Chapter Two Hundred and Fifteen: External Help

The Nan Family stood at the apex of the top families. Though they had started in the fashion industry, they had expanded into all design, entertainment, construction, and food industries through years of development. In a thriving metropolis like City S, the Nan Family’s influence could be found everywhere and anywhere.

Unlike the Yan Family’s flourishing of talent from generation to generation, the Nan Family sorely felt the lack of talent in their last two generations. Even young Nan Chan had been forced to assume the role of the Nan Family successor. Nan Qi should have had the best understanding of the power distribution in the Nan Family, but after being gone for ten years, he was still catching up with the times. To make matters worse, he’d immediately entered into a bitter war against Yan Jin, so he lacked the time to truly understand what other industries the Nan Family were meddling in behind-the-scenes.

Thus, when Nan Qi learned from his senior brother that the Nan Family actually ran a research institute, he couldn’t say he was surprised.

Just as Nan Qi had expected, his senior brother didn’t know too much about Du Yirou. After all, this was still a scandal for both families.

His senior brother had walked the traditional path of becoming the hospital director without ever getting on the Du Family’s wrong side. But, after Nan Qi had told him about Du Yirou still being alive and her illogical blood type, the senior brother sighed deeply. Then, he told Nan Qi a secret that had been almost entirely buried by time.

HN research institute’s second branch was guilty of countless crimes and had been remodeled into a food condiment factory under the Nan Family name. It now solely revolved around new condiment research and mass production.

It seemed like this was sufficient to hide all the evil experiments that had occurred there as it had escaped any discovery.

As the Nan Family’s successor, Nan Qi was able to explore the factory completely unrestricted. Everyone there bowed and groveled before him to lead the way. He easily made his way into the factory’s core control center.

Nan Qi felt that things were going a little too smoothly. He wasn’t someone who was blindly optimistic. If there really were problems with this factory, obstacles would be quickly coming his way.

Although, given that he was already here, no obstacles could stop him anymore.

“Yuck, it smells in here. Even the air conditioning isn’t helping… Seems pretty normal for a factory,” Secretary Huang complained sarcastically while looking all around. She had insisted on tagging along and now looked for a suitable place to sit down. “This ‘control center’ is just a small room with a few computers. If there really were some unbelievable secret here, it wouldn’t be just lying around here either.”

“Quiet. Watch.” Nan Qi confidently rolled up his sleeves and sat in front of one of the computers. He inserted a USB drive and opened it up.

A face with extremely dark circles under the eyes appeared on the screen. The master hacker lazily said, “Are you for real?”

“Would I ever not be? There’s work to do. Hurry up.”

“Brother, do you know what time it is in Country M? I’m so sleepy…”

“Bah! Who are you calling ‘Brother’? To you, I’m ‘Uncle’. Clearly, you haven’t gone to sleep yet, so hurry up. There’s people coming on my end.” [TLN: China has a strong culture of respect for elders. On the other hand, one way to show disrespect to someone else, especially someone around your own age, is by referring to yourself with older titles such as “your grandpa”. Or, in this case, telling someone else to call you ‘Uncle’.]

Overseas in Country M, Liu Ye began working his magic without complaint. Then, suddenly, an alarming thought occurred to him. “Hey, this won’t be used against Yan Jin, right? No matter what, I’m on Yan Jin’s side. If you two want to squabble like a snipe and clam, feel free, but don’t bring me into it.” [TLN: Liu Ye is referring to a Chinese idiom where a snipe (type of bird) and clam fight, then a fisherman comes and eats them both. It’s not an accurate idiom to use here since there’s no beneficiary fisherman, as Nan Qi points out below.]

“Looks like your University H degree is fake; you don’t even know how to use that idiom.” Nan Qi hmphed coldly. “Stop fucking around and hurry up. Otherwise, I’ll start introducing awesome lively guys to my little brother every day.”

“Oi, you little…”

Liu Ye couldn’t finish the thought.

Yan Jin preferred to scheme in the dark behind the scenes, while Nan Qi threatened people in broad daylight. The former didn’t let you sleep soundly at night, while the latter left you permanently sitting on pins and needles.

What a bunch of shitty people.

He’d only just finished with Yan Jin’s stuff. Now, fighting to keep his eyelids open, the hacker roused his tired spirit to conscientiously begin work yet again.

It was already 3 in the morning in Country M. Because of some personal reasons, Liu Ye didn’t live in the city center. Looking outside the window, he didn’t hear a thing. Everyone was fast asleep. That is, except for poor little him.

Surely hackers have human rights as well?

He sighed. He didn’t feel motivated at all to break into the central server. Idly, he wondered if he could just send Nan Qi off by telling him that he couldn’t break in. Nan Qi didn’t know how to hack computers; he probably wouldn’t be able to catch his lie.

