10: Chapter 10 Everyone is looking for him

The lights in the villa living room were on.

Elder Liu was sitting on the sofa, wearing a navy blue cotton-linen jacket, a pot of ginseng tea in front of him having long since gone cold.

Liu Yuyan was changing her shoes in the entryway, taking two seconds longer than usual.

In the mirror above the shoe cabinet, the corners of her eyes were slightly red, though not noticeably.

She walked into the living room and sat down opposite her grandfather.

Elder Liu glanced at her.

"Did you go?"

"Yes."

"What did you see?"

Liu Yuyan picked up the teapot and poured herself a cup.

The tea was cold, and she took a sip.

"Grandfather, it's not convenient for me to go into details."

She set the teacup down, her voice steadying.

"But I can tell you that person is trustworthy."

Elder Liu tapped his fingers on the armrest twice.

"You met him?"

"I did. His identity, his background, the organization he belongs to—once you know these things, you are no longer an ordinary person."

Liu Yuyan slowed her pace of speech.

"Grandfather, you have just recovered from a serious illness. Sometimes, not knowing is the best protection."

The living room was quiet for a few seconds.

Elder Liu's fingers stopped.

He understood; it wasn't that she didn't want to say, but that she couldn't bear to.

Anything that could make Liu Yuyan use the word "protection" carried significant weight.

"Then what about you?"

The old man's voice was very soft.

"Can you handle it?"

Liu Yuyan smiled slightly.

The smile was faint, but her eyes did not waver.

"I can handle it."

Elder Liu looked at her for a long time.

Finally, he nodded and did not ask further.

Liu Yuyan stood up, replaced the cold ginseng tea, and brewed a fresh, hot pot.

"Grandfather, there is a serious matter. I need the Liu Group to expand its cash flow in the shortest possible time. A large amount of freely deployable money that doesn't need to go through the board of directors."

Elder Liu's eyebrows twitched.

"How much?"

"Prepare five billion first. There may be more later."

This figure made the old man's fingers pause for a second.

Five billion, the Liu Group could afford it.

But "not going through the board" reduced the room for maneuver to ten percent.

"Route it through my personal account, repatriated from three overseas shell companies."

Elder Liu did not hesitate for too long.

"It will take fifteen days."

"Ten days."

Elder Liu looked into his granddaughter's eyes.

There was something in them he had never seen before.

It was not the sharpness of the business world, nor the coldness when facing acquisition rivals.

She was looking at a place further than the Liu Group.

So far that even Elder Liu's experience couldn't reach it.

The old man patted his granddaughter's hand.

"Ten days it is."

——

At the same time. Jingzhou, Chang'an Club.

It was membership-based with an annual fee of eighty million, and the threshold wasn't money—it was lineage and seniority.

At 9:40 tonight, the lights were on in three secret rooms simultaneously.

The news had leaked from inside Xinghai Private Hospital.

Confidentiality agreements had been signed, with a penalty of twenty million per breach.

But in this circle, twenty million couldn't buy a person's silence; it could only make them delay speaking for two hours.

Liu Hongde, terminal liver cancer, multi-organ metastasis, sentenced to death by global experts, yet three days later all cancer cells had vanished into thin air.

These key phrases combined had the destructive power of a nuclear bomb in the top circles of Jingzhou.

Secret Room A.

Zhao Dingtang, sixty-seven, head of the Zhao family, real estate tycoon.

Early-stage prostate cancer, just had surgery last year, with check-ups every three months.

On his phone screen were two comparative CT images—scanned copies bought on the black market for five million.

Zhao Dingtang's hand was shaking.

Not from fear. It was hunger.

If this was true, the value of this technology far exceeded all the assets under his name.

Far exceeding the assets of all the families present, far exceeding anything known on this planet.

He dialed the head of the Zhao family's intelligence unit and said only one sentence:

"The person who treated the Liu family—I want to see them, whether alive or dead."

Secret Room B.

Sun Bonian, sixty-one, head of the Sun Family, leader of a pharmaceutical group.

