Chapter 217: Artificial Organs (6) |
—I found something strange.
Rosaline shared her findings with Young-Joon.
‘What is it?’
—It’s a blueprint of the building.
‘Why is that weird?’
—This building is only five stories underground, and the rest is a parking lot.
‘The blueprint is different?’
—It looks like there’s an extra basement level with sterile operating room equipment, including HEPA filters. There are also patient rooms.
‘...’
Young-Joon sighed.
—Other than that, I found a few contracts.
‘Contracts?’
—It’s about histocompatibility tests for organ transplants. The contract says that this hospital will conduct the test.
‘The hospital and who?’
—It’s a company called Blood Tyrant Agency.
Click.
The car door opened. Three nervous-looking men greeted Young-Joon as he stepped out.
“Huanying.”
“Welcome,” translated the man who was getting out of the car after Young-Joon.
This interpreter had been accompanying Young-Joon ever since he met Chen SHui.
“Let’s go.”
The moment the interpreter pulled Young-Joon by the arm, Kim Chul-Kwon, the head of his security team, stepped in between them.
“Let’s go,” Kim Chul-Kwon said again.
As he pushed the interpreter out of the way with his broad, muscular shoulders, his expression was nothing but casual. He knew instinctively that this place could be dangerous.
“Please lead the way,” Young-Joon said.
And inwardly, he spoke to Rosaline.
‘Find me more data.’
—I’ll look for a way to go below the sixth floor of the basement.
* * *
Mei Weisun, the director of the university hospital in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, was a little nervous to meet Young-Joon.
—Ryu Young-Joon will go there.
The Minister of Health informed her directly by phone two days ago. The superficial reason was for Young-Joon to thoroughly investigate the extent of the virus spread in Xinjiang Uygur. His first stop was going to be the University Hospital, which was entrusted with the healthcare of the training center—or internment camps—that held a million people, to look at organ transplant charts and such. But given his personality, he likely wanted to investigate how organ transplants happened here.
—You must not show any appearance of impropriety. If Ryu Young-Joon finds out about the illegality of organ transplants here and returns to Korea, it could jeopardize the country.
Initially, Mei Weisun was dumbfounded at the Minister’s insistence. Young-Joon was so famous that even children living in rural areas knew his name, but he was just the leader of a large corporation at most. Even if they took into account his obsession with bioethics, how could someone like him shake a powerful country like China?
Mei Weisun tried asking about that, but the Minister only gave her stricter orders.
—We cannot afford to make a single mistake. This order is being given to you from a branch higher than the Politburo Standing Committee. If you make a mistake, Director Mei Weisun, it will cost you not only your life but also the lives of your family.
“Director,” Young-Joon said.
Mei Weisun, momentarily recalling her memory of a few days ago, quickly raised her head to look at Young-Joon.
“Oh, b-bao qian… Ni shuo shenme?” Mei Weisun asked, stuttering.
The interpreter who was standing behind Young-Joon frowned and shot a glare at her. He was an interpreter from the State Council who had traveled here from Beijing. Actually, Mei Weisun couldn’t tell if interpreting was his real job; she wondered if this man was just an employee of the Communist Party’s intelligence department who learned Korean.
‘He’s keeping an eye on me to make sure I don’t make any mistakes…’
Mei Weisun gulped.
The interpreter translated what Mei Weisun said.
“My apologies. What did you say?”
“I want to see the chart for the organ transplant,” Young-Joon said.
“T-The chart for the organ transplant… Give me a moment.”[ref]The conversation between Young-Joon and Mei Weisun has been translated to English for better reading. Imagine that they are still talking through the interpreter./[ref]
Mei Weisun’s hands trembled. She took out the chart she had prepared in advance and gave it to Young-Joon. It only had one hundred twenty-four people on it.
“Is this the data from the last three years?” Young-Joon asked.
“Y…es.”
Mei Weisun propped up her glasses with a nervous face.
“This is all you have? The Nature paper that is being edited says that thirty thousand people in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have had organ transplant surgeries.”
“That is… That’s probably the number for Xinjiang Uygur as a whole, and it’s hard to keep track when medical records get jumbled up. It probably isn’t three thousand. In Xinjiang Uygur, I think it’s less than three thousand in the last three years at the most.”
“...”
Young-Joon slowly read the chart.
“It’s in Korean.”
“We translated it in advance because you were coming.”
[...
July 23rd.
Donor: Lee Qinquin (27)
Recipient: Chen Shui (65)
After the left atrium was anastomosed, the superior and inferior vena cava were anastomosed separately.
Basiliximab and Simulect were administered to induce immunosuppression.
After the completion of anastomosis, 500 mg of methylprednisolone was given through an intravenous infusion before the reperfusion of the heart.
Tacrolimus, mycophenolate mofetil, and prednisolone were administered postoperatively to maintain immunosuppression.
—Progress
…]
“I need the donor’s information. Can I get some more?” Young-Joon asked.
“Yes, here it is.”
Mei Weisun handed him another stack of documents.
—Lee Qinqin
—27 years old
—Hometown: 341-7 Jieyang, Guangdong Province.
“The donor is from Guangdong?” Young-Joon asked.
“Yes.”
“Guangdong is on the south end of China. Why did they come all the way to Xinjiang Uygur?”
“I… I don’t know. There’s no way for us to determine that.”
“I gue…”
Young-Joon froze.
