurious plants.

At the same time, he also darted a look at his wrists. Gu Yan had yet to take away his slim and well-defined fingers from his wrist. 

The last time he saw a similar scene was in the city garden. A cat had tumbled out from one of the villas on the left side, and its paws latched onto flowers on a vine that climbed across Gu Yan’s courtyard walls, refusing to let go, as though it wouldn’t rest easy until the two flowers came off.

It so happened that he and Gu Yan were on the way out and were walking up to the door of the courtyard, just in time to see the cat’s owner run up. She scooped that kitten up and seized its paws, shaking it for a long time, even cajoling it, before it finally released the flowers.

Gu Yan’s actions just now were exactly the same as his neighbour’s.

What was he taking his esteemed teacher as? Hm? 

What did they call learning the bad and not the good? This was it.

So, Professor Yan glanced down at his captured wrist, then at Gu Yan askance, saying, “Is it fun?”

Lawyer Gu tucked his fingers away, completely unfazed, responding, “Not bad.”

Tjc Velhtl, “…” 

You’re asking to be spanked.

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“Pr la beg defef cewyfg?” Tjc Velhtl aegcfv tlr tfjv bnfg ab ibbx.

Pa gfjiis kjr. Ds rtffg tjqqfcrajcmf, atf cewyfg bc atf rmgffc pera tjqqfcfv ab pewq ab atflgr gluta atfc. 

“Jbwf bc, ifa’r ub lc olgra,” Ugbofrrbg Tjc milmxfv tlr abcuef. “P’ii ulnf sbe j gfwfvlji mijrr bc tbk ab gfrqfma sbeg afjmtfg ktfc kf ufa yjmx.”

“Mn,” Lawyer Gu stuck one hand into his pocket, swept the other in a gesture for him to make a move, saying lightly, “I’ll be waiting.”

The inside of the testing centre was further partitioned into ten or so consultation rooms, and it was still too busy for them to catch a break.

Yan Suizhi’s and Gu Yan’s numbers were called back to back. The doctor sitting inside was holding a familiar basic test kit. Yan Suizhi had used this device before, so he took it and deftly started the test. 

The doctor opened a new test kit and handed it to Gu Yan.

Not long later, their test kits beeped.

“Let me see the test results.” The doctor took the tests back and checked Gu Yan’s first. He nodded. “Negative, no issues there.”

Then, he looked at Yan Suizhi’s, and then he began waiting… 

Yan Suizhi, “Why? Did it get stuck again?”

Gu Yan frowned. “Stuck again? What do you mean by that?”

“Last time—that time when you were on a business trip,” Yan Suizhi said, “I was showing symptoms of a cold when I woke up, so I dropped by a health centre to check it out. I chanced upon a somewhat defective test kit; I had to stare the screen down for an age before the results showed. It was like squeezing toothpaste.”

His words were actually in exaggeration, with several measures of humour contained within. That test kit was aggrieved, as though it were accused of snowing in midsummer; clearly, all it did was flash twice. 

The doctor smiled at his joke. “Oh? It was like this the last time as well? Then with your luck, you could—”

Before the doctor could complete his words, his brow line twisted together into a rope. He held the screen in front of Yan Suizhi and said, “Weird. The test results are invalid, take a look. According to regulations, you have to go to the neighbouring block to check again with specialised equipment.”

“There’s actually a result like this?” Yan Suizhi was surprised.

Assuming that he was feeling anxious, the doctor mollified, “It’s nothing, it’s nothing, don’t overthink it. An invalid test result doesn’t mean that you’ve been infected. After all, to increase our efficiency over here, what we’re using is the basic palm-sized test kit. Sometimes, there are some interference factors in the system, such as high fevers of another nature or allergies with similar symptoms, that will confuse this test kit.” 

Gu Yan had plenty of experience in this. Without further ado, he hauled Yan Suizhi down to the ground floor and went straight to the neighbouring building.

The neighbouring building wasn’t unfamiliar to them. It was the genetics building that they had come before to test the efficacy of his genetic modifications.

The doctor just now had issued them a new slip. They didn’t read it carefully before making a move, but now that they unfolded it for a look, they then realised that it really was quite coincidental. The building level and office unit number weren’t unfamiliar to them at all—

It happened to be Dr Lin’s office. 

“What are the odds? Lin Yuan again?” Yan Suizhi mumbled.

