CH 173

It took all night for the three of them to finish organising the resources in the room.

The sea breeze in the early morning squalled, carrying fine sand particles that drummed on the glass. 

The weather was dismal. Dense clouds hid the sunlight, the sky looked dark and gloomy, and Yan Suizhi’s stomachache and headache that had subsided not long ago, were weakly flaring up again.

Nothing seemed to bode well, but even so, they didn’t come up empty-handed.

Strictly speaking, it was a piece of bad news and a piece of good news.

The bad news was—the contract that the research institute signed in the past, involving Yan Suizhi’s surgery, was still missing. 

This made it a bit tricky to prove that the genetic segment that existed in Yan Suizhi’s body had a connection to the Manson brothers.

Amid their disappointment, Gu Yan recalled the malicious email that the landlord received.

“The person who sent you the email definitely has it with him.”

The landlord jolted. “Do you mean the Manson brothers’ man? Why do you think so? While the email did attach a few signed documents, there weren’t that many, and that might be all that they have with them. After all, if it were me, I’d make sure those documents go poof after having done all that shady stuff.”

However, Gu Yan shook his head. “Not necessarily. From the cases I’ve come across in the past, perpetrators are often fond of keeping souvenirs.”

Mr Landlord showed a look of contempt. “The thought processes of psychos are truly unfathomable.”

Gu Yan, “Furthermore, just consider it. How would you go about threatening someone?”

The landlord laughed drily, sweeping his gaze around the room before it locked onto the kitchen. “At present, I can only think of feeding the other party expired meat. If he doesn’t do what I tell him to do, I won’t give him diarrhea meds, and then he can shit himself to death.” 

Gu Yan, “…”

The distinguished lawyer looked at last night’s canned food with a paralysed face.

Amused, the landlord flapped his hand. “Relax, there’s nothing wrong with your food. The canned food and bread are newly bought; only the plates are ancient, but I washed them a good few times!”

Gu Yan was silent before continuing calmly two seconds later, “Your reaction also reinforces this point—when making threats, one would always choose what is readily available to them, powerful enough to strike fear into the other, getting them to submit. For example, a perpetrator of violent crime must have ample confidence in their weaponry and ability to terrorise. In a similar tangent, given that the sender of the email threatened you with those documents, even if there are only a few attached, still implies that he hasn’t destroyed them. They are still available, moreover are very complete… including the contract that we’re looking for.” 

Ktf ijcvibgv’r tbglhbcr kfgf ygbjvfcfv. “Yt, gluta, atja wjxfr rfcrf!”

Dea tf rbbc milmxfv tlr abcuef jujlc, oewlcu. “Ktja’r agef, yea tbk vb kf ufa la ogbw atfw? Qf vbc’a fnfc xcbk ktb bg ktfgf atfs jgf. Vb… jgf kf pera rlaalcu jgbecv ecali atf mbecafg-mjqaegf qgbugjw mjamtfr atf qluajlir bo atf batfg qjgas? Pa’r ublcu ab yf tjgv ab ufa ab atf ybaabw bo la.”

“We have more than just this lead.”

Yan Suizhi was reading a document in his hand, whilst concealing the hand pressed against his stomach behind it. 

After this wave of discomfort passed, he then raised his head, waving the holographic paper, his expression regular. “I found this thing in the last stack, which can just passably count as good news.”

“What’s that?”

The two people leaned over, taking the paper from Yan Suizhi’s hand.

“Why is your hand so chilly? Are you feeling cold?” Gu Yan took the paper with one hand, the other taking Yan Suizhi’s fingers, checking its temperature. 

“It isn’t too bad; just a bit,” said Yan Suizhi. This was actually caused by his earlier bout of stomach pain. Now that it had improved, he didn’t touch on it, going along with Gu Yan’s words instead. “The temperature is lower in the morning. Read the document first.”

“I’m reading it.” Despite uttering this response, Lawyer Gu had risen to his feet, going to the coat rack at the entryway, retrieving his own coat.

The eternal bachelor landlord reminded with a completely numb expression. “With all due respect, I think that tapping the temperature panel twice will be more effective than some lovey-dovey coat.”

Gu Yan returned to the sofa, saying politely, “Also with all due respect, I did tap it twice before dawn. To the best of my knowledge, a temperature panel that has been out of service for over a decade should be broken by now.” 

The landlord, “…What a good-for-nothing.”

Yan Suizhi hugged the coat. While his stomach and head didn’t hurt as much as before, the ache still lingered. Gu Yan’s coat was perfect to press against his abdomen, offering an explicable sense of security, and as it slowly warmed from his body heat, it soothed his discomfort significantly in a short timespan.

He pliantly swaddled himself in this comfortable feeling, bursting into laughter on the inside: How can Student Gu’s coat be that miraculous a cure, most of it had to be placebo effect.

The landlord and Gu Yan flipped through the first few pages before discovering what, exactly, Yan Suizhi had unearthed. 

