Lin Yuan tuned out a little, reminiscing about the past.
When he came back to himself, Gu Yan was gently stirring his coffee across from him, whereas Yan Suizhi was slowly sipping his honeyed milk, his gazes falling on him, warm and quiet.
They should still have many questions to ask. After all, the earlier conversation had unknowingly drifted towards Lin Yuan, but there were still many matters shrouded in mist to them.
But neither of them hurried him.
It was just as though they were simply here to have breakfast with Lin Yuan, accompanying him in his recollection of a loved one who had departed.
Lin Yuan suddenly felt that their past interactions had become blurred.
These were two good men, soft at heart, who fit his definition of 'friends'.
And that was enough; nothing else mattered.
"Sorry, I got a bit distracted and went off-track," Lin Yuan said apologetically.
"It's okay," Yan Suizhi smiled. "I don't feel that recalling these people and past events are taking up our time, right, Teacher Gu?"
Lin Yuan couldn't quite wrap his head around it. "No, wait. Who is whose teacher? Aren't you... that, you know... the dean?"
When he uttered the words 'the dean', he unconsciously kept his voice down, and even the words that rolled off his tongue came out very muffled. It was only after saying it did he remember that there was actually no need for him to toe around for there wasn't anyone in their surroundings.
Yan Suizhi had used this honorific, before, but Lin Yuan assumed that it was due to them not being certain of his identity and how much he knew, that they would be careful not to let the cat out of the bag.
But now it appeared that that wasn't the case.
"Yeah, I am," Yan Suizhi unhurriedly sipped his milk, saying, "But someone perpetually had a dark expression on when he was my student, probably rather tempted to rebel. I'm a very tolerant person; after all, I don't mind letting him satisfy a craving."
"..."
Who wanted to revolt?
Gu Yan looked at him askance, exasperated.
But when he gave it more thought, in a certain sense, it wasn't wrong to put it that way too.
So, though Lawyer Gu's lips twitched, he didn't end up refuting, holding up his cup of coffee with his eyebrows calmly raised.
It turned out to be a joke after all this fuss, Dr Lin thought to himself, I seriously can't get this teacher and student pair at all.
"Alright." Lin Yuan carried on, "I know that you have many questions. Ask what you want to ask."
"You said just now that doing the genetic modification surgery for me was a favour that a senior had asked of you?" Yan Suizhi asked. "I'm very curious what kind of man your senior is; why would he save me, and how had he known that I would be in danger?"
"He said that he heard it through a tip, but wasn't too willing to go into detail about it, because if he did he'd really be pulling me neck-deep into it. Oh, right, he's Jack's foster dad," Lin Yuan unconsciously explained.
It was only after saying this that he remembered they might not be familiar with this name. "It's the guy you said you had a bit of an impression of last time; the curly-haired doctor who shares the office with me. He was the one who was supposed to help you do the genetic testing."
"Oh, the curly-head doctor?" Both Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan nodded, having recalled him.
"Yeah. He's his foster father."
Now, this was weird. Yan Suizhi didn't know that curly-head doctor at all, and the only memory he had of the other was a casual glance over when they brushed past each other. Also, who was his foster father? Wasn't this association a tad too remote?
"You probably don't know him," Lin Yuan said. "When he asked me for this favour, he said that you didn't know him."
Yan Suizhi was even more puzzled now. "I don't know him? But why would he save me if I don't know him? Had I taken on a case he was involved in in the past?"
"It's unlikely," Lin Yuan shook his head, saying, "He said it was to repay a debt, but frankly, I'm not clear of the specifics either."
"Repay a debt?" Yan Suizhi was finding that Lin Yuan didn't really know much more than them, and at once both vexed and amused. "Why didn't you clarify it back then before getting involved in this? What if he was swindling you?"
"There's no way," Lin Yuan smiled, saying, "Uncle Braids... oh, he's somewhat of a jokester; he doesn't like being tied down, but when it boils down to it, he's very reliable. I have known him since I was young. There was once I got into an accident when playing about and got hospitalised for two months, and I happened to share a ward with Jack—the curly-haired guy. When he came over to visit Curly Hair, he'd often poke fun at me as well, and we eventually got rather familiar with each other. If he really was the bad sort, I would've been abducted and sold off all the way back then."
"He taught me many things. Before I entered university, I learned all those basic first-aid and dressing wounds from him. And after entering university, I'd also ask him if I had any technical questions; I can count him as half a mentor."
It was apparent that Lin Yuan held this senior in high esteem.
A senior who could guide him in technical matters...
"Is he a doctor as well?" Gu Yan asked.
Lin Yuan said, "Yeah, he used to be."
"Why do you say that he used to be?"
"He retired from the industry because of a medical incident," Lin Yuan said, then supplemented, "It's the one topic he never liked to talk about, so I don't know much about it. It seemed that his patient had died from a high-risk surgery? I later guessed that it was probably a surgerical procedure in the field of genetics; after all, its success rate was very low during those days. But I don't think he actually had much part to play in this; he wasn't the doctor in charge of the surgery. He was always holed up in the research lab, so it wasn't as though he would get held responsible for any kind of medical mishap..."
He mumbled his way through the words, but when he lifted his gaze, he found that Yan Suizhi's gaze was staring someplace into the void, as though he was distracted from thinking about something. His mood seemed to have shifted—or, at least, not as relaxed and warm as before, for his brows were creased.
"What's wrong?" Lin Yuan waved a hand before his eyes.
