After noticing Flanders’ look for help, Cillin coughed as if he was trying to change the subject and improve the awkward atmosphere.
“Your house layout looks familiar, Elder Xun. It is similar to Rikulab’s place.”
Cillin used the name “Rikulab” instead of “Shi Huajing” because it brought back good memories of the past and avoided the bad ones.
The old doctor shot his own house a glance and looked less gloomy, but he didn’t respond to Cillin’s comment.
Not taking offense with Jiu Xun’s silence, Cillin continued, “His was so much messier than yours though. I can still remember it as clear as yesterday.”
Cillin was watching both Jiu Xun and Flanders’ faces closely when he said this, and he noticed a very obvious twitch when he said the word “messy”.
From the moment he entered the courtyard, the biggest impression he received besides the familiarity of its layout and furnishings was its orderliness and cleanliness. Jiu Xun was a strict man, and it was obvious that he applied the same standards he applied to others to himself. He wasn’t mysophobic, but he certainly wouldn’t allow his place to become dirty and disorderly.
That was why Cillin purposely mentioned that Rikulab’s place was very dirty. It triggered Jiu Xun’s urge to scold his student even though he wasn’t present.
Flanders figured out Cillin’s method of persuasion immediately. After sneaking a glance at his teacher’s face, he asked, “Was Rikulab’s place that messy?” and stressed the last word.
“Oh yes, it was. The first time I met the guy, he was hung over and wearing a nightgown that hasn’t been washed for god knows how many days. His hair was a mess, his face was unshaved, and the smell… I would’ve believed that he was a despondent middle-aged man if he hadn’t told me his age…”
Back then, Rikulab was like a dropped fruit who allowed himself to fall into the darkness and rot. What Cillin was doing right now was to bring all the details of that dark history—his alcoholism, his uncleanliness, his night club trips, his indulgence and more—to light. Although Cillin made sure to add a copious amount of “maybe”, “possibly” and “I think” to his account, it was obvious that Jiu Xun’s ears had automatically filtered out these words.
The more Cillin talked, the uglier Jiu Xun’s expression became. Near the end of it, Flanders was positively frightened at the size and quantity of blue veins that were popping on his teacher’s forehead. Knowing his teacher, he must be brewing a mighty storm in his mind right now.
I’m not the one who slandered you, so don’t come looking for me when teacher throttles you, okay junior brother? It’s all Cillin’s fault!
BANG!
Jiu Xun abruptly slapped his table and interrupted Cillin’s account.
“That boy!” The old doctor grew so angry that he was gasping for air. Jiu Xun had taught many students in the past, and most of them he didn’t really care for after they graduated and left. Rikulab was different, however. He was a boy he ran into after he was kicked out of the school, and the student he cared the most out of everyone he had ever taught.
Judging from Jiu Xun’s high expectations of Rikulab alone, it was clear that the latter possessed incredible talent. It was why Jiu Xun had taken the boy under his tutelage at the beginning, and why he ultimately decided to leave him later on. His name had already been besmirched by his enemies, he didn’t want his circumstances to destroy the boy’s future as well. Unfortunately, because he never revealed the truth of his circumstances to Rikulab, Rikulab didn’t reveal the truth of his identity to him either. It was why his emotions were complicated to say the least when he learned that Rikulab was really the young master of a great family.
Despite everything though, he truly missed the boy from the bottom of his heart, and after everything he heard from Cillin his earlier considerations and worries seemed so trivial compared to the need to seize his disciple by the collar and straighten him out this instant. What the hell happened to him, and how did he end up the way he did? Ah, I’m so angry!
Unfortunately—or fortunately for a certain someone—Rikulab wasn’t present right now.
“Was… was there no one at all to keep him on the straight and narrow?!” Jiu Xun fumed while still breathing heavily.
Cillin shrugged. “What can you do? He was a boy who ran away from his home, and after you were gone he was left to his own devices for several years straight. Today, he’s even the high and mighty ‘prince’ of the Shi Family. Who would dare to point fingers at him and teach him how to be a better person? Sigh. Why hadn’t you kept him by your side? He may have been able to dodge that preposterous part of his life then. Now, it may already be too late.”
In fact, Jiu Xun had never been certain if he had done the right thing. The Rikulab he remembered was a lonely and helpless child up until the point he left him after all. Now that he heard of the “truth” from Cillin, the guilt and regret that were already lodged in his heart in the first place had grown to the size of a giant rock.
