CH 157

Yan Suizhi’s sleep wasn’t restful, and the minute crease in the space between his brows never disappeared, though it occasionally eased the moments that lights streaked outside the car.

Gu Yan originally wanted to darken the tint of the windows on his side of the car to block out the light, but upon noticing this detail, he changed his mind. 

As the space car smoothly sped along White Eagle Avenue, Yan Suizhi awakened for a few seconds, gazing out of the window with his eyes heavy-lidded. “Where are we now?”

Maybe induced by the discomfort of his body, he was somewhat too lazy to open his mouth when he spoke; his voice was low and hoarse, carrying the haze of drowsiness, seeming lethargic.

This was also a side of Yan Suizhi that he would only reveal to the person most intimate to him, but Gu Yan would rather that the chances of this happening be as far between as possible.

“On the way,” Gu Yan asked quietly. “Does it still hurt?” 

“It’s much better.” Yan Suizhi eyed the woollen blanket that had, at an unknown point in time, appeared on him. He tucked his chin down, then lazily glanced out of the window, questioning, “Where are we going?”

Gu Yan, “Home.”

Yan Suizhi said huffily, “Where did you learn how to lie from… No matter how directionally hopeless I am, I’d still be able to recognise the road that I pass through every day… the road to the city garden doesn’t cut through here at all.”

His voice wasn’t loud and a short pause interspersed every sentence. It was discernible from the speed of his speech alone that the pain in his head and stomach hadn’t eased by much.

Bowing his head, Gu Yan rested against Yan Suizhi’s forehead, checking his temperature, then solemnly confessed, “We’re going to the hospital.”

“What for?” Yan Suizhi let him check his temperature, but his fingers snuck out of the blanket in an attempt to change the driving destination on the control interface. “Not going. It isn’t anything serious—tch. Don’t block my hand.”

His finger didn’t even get to jab the screen before Gu Yan intercepted him midway, stuffing it back into the blanket.

“It really doesn’t hurt anymore; I’m as fit as a fiddle,” Yan Suizhi lifted his gaze to look at him, exasperation colouring his voice. 

“Your words have zero credibility with me. My ability to lie was all learnt from you, so don’t waste your breath,” Gu Yan dismissed his unreasonable request without the least bit of tact.

“…”

Yan Suizhi opened his mouth, wanting to instill in him his ‘sleep can cure everything’ quackery, but Gu Yan was already swiping on his smart device screen with one hand, projecting a hologram for him, saying indifferently, “If you continue to insist on not going, then sign this.”

“What’s that?” Yan Suizhi’s eyelids flicked up. 

“Equality agreement,” Gu Yan said. “If I’m feeling unwell in the future and don’t want to go to the hospital, if you can really not have me go, I’ll consider changing the destination back home.”

Yan Suizhi, “…”

He lapsed into silence, then said helplessly, “You sure know how to catch people’s weaknesses. Why do you even have such a thing prepared?”

Gu Yan, “Just in case, because I know you.” 

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“Then let’s go to Spring Ivy…” Yan Suizhi held his hand, lazily shutting his eyes. 

“Mn.”

“We can check if Lin Yuan is in, too, while we’re there.”

“I’ve already contacted him.”

A smile pulled at the corners of Yan Suizhi’s lips. “Seriously, you…” 

The human traffic at Spring Ivy Hospital never dipped in the night, and sometimes it would be even busier in the night than in the day—but today was an exception.

There weren’t many people in the ground-floor lobby, especially the green hallways allocated for use by the infected. They were deserted, exceedingly desolate in contrast with the swelling bustle of before.

Any outsider who was to witness this scene would have felt that Spring Ivy Hospital was hard hit and experiencing a slump. 

“Arrived?” Lin Yuan happened to just come out from the genetics building and waved at them across the long passageway. “Let’s talk in my office.”

He might have just come from the research labs, dressed in full battle array like before, only revealing a pair of eyes. If he hadn’t made a sound, they would’ve been hard-pressed to recognise him.

After greeting them, Lin Yuan told a similarly-dressed man, next to him, “You can head back early, I’m the only one in the office. Get some rest; your complexion these days seriously scares me.”

That man hummed in assent, sliding a look over at Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan. 

Yan Suizhi’s gaze swept over his exposed eyes and brows—and he paused.

The other’s limpid hazel eyes jolted. He nodded at them in greeting, then calmly averted his gaze. While walking towards the changing room in the lobby, he took off his mask and his lab coat.

When he removed his hood, a head of curly hair was revealed.

It was the curly-haired doctor, Jack White. 

“Did Dr White cancel his leave?” Yan Suizhi asked Lin Yuan.

“Are you talking about Jack? Yeah, he cancelled it today. But it looks like he hasn’t rested well for a long time; his complexion is quite unsightly. Didn’t you see? He originally intended to be on shift today but I just drove him off.” Lin Yuan studied Yan Suizhi’s complexion and asked, “How are you doing?”

“It’s just a minor little thing, I can hardly feel it anymore, but Lawyer Gu insisted on abducting me here.” Yan Suizhi smiled, as though all of his discomfort had genuinely disappeared after some sleep.

“All that’s unimportant.” Yan Suizhi pointed at the corner of his eye. “But I’ll have to trouble you to check this, please.” 

“You’re right, the mole wasn’t there before,” Lin Yuan said. “But it’s very faint; I might have missed it if I hadn’t looked closely. Come along, let’s go run a test upstairs.”