"Hm?" Yan Suizhi pulled back to his senses, but the crease between his brows didn't disappear. "When did he retire?"
Lin Yuan gave it a thought. "It was very long ago; I can't put my finger on how many years exactly. Maybe twenty-five or so thereabout?"
Yan Suizhi quieted down for a while.
It was very difficult to discern what was on his mind from his expression, and inexplicably, this made people feel the stirrings of trepidation.
Lin Yuan was deliberating on whether to ask when he glimpsed Gu Yan hold the hand that Yan Suizhi rested on the table.
Hm...?
Was the relationship between teacher and student so good?
The mouth that Lin Yuan opened closed again.
He heard Gu Yan ask in a low voice, "What is it?"
Yan Suizhi's expression softened. It was apparent that he didn't initially plan to say anything much, but after Gu Yan's question, he still gave a response. "I thought of my parents. There were also some complications during their surgery."
As he spoke, he turned his hand over and patted the back of Gu Yan's hands placatingly, then turned his gaze back onto Lin Yuan, saying, "Maybe I'm overthinking it, but the timing does seem quite coincidental."
Furthermore... when put together with the reason that the senior gave for saving him—in repaying a debt.
Weren't there one too many coincidences?
Yan Suizhi asked, "Do you have a way to contact that senior? Help me dial over; I want to talk to him."
Lin Yuan went through the address book in his comms for a contact named 'Uncle Braids', but as luck would have it, no one answered the five consecutive calls.
"I'll try again in a bit. He might be busy now," Lin Yuan said.
"Then, do you have a photo of him?"
Lin Yuan, "Hang on."
He didn't dare to think too deeply about whether there was any link between the medical incident and Yan Suizhi's parents, because he feared that the senior he deeply respected did have some relation to Yan Suizhi's parents' surgery. Lin Yuan tapped on his smart device and searched very intently, hoping to find something to divert Yan Suizhi's attention, whilst also hoping to help the other a bit more.
However, there was something in this world called Murphy's Law.
He was worried that he couldn't find a photo, so he really wasn't able to.
After going through every little nook of his smart device, there was naught a single photo to be found.
"I can't believe there really isn't one, seriously... I've known him for so long, but we actually never took a photo together before. I've even gone through his social media accounts; they're completely blank, without a single status, let alone any photos."
Yan Suizhi reminded, "Then what about the curly-haired doctor? Would he have one?"
Lin Yuan's smile turned even more awkward. "About that... that's a tricky question to ask."
"What is it?"
"Curly Hair was very, very close with his foster father when he was young, but somehow they fell out after Curly Hair graduated from university. Then, Curly Hair's birth parents looked for him again and resumed contact, putting their relationship in an even more awkward spot. In essence, they've pretty much cut off all contact with each other now. If you bring up Uncle Braids in front of Curly Hair, or vice versa... it's hard to say which one will bring you quicker death. Otherwise, Uncle Braids wouldn't get me to help you with the genetic modification surgery. He'd definitely go to Curly Hair first, you know?"
He gave this explanation and showed some shame. "Looking at it now, I'm really sorry to say that except for doing the surgery for you, I'm basically an outsider to this whole thing. It'd be great if I could give you more information..."
Lin Yuan wrangled with himself for a moment before ultimately projecting the call interface, dialling over to the curly-haired doctor.
While waiting for the call to connect, he looked just as though he was one foot into a hearse.
Fortunately, the other party didn't let him lie in the hearse for too long.
"Hello? Jack?"
"Ah, right. No, I'm still managing okay, you don't have to hurry back. Are you still in the Central Hospital recently? How are they doing?"
"Oh, that's good, I feel better hearing that. Um, by the way... Can I ask you something?"
"Do you have a photo of Uncle Braids, can you send one over to me? Somehow I can't get through to his comms..."
Right as he finished speaking, with an expression resembling one who had a hearse blow up in his face, he took off his earpiece. "He directly hung up on me..."
However, Yan Suizhi's attention fixated on another phrase. "Wait, did you just mention the Central Hospital? Are you referring to the District Central Hospital? Is the curly-haired doctor over there?"
Lin Yuan nodded, a bit thrown by what he had latched onto. "Yeah. Didn't I mention it to you before? His relative passed on because of the mishap in an illegal clinic—uh, relative on his biological family's side. Then, his grandparents ended up getting so depressed that they had to be hospitalised too. They refused to be transferred to Spring Ivy, so it's understandable for him to have hung up out of frustration. It's just that we might not be able to get a photo."
Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan exchanged a look, and they could see in each other's eyes that they had recalled the same thing.
Back then, the blue-eyed doctor that they had bumped into at the bar had headed to the District Central Hospital.
But... he was under the impression that the curly-haired doctor seemed to have hazel eyes, or was it amber? In any case, it definitely wasn't blue.
As he tried to recall this, Lin Yuan's smart device vibrated.
"The sun has risen from the west. He'd actually sent me a photo!" Lin Yuan looked at the new message, astonishment splashed across his face.
He stared at it dumbly for two seconds before directly flipping the screen over, extending his hand in front of Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan. "There you go, that's what Uncle Braids looks like. Have you seen him somewhere before?"
Yan Suizhi gazed at the screen in silence for a moment, then said wryly, "He looks a little familiar."
"Really?" Lin Yuan was taken aback.
Gu Yan was watching him as well. "Familiar?"
Yan Suizhi nodded, and his cadence carried nary a billow. "It sounds like quite the coincidence, but he looks exactly the same as my landlord."
Gu Yan, "..."
Lin Yuan, "..."