Chapter Two Hundred and Thirteen: Blood Type Confusion

“No, I mean what blood type?” Nan Qi repeated.

“…Panda blood. Are you asking what panda blood is? Panda blood means Rh negative blood factor. Rh and ABO are two closely linked blood cla.s.sification systems…”

The nurse thought Nan Qi didn't know what panda blood was. Even though she couldn't understand how a doctor didn't know this, she still patiently gave an explanation.

“I know what panda blood is. I'm asking you what you said after… Did you say that Du Yirou has type AB blood?” Nan Qi was incredulous.

The nurse looked at him strangely. “Yes, why? Blood type is generally described by ABO and Rh factor. How can you not know this—?”

“—I know!” Nan Qi interrupted. The nurse was taken aback by Nan Qi's sudden outburst.

“Sorry, that was a little loud,” Nan Qi apologized.

Nan Qi's 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 didn't know if the previous disturbance would alarm the president. In order to come here, he'd relied on his senior brother's name to “do some research” here. He didn't 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 ident.i.ty being exposed, he felt the pressure of dealing with so many crucial unknowns.

How bad was Aunty's illness?

What was Yan Jin's 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 couldn't have type AB blood.

The reason for this was very simple. Yan Jin had type O blood.

“Are you sure about Du Yirou having type AB blood? Surely the other blood types are more common with Rh negative blood.”

“Doctor Chu, please. There's no way I'd misremember this. I've been taking care of this patient for two years now. We've run into so many blood shortages because of this patient,” the nurse confidently declared.

Nan Qi laughed bitterly.

Two years?

Though it was now in the past, he'd been Yan Jin's 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 didn't have panda blood. Nan Qi definitely wouldn't 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 Jin's 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 wasn't impossible. [TLN: Only possible with cis-AB mutation, ~0.00066% for Chinese according to some studies.]

However, that wasn't the case.

Before he'd been tricked into becoming Yan Jin's 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 weren't 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 couldn't understand how larger and larger mysteries could continue cropping up in an already confusing situation.

Could it be that Yan Jin wasn't the true Yan Family successor?

Nan Qi didn't believe it.

It wasn't possible.

Five years ago, when Yan Jin had returned to the country, there'd already been a crisis over Yan Jin's ident.i.ty.

The Yan Family's international affairs had been handled by Yan Jin's grandfather. If you weren't an heir approved by Grandfather Yan, you couldn't touch any of the Yan Family's 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 Jin's 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 a.s.sume successors.h.i.+p. His unexpected presence quickly became a thorn in many people's sides. Many dreamed of getting rid of him.

This had been the time Yan Jin's ident.i.ty was most in question.

At the time, such a huge issue had come to an anticlimactic finish. Yan Jin's ident.i.ty was unquestionable; without a doubt, he was the son of Senior Yan.

Why? Well, Yan Jin had foreseen that others would doubt his ident.i.ty, 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 opponents' 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 wasn't his area of expertise, he could still tell the reports were genuine.

But, even before that, Yan Jin hadn't 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 wasn't Du Yirou's 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 wasn't Du Yirou's son, then this wouldn't 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 Yirou's supposed pregnancy had forced the Du Family's reluctant approval for marriage, what about after? She had already achieved her motive. Why couldn't she conceive a genuine child with Senior Yan? Why did she bring up some other woman's son?

Perhaps they actually had had another child, but the child had been unknowingly swapped with another at birth? [TLN: There's a reference here to an old story “Civet Cat Exchanged for Crown Prince. There's a small section about it on this Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bao_Zheng

That couldn't be right. The timing was off.

Nan Qi remembered that Yan Jin's birth date couldn't have come a year after Du Yirou and Senior Yan's marriage.

Then, what?

Nan Qi was completely lost.

“That's impossible.” 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 him—

—What exactly had happened twenty years ago?

But, he didn't dare.

When he'd first seen Du Yirou earlier, he'd wanted to call Yan Jin to rage at him. But now, he no longer dared to make this call.

Nan Qi didn't think he was unintelligent. But, he couldn't imagine how he never realized until now that there was something wrong.

Something very wrong.

Something… very wrong.

There was something he didn't know that could topple his own world. That something lurking behind everything began to stir restlessly.

He'd originally thought that Nan Xu had told him Du Yirou was still alive to prove Yan Jin's 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, he'd become the Nan Family's dog again. But, this wasn't the entire secret. Nan Xu had hidden parts of it. The remaining depths couldn't be seen.

It was something Nan Xu was certain Yan Jin wouldn't tell him even in spite of any false accusations of greed or l.u.s.t 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 wasn't so simple. What was the truth?

It was a secret. It was an earth-shaking secret.

“Doctor Chu, could you hurry with inspecting the patient's records? I have to return them soon,” the nurse reminded him.

“Okay, I'll look at it now…”

The records faintly warmed up in his hands.

When Nan Qi opened the folder, he didn't realize his own hands were shaking.

The records were less like a medical history and more like the patient's 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 patient's children.

The records were extremely valuable for someone trapped behind a mountain of mysteries. Nan Qi felt like he'd 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 couldn't move.

Date of Admittance: June 1995.

If he recalled correctly, Du Yirou's funeral had been in July of the same year.

Du Yirou's 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 Family's dowry and a.s.sets, wouldn't they have held the funeral first to ensure Elder Du's 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 Yirou's insanity.

Could that be the truth?

Then, how had Du Yirou gone insane?

Nan Qi couldn't 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 smas.h.i.+ng 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.

“Sorry, I need to step out to make a call.” Nan Qi returned the folder to the nurse. He gave her a weak, apologetic smile.

“The signal inside the clinic isn't too good. Feel free to go outside,” the nurse replied sweetly.

Ringringring—

The call was picked up.

“Hi, Senior Brother, I have something to ask you…”

“Mhmm, that's right. It's about Aunty.”