First-Class Lawyer

Just as Professor Yan grumbled half seriously and not at all in jest, mechanical beeps successively rang out in the room.

The temperature panel on the wall suddenly died out. The low staticky sound of the machine also stopped all of a sudden, instantly plunging the room into silence. 

“What happened? Did the power go out?” Yan Suizhi gave a start, turning his head to scan the various items in the room.

If he wasn’t mistaken, the power actually did go out.

His gaze eventually landed on Gu Yan, seeing that Lawyer Gu was still holding the display screen. He couldn’t resist teasing him, “Is there any text on the display?”

Gu Yan, “…” 

From his expression, there probably wasn’t.

Yan Suizhi asked again, “Is a black screen nice to look at?”

Gu Yan, “…”

His eyes finally flickered over.

There was a warning chart on the workbench on the other side of the medical apparatus. The heading on the first line was related to power failure. Yan Suizhi glanced at the keywords, attempting to see the specifics of how to deal with it. As he leaned over towards it, the tubings that ran past the hem and into his shirt inevitably lifted the fabric, exposing a tight waistline.

“Sit back,” Gu Yan suddenly spoke up. “I’ll look at it.”

“Hm?” Yan Suizhi was reading the chart, saying without even turning his head over, “It’s fine, I’m already reading it. It says not to panic in the event of a power failure. The hospital has an independent backup energy grid that can restore power within a minute. The machines have defensive mechanisms for sudden power failures, and it will go into a restorative start-up when the power comes back. There will be no loss of the previous data and the previous progress will automatically be refreshed.”

As he spoke, he heard the beeping begin again in the room. The sound of the machine running resumed and the temperature panel lit up again. 

Yan Suizhi sat back upright at this. “Pretty fast. Did the stats return?”

Gu Yan hummed. After a pause, he then supplemented, “It’s back to normal. It’s following the same progress as before.”

The display screen was filled with complicated technical jargon involving both medical diagnoses and genetic analyses. Large paragraphs of text constantly churned upwards, indicating the progress of the machine. Laymen wouldn’t be able to discern anything meaningful; it was insipid and dry as dust, a top-grade product to induce drowsiness and daydreaming.

But the distinguished Lawyer Gu was reading it in earnest. 

Whether or not he could understand anything, he made it seem as if he could anyway. Yan Suizhi leaned back in the seat on the machine. At first, he was watching the trend and other data on the screen, but it wasn’t long before he, very naturally, changed to watching him instead.

Human eyes worked in mysterious ways sometimes. There were things that felt so familiar that you could trace them out in your mind’s eye; yet, in actuality, once you closed your eyes to reproduce the details in your head, only the barest of sketches would form. After staring at a particular person for long enough, an intriguing sense of unfamiliarity would begin to surface…

That was actually when you noticed details that you had never had before.

It wasn’t really that they were unfamiliar, only that you were now more familiar with them. 

Yan Suizhi looked at Gu Yan for some time, going back and forth between familiarity and unfamiliarity many times, practically finding delight in this activity.

After a while, Gu Yan, whose attention was steadfastly stuck to the screen, finally deigned to open his mouth of gold. “Stop looking.”

Anyone would sense something when being stared at like this, not to mention that from where Gu Yan stood, even if he didn’t lift his gaze, his peripheral vision covered Yan Suizhi. So, he had actually long noticed Yan Suizhi’s line of sight; he had just simply stubbornly kept a straight face and his mouth tightly shut until now.

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“Ktfs mjc olcjiis rabq hjqqlcu wf. Ktlr mtjlg lrc’a vfrlucfv obg mbwobga.” Tjc Velhtl mtjcufv tlr qbraegf, geyylcu tlr cfmx jcv gbiilcu tlr rtbeivfgr.

There wasn’t any need to pay note to the position or the technique when removing the tubings, so naturally Gu Yan wasn’t called upon to help again.

Yan Suizhi never did things in much of a hurry; he moved slowly and systematically. Despite having complained several times that they weren’t comfortable against his body, he didn’t rip them all off in one go, instead removing them one by one. It was as if what he was removing wasn’t metal plates, but fallen leaves or sundries that had accidentally fallen on him.

