CH 142

Joe didn’t see Eunice’s message immediately.

For two hours, two whole hours, he had been tied up contacting anyone that could be contacted, from port security logs, pet transshipment permits, passenger entry and exit records… 

Everything that could be unearthed through their information network, every backlogged surveillance footage, every dynamic photo, and whatnot—he wanted them all.

He never got off the comms, hanging up on one and calling another with alacrity. In these two hours, his tongue had never stopped once, and he spoke so much that his lips turned chapped.

The director of the welfare institution watched him wide-eyed and slack-jawed, shooting a querying look at Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan.

“He’s fine,” Gu Yan glanced in Joe’s direction, his voice muted, “…He just needs an outlet to vent.” 

At this time, they were no longer in the cramped archive room, but in a reception room next door. Ke Jin was quietly sitting on a sofa near the window. His gaze initially was fixed on the high branches outside the window, but with the greyfinch gone, he averted his gaze, staring vacantly into the void.

Joe had his back turned to everyone, standing in a corner while covering his forehead, speaking rapid-fire to the person on the other end of the line.

Yan Suizhi’s present identity restricted him to the sparse few names in his address book, and as such he didn’t have anyone he could really contact.

On the other hand, Gu Yan found some trustworthy friends, including Laura, who had always been concerned about Ke Jin’s situation.

After finding out the gist of it, Laura exercised a lifetime’s restraint yet still couldn’t hold back the curse that leapt out. The lady regained the fiery vivacity of her schooling days, dropping the words, “Are you guys in Wine City? I’m heading to the port right now!”

Joe’s throat had gone hoarse from talking. Hearing this, his head whipped over to say to Gu Yan across the room, “Laura? Is she coming over now? It’s too rushed, there’s actually no need to.”

He actually looked composed, unlike the mad that Eunice proclaimed him to be in exaggeration. The only tell-tale of his emotional state was a bloodshot ring of red around his irises.

His voice was picked up over the line and Laura said, “What need to or don’t need to. To be frank, I’ve no idea what I can do there, but who cares. I’m going to find you guys pronto! Even if it’s just to keep Ke Jin company.” 

With that, she hung up on them.

Joe dialled a new comms again, repeating the words he had said countless times over.

This went on until he flipped through his address book and found that everyone he could trust had already been contacted. There was no one else he could call. He lowered his head, looking through his address book from top to bottom a good many times before finally closing the screen.

Just like that, he stood facing the wall in silence for a while longer. Then, he took a deep breath, and he turned over, his gaze landing on Ke Jin. 

Oblivious, Ke Jin was still in a daze.

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And Ke Jin, who had been in a trance all this while, finally, belatedly, realised that there was an additional person in front of him.

Joe inclined his head, looking up at him, whereas Ke Jin’s head was ever so slightly lowered, his gaze cast down from beneath lowered lashes, quietly looking at him. For that fleeting second, there was actually an illusion of utmost tenderness.

A gaze like this was exceptionally hard for people to withstand.

Joe’s lower jaw moved, as though grinding his molars together before loosening. Then, in a low and hoarse voice, he said to Ke Jin, “I’m sorry…” 

Sorry that I spent so long investigating, yet missed out on this detail…

Sorry that I wasn’t able to find out the truth earlier, while you waited in a silent world for so many years…

Ke Jin’s gaze flickered, like his attention had gathered for a moment, but then scattered because of some overpowering biological force.

And so he gazed down at Joe in a daze like this, before a sound made him shift his gaze back out of the window. 

It was just a simple act of shifting the gaze away, yet Joe lowered his head like he could no longer bear it, his eyes reddening. He frowned, closed his eyes, and pinched his nose bridge, squatting there for a long time, unable to form any words.

Yan Suizhi had only just dropped his gaze when he felt someone touch his face.

He turned his head and saw Gu Yan incline his head towards the door.

He started, then immediately after caught on and got up discreetly. The three people filed out of the reception room, closing the door behind them. 

“Have a seat. I’ll get someone to bring some tea over.”

“It’s fine, thank you..”

“No, I’d like to.” The old director insisted, ushering them into a vacant room nearby. “Have a seat inside.”

As he spoke, he glanced askance once more at the room that Joe and Ke Jin were in, then sighed and walked away. 

As the welfare institution was still under renovations, there was no lack of empty rooms. The two of them had only just settled down in the room when the director really did come back with refreshments.

Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan got up to help him, placing the refreshments on the high table before sitting back down again.

“When you’re old, your body starts to feel uncomfortable when you go hungry for hardly any time,” the old director mumbled. “I left some tea for the two next door too. I’ll have them eat a bit when they come out. Their complexions don’t look good.”

Here, he lowered his head and sipped his tea. 

Yan Suizhi’s gaze scanned his face and he said, “Director, do you have something you’d like to say?”

The director faltered, and he slowly swallowed his tea. After a while, he said hesitantly, “I do. But I’m not sure if it will bring you trouble if I tell you this.”

