Chapter 224: Artificial Organs (13) |
Yang Gunyu’s press conference didn’t just draw reporters, there were also high-ranking officials from the Chinese Communist Party and the Public Security Bureau. Many of them were loyal to Chen Shui, the current president, but none of them could stop Yang Gunyu as he was the king of Guangdong.
No matter what anyone said, Yang Gunyu was the man who had built Guangdong into the best economic hub in China; he was a politician who had shown remarkable skill in attracting foreign investment and building both industry and ecology.
Additionally, Chen Shui was extremely weak right now. His name had come up in the documents the CIA revealed; if Chen Shui really did harvest organs illegally, it would be insane to go against Yang Gunyu right now. For this reason, high-ranking officials who were on Chen Shui’s side did not dare to stop the press conference. Then, Yang Gunyu dropped a huge bomb.
“Everything that the Chinese Communist Party announced about Lee Qinqin is false.”
The reporters’ eyes widened. They began to mutter amongst themselves.
“Lee Qinqin was a citizen of Jieyang, Guangdong. As he was a citizen of Guangdong, I know about him better than the party,” Yang Gunyu said. “Lee Qinqin went missing a few months ago!”
“Wow…”
“Went missing…”
There were a few gasps of surprise in the crowd.
Yang Gunyu went on.
“Third, Lee Quinqin’s address in Xinjiang is public housing, which requires fierce competition to get into. The way to have an advantage in that competition is to have a large number of dependents. It is unreasonable for Lee Qinqin to abandon his family and suddenly travel thousands of kilometers alone to Xinjiang, where he has no connections, to get into public housing.”
Yang Gunyu continued his statement.
“This is the strongest piece of evidence. Lastly, Lee Qinqin was reported missing five months ago. His family members filed the report, and there are records of the police in Guangdong investigating his whereabouts. If the change of address was true, it should have been retrieved when they investigated.”
Yang Gunyu spoke with a firm voice.
“Again, Lee Qinqin is a missing person.”
He met the eyes of the reporters and party officials one by one.
“I have another significant announcement. As I said, citizens of poor villages in Guangdong who sell blood have a very high chance of going missing. And Lee Qinqin…” Yang Gunyu said. “He had been selling blood for three weeks before he went missing. What do you think this means?”
There was an ominous tension in the press conference room. Everyone was speculating on one conclusion, but no one could say anything.
“The police in Guangdong have been investigating the Blood Tyrant Agency, an illegal blood trafficking organization in Guangdong.”
Yang Gunyu pulled up several photos and reports on the screen.
“This is one of the photos we obtained during our search of the Blood Tyrant Agency’s temporary hideout.”
Yang Gunyu pointed to a machine in one of the photos on the screen.
“This is a PCR machine. This equipment is used to amplify specific sections of DNA,” Yang Gunyu said. “Why would a blood trafficking agency need this?”
He asked the crowd a question.
“This is because the blood of the donors must be tested for histocompatibility.”
“Oh…”
“Damn it…” exclaimed several of the party officials.
“Once again, Mr. Lee Qinqin went missing after the Blood Tyrant Agency obtained his blood. And his heart is now in President Chen Shui’s chest,” Yang Gunyu said as he pointed his laser pointer at the PCR machine in the photo.
* * *
As Yang Gunyu’s press conference went live, Weibo, a Chinese social networking platform, was flooded with real-time reactions from Chinese citizens.
—This is ridiculous.
—The events in Xinjiang are also shocking, but doing that to Han Chinese people in Guangdong…
—He said that there were a lot of missing people from those villages.
—Is this a world where you get kidnapped and have your organs harvested if you’re poor and powerless, even if you’re Han Chinese?
—Damn it, we’re not like Xinjiang, begging the government to give us independence. We’re good citizens who work hard and pay taxes/
—I guess we’re nothing but stupid dogs to the government.
The comments were filled with anger and reflected a sense of betrayal.
China was a big country. It had a large population and many ethnic groups. But ninety-two percent of them were Han Chinese.
—Han Chinese are the core of Sinocentrism. What was the basis for us to ask the ethnic minorities in the provinces to become Chinese? Wasn’t it to unite China? Weren’t Chinese people supposed to be equals? Unlike the West, where money creates a hierarchy, we are human-centered. Isn’t that the basis of Sinocentrism?
—Don’t go to Korea, Chen Shui. if you go and get a heart transplant, you’ll be dead forever.
—Let’s all go to Zhongnanhai and see who goes to Korea.
—Chinese people living in Korea should go to the Next Generation Hospital and see who comes.
—Fxxk, I still can’t believe it. Uygurs aren’t the only ones who had their organs harvested? If citizens of Guangdong are getting kidnapped, how is China safe?