In organ transplantation, there was a very low chance that a donor and recipient would be histocompatible. It was likely for people from Xinjiang Uygur, a region as far away from the center of China, to have ethnic differences, which would lead to biological differences. This meant that there may not have been a heart in Xinjiang Uygur with the right histocompatibility to Chen Shui, a Han Chinese president.
‘But would the Chinese Communist Party have given up on his life?’
Young-Joon stared at the address on the document. Then, he felt a chill run down his spine.
‘My god…’
He thought he had heard of this neighborhood before, but he didn’t want it to be true.
“I-I need a moment.”
Young-Joon stood up from his seat.
“Doctor Ryu?”
The interpreter and Mei Weisun both stood up as well, surprised. Young-Joon quickly ran outside, and the interpreter followed him.
“Sir?”
Young-Joon quickly walked past Kim Chul-Kwon, who was staring at him from the doorway.
“Please let me be alone for a moment.”
Young-Joon then went into the restroom and locked the door behind him.
Click!
‘Rosaline. Send a few of your cells outside and guard the door.’
Then, Rosaline’s cells floated around in the hallway in front of the washroom.
The interpreter ran all the way to the door.
“No.”
Kim Chul-Kwon stopped him as he approached the door.
“You cannot go in. Please wait.”
“I am the interpreter,” the interpreter replied.
“I know that,” Kim Chul-Kwon replied sternly, still firmly guarding the door.
The interpreter seemed like he was suspicious, but he quietly backed away.
‘It seems like I can trust Kim Chul-Kwon.’
Young-Joon took out his phone and called Alice.
—Doctor Ryu? Is something wrong?
“Sorry for calling you so suddenly, but could you please translate for me on the phone right now?”
—Yes… I’m not busy right now. What’s going on?
“I’ll make a three-way call.”
Then, Young-Joon put the call on hold and called someone else. He had their number already.
[Zhi Xuan]
She was the mother of the baby sacrificed for He Jiankui’s genetic manipulation.
—Wei?
—Hello?
Alice translated Zhi Xuan’s words.
“Ms. Zhi Xuan, it’s me, Ryu Young-Joon. I’m sorry, but there’s something I want to ask you,” Young-Joon barely managed to ask while suppressing high extreme anxiety.
“Ms. Zhi Xuan… Your hometown is called Jieyang in Guangdong, right?”
—Yes.
“You said it was a village that lived from selling blood, right?”
—Yes. It’s a village in the mountains of Jieyang.
‘Selling and buying blood.’
Once blood was obtained, genetic testing could be used to determine histocompatibility, as antibody information was in the blood.
“What is the name of that blood organization?”
—The Blood Tyrant Company.
Young-Joon clenched his jaw. He thought for a moment, then asked again, “Do you know someone named Lee Qinqin?”
—No, I’ve never heard that name. Are they from my village?
“Alright. Thank you.”
Young-Joon hung up on Zhi Xuan.
—What’s the matter? What’s the Blood Tyrant Company?
Young-Joon remained on the call with Alice.
Let me make one more call.”
Young-Joon made a three-way call again.
—Wei?
It was Yang Gunyu, the governor of Guangdong.
“Mr. Governor, it’s Ryu Young-Joon. There’s something I want to confirm with you. Do you know anyone named Lee Qinquin in Guangdong?
—Lee Qinqin? There are so many people in Guangdong, so how can I remember…
Yang Gunyu answered Young-Joon sullenly.
“She lived in 341-7 in Jieyang. I want more information about them,” Young-Joon said.
—... That information cannot be given to outsiders.
“It’s important. It’s related to a huge infectious disease.”
—Alright. I will tell you because we are indebted to you. Hold on for a moment.
Yang Gunyu knew very little about the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Plus, Yang Gunyu said something a little negative about Mao Zedong, even when the Minister of Health was listening.
Yang Gunyu was a man of power with a slightly different path than the central government. He was a patriot who was loyal to the CCP, but he always said what had to be said. Although he was stubborn and arrogant, he was reasonable enough to put aside his pride when he asked for help.
Plus, he knew nothing about the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Yang Gunyu didn’t really care about political battles or illegal businesses in such a faraway region, as they were focused on the development of Guangdong, the biggest industrial region of China.
And thanks to that, Guangdong has become the most powerful economic hub in China; the provincial GDP was equivalent to the GDP of Russia as a whole.
So, let’s think about this from Chen Shui’s perspective. If Young-Joon was right about his concerns, it was better for Chen Shui if less people knew about this. Would Chen Shui have shared this with a provincial power like Yang Gunyu? Probably not; there was a high chance that Yang Gunyu was telling Young-Joon as much as he knew.
—Um…
Yang Gunyu was going through his computer.
—I looked it up on my computer right now.
“What does it say?”
—That person went missing on the sixteenth of July, one year ago.
“...”
That was only a week before the twenty-third of July, which was the date of the surgery in the chart.
—By the detailed address listed, they were probably very poor because that area is being redeveloped.
“Is there any chance that they could have been selling blood?”
—Um… I’m embarrassed to say this, but there are some villages in Guangdong that survive on blood money, many of them in Jieyang. So, it’s likely.
“Do you know the Blood Tyrant Agency?”
—Those scumbags. I spent years fighting to get rid of them. They’re an illegal blood money organization. They keep moving from place to place, running shell companies, but I’m going to take them all down sooner or later.
“Could you tell me about them if you know anything?” Young-Joon asked.