“How did it turn out?” As he buttoned up his shirt, he walked over to Gu Yan to look at the display screen. 

There was a system prompt on the display screen—‘Show Results.’

It was apparent that Gu Yan was waiting for him to view the results together.

There were two pages of results altogether. Professional analysis filled the first page.

“Not our specialisation, skip it.” Busy with buttoning his cuffs, Professor Yan simply set down an oral command. 

The analysis on the second page morphed into language comprehensible to regular mortals.

The items were methodically organised in layman’s terms, and some even had explanatory notes. The two of them scanned through them rapidly, immediately finding the column on the efficacy period of the genetic modification, with how long it would last from the date of this test in brackets next to it.

Oddly, there were two rows of results in this column.

A: 40-45 Years 

B: 25-30 Days

The two lines were clear-cut, yet Gu Yan’s brows furrowed when he read it.

“Twice?” He looked at Yan Suizhi.

Genetic modification wasn’t as minor as, say, hanging an IV drip. After all, the human body had many self-defense mechanisms and would inevitably trigger an innate resistance to external intervention. Genetic modification was inherently a disruptive process that carried high hazards. The success of the surgery was by the mercy of the heavens, so whatever that needed to be done was usually resolved in one go; no doctor would insist on splitting the surgery into two parts. 

What did this mean?

It meant that only one of the two times was done by the one who had saved Yan Suizhi’s life, whilst the other had nothing to do with them.

Yan Suizhi appeared unsurprised by this, which meant that he was aware of the other surgery. This evidently indicated that… the genetic modification was done before the explosion.

However, whether it was in the various written accounts about him or in casual conversations amongst friends, no one had ever mentioned that Yan Suizhi had modified his genes. This only left one explanation—basically no one knew about it. 

Gu Yan glanced at the door. He said solemnly, “If need be, I can leave now.”

But Yan Suizhi waved his hand, saying carelessly, “That isn’t necessary. If I really minded you knowing, I would have chased you off long ago; would I have waited until now?”

He reached out and clicked on a column in front, marking the time when the traces of genetic modification were left behind.

Gu Yan’s eyes followed where he pointed and found that Modification A was a thing of long ago, so long ago that… Yan Suizhi, at that time, should have been very young, just about fourteen or fifteen years old. 

Yan Suizhi gazed at the indicated date, his thoughts drifting slightly.

Personal history like this wasn’t something that Yan Suizhi would casually divulge; Gu Yan understood this well, so he didn’t bother inquiring about the circumstances behind it. Little did he expect that after Yan Suizhi recovered, he would actually give him a brief explanation. “My mother had a hereditary disease that she passed on to me. Genetic modification was my only treatment option.”

Surprise leaked into Gu Yan’s expression. Not only because Yan Suizhi would talk about this, but also that the technology for genetic modification surgery was far from mature decades ago, and was very risky as a cure.

Because Yan Suizhi didn’t often talk of his private family affairs, there was little information available about his parents. The public only knew these two sparse morsels—they should’ve been attractive, and they should have died young. 

Even these two were derived from how Yan Suizhi behaved.

Leaving all else aside, De Carma was famous for two things. First, allowing discretion about one’s background. Second, personal privacy above all.

Under the pretext of safeguarding security, it was very challenging to obtain personal information that was not readily offered. The level of protection was so high that it created a sense of civic consciousness over time; no one would waste time and effort to dig into what others did not divulge much about, especially information regarding one’s background, family tree, kinship, and so on.

Similar to how little was publicly known about Yan Suizhi’s past and parents, little was known about Gu Yan’s past and parents. 

This was all too common in De Carma, so nothing about it really stood out.

Then again, despite how little was publicly known, there were a few conjectures that could be made now:

Yan Suizhi’s mother was in poor health, and genetic modification was the only treatment option.

Genetic modification was a high-risk surgery back then, and his parents had passed away early on. 

From this, it was apparent that even if the genetic modification had successfully cured Yan Suizhi, it was difficult to say if the same went for his mother… As such, this was by no means a good topic for casual conversation.

Gu Yan could distinctly perceive that in spite of how casually Yan Suizhi had said it, he was in a poor mood after bringing this up. For a fleeting moment, his expression looked very complicated, as if having recalled many things, but quickly returned to normal.