Sensing an opportunity, Flanders hurriedly said, “Junior brother has never forgotten about you, teacher. He never stopped looking for you even after he returned to his family. When I found you and rushed over to meet you, he wouldn’t stop advising me again and again on the to-dos and whatnots…”
Flanders held onto Jiu Xun’s regret and guilt toward Rikulab and refused to let go. It was working. The more time passed, the less certain the old doctor became of his initial decision.
Of course Jiu Xun missed his disciple dearly. After everything he heard, he couldn’t help but worry for the pitiful but extraordinarily talented young boy he once took into his care as well. It was true that his professional reputation was an utter mess back then, and he still didn’t think that his decision to leave Rikulab back then was entirely wrong. However, those days were long in the past, and considering the current situation of the galaxy, his enemies probably had better things to concern themselves with than little old Jiu Xun right now. Surely a short visit wouldn’t cause the boy any trouble, right?
“Elder Xun, Rikulab just wants to see you. He himself knew that you would be less-than-happy with his current identity, which is why he had asked senior brother Flanders to come visit you instead. Otherwise, he would’ve shown up in person even if every man and woman in the Shi Family were to object to this,” Cillin persuaded.
“He’s completely right, teacher. Rikulab will be very happy if you visit him, and oh, you can tell us both about the researches you’ve done for the past couple of years! Personally, I have a lot of questions that I could absolutely use your help to solve. I’m sure that Rikulab is the same as me as well. You can always return here after everything is settled, right?” Flanders added. To a person who was well-versed to the art of socializing, they would easily be able to point out a million flaws with Flanders’ logic. To Jiu Xun though, it was an unrelenting pick that kept chipping away at the defenses of his already wavering heart.
Jiu Xun was the type of person who wished to teach his chosen disciples everything he knew. Therefore, he couldn’t find it in himself to reject Flanders and Rikulab’s desire for him to teach them once more. It’s okay, right? I can teach them again just like in the academy, right?
Jiu Xun sank into his seat and stared at the medicinal bottles on a nearby desk for a moment. He was reminiscing the days he taught a pitiful young boy about pharmacology. Back then, his life was even harsher than what it was now, and so he wasn’t able to impart much of his knowledge onto Rikulab. More accurately, he taught him a lot of theoretical knowledge, but he had lacked the means to put them into practice, and he wasn’t able to explain certain problems in a more concise manner. He wondered Rikulab had misunderstood some of his teachings, and if there was then it was imperative that he was corrected as soon as possible. There were few things harder to correct than bad habit after all.
In the end though, it all boiled down to just one fact: he really missed his disciple.
At his age, anyone or anything he still remembered was someone or something he invested a lot of emotions in.
In the end, Jiu Xun agreed to visit Rikulab and return to his home later. Would Rikulab really let him go though? At the very least, Cillin’s anwer was an immediate no. Shi Huajing was the fourth young master of the Shi Family, and yet he was able to navigate his way to his current position like a fish in water. He might get scolded by Jiu Xun for his trickery later, but there was no chance he wouldn’t be able to wrangle Jiu Xun into staying with him permanently. Also, he was currently experiencing a manpower shortage, and a trusted person like Jiu Xun was exactly who he needed right now, not to mention that the old doctor was more than capable enough to earn Shi Huajing more support and speaking right within the Shi Family.
Flanders was overjoyed when Jiu Xun finally agreed to come with him. His mission here was to bring Jiu Xun to the fourth young master after all. After that, well, it was up to the latter to handle their teacher.
“Oh right. Cole! Come over!”
After the brawny young lad walked up to Jiu Xun, the old doctor slapped his shoulder once and said to Flanders, “This boy here is the disciple I took in after moving to this place. His name is Cole.”
Cole was a native and a local, but he actually came from a different slum. An explosive accident had occurred at the waste treatment plant he was at and killed a lot of people, so he moved here with Jiu Xun afterward.
Cole was one of the few lucky survivors to have survived that accident, and only because Jiu Xun had done his utmost to rescue the heavily injured boy. It was why Cole was eternally grateful toward him. His real family had perished in that accident, so he thought of Jiu Xun as his only family. He was slow, so he often triggered Jiu Xun a lot. However, not only did he not think that it was a bad thing, he believed that it was a kind of happiness to have someone fret over you. It was why he always smiled no matter how bad the scolding got.
Flanders shot Cole a glance. Of course, he had investigated Jiu Xun’s new disciple since a while ago. Cole was talentless and with poor genes, but his temperament was an exceptionally good fit with Jiu Xun’s. He was one of the few people who could truly withstand Jiu Xun’s hot temper.
