Qiming Chapter 39

Chapter 39

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As soon as he stepped through the door, Gu Yunfeng received a call from Ying Xizi.

"Officer Gu!!! Why has Chengyue been discharged early!!!"

It was the first time she had ever spoken to him in such a near-roaring tone. He quickly turned down the volume, took a sip of water, and soothingly reassured her, "I can't stop Professor Xu from being discharged early. Besides, he's recovered. Staying in the hospital was uncomfortable for him, don't you think, Miss?"

"You're just eager to have him work for you."

"Hey, hey, you can't falsely accuse me." He swore to the heavens that he had no such intentions. Besides, it was Xu Chengyue who wanted to be discharged. He wasn't Xu Chengyue's guardian, let alone a family member. It was a bit much to be inexplicably blamed like this.

"But there are only a few days left." Ying Xizi sighed. "If anything happens to Chengyue, you'll be held accountable."

"Fine, fine... If anything goes wrong, I'll take responsibility." Gu Yunfeng, feeling completely exasperated, agreed. He was so tired that he just wanted to rest. He agreed hastily and quickly hung up.

He couldn't remember how many times he had said similar words. It was amazing how every time something happened to Xu Chengyue, he had to take responsibility. The point was that he had a lot going on recently; a personal doctor wasn't enough, perhaps a personal bodyguard was also needed?

He had no idea what earth-shattering secret he had gotten involved in, but every day brought constant surprises and shock.

He lay on his bed with his eyes closed, not thinking about anything, his mind blank. After ten minutes, he sat up again, picked up a book he hadn't touched in a long time, and just stared at it blankly. Since he started working, he had more and more to think about and greater responsibilities to shoulder. Mental resilience and calmness had become his winning strategies in life.

Gu Yunfeng turned on the light, drew the curtains, and opened the window. He looked down to see that Xu Chengyue had started a video call.

Instinctively, he answered it, and Professor Xu's clear, clean, and well-defined face suddenly appeared on the screen.

In that instant, he felt like all the light around him lost its colour. Staring into the other's eyes, he instinctively took a step back, realising it was a video call.

He looked at Xu Chengyue nervously and anxiously. "Wh-why are you video-calling me all of a sudden???"

If there was something, a phone call would suffice, what was with the video call? But the next second, he stood up and paced back and forth in the room, thinking that there wasn't much difference between a call, a text, or a video. Maybe the other person just wanted to see him.

"Is your health okay after being discharged early?" he cleared his throat and asked.

Before he could finish, Xu Chengyue turned to look at the window behind him, then lowered his voice and asked, "Captain Gu, can you see what's behind me?"

He rubbed his eyes. Behind Professor Xu was a window. The room was bright, and outside was dark, so he could only vaguely see a tree outside, with an old, tattered kite hanging on it. Above it were the moon and stars in the night sky, nothing particularly special.

"Can you clearly see what's outside the window?" Xu Chengyue asked again.

"Yes, a tree. Is there something special about it?"

Xu Chengyue frowned, took a deep breath, then picked up a remote and turned off all the lights in the room.

The screen went pitch black.

"What happened?" The sudden blackout startled him, but fortunately, the next second he heard Xu Chengyue's voice. He seemed to have moved to another room, then said in a low voice, "I just discovered a drone outside the window. It stayed there for almost five minutes. It was well-hidden, but... I noticed a reflection on one of the wings."

"Someone was watching you?"

"I feel so."

Through the faint light from outside, he could vaguely see Xu Chengyue hiding behind a wall. After about five minutes, he slowly walked out, drew all the curtains, and turned on the lights again.

"It's gone." Xu Chengyue finally breathed a sigh of relief. It was the first time he noticed a suspicious drone hovering around his house. Last time, when Captain Gu drove him to the hospital, they were directly attacked by a self-driving car, with the murderer brazenly fleeing under surveillance.

This time, it was a more covert method, no violence or coercion, just lurking in the dark, monitoring his every move.

So from the very beginning, he was the target.

He walked into his bedroom, lying in bed, facing the screen sideways. An overwhelming fear gripped his heart, even the moon outside the window disappeared, hiding behind an impenetrable layer of clouds.

"Is it safe there?" Gu Yunfeng asked him.

"It's a bit dangerous," he thought for a moment and answered truthfully.