—

Since they had obtained the results that they wished to know, the two of them didn’t dally here much longer. 

Yan Suizhi downloaded a base copy, then followed as Dr Lin had previously instructed. He first turned off the machine, then added a layer of encryption.

Coincidentally, although they didn’t intend to disturb Dr Lin, they still ran into him in the elevator on the way down. There were two other doctors with him, a male and a female.

At this moment, they were only wearing a surgical mask and not their protective goggles. Their expressions looked tense, like they were rushing for time.

“What’s wrong?” Yan Suizhi asked Lin Yuan after making his greetings. 

“A few infected patients were just admitted,” Lin Yuan replied tersely. “Victims from the clinic; do you still remember the medical accident I told you about? The one which affected the curly-haired doctor. There was also negligence in the genetic modification surgery conducted by that clinic, and resulted in creating a novel virus. Those who had contact with the victims of the accident started to have high fever one after another in the past days; it’s hard to say if the situation will worsen. In any case, it is highly contagious. I’m in a hurry so I won’t hold you up. Just keep in mind to avoid the stretcher railcars on the way out later.”

When Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan walked out of the hospital, they did see several stretcher railcars.

On the nearest one, the cheeks of the person lying on it were flushed from fever, and a red rash ran down from the side of his face to his neck.

Yan Suizhi looked at it for a moment, and was pulled by Gu Yan before recalling that he should keep his distance. 

By the time they returned to Southcross Law Firm, it was already past ten in the morning.

Gu Yan had just stepped into the office when he received a stack of case files half his height from the photon computer, and was too busy to even raise his head once until noon.

At lunch, the other interns excitedly came over to call Yan Suizhi to join them. But when they poked their head in and saw Gu Yan there, they shrank back, changing tactics to invite him in their chat group instead.

After reading the message, Yan Suizhi unconsciously glanced towards Gu Yan. “I’m going out for lunch. Shall I bring you something back to eat?” 

Gu Yan responded, “I might be going on a short business trip in the afternoon. I’ll let you know again when I’m on the space shuttle.”

“Where to?”

“The neighbouring planet, Helan.”

“Am I coming along?” 

Gu Yan finally raised his head from the documents. “And receive another injury to add some colour to the mix?”

After this question, he incisively tossed his answer to Yan Suizhi. “Just sit tight here.”

Yan Suizhi, “…”

Professor Yan, who had missed out on an opportunity to claim business travel allowance, was deeply remorseful. He made plans to look for the other interns for lunch. He had already stepped out of the office when he suddenly halted in his steps again, turning back to ask, “When will you be back?” 

Gu Yan’s fingers paused on the paper. He lifted his head and looked over. “Tomorrow afternoon at the latest.”

“Alright.”

Luke hadn’t seen Yan Suizhi for a good many days and was bursting with a century-worth of things he wanted to tell him. After all, there was never a shortage of topics related to Yan Suizhi in the law firm these days. But when he actually stood in front of him, his words suddenly caught in his throat.

“What happened?” Yan Suizhi asked. 

“Oh, ah? Oh—” Luke stammered for a moment before finding his tongue. “Nothing much, just that it’s a little dim in the corridor. Just now, when I glanced over by chance, I got the feeling that… only a little over a week has passed since I last saw you, but you and the former dean look quite alike again.”

With that, he thankfully patted his chest, saying, “Luckily, the sunlight saved me in the nick of time. Once it brightened up, I don’t feel like you’ve really changed much. But have you grown a little taller? I feel like you’ve grown a little taller.”

Yan Suizhi touched his face, saying with a straight face, “Oh? Is that so? Maybe I should stay in Tian Qin for another two years before coming back.”

Luke waved his hand. “Don’t kid around. You’re already tall enough, how much taller can you grow? Oh, by the way, the landlord called me this morning.” 

“What landlord?”

Luke, “…”

This blonde angel consoled himself for a moment, then explained good-naturedly, “Your landlord. Do you still remember that you want to rent a flat, my friend?”

Yan Suizhi then recalled. “Ah, right. I do want to rent a flat.” 

“…The landlord asked if I could bring you over for a look today; he’ll be away from De Carma for a week after this. I think that there’s enough time to make a trip down during our lunch break, what say you?”