CH 190

It was the way of some afflictions, that, once tripped, came on with a vengeance.

Yan Suizhi had three seizures in the span of 48 hours alone. The first two were short; one persisting for forty minutes and one persisting for three hours. The third one struck the hardest. It lasted for ten hours straight. 

Lin Yuan once modelled the attack on a photon computer. The pain level was far beyond the normal limits of endurance. He could not imagine the situation upstairs, nor did he dare to look.

He could keep a watchful eye on the live data being synced to the machine, doing everything within his capability to speed up the research progress.

Lin Yuan wasn’t the only one afraid to see or disturb them.

During this period, senior manager Adams was trying to contact Gu Yan. He had received news from the court that the trial for the Elderly Bobblehead case, due to pressure from multiple parties, was pushed up to Tuesday, which would be in three days. 

The court had sent a notice asking both parties’ availability. Adams wanted to confirm with Gu Yan first, but before he could reach Gu Yan, Fitz stopped him.

However the young lady explained it, in any case, Adams filed an application to the court requesting a postponement of the trial.

The court issued a notice of receipt, informing the start of the postponement procedure.

In the alliance, this procedure was simple. It required either the prosecution or defence to file for the court date to be deferred and the court would process it. Once the reason for the deferral was dealt with, the applicant would cancel the application, and the trial would be automatically rescheduled for 10 a.m. the following day without further notice.

As soon as the procedure was under way, discourse crept in. Several media outlets, notorious for their clickbait articles, started to make a media circus out of it. First, they analysed the possibility of the defence lawyer encountering an emergency at such an important time, and they combined it with the suspect’s imperious statements from before. Eventually, by some twist of magical brain logic, they came to this conclusion:

The defence was deliberately stalling, and someone in the police and the courthouses must be helping them.

The court trial had yet to start, but people were already hauling buckets of dirty water, more than eager to toss them onto Gu Yan. The silver-tongued Adams had to work all sorts of connections to mitigate the bad press.

However, none in the hospital currently knew about all this, nor could they care less. 

On the third night, the research team which had worked over seventy consecutive hours finally got a result—

The research based on the greyfinch took a clear path and the simulated studies on the analyser were a success.

The results on the big screen sent the lab into wild excitement.

Without a word more, Lin Yuan whipped his head around and went up, rushing straight into the ward to convey the good news to Gu Yan. 

Only after he was done did he realise that Yan Suizhi had already passed out on the hospital bed.

In three short days, he had lost a considerable amount of weight. His shoulder blades and collarbones jutted out, and the cold sweat at his temples had not yet dried. His hair looked dark from the dampness, blanching his face a pasty pallor.

His thin lips were tightly pursed, the ever-present radian hanging on the corners of his lips had flattened away into a straight line.

The only vibrant colour was the blood seeping, blindingly red, from that line. 

Olc Tejc pewqfv. “Qtja’r klat atf yibbv?”

Eluta joafg, tf cbalmfv atf yibbv vglqqlcu ogbw Xe Tjc’r gluta tjcv.

Xe Tjc, rfcrlcu tlr ujhf, ibbxfv vbkc ja tlr bkc tjcv. “Pa’r cb wjaafg.”

Pa kjr pera atja Tjc Velhtl kbeiv yf vlrbglfcajafv lc atf joafgwjat bo tlr rflhegfr. Pc tlr vfrqfgjalbc ab rjinjuf j rtgfv bo rjclas, tf’v jikjsr ags ab ylaf tlr kglra. 

Gu Yan had spent a long time soothing him, giving Yan Suizhi his hand to bite.

“You’d better take care of this hand.” Lin Yuan tried to drag him to the sanitation area.

But Gu Yan didn’t budge. “It’s okay. Maybe later.”

Only then did Lin Yuan notice that Yan Suizhi was holding on to Gu Yan’s uninjured hand in his sleep, thin, sinewy fingers threaded through his in a seldom-seen display of dependence. 

Lin Yuan shook his head after watching them for a while, going to bring disinfectant and sterile gauze over, treating Gu Yan’s wound. “Next time, don’t offer your hand. See that, there are soft sticks in the decontaminating cabinet next to you.”

“Thank you.” Gaze lowered, Gu Yan rubbed circles gently over the back of Yan Suizhi’s hand with his thumb, as if trying to blot out the increasingly stark greenish-blue veins.

Despite saying so, when it came down to it, he wouldn’t use those soft sticks at all.

If there was a next time, he would still reach his hand over. At least, through the pain in his hand, he would know what Yan Suizhi was experiencing. 

After Lin Yuan told Gu Yan the good news, he went back down to the lab and gathered everyone for an analysis meeting.

“…If we follow this approach, the treatment process can be split into three distinct steps.” Lin Yuan flicked the results of the simulated studies.

He pointed to the first part and said, “The first step is to excise this self-repair regressive gene, and, after mutating it, incorporate the modified gene into the patient’s genome. This step is prone to error, which includes whether the gene has mutated correctly, whether it can insert to a target site, whether it triggers unwanted immune responses, and so on.”

As he spoke, he pulled the screen over. It showed how the patient might behave if the first step was not put into effect well. 

“Display physical characteristics of a greyfinch…” Mervyn White read one of the failed simulations aloud.