"Going on like this isn't a solution," Gu Yunfeng paused, his face close to the screen. "How about I take you in for a few more days to avoid the trouble?"

"I'll think about it... Let's leave it for today. It's already gone, and we can consider other things tomorrow." After saying this, Xu Chengyue put down his phone, expecting Gu Yunfeng to hang up the video call, but after a few seconds, he picked it up again and saw that the other man's face was still parked on the screen, and looked at him with a confused expression.

"Why haven't you hung up the video?"

"I saw you disappear suddenly and got worried. What if you were kidnapped, what if you were held hostage, what if..."

"Am I that useless..." He couldn't laugh or cry.

Just before hanging up the video, Xu Chengyue quickly captured the current frame and saved the screenshot.

In the picture, Gu Yunfeng looked tired, but his eyes were large and spirited, and his features exuded heroism. Just looking at this face made him feel incredibly reassured.

He hesitated for a moment but eventually set the picture as his screensaver.

—————

Ronghua Biotechnology Company. Before being investigated this time, Ronghua Biotech had been a law-abiding and well-established enterprise, always ambitious and ready to go public. Later, they shifted from domestic exchanges to the New York Stock Exchange but still didn't succeed. They were one of the earliest companies involved in gene sequencing and a leader in DNA testing in earlier years. Their most glorious period was in 2013 when, under the leadership of Jiang Hai, their research team successfully developed artificial nerves for prosthetics, allowing amputees to make normal limb movements again. At that time, Jiang Hai had just returned to the country, young and promising, and Ronghua Biotech was doing quite well until his car accident and subsequent coma.

Xu Chengyue, browsing the company's news after a long time, noticed that the turning point for Ronghua Biotech occurred in 2019. That year, tech giant Zhiyin Technology suddenly established a biomedical department, quickly rising to prominence, seizing the market, and squeezing out Ronghua's original market share.

In 2020, Ronghua Biotech took them to court, suspecting Zhiyin Technology of using industrial espionage to steal their confidential technology related to neural prosthetics and applying it to product production and research, ultimately leading to Ronghua Biotech losing its strong position in the market, becoming precarious.

He casually looked at past news reports and video interviews about this declining company when his attention suddenly stopped on a news report.

There was nothing special about the news, just a press release for a new product. What caught his eye was the accompanying photo, seemingly taken in an office of Ronghua Biotech.

The photo was almost entirely occupied by a desk, with Jiang Yang in a suit sitting in front of it, his smile greasy and discomforting. In the corner to his left was a red velvet gift box with a red bow tied on it.

This picture made his adrenaline spike, making even the words "Ronghua Biotech" send chills down his spine.

Others might not notice the gift box, but Xu Chengyue remembered. He clearly remembered the last thing he saw before he fainted.

The red velvet gift box in the picture was identical to the one in his memory, bright red and gaudy. He didn't like it at all.

He also remembered the vague figure in his memory, speaking in a light but oppressive tone, "This contains your hard work."

"We can use it to change the world together."

His hands began to tremble involuntarily, and with a loud thud, his phone fell onto the carpet.

—————

Early in the morning, Gu Yunfeng went to Jinping Hospital. Unlike the private hospitals known for their excellent service, this renowned public grade-A hospital was always noisy and chaotic. He walked through the outpatient hall, crowded with long queues, and showed the relevant documents at the nurses' station in the inpatient department. The pretty nurse softly told him that Mr. Jiang Hai was in the neurosurgery department on the fifteenth floor, room 1512, a single room, and the attending physician, called Yan Shu, happened to be on duty today, and it would take him about ten minutes to arrive.

He sat on a bench in the courtyard in front of the inpatient building, logging into the hospital's website to look up Doctor Yan's profile.

Yan Shu came to Jinping Hospital right after graduating ten years ago, studying under the renowned neurosurgeon Ying Han and specialising in severe craniocerebral trauma. He remembered Ying Han, Ying Xizi's father, who had pulled Xu Chengyue back from the brink of death with his surgical skills, a medical saint known for performing miracles.

In fact, Jiang Hai's condition was much better than Professor Xu's had been. Although he was in a coma with no consciousness, the reticular formation in his brainstem was intact, allowing for autonomous breathing and some minimal response to auditory stimuli, suggesting a chance of awakening.

However, the longer it took, the slimmer the chances of him waking up became.

