Chapter 221: Artificial Organs (10) |
“...”
Mei Weisun was speechless.
“Tell me. I will help you.”
Young-Joon urged Mei Weisun, but she couldn’t say anything. She had never revealed the secrets of Xinjiang University Hospital to Young-Joon. Young-Joon shouldn’t know, and to be honest, she couldn’t tell if he really didn’t know anymore.
“... Important confidential documents were stolen from the hospital yesterday. We believe it was done by outsiders.”
“Really? If you have a suspect, I can do something like DNA profiling. Have you arrested a suspect yet?”
“No.”
“Hm… What kind of documents are they?”
“I cannot disclose that information.”
“... I cannot disclose that information either.”
“Then there’s no way I can help you.”
Young-Joon shrugged.
“...”
“As you know, I hardly left the lab, and I don’t see any reason for me to stay here. You can look at the CCTV footage or my access card records and see,” Young-Joon said.
“... You’re right.”
“But there’s a clear reason why I have to return to A-GenBio. This will be the first transplant of artificial hearts and organs ever created. I trust our scientists, but I need to confirm as the chief of the company, so I can finalize the contract and perform the transplant on him.”
“You’re right,” Mei Weisun said with a pained expression.
“Then, I’ll be on my way.”
Young-Joon picked up his bag and left. Kim Chul-Kwon followed him.
“I hope we can get home safely,” Kim Chul-Kwon said.
“We will be able to.”
As soon as he finished, someone popped out from the end of the hallway.
“Doctor Ryu.”
It was the Chinese interpreter that he had at the Hall of Diligence. There were two policemen from the Public Security Bureau standing behind him. They all looked more tense than usual.
“Yes, what is it?” Young-Joon asked.
“Are you flying from the city of Urumqi?” the interpreter asked.
“Yes.”
Urumqi was the capital city of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Young-Joon was currently in the city of Kas, so he had to travel north by car.
“ The Urumqi Airport is currently closed,” said the interpreter.
“Closed? Why?”
“I cannot tell you the reason,” he replied. “Anyways, since you can’t fly out from here, let’s go to Qinghai Province instead. There’s the Chaojibao Airport in Diwopu, a city in the suburbs of Xining. I have prepared a flight there.”[1]
“Let’s go.”
Young-Joon confidently followed the interpreter. As he was walking, Kim Chul-Kwon poked him in the back.
—They’re trying to buy time.
Rosaline told Young-Joon.
‘Probably. But it doesn’t matter.’
* * *
In the car traveling to Qinghai Province, the interpreter said to Young-Joon, “As you may have guessed, I’m an intelligence agent with the Public Security Bureau.”
“Really? Are you allowed to disclose information like that?”
“... How much do you know about Xinjiang University Hospital?”
“What do you mean?”
“About the secrets of this place,” the interpreter said.
“Secrets? The fact that the virus got into the training center and infected everyone?”
“No, I’m talking about the leak of important documents yesterday.”
“Director Mei Weisun told me about it, too.”
“The director let you go because he’s soft, but not me,” the interpreter said.
When Young-Joon glanced at him, he bit his lip.
The organ transplant business at Xinjiang University Hospital had never been revealed for years. But within a week of Young-Joon’s arrival, everything was uncovered. It wasn’t just a few pieces of information—they ransacked the donors’ living quarters and the secure document library, and they stole the organ transplant chart and the codenames of all their VIP customers. They even managed to escape with a donor.
How was this possible? The interpreter knew that the CIA and foreign journalists were roaming around, but hospital security was confident in their secrecy. Finding a secret elevator on the fifth floor of the basement would be impossible unless someone who actually uses the elevator leaked it.
But the invaders picked the exact time of day when security was weakest and broke in, impersonating medical staff and reciting the codemanes of donors and recipients. All of this happened after Young-Joon arrived here. Was this a coincidence?
‘There’s definitely something…’
The interpreter sighed.