Lin Yuan nodded. “Yeah, it’s easier to deal with external manifestations though. Iris discolouration, downy hair growth similar to greyfinches on surfaces with more hair follicles, and scaly calluses on extremities—all these can be corrected. On the other hand, stuff like internal organs fusing are much more dangerous and trickier to deal with. Therefore, it is important to make sure that the first step doesn’t deviate from the parameters.”

“The second step is to induce expression of that gene in vivo.” Lin Yuan pointed at the high-end genetic equipment. “We’ll be leaving it to our precious baby here.”

Genetic modification reversal technology was previously developed with this machine. When combined with the self-repair regressive gene sequence, they could loop everything back to the origin, which would trigger repair mechanisms to excise the unique gene segment. 

Lin Yuan said, “It is the most difficult step, but as long as it succeeds, we can get the confetti ready.”

This was because the last step was basically clean-up. They simply had to get rid of the gene segment before it could reintegrate into the chromosome and the greyfinch therapeutic gene strand, then it’d be smooth sailing from thereon.

It was encouraging news, but it didn’t take long for someone to hesitantly put a downer on their elation. “But the success rate of the second step, the hardest one, is worrying…”

The success rate on the simulated studies was 63%, but it wasn’t enough to cover all risks. There was still a dearth of reference data on whether new problems would arise when applied to actual patients. 

After the machine factored in the unpredictability, the average success rate dropped straight down to 27.6%.

“27.6%… isn’t too low either.” Someone half-heartedly mumbled.

“Then if you factor in our ‘zero experience to go on’ due to this being the pioneer surgery?” Someone else retorted. “The success rate will drop even further. Cross your heart and tell me if you still stand by what you said.”

The lab was submerged in silence. 

A moment later, there was a voice that said, “We can’t fake out of in-vivo studies.”

Everyone’s gaze abruptly congregated on the person who spoke. It was Mervyn White.

He was considered a senior to this research team in both age and experience. Therefore, when he suddenly put this forth, even if anyone had an objection, they had to hear him out first.

“Don’t look at me like that, there’s really no need to be so repulsed by the idea.” Mervyn White said, “Clinical trials provide the base data for potential risks during treatment. Thereafter, the machine can generate a more precise success rate based on actual data. It will also preempt you on what to look out for or avoid during the treatment. Therefore…” 

He held up an index finger. “It doesn’t take much. Just one will do.”

In actuality, many present were expecting this and some even wanted to step up, but Mervyn White seized the initiative by speaking first.

He spread his arms. “Don’t scratch your head, look here. Can anyone find a more suitable subject for an in-vivo study than me?”

Lin Yuan’s complexion turned white. “Uncle Braids, you—” 

“Don’t you say anything yet.” Mervyn White interrupted him, “Let’s lay it out. First, I understand that gene segment, its development, and am prepared for the possible repercussions. Second, if it triggers any symptoms, I can describe it to you in detail with technical terms. Third, is there anyone here older than me? C’mon, step up?”

It was then that the fire pit suddenly became all the more enticing; everyone was fighting to be it.

However, someone still raised a realistic question. “Do we really have enough time to run one now, though? By conservative estimate, even if everything goes smoothly, it’ll take half a month, right? If there are some setbacks in between, and then further adjustments…”

He crossed his fingers. “It might even take a few months.” 

What they lacked most now was time.

Mervyn White said, “That’s if you take the subject’s pain tolerance into account. Ignoring that, the study can be pulled off in less than three days.”

Everyone frowned. It would be hell for the test subject should they really ignore that.

“Moreover, three days is still too much. There are some patients who can’t even afford to wait that much longer.” 

“But that’s our only option right now.”

While they wrecked their brains over this, Lin Yuan entered some figures and category labels for the in-vivo study into the genetic analyser.

He wanted to look through the past projects in hopes of finding referential research material. But as soon as the keywords were entered, the machine automatically pulled up two relevant records.

“Wait!” Lin Yuan’s eyes popped at the two results. 

“What happened?” Everyone crowded around, bewildered.

The two relevant records displayed on the screen were even tied together.

The first one was: In-Vivo Study on Therapeutic Applications of the Greyfinch Gene.

The next line was: Experimental Log. 

Everyone was stupefied. “What is this? Whose is it?”

They’d spent so long to come this far only to find that someone had actually finished all the testing long ago, even documenting the process and the final findings here! Yet they knew nothing of it!

“Which database was this retrieved from?”

By the time the question was tossed out, Lin Yuan was already clicking into the source folder. He subconsciously assumed that these came from one of his team members, but it suddenly hit him that the Yves family had given him full permissions to access every project team’s database. 

These two mystifying records actually originated from another research lead’s database.

—Jack White.

Lin Yuan paled. He clicked into the ‘experimental log’ in complete bewilderment.

The paragraph on the first page was penned by Jack White, and it was discernible from the date that it was a recent addition. 

“Lin, I know what you’ve been busy with lately. I might even have come across it earlier than you did.

“This is an experimental log of an in-vivo application of the greyfinch gene on a human test subject. I don’t know if this trial should be considered a success or a failure. This actually isn’t the best solution; the success rate isn’t optimistic. But I believe that you wouldn’t have chosen this approach unless you’ve been backed into a corner.

“I hope that the day that you see this never comes, but if it does, maybe it can lend you some help.”