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Ch161 - Predictive Modelling (i)
When Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan went to the nurses’ station, the young ladies barrelled a wicker full of complaints their way.
Most were directed to Gu Yan, of course. Everyone knew that he was Horace Lee’s lawyer.
In the eyes of many who didn’t understand power of attorney, he was equivalent to Horace Lee’s guardian.
“Every time I want to inject him with fluids, he refuses to cooperate. Every single time!”
The young nurses weren’t as restrained as they were inside the ward, even pulling their masks down to their chin. Their mouths opened and closed like bouncing beans, rattling out a whole chain of offences.
“He moves like a snake.” One of the nurses expressively formed an S-shape with her hands. Every time he’d be able to twist around and get past that needle tip! Normally when he’s in bed, he isn’t willing to move around, but at times like this, he’s hatefully agile!”
Lawyer Gu recalled the scene of Horace Lee leading the nurse in circles like setting a kite, and, with an aloof expression, he said, “I’ve seen it myself before.”
“Rather than feeding him medicine, it’s more like I’m forcing him to ingest poison. When I see the refusal splashed across his face, I even begin to suspect myself that I’m not a nurse, but a murderer!”
Gu Yan, “…”
“Amy—oh, that’s the nurse in charge of injecting him by the way.” A particularly spirited nurse complained, “She’d just finished her night shift. Not only was she dead on her feet, but she was also driven to hot tears because of him. We spent ages consoling her before she calmed down enough to go back and rest. Don’t you think this Mr Lee is too much?”
Yan Suizhi folded his arms as though listening to a play, breezily commenting, “For sure.”
The young nurse was filled with indignation, “Right?”
Gu Yan, “…”
“So did you inject him in the end?” Yan Suizhi asked.
“Huh?” The young nurse jolted, and she nodded. “Yeah, we did. There are proper treatment procedures; we can’t just skip steps. The police guarding the door couldn’t watch on anymore and came over to help with the injection.”
Yan Suizhi smiled at her, then locked eyes with Gu Yan.
They didn’t linger at the nurse’s station but went straight to the testing facility.
Horace Lee was shoved into a testing room immediately after his jab.
On one hand, this was a routine check-up once every three days. On the other hand, the police probably also wanted to see if this suspect’s condition had seen a turn for the better—in other words, whether he was well enough to be discharged. Any longer in the hospital would cut their lives short.
There were not many waiting outside the testing facility, a far cry from the bustle of before as normal patients had all transferred to treatment centres opened by the Mansons in conjunction with Westshore.
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Yan Suizhi nodded to them in greeting from afar, then found a seat nearby and patted the seat next to him, saying to Gu Yan, “Stop showing off your long legs. Sit down first; we’ll have to wait another half hour at least. I don’t like looking up.”
Gu Yan complaisantly sat next to him, saying indifferently, “Just sitting wouldn’t suffice if that’s so; I might have to bow my head still.”
Yan Suizhi said irately, “Why don’t you suggest sawing your leg as well? Blame it on Lin Yuan for making me shorter with the genetic modifications; you’ll see after I recover.”
Gu Yan was a man of rationality. “Are you sure that growing five centimetres more will be of any use?”
Professor Yan pointed at him, “Shut it.”
Gu Yan lifted his brows and obediently shut up.
The police officers couldn’t hear what they were saying, but seeing that they seemed to be chit-chatting, turned back over, no longer paying them attention.
Yan Suizhi glanced at them out of his peripheral vision, then asked Gu Yan, “What do you think about our client’s behaviour?”
“Horace doesn’t trust the hospital staff and feels uneasy being medicated. His vigilance is very high,” said Gu Yan.
Of course, this didn’t preclude that Mr Lee was born with deep-seated paranoia. But Yan Suizhi and Gu Yan felt that he had a reason for his behaviour.
What kind of person would have this type of mentality?
“I’m inclined to think that he’s not the direct perpetrator behind the Elderly Bobblehead case,” Yan Suizhi said. “The perpetrator usually doesn’t have anything to fear, for the danger comes from themselves. But he should know something behind the scenes or be in possession of something that made him certain that someone is out to get him.”
This conformed to their initial hunch—Horace Lee’s behaviour seemed deliberate.
He deliberately put himself under police watch, deliberately arranged for himself to be placed in a public area, deliberately ignited public furore, for countless eyes to be fixed on him.
And this made him feel safer.
Half an hour later, the indicator light above the testing room changed colours. The door opened, and Horace Lee greeted his lawyers under the watchful eye of a crowd of police officers. “Finally remembered that you’ve got this client over here?”
Gu Yan was collected. “Not necessarily. It depends on whether you spin more stories.”
Horace Lee narrowed his eyes. “Then what are you waiting here for?”
