Chapter Two Hundred and Thirteen: Blood Type Confusion
âNo, I mean what blood type?â Nan Qi repeated.
â...Panda blood. Are you asking what panda blood is? Panda blood means Rh negative blood factor. Rh and ABO are two closely linked blood classification systems...â
The nurse thought Nan Qi didnât know what panda blood was. Even though she couldnât understand how a doctor didnât know this, she still patiently gave an explanation.
âI know what panda blood is. Iâm asking you what you said after... Did you say that Du Yirou has type AB blood?â Nan Qi was incredulous.
The nurse looked at him strangely. âYes, why? Blood type is generally described by ABO and Rh factor. How can you not know thisâ?â
ââI know!â Nan Qi interrupted. The nurse was taken aback by Nan Qiâs sudden outburst.
âSorry, that was a little loud,â Nan Qi apologized.
Nan Qiâs thoughts were a mess. It took him great effort just to contain himself.
The door to the ward was already closed and there was no way to know what was going on inside. Nan Qi didnât know if the previous disturbance would alarm the president. In order to come here, heâd relied on his senior brotherâs name to âdo some researchâ here. He didnât care about his own reputation if others discovered what he was truly up to, but the damage would be far greater if he implicated his senior brother.
On top of his fears of his identity being exposed, he felt the pressure of dealing with so many crucial unknowns.
How bad was Auntyâs illness?
What was Yan Jinâs role in this farce?
Did the Du Family know about this?
What did the Yan Family want?
All of these required careful thought, but none of them could compare with the information the nurse had revealed.
Du Yirou had type AB blood?!
No matter if it was common or uncommon, Du Yirou definitely couldnât have type AB blood.
The reason for this was very simple. Yan Jin had type O blood.
âAre you sure about Du Yirou having type AB blood? Surely the other blood types are more common with Rh negative blood.â
âDoctor Chu, please. Thereâs no way Iâd misremember this. Iâve been taking care of this patient for two years now. Weâve run into so many blood shortages because of this patient,â the nurse confidently declared.
Nan Qi laughed bitterly.
Two years?
Though it was now in the past, heâd been Yan Jinâs private doctor for a full five years.
Yan Jin had had basic checkups every month and full physical checkups every half year. Of course Chu Ge had taken his blood many times.
Yan Jin had a very normal type O blood no matter how you looked at it. He definitely didnât have panda blood. Nan Qi definitely wouldnât forget this.
So, if the nurse was also correct, then...
How could a type AB person give birth to someone with type O blood?
Science would say that the only chance this could happen was if Yan Jinâs father had type O blood. But, even then, the chance of type AB and type O producing type O offspring was extremely low. Still, it wasnât impossible. [TLN: Only possible with cis-AB mutation, ~0.00066% for Chinese according to some studies.]
However, that wasnât the case.
Before heâd been tricked into becoming Yan Jinâs private doctor, Nan Qi had been employed as one of the Yan Family doctors. With so many doctors around, Nan Qi had spent most of his time idle, but he did remember clearly that Senior Yan had type A blood.
How could type A and type AB blood produce a type O blood offspring?
The answer was that this was impossible. Completely impossible.
Modern gene inheritance code-cracking had progressed to an unimaginably advanced understanding, but they still werenât at the point of gene modification.
So...
There was a problem somewhere.
Nan Qi sat down on the bench next to the wall. He no longer had the energy to continue standing.
He couldnât understand how larger and larger mysteries could continue cropping up in an already confusing situation.
Could it be that Yan Jin wasnât the true Yan Family successor?
Nan Qi didnât believe it.
It wasnât possible.
Five years ago, when Yan Jin had returned to the country, thereâd already been a crisis over Yan Jinâs identity.
The Yan Familyâs international affairs had been handled by Yan Jinâs grandfather. If you werenât an heir approved by Grandfather Yan, you couldnât touch any of the Yan Familyâs international businesses. But, the domestic parts were completely divided by the Yan Family stakeholders. Any small side business was still eyed covetously. The person officially in charge domestically was Yan Jinâs father, but he was in poor health. His health declined day by day. His only son was just twelve years old and had just graduated from elementary school. No one considered him a potential player in the upcoming struggle for power. Thus, everyone calmly waited to capitalize on the power vacuum Senior Yan would soon leave behind.
It was in this climate that the twenty-three-year-old Yan Jin returned to the country to assume successorship. His unexpected presence quickly became a thorn in many peopleâs sides. Many dreamed of getting rid of him.
This had been the time Yan Jinâs identity was most in question.
At the time, such a huge issue had come to an anticlimactic finish. Yan Jinâs identity was unquestionable; without a doubt, he was the son of Senior Yan.
Why? Well, Yan Jin had foreseen that others would doubt his identity, so his first move upon returning the country had been to collect ancestry tests from many different sources across Cities S, B, H, and N. Thus, just when tensions had been about to boil over, Yan Jin revealed this proof to slap all his opponentsâ faces.
Nan Qi had been a part of this, so even now, the stack of ancestry reports still had a deep impression on him.
Were they fake? The chance of that was too low.