But, against Liu Ye’s expectations, the system was extremely easy to hack, or rather, the encryption was extremely basic. Because of its old age, it was no harder to crack than his elementary school’s computers.

Well, the lack of difficulty wasn’t a bad thing. Liu Ye carelessly sifted through the massive database and downloaded anything related to the “Gene Project” Nan Qi had mentioned. After tidying all the files, he prepared to send them to Nan Qi.

As he carelessly glanced through the files, he suddenly froze.

For a moment, he thought his own computer had been hacked.

The image on his screen seemed like a screenshot from a movie.

A horror movie at that.

Liu Ye unconsciously scrolled down to see more.

The preposterous images on the screen burned themselves into his eyes, leaving no trace of his former sleepiness.

……

“Are you done yet? It’s already almost been an hour.” Nan Qi urged as his impatience mounted.

“Isn’t this the Liu Family’s kid? When did Yan Jin get his hands on him?” Secretary Huang leaned in closer to the screen that had long since stopped displaying Liu Ye’s figure.

“How should I know? Random people always seem to pop up by Yan Jin’s side.” Nan Qi clearly wasn’t happy that Yan Jin had even gotten his hands on his own little brother.

“Boo, you’re just jealous,” Secretary Huang said snarkily. “If you have time to be jealous, you have time to make amends with Yan Jin.”

“Bah! Get lost!” Nan Qi pushed Secretary Huang aside.

He too wanted to be friends again, but it was important to find the truth first before apologizing…

Wait a minute, this was all Yan Jin’s fault for hiding everything from him! Why should he apologize?

Nan Qi couldn’t accept it.

“Nan Qi.”

Liu Ye’s face reappeared on the screen.

“You’re finally back. Are you done?”

“Pretty much.” Liu Ye nodded. His entire demeanor had changed from his sleepy earlier self. Even his tone was much more serious.

Nan Qi’s heart thumped, but he still maintained a calm expression. “What did you find? What is this ‘Gene Project’?”

Nan Qi had learned of the Gene Project from his senior brother. However, his senior brother hadn’t been willing to elaborate more on it. Instead, he’d hinted that the Gene Project and Du Yirou’s case were closely linked.

His senior brother had only been willing to tell him about this old research institute.

“The Gene Project is a horrifying experiment. I really don’t want to tell you about it.”

“Bullshit,” Nan Qi coldly spat out. “Why else would I be here?”

“You’re going to regret it…”

“Enough with the nonsense!”

Liu Ye sighed heavily. Then, he got up, grabbed the jacket from the back of his chair and put it on, and collected a few other items before sitting back down in front of the screen. He looked directly at the fuming Nan Qi and calmly said, “When can I see you in person?”

“…You’re coming here? Now?”

“For something this big, the safer the better. I’ll make a trip over right now. I should be there before it gets dark over there.

Liu Ye saw Nan Qi’s doubtful expression and added, “Don’t misunderstand. I don’t want to go out at all. But for this… I’ll tell you when I get there. I really can’t say anything right now.”

“Alright then. I’ll be in the office in the afternoon. Come directly to the chairman’s lounge.”

“No, that’s too conspicuous. Find a safer, more discreet place.” Liu Ye shook his head and sighed. “The encryption on this data is so poor. I don’t know when they’ll discover my unauthorized entry… well, Nan Qi, your family may already be on your tail. You should hit the road soon.”

Secretary Huang butted in. “Exaggerating much? What is that thing? Elder Nan’s will?”

“Go away…” Nan Qi pushed Secretary Huang aside again to stop her shenanigans. He considered the matter carefully, then said hesitantly, “Four Seasons Manor. Does that work?”

Liu Ye was taken aback. “You have the keys?”

“Nan Wei has them. Yan Jin gave him a spare last time. I can get them from him.”

“… Regretting your actions yet, Uncle?” Liu Ye chuckled. “Yan Jin’s pretty reliable at crucial times, isn’t he?”

“Any more from you and I’m going to tear you a new one when you get here.”

……

Nan Qi guessed that Yan Jin didn’t even need the Four Seasons Manor’s surveillance system to tell him that he had guests. Nan Wei had probably informed Yan Jin directly when he’d asked him for the keys.

Nan Qi felt like he was running out of options fast. If Liu Ye couldn’t give him any significant answers, he probably would never be able to look Yan Jin in the eye after all of this.

He really did regret his actions. If he hadn’t deteriorated their relationship to this point…

A sea of lights finally appeared in his sights as he neared the Four Seasons Manor. With both the Nan Family and Yan Jin closing in on him, he had to force down his rising panic.

Fortunately, Liu Ye wasn’t slow.

After missing a night of sleep, the hacker didn’t look good at all. He skipped all the formalities and directly opened up his laptop. With a few strokes, he brought up all the data he’d organized on the flight.