“I guess that means that Shi… Rikulab isn’t our youngest junior brother anymore,” Flanders said while shooting Cole a cordial smile.
Cole scratched his head in embarrassment. It… didn’t feel bad to gain a senior brother who was old enough to be his father.
Since Jiu Xun was just planning to visit Rikulab, he decided to travel light. Flanders quickly packed everything that was necessary, and they all left toward the parking lot together.
While they were entering the flying car, Wheeze came back while chewing on something.
“What are you eating, Wheeze?” Shusag asked.
Jiu Xun and Cole turned to look at Wheeze as well. They were both curious because this was the first time they saw such a fat but impossibly agile cat in this area.
Wheeze stuck out its barbed tongue, and they were covered in chewed up flies.
Jiu Xun and Cole’s complexion immediately turned green. They knew that most of the flies in the area came from the waste treatment plant, and that these flies loved to feed from contaminated medicine. As a result, it looked similar to your normal fly on the outside, but was quite different on the inside. For example, they all carried a certain amount of drug resistance—a.k.a toxicity—inside them.
“You needs to make it spit them out right now! These flies are extremely toxic!” Cole said urgently.
“It’s okay, it has a great digestive system,” Cillin replied.
Cole gave a couple of examples as to how the flies could potentially harm the cat, but Cillin still replied the same thing with a smile.
When the brawny lad tried to pry open Wheeze’s mouth, Jiu Xun finally lost his temper and chided him, “Hmph! The cat’s own master isn’t worried, so why are you more worried than he is? Now sit down!”
Cole sheepishly returned to his seat. His master’s words was the law.
After climbing up Cillin’s shoulder and chewing the flies a couple more times, Wheeze swallowed them all in one gulp. Then, it let out a yawn and began dozing off to lalaland.
They flew straight to the spaceport where Flanders’ personal spaceplane was waiting for them. Some of Flanders’ men were present as well. His spaceplane was huge but modest in terms of appearance, not to mention that there were bigger and more attractive spaceplanes on the same parking lot.
After Cillin entered the private room Flanders had arranged for him and closed the door, he asked Czedow, “How did the data gathering go?”
“It’s 81% complete. The remaining data is a bit more troublesome to gather, but I should be able to gather everything if I can stay for another day,” the robot replied.
“It’s fine, 81% is enough.”
It might look like Czedow was just shadowing Cillin like a bodyguard would all this time, but he was really copying down the data he intercepted from all kinds of communications networks and transmissions all the time.
Cillin had asked Czedow to collect data on everything that was medical-related such as the types of medicine, treatment processes etc from every sanatorium, hospital, pharmacies and more to pass them onto Moon later. Then, Moon, Sigma, Eudy and the others would analyze them and discuss the viability of constructing treatment center in their ship.
Ideally, Cillin wanted to have a shipborne treatment center that could treat almost everything because it would saving them the cost, time and energy to travel all the way to a specific location like Sector E and obtain treatment. Of course, it was just a thought right now. Building a private treatment center was a lot harder than it seemed, or Sector E would’ve ceased to exist a long time ago.
As of now though, that was for his crew to worry about. He was on a mission right now. Cillin looked at Wheeze next and asked, “How about you?”
Wheeze stretched a little, said, “Do you even need to ask?” before transmitting it all to the microcomputer Cillin was carrying around. As it turned out, it hadn’t gone to the waste heap to play, at least not completely. It was really for the data Cillin had asked him to acquire.
Just as Cole had explained earlier, these flies had incredible drug resistance due to the constant exposure to a wide variety drugs. Not only that, medical induction had led to their genes mutating and making them even more drug-resistant as well.
Each fly possessed a different level of immunity or resistance toward a wide variety of drugs. It was why Wheeze had to slap and chew up a ton of flies to collect a comprehensive palette of their genetic information. Of course, in other people’s eyes, the cat was just playing a game and relieving itself from its boredom.
First things first, Cillin performed a deeper analysis on the genetic information Wheeze had gathered and filtered out the mutated genes that resulted in enhanced drug resistance.
Flanders was a businessman in the medical industry, so he naturally carried some of the relevant instruments on his spaceplane. Although Flanders was confused as to why Cillin would want to borrow the medical equipment, he didn’t pry deeper because of Shi Huajing’s advice.
Some time later, Cillin stared at the data and mapping on the display and smiled. He wasn’t expecting to find these here on Sector E, but that was okay. He would make it his second “gift” to Miracle.