Nan Qi himself was a doctor. Even if this wasnât his area of expertise, he could still tell the reports were genuine.
But, even before that, Yan Jin hadnât had many connections when returning to the country. If he had wanted to make fakes, the only person he would have been able to rely on was Chu Ge.
Then, if everything was certain on the paternal side, then there could only be a problem on the maternal side.
Everything pointed to one outrageous conclusion.
Yan Jin wasnât Du Yirouâs son.
But... how was that possible?
Du Yirou had become pregnant while unmarried. It had only been because of this that she ended up marrying Senior Yan. The astronomical dowry had been used to help Senior Yan win control of the Yan Family.
But, if Yan Jin wasnât Du Yirouâs son, then this wouldnât make any sense.
Could it be that Du Yirou had lived a lie and cared for Yan Jin for over twenty years, all for an immaterial love?
A fake marriage, a fake pregnancy...
Then, even if this were the case, where did Yan Jin come from?
Even if Du Yirouâs supposed pregnancy had forced the Du Familyâs reluctant approval for marriage, what about after? She had already achieved her motive. Why couldnât she conceive a genuine child with Senior Yan? Why did she bring up some other womanâs son?
Perhaps they actually had had another child, but the child had been unknowingly swapped with another at birth? [TLN: Thereâs a reference here to an old story âCivet Cat Exchanged for Crown Prince. Thereâs a small section about it on this Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bao_Zheng
]
That couldnât be right. The timing was off.
Nan Qi remembered that Yan Jinâs birth date couldnât have come a year after Du Yirou and Senior Yanâs marriage.
Then, what?
Nan Qi was completely lost.
âThatâs impossible.â Nan Qi shook his head. He no longer even knew what exactly he thought was impossible.
His hand unconsciously loosened on his phone, only for him to resolutely tighten his hand again.
He knew he should call Yan Jin and ask himâ
âWhat exactly had happened twenty years ago?
But, he didnât dare.
When heâd first seen Du Yirou earlier, heâd wanted to call Yan Jin to rage at him. But now, he no longer dared to make this call.
Nan Qi didnât think he was unintelligent. But, he couldnât imagine how he never realized until now that there was something wrong.
Something very wrong.
Something... very wrong.
There was something he didnât know that could topple his own world. That something lurking behind everything began to stir restlessly.
Heâd originally thought that Nan Xu had told him Du Yirou was still alive to prove Yan Jinâs coldheartedness.
Now, he began to suspect this was a trap.
This revealed secret had successfully driven him and Yan Jin apart. In the span of a night, he and Yan Jin were no longer friends. After ten years, heâd become the Nan Familyâs dog again. But, this wasnât the entire secret. Nan Xu had hidden parts of it. The remaining depths couldnât be seen.
It was something Nan Xu was certain Yan Jin wouldnât tell him even in spite of any false accusations of greed or lust hurled his way. It was a true secret.
So... he had probably wrongly blamed Yan Jin, and Yan Jin had preferred to accept this blame to prevent him from digging deeper into the events of twenty years ago.
What had happened with Du Yirou wasnât so simple. What was the truth?
It was a secret. It was an earth-shaking secret.
âDoctor Chu, could you hurry with inspecting the patientâs records? I have to return them soon,â the nurse reminded him.
âOkay, Iâll look at it now...â
The records faintly warmed up in his hands.
When Nan Qi opened the folder, he didnât realize his own hands were shaking.
The records were less like a medical history and more like the patientâs life story. Perhaps it was because a mental clinic was different, but on top of the basic information like body weight, height, and history of symptoms, the records also contained employment and education history, family occupations, and information about the patientâs children.
The records were extremely valuable for someone trapped behind a mountain of mysteries. Nan Qi felt like heâd found a map at the eleventh hour.
Nan Qi read ten lines at once to make sure he had enough time to commit everything to memory.
He finally made use of his excellent memory, making sure not to forget any bit of information.
But, he suddenly became fixated on one line: Date of Admittance.
He couldnât move.
Date of Admittance: June 1995.
If he recalled correctly, Du Yirouâs funeral had been in July of the same year.
Du Yirouâs funeral had come after her admittance to the clinic?
Why had her faked death come after her admittance?
If the Yan Family really had wanted the Du Familyâs dowry and assets, wouldnât they have held the funeral first to ensure Elder Duâs approval before locking Du Yirou up?
The events had been reversed.
Now, it seemed like the Yan Family had organized a fake funeral to hide the scandal of Du Yirouâs insanity.
Could that be the truth?
Then, how had Du Yirou gone insane?
Nan Qi couldnât figure it out.
But, he could sense that he was on the edge of truth.
Whether it was Nan Xu or Yan Jin, neither of them could stop him from smashing open the final door to find the truth that neither of them could tell him.
He had to find out what had happened twenty years ago.
âSorry, I need to step out to make a call.â Nan Qi returned the folder to the nurse. He gave her a weak, apologetic smile.
âThe signal inside the clinic isnât too good. Feel free to go outside,â the nurse replied sweetly.
......
Ringringringâ
The call was picked up.
âHi, Senior Brother, I have something to ask you...â
âMhmm, thatâs right. Itâs about Aunty.â