Gu Yan, “That’s normal. The so-called specialised equipment is actually the one that you used for the genetic testing. It wouldn’t make sense to look for anyone apart from Lin Yuan.”

“How do you know?”

“I used it on the last space shuttle.” 

Yan Suizhi gave a start. Back when Gu Yan came back with a fever, he’d actually guessed that the screening on the space shuttle didn’t proceed smoothly or Gu Yan wouldn’t have felt a need to find an excuse, saying that he was still in the midst of the second round of negotiations. However, it was one thing to guess and another thing to hear it confirmed by Gu Yan himself.

With the doctor’s reassurance and Gu Yan by his side, his mood was unaffected.

But that time when Gu Yan was running a high fever, surrounded by complete strangers, without anyone present to reassure him or take care of him, after abruptly finding out that his test result was invalid, he mustn’t have been in much of a good mood.

“Were you nervous?” Yan Suizhi asked him on the way upstairs. “That time on the space shuttle, were you apprehensive while waiting for the results from the specialised testing equipment?” 

Gu Yan’s response was particularly incisive. “No.”

Tch, Yan Suizhi thought to himself, He’d die before he lets go of his pride.

Lin Yuan’s office, which also doubled as a consultation room, wasn’t his alone to use. There were two office desks inside, simply adorned with plants and trinkets, as well as a portable photon computer on each, along with two tool cabinets that reached up to the ceiling.

The office door was wide open. Yan Suizhi knocked on the door before entering. 

Lin Yuan seemed to have just entered his office as well and was about to wear protective goggles. When he saw Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan come in, he stopped his hands, setting the protective goggles down again.

“Why did you come over?” Lin Yuan asked. “Or… is there something you need my help with?”

Yan Suizhi passed the slip over and explained their reason for coming.

Lin Yuan nodded. “Oh, I see, that’s fine, I—” 

Before he could finish his words, the ring-shaped smart device he set aside on the table started to buzz against a metal frame, amplifying the vibration sound.

“Excuse me, I have to take this,” Lin Yuan made an apologetic gesture and got up, walking over to the window before picking up the communication request.

Yan Suizhi wasn’t in any hurry. If it turned out that there wasn’t an issue, it would make no difference to panic now; if it did turn out to be an issue,  now wasn’t the time to panic.

The space that Lin Yuan and the other doctor shared was modest. Many of the hospital’s trumpet-blowing achievements were tacked to the wall—descriptions of so-and-so diseases, equipment, regular health check-ups, as well as some medical packages. 

Yan Suizhi leaned against the side of the table. Without much to do around him, he’d actually started to read the text on those posters in earnest.

At first, he was only using it as a way to pass time, skimming many lines with a glance.

But after reading for a while, his gaze abruptly locked onto a certain line. He frowned, and, without batting an eyelid, pulled the nearest sleeve on Gu Yan’s shirt.

Gu Yan glanced down at his fingers first before following his gaze, looking over— 

What Yan Suizhi was looking at was the detailed instructions on the usage of the genetic testing apparatus, which also included how to overhaul it if it malfunctioned or the most appropriate measures to take if any problems were encountered, and so on.

In the middle of the sixth line, it was clearly stated:

‘If the genetic testing apparatus is forced to shut down, to preserve the data integrity, its settings will return to default after restarting. The data measured before the forced shutdown will be automatically backed up and transferred to the cloud database…’

They suddenly remembered that the previous time when they conducted the genetic testing, the power on the floor had gone out for a few seconds. Although the building’s energy grid soon restored the power, the machine had still shut down for a while. 

According to this poster, when the power came back, and the genetic detector restarted, the settings would return to default. Lin Yuan previously mentioned that he had done as Young Master Joe had instructed, specially cutting off this machine’s data storage to protect its confidentiality. Aside from the two of them, no one could see the results of the test.

But looking at it from another angle, if the machine was deliberately cut off, then the default settings would conversely be the opposite, and the results would be synced to the hospital’s cloud.

From which, they could also infer that after the machine was restarted, even if they didn’t touch any settings, Yan Suizhi’s test data would have been immediately uploaded to the cloud.

In that case, plenty of people could have seen the ins and outs of his genetic data. 

Even including those who had plotted his death.

The two of them looked at that line on the poster, and their hearts skipped a beat.