Nora narrowed her eyes and looked at Old Maddy intently.
There was silence in the ward.
Lily had left the room when the two started talking, and was standing guard outside the door. The white-walled ward seemed completely silent. Apart from tranquility, there was only the smell of pungent disinfectant in the air.
But be it Old Maddy or Nora, both of them were very used to such a smell.
The former had stayed there for a very long time by then and had already become accustomed to the smell, while the latter had pretty much grown up being bathed in the smell.
When she was in poor health as a child, she was often hospitalized. Her bedroom at home would also be sanitized with disinfectants.
Nora lowered her eyes slightly. Then, Old Maddy said, “After you were born, your mother discovered that the mysterious organization was in pursuit of her. In order to ensure your survival, she died before the mysterious organization’s eyes, so that they won’t continue investigating. But we all knew that they definitely won’t stop. Besides, no one could say for sure whether the Grays were trustworthy or not.” Old Maddy looked at her. “It’s only when you become strong enough that you can resist becoming someone else’s pawn. Your mother was driven into a corner at that time was because she was not strong enough.”
Not strong enough…
Nora was taken aback.
Yvette could stir up the entire New York and throw it into instability back then. The drugs she developed-even in this age after more than twenty years had gone by-were still relevant.
She was multi-talented. To this day, she was still a legend in New York.
Yet someone like her was not strong enough?
Moreover, even now, Nora did not feel that the mysterious organization was that powerful. In the United States, they had been completely suppressed by the special department.
Trueman had even almost been arrested. In the end, he had to leave the country in a pathetic state to seek refuge abroad.
So, had her mother made the wrong choice back then?
Would they really have been that fearsome if she had joined hands with Ian? Besides, why didn’t her mother seek asylum from the authorities?
These were all mysteries!
She wanted to ask something, but Old Maddy had already continued, “In order to give you the ability to defend yourself, and in order to give you enough confidence to face these things that you are facing today, she had no choice but to inject you with… a serum.”
Nora’s back suddenly became ramrod straight. “What?”
Surprise flashed across her eyes. But right after, it became a look of realization!
To be honest, she had already guessed as much that she had also been injected with a gene serum. When Lily was checking her DNA some time back, she had discovered that her IQ genes had mutated a little.
This was also the reason why the DNA comparison between her and Ian had only reached 98% and not the benchmark for a father-daughter similarity.
Perhaps because he saw that she had become a little agitated, Old Maddy hurriedly waved and said, “It was just a little! A little! Your father and your mother are already some of the most intelligent people in the world, so their daughter’s IQ could never be low. That’s why your mother only injected you with very little serum. There was only a bit of difference in your DNA comparison with Ian, right?”
Nora nodded.
It was medically recognized that a father-daughter pair’s genes should be 99.8% similar, but hers and Ian’s were only 98% similar. This indicated that a 1% change had indeed occurred.
Moreover, the change had even occurred in the IQ gene.
So, it was because she had also been injected with the gene serum that she was so smart and was able to master so many things easily?
While she was contemplating, Old Maddy spoke again. “However, that serum has a side effect. Has your health always been poor?”
Nora fell silent.
She had been frail since she was a child and often easily fell sick. She often visited the hospital and had poor immunity. The moment the weather changed, she would inevitably catch a cold. This had also given her stepmother a chance to give her hormonal injections, which had caused her to become fat.
Therefore, even though she was a fatty-a fatty who could fight and a fatty who was very smart-her constitution was indeed poor.
Additionally, Caleb was also in poor health. When she thought of him, all she could remember was the sight of him coughing his lungs out. As for Trueman, his physical condition was currently unknown. Given how he had kept himself hidden all this time, it probably wasn’t that great either.
But what did this have to do with her having children?
Could it be that..
Nora’s pupils shrank suddenly. Her head whipped up abruptly, upon which she heard Old Maddy say, “Adults cannot withstand the gene serum’s modification at all. Even if they succeed, they will only have two years left to live. Even if they don’t die after two years, they will go crazy. Children’s bodies have a high level of malleability, but even so, you likely wouldn’t have been able to withstand even that bit of serum. Moreover, your IQ genes were close to being perfect in the first place, so the serum couldn’t show that great an effect on you. That’s why, before the age of twenty, you needed to expel the excess dosage by giving birth.”
Nora was stunned. However, her first reaction was to ask, “Then what about the children? Will there be residual serum in the children?!”
Old Maddy shook his head. “We don’t know. Your mother didn’t have the time to verify that either. All she wanted was to protect you. I also brought this up to her at the time. Her answer to me was…”
Old Maddy kept quiet for a while before he sighed and said, “… It’s her child. She will have to do something about them herself.”
Nora: “…”
She had to check immediately whether there was any mutation in Cherry and Pete’s genes, as well as whether there was any residual gene serum in them.
She stood up suddenly. As she looked at Old Maddy, she asked another question, “In that case… why did the father of my children have to be Justin Hunt?”
Old Maddy was taken aback. “I wasn’t the one who executed that part of the plan, so I’m not sure. Back then, apart from myself, your mother also had two other subordinates.”
Old Maddy had been crazy for so many years, so he definitely wouldn’t know the details of Nora’s pregnancy. In other words, if her mother was the one who had plotted her pregnancy, then it was likely the other two who had carried out the plan. She was about to ask when Old Maddy said, “One of them is Charles Ramsey while the other is Ivan Rogers. Charles is very recognizable. He has a mole on his face, and there’s a strand of hair on the mole.”
Nora: “!!!”
Wasn’t that the lunatic Jessica had mentioned?!
She frowned and looked at Old Maddy again. “How do I contact Charles?”
Old Maddy sighed. “The three of us didn’t contact one another much. Besides, twenty years have already passed. Our contact methods may have become obsolete.”
Nora, however, said firmly, “Tell me.”
Old Maddy kept quiet for a moment before he said, “For more than twenty years, we never told one another our cell phone numbers. It was always one-way whenever we contacted one another. No matter which one of us it was, if we wanted to contact someone, we had to publish an ad in the newspaper and state clearly the number of a payphone and the time in the ad. When the other party saw it, they would find a payphone and call you.”
Nora’s lip corners spasmed. Why were they contacting one another as if they were spies? And it sure was old-fashioned. Even the three of them were on guard against one another… What exactly was her mother doing back then? Why did she have three such subordinates?
It seemed that she would have to talk to Old Maddy about her mother’s past again when she had time.
If they didn’t want the other party to know their phone number, couldn’t they just encrypt it?
She sighed. “Tell me the contact method.”
Old Maddy nodded.
After telling her about the contact method, he said, “Just publish it in the daily newspaper.”
“… That would be a hard thing to do.”
Most newspapers were published online these days, there weren’t many physical copies anymore. Even if there were, hardly anyone would buy them these days!
Old Maddy was also dumbfounded. “What should we do?”
Nora held her forehead. “I have a solution. But first, my last two questions—the first one is, do you know why they chose Justin Hunt as the children’s father?”