Yan Suizhi turned the cup in his hand, saying warmly to him, “Go ahead. It’s only after we hear it that we can tell if it’s any trouble.”

“I heard quite a bit just now, and what was mentioned… made me recall something I encountered before,” the director said. 

Actually, before this, he had avoided discussing certain topics.

But in the room just now, these young guests hadn’t danced around him at all when making their calls. It spoke volumes of the absolute respect and trust that was afforded to him first.

As such, if he knew something but kept his mouth shut, it would be betraying the goodwill that these young men had shown him.

“You should have been aware that this welfare home was closed years ago, right?” the director said. 

Yan Suizhi said, “So I’ve been told, but from what I heard, it was a temporary closure.”

Which was why he had still written this home into his will.

The director nodded. “That’s right. At that time, what was communicated to the public was that we would be closing the home temporarily due to a problem in management. However, in actuality, I had seriously considered not reopening it.”

“Why?” 

But the old director didn’t speak directly of the reason. After tuning out for a moment, he said, “You might not know this, but when I was young, I used to work for the alliance government, handling welfare institutions, orphanages, as well as some charity funds. Later on, I was transferred to Wine City. At that time, Wine City was even more chaotic than it is now. I despaired when I first came; I thought that I’d waste my life away here. But by a stroke of luck, I happened to run into a benevolent consortium that wanted to work with the government of Wine City, giving this place a push…”

At this, Yan Suizhi’s gaze jolted minutely, but he didn’t speak.

Instead, it was Gu Yan who responded. “I’ve heard a little about it.”

It was thanks to the support of that consortium that much of Wine City’s infrastructure was overhauled and upgraded, or else it would have been a veritable interstellar slum and dumping ground. 

“Actually, it wasn’t really a consortium, but a joint sponsorship between two anonymous families.” The director said, “Very well-meaning people, and very kind. The initial funds were used here; you can tell just by looking at the infrastructure still in use around Wine City. But the good days didn’t last. Thereafter, it became increasingly unclear where the money was being channelled to. The waters were too murky. I was just transferred to Wine City and only had the title but no real power. I couldn’t fix it even if I wanted to. Later, this work truly went against my principles, so I left my job and single-handedly set up this welfare home.”

“About a decade or so ago, there was a case at De Carma.” the director recounted, “The defendant was the deputy director of a hospital, whose primary responsibility was to set the R&D direction. He was accused of conducting genetic experiments on patients in the name of treatment and harming many. Oh, right, you might have heard of this case. Mr Yan was the one who took up this case; aren’t you his students?”

Midway through his words, Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan had already begun to frown, but they swiftly straightened their expressions.

At the old director’s question, they nodded. “Yes, we’re familiar with it.” 

“The defendant was acquitted when Mr Yan was his lawyer. But after that, he was taken to court again, and the punishment fit the crime. He deserved to go to jail,” the director said. “Actually, there’s still some continuation to this case.”

Yan Suizhi, “A continuation?”

“Yes. Besides De Carma, the defendant had also conducted many genetic experiments in Wine City. Furthermore, the scale was much bigger in Wine City than in De Carma. They covered it up under construction and operation expenses that were supposedly funded by the government, but actually used funding from that generous consortium,” the director said. “Because this matter mainly involved Wine City’s government, it was dealt with in secret to prevent further unrest in this area. People wouldn’t be able to find anything out unless they were high up in the government. I only know some of this due to my previous job and contacts.”

The old director sighed, saying, “I was more rash back then. I threw a fit after I found out, sifting through all the information I had while I was in office and contributing some key evidence. This eventually resulted in a major turnover in Wine City’s government and the consortium cut its funding to Wine City. The downstream effects pushed the investigation to De Carma. Didn’t De Carma have a reform many years ago where everyone had their personal records vetted and their residence address updated?” 

Yan Suizhi had a deep impression of that reform, because when registering his principal residence, the system had rippled for ages, before finally determining that his most frequent location was the long-distance space shuttle.

The director went on. “In truth, it was to comb through De Carma, purportedly spurred by the consortium that had been done a bad turn in Wine City. I heard from my friends in government that they did manage to ferret out quite a number of people. The sewer rats were forced to move in haste if they didn’t want to be apprehended.”

As the saying went, don’t bite off more than you can chew. The old director had offended some due to this series of events, and the welfare institution was forced to shut down.

At one point, he felt that the troubles plaguing him were giving him a migraine. He really wanted to stay far away from all of it, do some gardening, and pay no heed to loss of lives. 

It was only recently that he changed his mind, moved when he received assets distributed from Yan Suizhi’s will.

“The reason I think this might be relevant to you is that when I was checked into some key evidence, as well as after the welfare home was forced to shut down, I had noticed the herdingbird you are looking for,” the director said. “But at that time, I just thought it was an uncommon bird and didn’t think too much of it.”

Gu Yan’s brows furrowed in thought. He asked, “Who are the anonymous sponsors behind the consortium in question?”

Someone able to push the investigation from Wine City to De Carma must have had some means, and also be in possession of vital information.