Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Upon entering Senior Speaker Long’s office in the House of Lords building, Huo Shaoheng saw many pieces of traditional Chinese furniture. He raised his hand and greeted the two seniors. “Good day, Minister.”
“Have a seat.” Senior Speaker Long pointed at the sofa across from his own seat.
Office staff brought Huo Shaoheng a cup of tea in a traditional covered teacup and placed it on the coffee table in front of him. Of course, Huo Shaoheng wasn’t here to have tea when he was asked to come to the office at such an hour. He began the conversation straightforwardly, “May I know what’s the matter, Minister and General?”
Senior Speaker Long waved his hand, indicating for his subordinates to leave the office. Only General Ji, Senior Speaker Long, and Huo Shaoheng were left. Senior Speaker Long looked stern as he began, “It’s another month before the Prime Minister election.”
What did the Prime Minister election have to do with the Special Forces? It was a known fact that they couldn’t interfere with anything that went on within the nation. They could only control things that happened outside the boundaries of the nation. Huo Shaoheng glanced at General Ji. Seeing that he remained silent, he did not probe further and listened patiently.
“…This time around, Minister Dou isn’t able to participate in the election. The other candidates are mediocre. Up ’til now, the election only had two candidates that looked more prominent.”
Huo Shaoheng knew that Senior Speaker Long was referring to the Minister of Internal Affairs, Bai Jiancheng, and Law Minister Tan Dongbang. Everyone was familiar with Bai Jiancheng. He had been taking over Prime Minister Dou’s duties after he got into trouble with the law, just like a deputy Prime Minister.
Everyone thought that he would definitely be the one elected as the next Prime Minister, until a new candidate, Law Minister Tan Dongbang, suddenly announced his interest in joining the election. His mission of “fairness for all” attacked the people who were privileged and focused on the all-time popular moral slogan, “Leaders should face the same penalty as the people of the nation if they violate the law.” This suddenly pushed his popularity to the moon.
Moreover, when he was the Minister of Law, he focused on solving the crimes of those who were wrongly accused and pushed the court to reopen cases that people felt were not well justified. Many people who were initially wrongly accused felt extremely grateful to him. Therefore, the moment he announced that he would be joining the election, most of the citizens voiced their support for him over Bai Jiancheng, who conformed to the norms of society.
“The person you mentioned to me over the phone was someone related to Minister Tan,” Huo Shaoheng said calmly. “Who is it, exactly? Since he has decided to take part in the Prime Minister election, did you check his background thoroughly? If his direct family members have migrated, he wouldn’t be qualified to take part in the election, would he?”
“Of course we’ve checked. The Tan’s are a big family. They have many distant relatives overseas, just like the Xie’s, your grandmother’s family. However, all of Tan Dongbang’s direct family members are citizens of Hua Xia Empire. He has a daughter, though. She is currently studying overseas. However, she’s holding a study permit, so it’s not a case of migration. She will be graduating with her master’s this summer and initially intended to remain to continue her postgraduate studies overseas. However, her father’s last minute decision to take part in the election made her change her plans. She has to be back in the Hua Xia empire before the election, which will be the day after her final exams.” Senior Speaker Long produced a set of documents and placed them in front of Huo Shaoheng.
Huo Shaoheng took the documents and began flipping through them expressionlessly. “So this is the matter that you said was urgent? A female student who is studying overseas, and you want the Special Forces’ Major General to bring her back to the empire? Yes, very normal and not privileged at all.”
General Ji was speechless. Senior Speaker Long laughed a little. “Brutally straightforward, Shaoheng, but I’m not done talking.”
“I await your continuation.”
“Tan Dongbang’s daughter, Tan Guiren…”
“Stop. Why is his daughter a benefactor?”
He did not know much about the people from the cabinet, much less about their relatives, whether direct or distant.
“His daughter isn’t the benefactor! Guiren is her name! They named her Guiren!” Senior Speaker Long almost lost his cool when Huo Shaoheng asked this question. He was thinking the same thing! What’s with naming their daughter Guiren?
Guiren… Why don’t they just name her Fuxing?
“Oh.” Huo Shaoheng paused before saying, “Continue.”
“This Tan Guiren has been majoring in violin at the Juilliard School in America. She has just been minding her own business and has been a good girl. However, due to her father’s decision to take part in the election, she had been affected.” Senior Speaker Long’s voice deepened, and he handed Huo Shaoheng a set of documents. “We’ve just gotten news that she has disappeared from her campus.”
Huo Shaoheng was speechless. He glanced at General Ji. General Ji nodded at him. “Someone from the embassy confirmed the information. She’s really gone missing.”
Huo Shaoheng took the documents and flipped through them again, asking as he looked, “How do you know that her disappearance is related to her father’s decision to take part in the election, even if the disappearance is real? Perhaps it’s just a simple case of kidnapping.”
“Because someone sent Tan Dongbang a letter saying that his daughter would be able to return safely as long as he drops out of the election. Otherwise, his daughter would be worse off than dead.” Senior Speaker Long punched the table. “I raged upon seeing this letter. How ridiculous! How can anyone threaten our candidate like this? Is there still law in this country?!”
“Then why did you look for me?” Huo Shaoheng sat up straight. “You can use the Special Forces guys who are based in America. Why should I do this personally?” As the head of the Special Forces, he did not have to attend to every single case personally anymore.
“This… One of the officers from our embassy found this.” General Ji handed another set of documents to Huo Shaoheng. “Look. Doesn’t this look familiar?”