It was similarly a surgical consent form, and solely based on the format and its general contents, it was exactly the same as the one for Yan Suizhi’s surgery before. The only difference was the patient the surgery would be performed on.

A name was plainly stated on the name field:

Dwayne.

It was a name so simple that it didn’t even carry a surname. Shouting it out on the streets would cause many heads to turn. 

But whether it was Yan Suizhi, who had picked out this document, Gu Yan, who was reading it, or the landlord Mervyn White, all of them were crystal clear who this name belonged to.

“The Sweeper?” Gu Yan murmured.

“Most probably.” Yan Suizhi’s hands were wrapped in the coat; too lazy to pull them out, he pointed with his chin instead. “Look at the date on the last page. It’s about a year after the Sweeper left Cloud Herb Welfare Home, when he was nineteen thereabout. The director didn’t hear any news about him after that.”

The both of them raised their heads and looked at the landlord. 

The landlord finished flipping through the document, a complicated expression crossing his face. “It would have completely slipped my mind if I hadn’t seen this. The research institute had also signed off on this surgery, and it was even earlier on than yours.”

From the date at the end, it was indeed a year before Yan Suizhi and his parents’ surgeries.

“I don’t actually have much impression of that surgery,” the landlord said. “…Actually, I don’t have deep impressions of most surgeries, because we’re not involved in it. To us, it’s just a matter of the product of our research approved for use; the surgery is the hospital’s business. Your parents were an exception cause I happened to bump into them at the hospital and chatted with them often after that. We were somewhat friends. As for this guy—you call him the Sweeper?”

The landlord changed the address and said, “I’ve only seen the Sweeper twice. From what I remember, he doesn’t have parents, but the hospital still treated him with exceptional care and caution. In retrospect, the Mansons should have chosen him as a chess piece by then.” 

It could be told from this document that the Sweeper, at age nineteen, had joined the Manson brothers, accepting a surgery like this.

As long as the surgery was successful, he would be able to get rid of his past, change to a brand new look, a brand new name, a brand new identity, and… a brand new life.

Gu Yan carefully read one of the pages, asking the landlord with furrowed brows. “What does this paragraph mean? If I’m not wrong, did the gene source in his surgery… also contain that segment?”

The landlord nodded. “Yeah, you understood it correctly. Though the Sweeper’s and Dean Yan’s gene sources originated from different people, after experimental processing, the same gene segment was added to both. 

Mervyn White and some other researchers’ initial understanding was that the genetic segment served as a panacea, activating and acting as a palliative and remedy if the body rejected the modifications after the surgery.

In short, it was used to increase the success rate of the surgery.

“You know why I didn’t suspect the research institute’s objective at first?” The landlord said, “It’s because the Sweeper’s surgery was so successful that I lapped up all their bullshit. I only sensed something amiss when your parents’ went south.”

Yan Suizhi’s gaze hung down. He asked him, “I thought of something just now that I need to verify with you.” 

The landlord, “What?”

“If this gene segment was also added to his gene source, then would the present-day Sweeper have the same residual traces of it in his genes like me?”

The landlord nodded. “That’s correct.”

“If residual traces of that gene segment also remains in him, will the high-end scanner be able to catch it?” 

“Yeah,” the landlord said, “And it’ll even produce the same figure as yours.”

“Are there any other patients like this?” Yan Suizhi asked. 

“None.”

The landlord’s answer was unhesitating when it came to this. “The Sweeper was the first recipient of this type of surgery. You and your parents were the second. After that, there was a long period of time that the Medical Council clamped down on it. The Manson brothers kept a low profile for a while, and the research institute didn’t sign off any contracts for gene surgeries. It was all very lawful for a time. But when I resigned, the genetic segment was already in its next phase of development and trials were being conducted. I think that no surgery after that would still use the original version.” 

After ruminating it over, he affirmed, “So, the two of you should be the only evidence in this world. Proof of the existence of that original gene, where it all began.”

Hearing this, Gu Yan suddenly said, “What if we go about it another way? We now hold the Sweeper’s surgical consent form. This can similarly evidence the link between the problematic gene segment and the research institute and the Manson brothers. If we can find the Sweeper in person and detect the gene segment in him, then… this will also close up the chain of evidence.”

“Not just that, the link between the Sweeper and the Manson brothers will be substantiated as well. Then, the Manson brothers wouldn’t be able to escape the homicides that the Sweeper committed!” Vague excitement bubbled in the landlord at the thought of this.

The deaths determined to be accidents and the people implicated in the past thirty years—the medical capsule manufacturer, Bevin, who had died by drug overdose, Professor Zhou of the University of Batelia, and Ms Lucy, who was in possession of two medicinal mining lines yet ended up committing suicide in prison… and so on. 

Among them, some might have been pawns abandoned by the Manson brothers, while some might have been innocent yet implicated due to their refusal to cooperate, like Yan Suizhi’s parents.

If the Sweeper could really plug in each gap in the chain of evidence, then they mayhaps could, at long last, rest in peace.

“But where is that Mr Sweeper now…” Yan Suizhi said softly.