He owned the largest tumor-targeted drug R&D production line in China, with a group market value of thirty-eight billion.

He stood by the window with his hands behind his back.

His first reaction was not excitement. It was fear.

If there was something that could bypass modern medicine and directly cure cancer, his thirty-eight billion would become worthless paper overnight.

Not just him. The global tumor drug market was worth two hundred and eighty billion US dollars annually—two hundred and eighty billion.

If Liu Hongde's case were confirmed, replicated, and made public—

A cold sweat broke out on Sun Bonian's back.

He didn't make a call, but walked to the safe in the corner of the secret room, entered the password, and took out an old address book.

Turning to the last page, there was only one number on it, with no name.

He had never dialed this number before. Tonight, he did.

Secret Room C.

Chen Jingyuan, fifty-nine, financial capital, in good health.

But his mother was eighty-three, in the middle stages of Alzheimer's, and had stopped recognizing him last year.

Chen Jingyuan stood in the secret room for a full five minutes after finishing the comparative images.

Then he picked up the phone.

"Investigate. Everyone the Liu family has been in contact with over the last three days. Doctors, visitors, drivers, delivery workers, no matter who they are. Spare no expense."

Three secret rooms, three heads of families, three different mindsets.

The same late night, the same goal—to find the truth behind Liu Hongde's recovery.

——

Zurich. 2:00 PM Swiss time.

In Henry Bernstein's private laboratory, the air conditioning was set to twenty-one degrees, yet his forehead was covered in sweat.

Three things were spread out on the workbench.

Liu Hongde's blood sample from three days ago, which he had used his privilege to keep an extra vial of before signing the confidentiality agreement.

Today's latest blood analysis report, as well as the output data from a mass spectrometer he had used for fifteen years.

The sample from three days ago was a standard terminal cancer blood profile, textbook level.

Today's data—spotless.

Not the cleanliness of "recovered to normal," but the cleanliness of "never having been ill."

Even the traces of mild pulmonary fibrosis caused by Liu Hongde's smoking in his youth were gone.

Henry took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

He had stood at the lab bench for four hours, applying every medical model he knew.

Immune rebound? The data didn't support it.

Gene editing? No traces of a vector.

Nano-targeting? It couldn't achieve such a clean, systemic repair.

Stem cells? Three days wasn't enough.

Even the world's most advanced protocols weren't enough.

All eliminated. Not a single explanation held water.

The laboratory door chimed, and his assistant, Marcus, poked his head in.

"Professor, you've been at it for eleven consecutive hours—"

"Marcus."

Henry didn't turn around. "Do you know why I won the Nobel Prize?"

Marcus was stunned.

"Because in twenty-four thousand failed experiments, I never gave up once."

Henry turned around, his eyes bloodshot beneath his gold-rimmed glasses, but the look behind the lenses made Marcus take a half-step back.

"If Liu Hongde's case is real—it means humanity hasn't even touched the door to understanding life."

He took a step closer.

"It means cancer, aging, degenerative diseases—everything I have spent my life fighting—might just be the surface. Underneath, there is an entire layer of territory we have never touched."

Marcus opened his mouth.

Henry had already turned back.

"Tomorrow morning at seven, Jingzhou, first class."

He put his glasses back on and circled an abnormal data point on the report.

"Also, contact Professor Wang at Jingzhou University. I want his proteomics platform."

"Professor, you just returned from Jingzhou—"

"Marcus."

Henry looked up.

It was an expression Marcus had only seen once before.

Twelve years ago, late on the night the professor discovered the key PD-1 target.

Marcus shut his mouth and turned to book the flight.

The laboratory was empty.

Henry stood alone by the window.

The sky over Zurich was gray, and the snow-capped peaks of the Alps appeared and disappeared behind the clouds.

His fingers pressed against the vial of dark red blood sample.

The glass tube was cold, and the liquid sat quietly inside.

Forty years.

He had never stood in front of a vial of blood for so long before.