While everyone was reeling from the horror, donor B78551, the girl who miraculously escaped from Xinjiang, was ready to be interviewed. Overcoming her fears, she stepped in front of the cameras of dozens of reporters and held the microphone. Surprisingly, her voice didn’t tremble much.
“My name is Dileva Abdulkahim. My family and I were detained in the Xinjiang Uygur labor camp because we refused to comply with the Chinese government’s orders to change our names to Chinese,” she said.
Forcing them to change their names was also a huge human rights issue, but the international community couldn’t care about that right now, as there were too many other bombs going off.
“I lived there for five months. I had regular medical checkups, and one night, the security guards ordered me to follow them to the cargo parking lot.”
Dileva fully understood the situation after listening to Nancy’s explanation. She felt like she had a responsibility to show the world the horrors of Xinjiang. She spoke calmly, trying to convey as much information as truthfully as possible.
“There were doctors and people who looked like police there. They put me in a car and drove me to Xinjiang University Hospital. We took the elevator down from the underground parking lot.”
Dileva’s voice trembled a little.
“That was the organ harvesting room. I was locked in a room that was about ten square meters wide. I couldn’t see other people’s faces because the walls were concrete, but I could hear their voices. Most of them were Uygurs, but there were some people who spoke mainland Chinese.”
Dileva’s experience made Weibo erupt in anger again.
—Damn it. I told you.
—They killed Han Chinese there, too. She confirmed it.
Dileva went on.
“The people called that place the living quarters. The people in charge of the living quarters told us to sacrifice our lives for the leadership of the Chinese party… They told us that this was being patriotic, and that we should consider ourselves lucky to have organs that were histocompatible, saying that others couldn’t do this even if they wanted to.”
Dileva paused for a moment.
No matter how determined she was, the trauma of being a teenage girl in prison and waiting for an organ transplant was not simple. The faces and voices of the living quarter managers came to her mind as she tried to describe the devastating situation there. She got goosebumps on her arms, and her heart began to pound loudly. Her eyes welled up with tears from the fear and sadness, but she swallowed hard to keep them from falling.
She held her trembling arms and barely managed to speak through the tightness in her throat.
“... I was fed three times a day. If we refused to eat, we were beaten or tortured with electric shocks. We were told… We were told that it was our job to stay healthy until the day of the surgery…”
Now, tears were rolling down her face. Dileva wiped them away with her hand and continued speaking.
“Medical staff came and did blood tests and stuff. They didn’t tell us the date of the surgery, but we all knew when it was time,” Dileva said. “Because… They didn’t give us food the day before the surgery; you have to have an empty stomach to do the surgery. People who didn’t get food in the morning cried and screamed like crazy people.”
* * *
[Even death row inmates get a last meal before their execution.]
This was the headline of an editorial in the People’s Daily the next day. The fact that a Chinese newspaper like the People’s Daily, not a foreign newspaper, published such a bold editorial signaled a massive shift in power within the party.
‘Just die for the Party’s honor.’
That was what some of the officials who were loyal to Chen Shui told him. The dignity of Chen Shui’s followers had already collapsed, but he still couldn’t let go of his desire to live. He might have been able to go to A-GenBio’s Next Generation Hospital under the radar when he was still in a position of great power, but it was different now; even his closest aides, who were supposed to help him, were now turning their backs on him.
“Let’s go,” Peng Kui said to Chen Shui.
“My political life will be over if I go there,” Chen Shui said.
“...”
“But I still want to live.”
Peng Kui escorted Chen Shui out. Chen Shui wore shabby jeans, a shirt, and a cap to cover his face. They exited through the back entrance of the Hall of Diligence and got into a medium-sized sedan. This was all done so that they could stay out of the public eye as much as possible.
They drove to the Beijing Capital Airport. It was an air base used by Chinese officials to fly overseas or receive state guests.
“We’re going underground now,” Peng Kui said into the radio.
Their car traveled along the outer perimeter of the airport.
“What?”
Chen Shui’s eyes narrowed as he looked out the window. In the distance, he could see the airport’s outdoor parking lot filled with people. No civilian planes landed at Beijing Capital Airport, as almost everything on the airport’s grounds, including the runway, was under security.
The only thing that was open to the public was the airport’s outdoor parking lot, which was created by recycling surplus land. It was a civic service, much like how the parking lot of the local government office was open to the public on weekends.
But even so, very few people parked their cars in the outdoor parking lot because they didn’t want to go near an air base. As such, the parking lot was usually empty. Today, however, it was full of people. Everyone had terrifying gazes.
“They are all looking for you, sir,” Peng Kui said.
“Me?”
“They’re trying to see if you’re going to China. There are probably some reporters and politicians who are aligning themselves with Yang Gunyu.”
“...”
“Well, don’t worry, we won’t be going through there,” Peng Kui added. “But when we’re in Korea, it won’t be easy to avoid all those people and get to A-GenBio’s hospital.”