novelThe Last Piece of the Puzzle
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Translator: Sean88888 Editor: Elkassar1
"Eight thousand dollars is better than not getting any at all."
Sheyan made such a speech to begin the conversation.
The woman sitting in front of him seemed to be of Russian descent. She was called Josina and was very thin.
The woman had thin lips, pale cheeks, and a black hat with a translucent veil which tactfully covered most of her face. If you looked past the dense wrinkles in the corner of her eyes and the pale, flabby skin, she was actually quite the beauty. Sheyan had to admit that if this woman were 10 years younger, she indeed had the qualification to rely on her body to get a job.
On the whole, she gave Sheyan the vibe of a widow - a widow who, despite her financial difficulties, was still struggling to keep up appearances.
But the woman's response to his sentence was very strange. She did not immediately answer him, but had started to eat instead. She looked like she had not eaten in days.
It was not until she ate the food of two people that she sigh comfortably and say, "Surprised? You've guessed right, I am in a terrible financial state. I've skipped two meals. And the reason is -- "
Josina raised her arm and pulled up the sleeve to reveal the needle marks.
" -- drugs. And the reason I'm taking drugs is to resist the pain from terminal cancer."
Sheyan raised his eyebrows. He did not know what to say to that. But Josina flashed a smile that showed that she was unconcerned.
"So you can rest assured. A dying person will have no qualms about revealing the whole truth to you."
Sheyan smiled.
"So what's your price?"
"The doctor said I have six months left. I hope I can eat enough in these six months, and have enough money to buy the medicine to alleviate the severe pain. That will definitely take way more than $9, 000, but don't worry, it's not an outrageous figure. $100, 000 - that's my bottom line. If you refuse me, I'll just end my life and be done with it. I no longer want to be tortured by this damn world, " said Josina.
Sheyan had booked a private room for this meeting (TL: in a cafe?). He simply fished out $50, 000 from a suitcase beside him and threw it in front of her.
"This is the advance payment. After I confirm that you're telling me the truth, I'll give you the rest."
Josina looked at the money that had been thrown onto the table indifferently. Instead of eagerly reaching for it, she asked Sheyan for a cigarette, took a deep puff, and began her story.
************
It was a rainy day, cold enough for the chills to creep into the bones. That old pervert, Didi still asked to f*ck me in that kind of weather. We had just finished our business when someone knocked on the door of the diagnosis room.
The person who knocked was a middle-aged man with a hooked nose. He looked very sinister. As soon as he entered, he made me leave, then shut the door. It was the typical behaviour of a salesman. I was way too familiar with it.
Normally, Didi would receive an envelope with some cash inside, and the envelope usually had to go through me before he handed it to his old lady back home. So even though I appeared to have gone out and have closed the door as I was told to do, I was in fact closely monitoring the process in the adjacent diagnosis room.
The middle-aged man sat across from Didi at the desk, then reached into his briefcase and took out a stack of money.
A HUGE stack of money!
At first, I thought that the guy would request for an important transaction, but what he said overturned my assumption.
"Dr. Didi, I wish to see the list of patients who need cardiac surgery in this hospital. The more serious the condition, the better."
For the sake of the cash, Didi was very cooperative. He immediately provided the list. I'm sure you can guess the identity of the patient chosen by the middle-aged man. That's right, it's Nicholas.
The only reason Nicholas was chosen was that his condition is truly severe. But, he had a really strong desire to live. Even though he knew that the surgery had only a 30% chance of prolonging his life, he still insisted on doing it.
Because of this, even Nicholas himself believed that it would not be surprising to die on the operating table. Thus, the man convinced Didi to experiment on Nicholas - something about testing a new pacemaker developed by his company - so that even if something happened to Nicholas, others would not suspect anything.
For this, the guy paid a lot of money to Didi.
I'm sure you know what happened after that. A miracle was born. Nicholas recovered and Didi's reputation soared, but an occasional miracle could not cover up his bad medical skills, and he eventually retired early.
The middle-aged man with a hooked nose never appeared again.
************
Josina's story came to an abrupt end. She finally provided a large piece of the jigsaw puzzle which made the whole incident much clearer.