“When you were talking to Director Mei Weisun before, you left in the middle of the conversation and took a call,” he said.
“Yes, I did,” Young-Joon replied.
“We checked with the telecommunication base station and found your phone records. You had one international call, one to a woman named Zhi Xuan in Guangdong, and one to Governor Yang Gunyu.”
“That’s right.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Ms. Zhi Xuan was a patient who contracted HIV from selling blood to Blood Tyrant Agency, an illegal blood-selling organization. The poor people in that area live off of selling blood, and the man who donated his heart to the president happened to have the same address.”
“...”
The interpreter frowned.
“I don’t know if you know this, Doctor Ryu, but an urban legend once circulated on Baidu. It was that high-ranking government officials were using an illegal blood-selling organization to find poor people who were histocompatible, kidnap them, and take their organs for transplantation. You don’t really believe in that, right?”
Young-Joon smirked.
“Of course not,” Young-Joon said. “It’s too horrible and evil to be true.”
“...”
“The reason I contacted Guangdong was just because I thought maybe the virus could have spread through the blood organization. I just wanted to check that possibility.”
“Is that so?”
The interpreter fiddled with his fingers. There was a short silence.
“I don’t think we should send you back to Korea,” he said.
“Why?” Young-Joon replied.
“You’re obsessed with bioethics, and you’re being too calm.”
“Are you saying there was an ethics violation?”
“Even though you haven’t seen anything, I’m sure you’ve heard many rumors, like the urban legend I just talked about, or that Uygurs are being held in internment camps in Xinjiang,” the interpreter said. “Honestly, these are things that everyone in the world knows about to some extent. There’s no way they wouldn’t have reached someone like you. And given your personality, you would have definitely tried to investigate them.”
“...”
“And one more thing. Recently, Xinjiang has been infiltrated by foreign reporters and intelligence agents from all over the world. You’ve been at our lab for quite some time now, and they haven’t contacted you once during that time? That’s ridiculous.”
“If there are any ethics violations, tell me now. If you do, I won’t go back, and I’ll stay here to investigate, even if you ask me to go back to Korea,” Young-Joon replied.
“...”
“But if I were you, I would send me back to A-GenBio as soon as possible.”
“What?”
“From what you’re saying, it seems like the secret documents that were stolen were very important and related to bioethics. Depending on what it’s about, I might not stay put.”
“What do you mean?”
“As you said, I obsess over ethics.”
“...”
The interpreter frowned.
“Doctor Ryu, does that mean that you could threaten us with the president’s life if the classified documents were made public and the ethics violations were severe?”
“Interpret it as you wish.”
“We will detain you at the Public Security Bureau.”
“Can you handle it? The lives of one hundred high-ranking officials, including the president, are in my hands right now. Their artificial organs can only be delivered to China with my signature.”
“...”
Young-Joon took out his phone.
As he pressed a number, the interpreter asked, “Who are you calling?”
“It’s the main number for the Hall of Diligence.”
A moment later, the chief of staff’s office picked up the phone. Young-Joon held his phone out to the interpreter.
“Please connect me to the president.”
“... Damn it.”
The interpreter cursed quietly and spoke into the phone.
“Is Mr. Peng Kui in the office?”
—This is Peng Kui. Peng Kui took over the phone.
“Doctor Ryu would like to speak to the president.”
—Please wait a moment. I will connect the call to the hospital room.
There was a tone. Then, the medical staff in the room picked up, and the call was soon transferred to the President.
“Hello, this is Ryu Young-Joon,” he said to the interpreter. “Please translate this.”
The interpreter frowned uncomfortably and spoke into the phone.
“Ni hao. Wo shi Ryu Young-Joon.”
—Nice to see you, Doctor Ryu.
They could hear the President’s voice.
“How are you feeling?”
—It’s not a commercialized drug, but it works very well. Thank you. I’m feeling much better now; I’m not paralyzed anymore, and I can move around a bit.