Then, he winked at Gu Yan. “Don’t worry. I’ll still examine his headache and stomachache regardless; I won’t listen to him.”

Gu Yan nodded.

Yan Suizhi, “…” 

Lin Yuan was well aware of Yan Suizhi’s health condition and knew what to focus on when testing, so it didn’t take long.

But upon receiving the test results, he studied them for a long time, his brows locked together.

“What’s wrong?” Gu Yan was slightly worried.

“Wait,” Lin Yuan waved at them, “come with me to the lab and test it on another piece of equipment.” 

“What equipment?”

“Our hospital’s latest and most advanced genetic equipment at the moment,” Lin Yuan said. “It’s dedicated to the lab for research use and not yet announced to the public. Of course, it’s not usually used for such complex circumstances.”

He got them to put on lab coats and brought them through four bio-coded doors before entering a research lab.

The temperature in the lab was on the cool side, and cold air billowed into their faces when they stepped in. There were various intricate lab set-ups and metal freezers on one side, whereas an experimental cabin in a glass enclosure was on the other side. 

“That is it,” Lin Yuan said, pointing to the experimental cabin. “This baby here is a gem. The big boss of Spring Ivy had his eye on this design and just integrated this into the lab a short while ago. There are only two of these in the whole of De Carma. One’s here and I reckon the other is at the headquarters. Other than those with access to come in, not many others know about this.”

“So are you just going to let me use it for a body check just like that?” Yan Suizhi said. “Don’t you have to file a request? I’m quite worried that you’ll be sacked after we’re done testing here.”

Between laughter and tears, Lin Yuan waved his smart device. “How can I have the nerve? Half an hour ago, I received a private notice from Young Master Joe saying that the big boss has directed for the two of you to receive special treatment; unrestricted access to all equipment.”

Yan Suizhi exchanged a look with Gu Yan, thinking that Old Fox really was Old Fox. He was even so prescient when it came to the people under his protection. 

“Then why this one?” asked Yan Suizhi. “Is there any knotty problem?”

“Not really,” Lin Yuan deliberated briefly before soothing them, “This piece of equipment is more sensitive than others. For example, normal equipment can only detect existing traces of genetic modification surgery. Say, you had a long-term modification once and a short-term modification now. Both are still effective, which is why normal equipment will show that you’ve done two surgeries. However—”

“When your short-term modifications reach their expiry and disappear completely, the remnant traces will gradually vanish. Within a year or two, at most just slightly longer than that, just about all traces will be gone. At that time, using normal equipment will show that you’ve only done genetic modification surgery once, and that would be the long-term one.”

Lin Yuan pointed at the experimental cabin. “This is different. It is still sensitive to negligible traces. Even if you sit on it a decade or two later, it’ll still show that you’ve done two surgeries. Not just that, it can also reverse and forecast.” 

Yan Suizhi recalled that he’d once mentioned genetic reversal technology, just that it was still in the experimental phase and would still take some time to stabilise.

Lin Yuan got Yan Suizhi to sit in the cabin and closed the hatch cover.

He stood next to Gu Yan in front of the display panel, carefully adjusting the parameters.

This equipment took readings at lightning-quick speed. Ten seconds later, Yan Suizhi’s genetic information sprung out line by line on the display. 

The dates of the two genetic modification surgeries, details on the gene source segments, the results of the modifications, its remaining effective period, as well as the various changes it underwent in the interim…

All of this was so plainly stated that even Gu Yan, a layman, was able to understand it.

He frowned and pointed at a glaring red segment in the diagram, as well as the ‘sustained interference’ next to the remaining duration, asking Lin Yuan, “What does this mean?”

Lin Yuan carefully sliced that red segment and fed it into the connected analyser. 

“That’s why I wanted to use this equipment,” Lin Yuan said. “Do you still remember what I told you guys before? There’s a segment in his first gene surgery that’s weird, but it was inactive during the test last time. It’s different now.”

He pointed at the effective period and said, “Generally, the effective duration of genetic modification surgery is the same as what it was set to be; it won’t change. However, his two genetic modification surgeries have started to interfere with each other. It’s especially noticeable in this short period of time. I suspect that it’s influenced by this segment, so I’m analysing it with this device.”

“The result of the mutual interference is…”

“They’ve both shortened.” Lin Yuan said, “Moreover, it’s continually shortening. In other words, it’s quite likely that the remaining effective period when tested tomorrow might be different from what we’re getting from today’s test. How much it differs depends on the effect of the interference.” 

“Do you mean that the remaining effective period can’t be predicted at all?” 

“See here? The remaining duration for his first modifications has changed to 21 years, and the duration for his second, short-term modifications has changed to 8 days. One went down by years whereas the other went down by days; they are not going down at the same rate. And will it continue to speed up…?” Lin Yuan paused. “I honestly can’t tell.”

Lin Yuan flipped to the next page of results and pointed at a few lines. “The mole at the corner of his eye appeared because of this line. After they started to interfere with each other, the remaining effective period changed too often, causing some changes to manifest earlier. The physical discomfort—his headache and stomachache—are also caused by this. This is tantamount to getting late-stage side effects from the accelerated loss of effectiveness of the genetic modification surgery.”

As he spoke, he glanced back at the experimental cabin. 

Yan Suizhi was wearing an eye mask that blocked the scanning light. His countenance was calm, like he wasn’t feeling any discomfort whatsoever.

But on the display panel, the pain level induced by his gene-modified disorder was lit up in an alarming red-orange.