Yan Suizhi said with a smile, “To check your test report for you at the earliest. Given your ability to offend a whole crowd of people every day, we have an obligation to keep an eye out, lest you get soundlessly silenced by poison.”
Hearing this taunt however, Horace Lee chuckled meaningfully. “Hah, this intern of yours is quite interesting. It appears that I haven’t hired the wrong lawyer; you lot do have some brains. Help me check on that, then. On account of this, I’ll tell you guys the truth.”
Yan Suizhi, “Thank you; it must have taken an immense toll on you to tell this one truth.”
Horace Lee, “…”
They entered the analysis room beside the testing room with the police, getting the test results fresh out of the oven.
The test results at this time had yet to pass through the hands of any doctor or nurse, nor had they been uploaded to the query kiosks, so they wouldn’t have been tampered with.
Gu Yan briskly scanned through them but didn’t find anything outstanding.
“These are not much different from the previous few tests.” He said to Horace Lee, “It follows that you are still safe for now.”
Horace Lee furrowed his brows, seeming a little less than convinced.
“I’ll show your test results to a specialist later on,” Gu Yan said.
Horace Lee recovered, rolling his eyes arrogantly. “Frankly, I don’t really trust specialists either.”
Yan Suizhi, “Do your own research, then.”
Horace Lee, “…”
Next to them, the police officers’ faces darkened upon seeing another test report of the same nature, utterly grief-stricken, for though the suspect’s symptoms had lessened slightly, it was still far from the level of recovery necessary for discharge.
“Man, I just don’t get it. He doesn’t have a rash, nor is he on the brink of death; I’m fucking done with this! I’ve never seen anything like it before.” An officer sporting droopy dark eye circles side-eyed Horace Lee and cursed under his breath, then muttered, “If it weren’t for… I’d be this close to suspecting that Spring Ivy Hospital is covering up for the suspect.”
“Watch your words,” another officer softly warned him.
“I’ve already filed the application anyway; it’d be best to have the suspect transferred to a treatment centre. They’d be able to treat the symptoms better over there, right?” The officer with dark eye circles went on.
Catching a few words here and there, Horace Lee narrowed his eyes awry at that officer, and the fingers hanging down by his sides fidgeted very slightly a few times.
He seemed tempted to do something, yet quickly came back to his senses, sticking his hands into his pockets and saying to the police, “Gentlemen, are you done talking? I want to speak to my lawyer back in my ward. You can submit whatever applications you want. But you have no authority to deny me this right.”
The expressions of the officers turned even uglier, but they were unable to refute and could only glare over with loathing and annoyance at the few of them.
Yan Suizhi couldn’t care less if these looks of loathing were directed at him, but it made him unhappy to see them turned to Gu Yan.
And so he angled his body, just enough to block Gu Yan from those officers’ lines of sight. His actions were as natural as they were when he was the dean, poised to shield his own with utmost composure and elegance.
He motioned towards Horace Lee, telling the policemen seemingly in jest, “Go ahead and glare at Mr Lee, but you’re not to glare at us.”
The police, “…”
Ten minutes later, they and Horace Lee sat face to face in the sick ward.
The police grudgingly shut the door for them, and the lights of all monitoring equipment in the ward blinked out.
Gu Yan sent a message to Fitz in the infusion room and several of Horace Lee’s test reports to Lin Yuan, then closed the hologram and looked at his client. “It’s time for you to keep to your promise, Mr Lee. I want to hear the truth.”
Horace Lee’s fingers fidgeted, and at this he raised his eyes.
Unlike before, he didn’t immediately begin to spin tales as soon as he opened his mouth. Instead, after a moment of thoughtful deliberation, he looked at Gu Yan, asking, “If I’m innocent, will you let me be acquitted?”
Gu Yan calmly replied, “Naturally.”
“Then… if I’m guilty?” said Horace Lee.
Gu Yan’s expression was as calm as before. “I will still defend your given rights.”
On the Alliance First-Class Lawyer’s display wall, there was this saying:
If you are mortal, I vow that I will not let you be dragged down to hell. If you are the devil, I will send you to the most suitable hell.
If you must receive a ten-year sentence, I will not let you be sentenced to eleven. If you must be incarcerated, I will not let you be condemned to death.
Gu Yan looked at Horace Lee, and he said, “It’s highly probable that the trial will be brought forward. If you don’t wish to bear crimes that you’re not culpable for, then I suggest that you don’t lie to me.”
Briefly distracted, Horace Lee glanced out of the window, finally to say, “Alright. Here’s the truth—I’m not the culprit behind the Elderly Bobblehead case. But I’ve set foot on every scene. There should still be traces I left behind which can be matched to my DNA, the strange drug detected in the elderly can be found where I stayed and in my luggage, and my fingerprints are on the cages. I even know why they were shut in those cages, as well as even more pertinent details. What can you do to get me found not guilty?”