Gu Yunfeng closed his eyes and leaned back on the bench, wondering if Jiang Hai's chances of recovery would have been better if Ying Han had been his attending physician after the car accident. After all, Xu Chengyue had been diagnosed as brain-dead, with no autonomous breathing and a flatline EEG. His current presence was not just due to incredible luck but also thanks to the skill of his attending physician.

The flow of people increased around him, patients, families, and hospital staff. Yan Shu had an extremely distinctive face with large eyes, thin lips, and broad nostrils, but what stood out most was his completely shaved head, completely devoid of hair, to avoid any issues with receding hairlines or hair washing.

That's why Gu Yunfeng spotted Yan Shu, who was wearing a black t-shirt and hurriedly walking towards the inpatient department, in the crowd immediately. 

"Dr. Yan, hello," he called out to the bald man who brushed past him, showing his ID. "I'm Gu Yunfeng from the Jinping criminal investigation team. I need your cooperation in discussing a patient's condition."

—————

"Jiang Hai, you say?" After reaching the fifteenth floor, Yan Shu donned a white coat and sneakers, grabbed the medical records, and prepared for rounds.

He scratched his smooth head, his eyes suddenly dimming. "He came to our hospital seven years ago. I happened to be in the ER that day. I heard he had a severe car crash with a truck that ran a red light, causing severe intracranial injury and right skull fracture, and was directly sent to the ICU."

"Who performed the surgery at that time?" Gu Yunfeng awkwardly followed beside him, knowing that surgeons were always incredibly busy. Even for a major case, he could only ask a few questions on the fly.

"My mentor performed the surgery."

"Ying Han?" Twenty minutes ago, he had been speculating about Jiang Hai's condition if Ying Han had performed the surgery, and now he had his answer. Even Ying Han couldn't prevent his unending coma.

"Yes, it was Dr. Ying. But it's not his fault..." Yan Shu organised the medical records for rounds, tying his shoelaces tightly. "This Jiang Hai, was just too unlucky. The surgery went well, but he remained in a coma and hasn't woken up in five years. Because of this, Dr. Ying retired early and later went to Ruihe Hospital, where within a few years he cured a patient who was declared brain-dead." He briskly pushed open one ward after another with medical records in his hand, saying to Gu Yunfeng, "Many things are hard to explain. Maybe it's just bad luck, or perhaps it's extraordinarily good luck."

"Who brought him to the hospital after the crash?" The truck driver had fled after the crash, and the accident happened in a remote area at night with no passers-by. Given Jiang Hai's injuries, he would have been dead if he had been delayed till morning.

"A rather pretty woman with long hair, very gentle."

"When she arrived, she was covered in blood. I thought they were both injured in the crash, but all the blood on her was Jiang Hai's. She went to the scene after the accident." Yan Shu shook his head with a smile. "I don't concern myself with patients' family relations, but I know she's a relative and still visits him often."

This woman must be Jiang Hai's shimei and sister-in-law, Lin Xiangrong. How did she discover Jiang Hai's accident first and find him to call for help so precisely? (Angel: Shimei is a term for a junior sister.)

Her relationship with Jiang Hai seemed more complex than just siblings or relatives.

Gu Yunfeng flipped through the patient files the doctor handed him and requested all of Jiang Hai's medical records from during his hospitalisation, which would be copied by the afternoon.

He leaned against the door frame, glancing at the hallway clock. It was already eight-fifty, and there was no sign of Xu Chengyue arriving at the hospital.

After finishing rounds, Doctor Yan had several surgeries scheduled, and the next opportunity to talk would be after ten o'clock in the evening. He thanked Yan Shu quickly and headed towards Jiang Hai's room, 1512.

At the door, he checked the time again. It was nine o'clock. Professor Xu had said he'd arrive at eight-thirty to visit the long-comatose Jiang Hai together. Now, half an hour late with no explanation, and considering he mentioned being watched last night, something might have happened. Gu Yunfeng paced anxiously before finally calling him after ten more minutes.

Surprisingly, the call connected within seconds. Just as he felt relieved, Xu Chengyue's unusually panicked voice came through, his breath extremely unstable and speech rapid.

He said, "Captain Gu, I'm being followed."

"A Lexus SUV, I can't shake it."

—————

The author has something to say:

Going crazy and causing trouble just to make them live together as soon as possible.

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: July 15, 2024 by Angel

Edited: September 3, 2024 by Angel