Sheyan stared at Josina coldly.
"You left out something important."
Josina was very calm.
"I only got half the money."
Sheyan broke into a smile and threw the rest of the sum on the table.
Josina held out her fingers that were so thin they looked like bamboos and deftly counted the money. Finally, she told Sheyan, "The hook-nosed guy introduced himself as Dolittle. He had a pale face, probably due to a coronary heart disease. His right foot was disabled so he walked with a limp, probably due to polio."
The facial symptoms of coronary heart disease were very obvious, so it was not unusual for Josina to recognise them at a glance. As for the second point, anyone would be able to tell.
Sheyan stared into his palm and asked, "Anything else?"
A trace of fear flashed across Josina's eyes, but she was someone who was about to die, so it did not matter to her anymore. She gritted her teeth and told Sheyan, "The man called Dolittle had a terrifying power."
"Tell me about it, " Sheyan was intrigued.
Josina asked for another cigarette. She took a few slow puffs and, after a while, finally said, "I assumed Dolittle was a very rich man, so I wanted to wait for him at the entrance of the hospital."
At this point, Josina laughed bitterly at herself. Sheyan knew that this ambitious woman must have wanted to half-threaten and half-seduce her way to the rich Dolittle. It was nothing special. Everyone has their own way of life. Was it wrong for Josina to try to climb up?
"It was raining that day. I was stopped for a while when I was going downstairs, so I didn't catch up to him when he left the hospital. I watched the guy get on a taxi. Another taxi happened to pass by soon afterwards... I'm a very stubborn person. What I wanted to say to Dolittle couldn't be said in public anyway, so I got on the second taxi and followed him."
"After travelling through half of Los Angeles, Dolittle finally got down from the taxi on a small street. He was 50 or 60 metres away from me, so I didn't call out to him right away because he probably couldn't hear me from that distance anyway. After he turned into an alley, I saw him being surrounded by a group of people. They were the FBI...and those FBI agents died in only a few seconds! I saw some weird rays of light criss-crossing, weaving themselves into a scary-looking net. When the net sweep past, all the FBI agents were cut apart like they had been dissected by a bunch of knives!"
When he heard Josina's words, Sheyan sprang to his feet despite himself. Cutting apart a group of FBI elites in a few seconds was absolutely beyond the capability of a Terminator. The only people who could do this were contestants.
A really powerful contestant!
How could Sheyan not feel surprised when he found out that this incident was related to a contestant? More importantly, if this mysterious, weird, but rewarding mission involved other contestants, it would be a HUGE problem!
But when Sheyan thought about it again, he realised that the incident Josina saw happened years ago. Obviously, the contestant by Dolittle's side at that time would not be in this world anymore, so there was zero chance of a head-on conflict.
After thinking about it for a while, Sheyan took out another $50, 000 and threw it in front of Josina, at the same time speaking to her slowly, "Where did Dolittle go? Answer this question, and the money is yours.
*********
Third Avenue, Long Beach, Los Angeles.
That was the location provided by Josina.
At this moment, Sheyan was on a car heading to that location. He lost himself in the scenery outside the window. Mogensha drove the car fast but steadily; the passengers could not feel any shaking.
So far, the secret on Nicholas had pretty much been unraveled.
Since the mysterious Dolittle decided to experiment with Nicholas, and since Nicholas turned out to be a successful experiment, it was impossible for Dolittle not to contact Nicholas afterwards.
Dolittle had long been eyed by the FBI, which must have caused Nicholas trouble.
Nicholas was a timid guy, but the secret lay right inside his heart. If he did not say anything, the FBI were at most suspicious of him, but if he spilled the secret, he would die for sure. Under the strong desire to live, Nicholas naturally kept his mouth shut.
The metal nut engraved with the SOS distress signal was probably Nicholas' last resort to ask Dolittle for help, which showed that Nicholas knew a little of Dolittle's power.
The death of Nicholas showed that Dolittle likely possessed an earth-shaking secret. The secret was so important that anyone who were remotely related to it would be killed as soon as they escaped from the government's control. The government would rather kill 10 innocents than let 1 guilty person slip away!
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