Huo Shaoheng took the set of documents and flipped through them. Upon seeing the figures on the documents, he stopped, looking at those figures, lost in thought. This was a set of magnetic field data. To be more specific, it was a set of odd magnetic field data. It was identical to the data found when Huo Shaoheng’s maternal grandfather, Song Haichuan, and mother, Song Jinning, failed in their experiment 17 years ago. It was also identical to the ones found seven years ago when Gu Nianzhi was found at the scene of a car accident.
However, this time around, it had appeared in the dorm at the Juilliard School, New York, America. Huo Shaoheng’s heart skipped a beat, but he was expressionless. Keeping the documents, he raised his head to look at the two men sitting across from him. “Regarding the abnormal magnetic field data, we have been following up on it at the Special Forces for a long time. We also have people who specialize in this. It’d be better if you sent them instead.”
“But you would volunteer to go and investigate whenever there were cases involving this set of figures.” Senior Speaker Long was beginning to feel confused. “Why have you decided to not go this time?”
“Times change.” Huo Shaoheng covered his thoughts extremely well. He would never tell Senior Speaker Long and General Ji the real reason behind his decision, because he felt that this set of figures was merely a set of numbers now that they had found Gu Nianzhi.
General Ji and Senior Speaker Long exchanged glances and then looked at Huo Shaoheng again. “You’re really not interested? You really don’t want to go?”
“The case must be extremely beneficial to the country if I’m required to handle it personally. How will it affect our country when the daughter of a candidate gets kidnapped?” Huo Shaoheng was firm. “I have too many things on hand. I’ve got no time to check on missing persons.”
Seeing that Huo Shaoheng had made up his mind, even after trying to convince him for so long, General Ji and Senior Speaker Long decided to give up. This was also partly due to the fact that it was almost daybreak, and the two older men were too worn out to continue. Therefore, they asked Huo Shaoheng to think about it before calling it a day.
Coming out of the meeting room, Huo Shaoheng saw the first golden rays in the sky. A bright, red sun had just begun to rise in the distance. Just as he was contemplating if he should look for Gu Nianzhi, his phone rang again. This time around, though, it was his personal line. Less than five people knew about this personal line of his.
Looking at his phone, he was surprised to see that it was Chen Lie. “Mr. Huo, where are you? Are you at headquarters? Can you come to my office for a moment?” Chen Lie asked, sounding urgent.
“Be back soon.” Huo Shaoheng said swiftly and hung up. Then, he got into his car and informed Fan Jian, “Return to headquarters.”
Huo Shaoheng closed his door and massaged his temples. Then, he closed his eyes to have some rest. He woke up the moment they arrived at headquarters. Instead of returning to his mansion, Huo Shaoheng went to Chen Lie’s office.
Chen Lie’s base was on the top floor of the medical department. Huo Shaoheng took the elevator and arrived at the place where Chen Lie was working alone. Chen Lie had been calling him since last night, asking him to come see him. Moreover, he wanted to check on Gu Xiangwen. Chen Lie had only managed to stabilize Gu Xiangwen’s condition a few days after they returned. He was slowly recovering.
Pushing the snow-white door open, Huo Shaoheng looked into the room at Gu Xiangwen, who was lying on his bed. There were tubes all over him. The amount of machines surrounding him made the room look like a garage instead of a room for a patient.
Chen Lie was in the office beside the room. He had already seen that Huo Shaoheng had come up from the CCTV, but he only went into his office a while later. “Seen him?” Chen Lie rolled his eyes. “What would you need to worry about when he’s under my care?”
“I’m not worried. Just taking a look to see when he’s able to wake up.” Huo Shaoheng leaned forward and took an apple from the corner of Chen Lie’s table and bit into it. “Sour.” Putting it down, he turned to Chen Lie. “Why were you looking for me?”
Chen Lie frowned. He looked at Huo Shaoheng and moved his eyes away guiltily. Then, he looked around the office, avoiding the question. Having been friends with him for many years, Huo Shaoheng could see that he was having some difficulty.
Toying with the bitten apple with one hand, Huo Shaoheng said calmly, “What do you want to do again? Wanting to make use of Nianzhi again when you’re unable to save people? I’ve warned you many times, Nianzhi isn’t a lab rat. Don’t even think of using her to save Gu Xiangwen. I’ll look down on you for life if you do that.”
It seemed like Chen Lie had something on his mind that he could not say. Turning purple, he finally jumped out of his office, rushed to the door, and slammed it shut. Then he turned off all the surveillance in his office. After all that, he turned to Huo Shaoheng. “Do you know where the hidden surveillance is here?”
This meant that he had something he needed to say but did not want anyone else to hear and record it. Huo Shaoheng became stern. This was the main building in the headquarters of the Special Forces. Huo Shaoheng did not even know how much hidden surveillance there was. Therefore, if there was something he had to say that he did not want people to know, it would be impossible to do it here.
Standing up, he said, “I’m leaving.”
Chen Lie understood. He jumped up, grabbed his coat, and exited his office with Huo Shaoheng. They took the elevator down and headed to the spacious field in front of the medical building. As long as they kept their volume low there, no devices would be able to pick up their conversation.
When Huo Shaoheng saw that Chen Lie was so meticulous, he had already braced himself for the worst, even though his face did not show at all. “Spill. What happened?”
Chen Lie had little beads of perspiration on his nose whenever he got nervous. Removing his glasses, he gave them a wipe before putting them on again. Then, gathering all his courage, he said, “I’ll tell you first, Mr. Huo, but don’t be anxious.”
“Sure. Shoot.”
“This time round, I wouldn’t be able to use Nianzhi’s bone marrow, even if I really wanted to.”
“Huh?”
“Her DNA is not compatible with Gu Xiangwen’s.”
