By the time the two got back home, it was ten or so at night.
Annie hadn’t slept at all as she waited for her Daddy and Mommy to get back.
The moment the door opened, Annie rushed over and threw her arms around Georgia.
“Mommy, why are you and Daddy back so late?”
Maybe it was because of a child’s natural sensitivity. Annie didn’t know a thing about what had
happened, but her gaze when she looked at Georgia and Robert was tinged with a bit of worry, and she
stick to them instinctively.
“Daddy and Mommy met an old friend out there and he had to treat us to dinner. Then he got drunk,
too. Daddy and I took him home. Maybe because he was in a bad mood, but he threw a little drunken
fit on the way and kept us for a while longer. You’ve been waiting for us all this time? It’s late, hurry up
and wash and go to sleep.”
Georgia lied without a trace of it showing on her face. Even Robert looked at her, somewhat taken
aback.
Maybe because he felt her lying expression was far too natural, like she didn’t even need to draft it.
“I want to sleep with Mommy and Daddy tonight, can I?”
Annie asked Georgia that, but before she could answer, Robert answered for her.”
“Of course you can. But have you gone in the bath yet? If you haven’t, Mommy can bathe you first,
then you can put on your pajamas and sleep with us, okay?”
At that, Annie jumped for joy.
“You’re so nice, Daddy. I’ll go in the bath with Mommy right away.”
Annie bounded up, beaming and tugging at Georgia’s hand, seemingly ready to rush to the bathroom.
Georgia chuckled, a little exasperated, then followed Annie to the bathroom.
Ivan watched from a short distance away. For this time, he hadn’t gone back to his own place or taken
on other operations, mainly because he was worried about Robert’s body and wanted to know the
results.
If Annie hadn’t needed looking after at home, he’d actually been planning on heading out with Georgia
and Robert to the hospital.
Seeing Annie and Georgia in the bathroom, Ivan walked up next to Robert.
“Are those documents in your hand today’s checkup reports?”
Ivan asked, and Robert nodded.
“I haven’t opened them and looked at them yet, but this isn’t the full report.”
“What? The results aren’t fully out yet?”
Ivan found it strange, and Robert didn’t know how to explain it.
But seeing as it was his own brother and a doctor to boot, he wasn’t going to keep it hidden, and simply
explained the day’s events.
“When they tested my blood, every test had a different result. It was the same sample taken at the
same time, but they put multiple people on it, and with the final results, some were normal, while there
were abnormal figures with others. They told me to find more professional establishments to verify it…
Ivan, you know more people in this area. Do you have any seniors or instructors and professors you
know who devote deeper research into hematology? I feel like I might need to go to one of them to
check.”
Robert’s tone was mild, and he didn’t seem panicked or afraid.
Ivan, though, was rooted to the spot in shock.
“That means that there might be a problem with your blood, right?”
Robert nodded helplessly, while Ivan remembered something.
“Do you remember, when you were little, you had an operation to replace your bone marrow? Your
blood is made from bone marrow that was donated to you later on. That’s why Annie failed several
DNA tests with you before. I hadn’t thought about that in the beginning, which caused some
misunderstandings between you and Georgia. Has my aunt ever told you who the donor of the blood
marrow was?”
Ivan asked seriously. He seemed to think the answer was important.
“I don’t know about that. You know I can’t remember a thing about the past now. Back when I
investigated my past, I didn’t look too deeply into that. But if there’s a problem with my blood, it has to
be from all the chemicals they injected into me when I was at the lab, right? It shouldn’t have anything
to do with my past surgery.”
Of course, Robert didn’t understand this sort of thing too well, and could only ask his brother a little
dubiously.
“I just have my doubts. Your body condition is strange, after all, and it has to do with blood. Naturally, it
should have more relation to your experiences in the past year, but all factors have to be considered.
Different concentrations cause changes in nature. Georgia told me about what happened a year ago in
brief, so I feel like we can’t ignore any possibilities. We have to find this person.”
Robert nodded.
“I’ll put people on it.”
As the two finished discussing that, Ivan took Robert’s documents and opened them one by one.
He pored over them in detail, and the more he read, the more knotted his brow grew.
“Are the results really problematic?”
Robert couldn’t help but ask.
No matter how it went, he was still worried about his current condition. He just wasn’t going to let
himself appear too panicked.
“I don’t know how to describe it.”
Ivan looked at Robert, massaging his own temples, his whole being seeming depressed.
“There’s nothing that needs to be hidden between the two of us. Say your piece. I have to know what
condition my body is in. After all, I’m going to listen to you doctors and cooperate with the treatment
anyway.”
“Robert, you know my specialty is heart surgery. I’m a surgeon, so my conclusions aren’t too
professional.
“With that said, some elderly people or youngsters might have more serious heart conditions, and
they’ll undergo a coronary bypass, or, for the more severe cases, they might even need to go for a
transplant, so I know more about the heart. With your heart’s checkup report, the figures aren’t too
unusual. But looking at it as a checkup report, other people’s heart issues are slow burns that affect the
entire system. With your heart, it seems like something’s off with half of it, while the other half is
normal. Even your other organs have similar results. I don’t know how to describe it. Normal people
wouldn’t have such a result. If any of their organs had a problem, say their stomach, some parts of it
might be excised.
“But with you, it’s just half. Half normal, half abnormal. As for your other figures and the chest cavity
scan, I can’t gather from them exactly what you’re sick with. Besides, you look energetic, and you don’t
seem to be hurting anywhere. It’s probably as the doctor says. Hospital test results can’t determine
where your problem lies. You might need to go somewhere more specialized with me for a checkup.
“I know a friend overseas who’s a professor at a huge university now. He likes to study complex
diseases and has a special interest in examining strange bodily conditions. His lab also has more
experimental data, and he’s a specialist at inventing all sorts of tools for checkups. You have to go with
me to his place to see if he’s come up on this sort of situation before. After all, your condition right now
might have come about because of your time in the lab, and he’s had people with those experiences
over before. It should be more reliable to ask him.
“The time’s just right for you to go overseas for a full body check, especially with your blood. I feel like
that’s the root of the problem. When you were in that underground lab, they must have injected you
with all sorts of things. Mixed in together, the influence can’t be good.”
“Then arrange it for me. I won’t be doing anything else, after all. Georgia also hopes that I’ll devote
myself fully to recovering. I’ve already handed the office business over to Randy, and I won’t be busy
with work now.”
As Robert finished that line, Ivan spoke up to his brother again.
“You have to have Georgia read this later. She’s worried about your condition. Don’t hide it from her
and let her read it in full. I think Georgia should be better than me at dissecting this data. I’m only a
surgeon, after all. I know these things, but my judgement might not be as accurate as Georgia’s.
“Besides, I have a hypothesis, but it doesn’t seem possible.”
“You seemed to have had a hypothesis from when we started anyway. I told you, just say it. Are you
afraid I can’t take it?”
62fb1bb41dcb31934bd49bda