“That’s a relief. But it won’t last very long,” Young-Joon said. “It’s been about three weeks since I gave you the medicine. Your immune system will be disturbed soon, and the damage will start at the heart junction. You need to get an artificial heart as soon as possible.”
—You said you were developing it at A-GenBio, right? How far along are you?
“We’ve already finished it. I’ll send it to you after I go back to A-GenBio and finalize it.
—Thank you.
“But I heard that there was a leak of important classified documents in Xinjiang, and that’s why the Public Security Bureau doesn’t want me to return to Korea. But I swear, I have no such documents and I never left the lab,” Young-Joon said. “Please allow me to return to Korea without any problems.”
—I will give the order to the chief of the bureau. I wish you a comfortable journey home.
“Mr. President! Please wait,” the interpreter shouted urgently. “We cannot let Doctor Ryu go like this. He definitely knows something about the underground business in the Xinjiang Region. He will expose it when he goes back to Korea.”
—Then let him.
The president didn’t seem to care.
—I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it doesn’t concern me.
“... M-Mr. President?”
The interpreter was confused.
—I heard that they do illegal organ harvesting and surgery on Uygurs in training centers, so why don’t you do some research on that?
“...”
—The heart I received did not belong to a Uygur, but to a young Han Chinese man who was critically ill. I’m sorry that I didn’t pay attention to the safety of the Uygur Autonomous Region, but I think the Public Security Bureau should investigate the area from now on.
“Mr. President…”
—I’ll forgive you for neglecting your duties so far, but send Doctor Ryu back to South Korea as soon as possible to work on the artificial heart, and you can start investigating the Xinjiang region. Arrest Director Mei Weisun first.
“...”
The report had already been given. The president had given his orders, and he was telling them to punish Mei Weisun for everything and then cover it up.
Fortunately, the president’s heart belonged to a young Han man, so even if there was a record of the operation, he would not be accused of sacrificing an Uygur prisoner.
The president had already made up his mind. He was going to cut his ties with this region and get himself an artificial heart so that he could recover.
“Y… Yes, sir…” replied the interpreter in a weak voice.
* * *
“Obviously, the Chinese are going to investigate this and publish it first to beat us to it. So we have to move fast,” Robert said.
They were on a midnight flight from Kyrgyzstan back to the United States.
“Robert’s right. We’re going to hold a press conference as soon as we get to the U.S. and release most of the photos and videos that we have here. We’re going to condemn the Chinese government directly from the White House,” Whittaker added. “And we’re going to interview the victim who was held as a donor right away.”
“Do you think it will be okay?” Nancy asked in a concerned voice, checking on B78551’s condition.
Donor B78551 was still a young girl who was only seventeen. When she was rescued in the middle of the night, she screamed and cried until she passed out, thinking it was time for her organs to be harvested.
But when she woke up, she was in the car of the U.S. intelligence agency, and they drove across the border and got on an airplane. But she was still not calm. It was difficult to imagine the horror of being taken and held for organ harvesting.
The girl looked up at Nancy, trembling. “Do you think you’ll be able to testify?” Nancy asked in Chinese.
“... Yes…” she replied in a very quiet voice.
“You don’t have to push yourself.”
Nancy patted her on the shoulder with a smile.
“Whittaker, you said you were going to reveal most of the data, right? Why aren’t you revealing it all at once?” Robert asked.
“Oh.”
“The Chinese government is obviously going to try and cut their ties, which is the nature of all politicians. It’ll be a last ditch effort to stay in power. So, we’re going to make sure that the people in the Hall of Diligence cut their ties and run away,” Whittaker said.
“And then what?” Anthony said.
“Doctor Ryu said to leave it to him.”
“Doctor Ryu?”
“Yes. he said he’d take care of things like the records on the blood-selling organization and the statistics on the missing persons after he returned.”
1. Diwopu is actually a city in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, but imagine that it is in Xining. ☜