Chapter 176: Baizhu
On the way to Haido Central Hospital, James received a call from one of his subordinates. He frowned, exchanged a few brief words, and hung up.
"Was that the team that went to check the scene?" Akai Shuichi asked.
"Yes. They didn't find Kudo's body, and there's no trace of anyone having fallen from the site either." James frowned and let out a sigh, his eyes clouded with doubt. "How on earth did he pull it off?"
"So he really did just... vanish," Judy murmured, clearly taken aback.
"A slippery opponent indeed. Impossible to pin down." Akai Shuichi had anticipated as much, and the result didn't move him much.
At Haido Central Hospital, in the hospital room next to Kir's, Akai Shuichi sat propped up on his bed, discussing the day's events with Judy, James, and the others.
Suddenly, there came a knock at the door.
James rose to answer it. Two men stood outside — one was, naturally, the hospital director himself, and the other, also dressed in a white coat and trailing just behind the director, had to be the doctor the director had mentioned earlier.
James ushered them in, and the director made the introductions all around.
That was how Akai Shuichi and the others learned the doctor's name: Baizhu. He had come from China, invited by the director to take a post at Haido Central Hospital.
Moreover, he and the director went back a long way. He had only just arrived in Japan, and was someone the director considered trustworthy — which was precisely why he had felt comfortable recommending Baizhu to the FBI.
Everyone's eyes turned to Baizhu as the director spoke. The doctor had amber-gold eyes behind half-frame gold glasses, and long green hair tied back in a ponytail that fell down his back.
Even facing a room full of strangers and unknowns, the smile never left his face — and far from seeming fake, that unchanging smile had a way of putting people at ease, like a warm spring breeze. His manner was gentle and refined; anyone could see at a glance that he was the sort of doctor patients instinctively trusted.
"Good to meet you all." Baizhu nodded, then shifted his gaze to Akai Shuichi's shoulder, concern showing in his eyes. "That wound on your shoulder, Mr. Akai, needs attending to promptly. I'd be happy to handle it — though of course, if any of you would rather not take the chance, the director can do the honors instead."
"Then we'll trouble you, Dr. Baizhu." Akai Shuichi waved him straight to it; this had all been decided beforehand, and there was no point standing on ceremony.
"What's this?" Judy asked, eyeing the needles Baizhu had placed in Shuichi's shoulder with open curiosity.
Could this be the legendary acupuncture of traditional Chinese medicine?
Baizhu confirmed her guess. Noting that his patient had also turned his head to look at the needles with interest, he offered Akai Shuichi an explanation. "You strike me as someone who wouldn't care for anesthetic, so I took the liberty of using acupuncture for the pain instead. It won't affect your nerves, and it makes treating the wound considerably easier as well."
Akai Shuichi watched Baizhu work over his wound with practiced, deft hands. No wonder it didn't hurt nearly as much as it had before.
Still. "What made you think I wouldn't want anesthetic, Dr. Baizhu?" Akai Shuichi looked at him evenly. Without James's sign-off, no matter how highly the director regarded Baizhu, he would never have revealed their identities to him. And even if the man knew he was FBI, there was no rule saying FBI agents couldn't use anesthetic — unless this Dr. Baizhu had somehow picked up on his being a sniper.
Sensing Akai Shuichi's probing scrutiny, Baizhu paused for the briefest of moments. He lifted his eyes, met the man's gaze, smiled faintly — then lowered his head and continued his work.
"I've treated patients numbering in the thousands, if not tens of thousands. I've seen more bodies than I could count. Sometimes all it takes is a person's general build for me to make a fair guess at their profession." Baizhu didn't overstate it. "And I couldn't help noticing where the calluses on your hands sit — from there, it wasn't hard to deduce that you work with firearms. A sniper rifle, specifically."
"You have sharp eyes, Dr. Baizhu." Akai Shuichi didn't deny it.
After that, no one in the room spoke; they simply watched as Baizhu tended to Akai Shuichi's wound.
At last, having finished disinfecting and bandaging it, Baizhu stepped back a few paces.
"There — all taken care of. That earlier wound of yours had started seeping a bit; it looked like it might have torn open, so I treated that one too while I was at it. Stick to light meals for the next little while. And since your shoulder has taken two hits in quick succession — neither all that serious, mind you — do your best to avoid any strenuous movement for the time being."
After a few more words of advice for Akai Shuichi, Baizhu asked, "Oh, by the way — that patient the director mentioned to me earlier wouldn't happen to be you, would it?" The symptoms the director had described were nothing like a gunshot wound; they'd sounded like a fall, a blow to the head, a prolonged unconsciousness.
"As it happens, I'm free at the moment. Might I go take a look at how that patient is doing?"
Baizhu offered to check on the patient of his own accord.
James considered it for a moment. He trusted the director's judgment. He nodded his consent, then rose and led Baizhu and the director to the neighboring room.
By now, Baizhu had already guessed that the person the director had asked him to treat was Kir — and the figure lying in the hospital bed as he stepped inside confirmed it.
Who would have thought that barely any time after arriving at Haido Central Hospital, the FBI would simply deliver Kir's whereabouts right into his hands?
You searched high and low, finding nothing — then it drops into your lap, no effort at all.
Baizhu's expression didn't so much as flicker. At James's gesture, he walked to Kir's bedside and gave her condition a brief examination.
"This young lady's injuries have indeed been properly treated, and she is out of danger. As for why she hasn't yet woken — I would need to run further tests before I could say."
Going by the story as he knew it, Baizhu had assumed Kir was faking her coma at this point. But today's examination showed him that she genuinely hadn't come to yet. It seemed she would wake some time later, realize the situation she was in, and then start feigning unconsciousness.
With him around, though, there was little chance she'd get to lie there putting on an act for very long.
After all, failing to wake a patient who was simply and cleanly out of danger would be terrible for his reputation, wouldn't it?
So — sorry about this, Kir. Your plans are about to be thrown into disarray, and you'll be waking up ahead of schedule. Then again, you were going to cooperate with the FBI sooner or later anyway; early or late hardly matters. Baizhu offered the apology in his heart, with only the barest shred of sincerity.
Upon hearing Baizhu's assessment, James nodded.
Back in Akai Shuichi's room, the group deliberated briefly, and with the director's endorsement, they decided that Baizhu would take over Kir's ongoing care.
"Aww, Mr. Morikawa leaving so early? What a shame — I never even got to have a proper chat with him," Sonoko grumbled listlessly.
Ugh. She'd expected today's confession to be a real spectacle, and instead the person being confessed to turned out to be a letdown — on top of one accident after another.
The gorgeous hunk she'd only just met had left before she could wring more than a few words out of him. She'd been so sure Mr. Morikawa and Natsuki might spark something off each other, and the two of them had gone their separate ways just like that.
And honestly, judging from how they'd acted around each other before, the two of them didn't seem to have an ounce of chemistry between them.
What a waste. They'd looked so close, too.
Sonoko fretted over her friend's entirely nonexistent love life, all within the privacy of her own head.