Chapter 280: FRB (8)

Ryu Ji-Won felt her mind go numb for a moment. Confusion flashed across her face.

“Um...”

The man asked again, fixing his hat.

“You don’t know them?”

“... No,” Ryu Ji-Won replied. “This person is my older brother, but I don’t know who the kid next to him is. But who are you?”

“Doctor Ryu said this child is his niece, but you don’t know her?”

“I don’t,” Ryu Ji-Won replied, sounding slightly irritated. “And tell me who you are first. Why would I want to talk to a complete stranger who suddenly approaches and is digging into my brother?”

“Excuse me. I’ll give you my business card. Please let me know if you remember who that kid is.”

The man took out a business card and held it out to Ryu Ji-Won.

[Hong Yoo-Sung, Chenover Investments]

“Who’s there?”

Two young security guards popped out from inside the apartment complex.

About two months ago, Young-Joon changed the security in the apartment complex. Trained security guards from K-Cops patrolled the complex every day, inside and out, and were sensitive to outsiders entering and leaving. The residents were happy as Young-Joon was paying for all the security out of his own pocket, but no one knew why.

But now, Ryu Ji-Won felt like she knew why.

“Ms. Ryu, do you know him?” asked the security guard.

“No. He just came out of nowhere and started talking to me.”

“My business is finished, so I’m leaving now.”

Hong Yoo-Sung bowed to Ryu Ji-Won and quickly disappeared.

“...”

The security guards watched him leave and glanced at Ryu Ji-Won.

“We’ll escort you home.”

*

Tate Lofair came to Alphonse’s room.

“I used one of the financial firms in Korea and asked the family directly,” he said.

“I didn’t want to do that, but we had no choice. What did they say?”

“They said they didn’t know her.”

“...”

Alphonse thought for a moment.

When A-GenBio Cancer Laboratory was founded, James Holdren had been very enthusiastic about recruiting Young-Joon. If his relative did live in the United States, wouldn’t James Holdren have used her as a good bargaining chip? If so, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy should have information about the child, who was supposedly Young-Joon’s relative.

However, Alphonse didn’t find any information there. James Holdren himself acted like he had no idea what Alphonse was talking about.

Alphonse had the police search every immigrant household in America, but he didn’t find any answers there either. And now, even Young-Joon’s family didn’t know that relative? What did this mean? Was that girl really Young-Joon’s niece?

“We’ve gotten nowhere since we didn’t find out who she was,” Tate said with a sigh.

“No,” Alphonse replied, shaking his head. “We got somewhere by not finding out who she is.”

“What?”

“You said that the death of Ryu Young-Joon’s youngest sister inspired him to start science, right?”

“Yes.”

“And the reason he fought with Lab Director Kim Hyun-Taek and was demoted when he was at A-Gen was because Kim Hyun-Taek triggered his trauma about his sister.”

“Apparently, it happened because Kim Hyun-Taek tried to bury a treatment for liver cancer.”

“Ryu Young-Joon is now one of the most powerful men in the world, with Yang Gunyu, the Chinese presidential candidate, and U.S. President Campbell behind him. He’s been given a knighthood in Sweden, and he’s basically Jesus in the Third World, so he’s fully capable of finding a kid who looks just like his younger sister.”

“What?”

“The guy is so obsessed with his youngest sister that he fought the lab director when he was nothing but a powerless scientist. He found a mysterious kid who looks exactly like her and raised her secretly. Anyone can see that it’s a shady situation,” Alphonse said.

He added, “The point is that this girl is unidentifiable—she’s a mystery. If this gets reported, it will fuel people’s imagination and deal a severe blow to his image. People will wonder where he found a girl who looks exactly like his deceased younger sister, who he lies about being his relative from America.

“They’ll suspect he might have bought her from one of the impoverished countries he frequently visited, wonder where he hides her most of the time, and question who her parents are. Those kinds of suspicions will arise.”

“You want me to blackmail him with that?”

“Yeah.”

“She might really be a relative that no one knew about. What if blackmailing doesn’t work?”

“Then we have to use our last resort.”

Tate swallowed hard and then nodded.

“Alright. Alphonse, it’s almost time for your flight.”

“Yeah. I’d better get going.”

“But I don’t understand why you’re going when you could just let the lawyers handle it.”

“I have to go myself. Keep an eye on the house while I’m gone,” Alphonse said.

*

“Are you insane?!” Isaiah Franklin shouted in shock. “What technology are you making to just save me? Doing what to bone marrow with telomerase? Did Rosaline tell you to do that?”

“Lower your voice. Harris and Robert might hear you outside,” Young-Joon said.

“That’s not the problem. Ryu Young-Joon, telomerase extends telomeres, you know that, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you also know that countless scientists have tried to use it to extend the human lifespan, right?”

“Yeah. And I’m well aware that they’ve all failed. But if I do it to you, it will work.”

“Of course it will work! That’s the problem. Curing my myelodysplastic syndrome is good, but this is a cure for aging. You’re not just creating a technology that doesn’t exist. You’re doing the impossible, something that no one else can do! Do you know what will...”

“Stop stating the obvious and just sign the clinical trial consent form. Your health is in such bad shape that there’s no time for preclinical testing. Just trust Rosaline and sign it.”

Then, Isaiah Franklin grabbed Young-Joon by the collar and pulled him towards her.

“Are you trying to make Rosaline public or something? You cannot do that,” she said.

Bzz!

Young-Joon’s phone rang. He checked the text message and slightly froze. It was from Ryu Ji-Won.

[A guy approached me in front of our apartment complex and said his name was Hong Yoo-Sung from a company called Chenover Investments. He showed me a picture and asked me if I knew these people, and it was a picture of someone who looked like you and a girl who looked exactly like Sae-Yi at an amusement park.]

[Who is it? It looks too much like you to be someone else. I heard that you said she is a relative who lives in the U.S., but we don’t have any relatives there. I said that I didn’t know anything.]

“...”

Chenover Investments was an international financial company in Korea, and the chairman of Chenover Financial Holdings was Alphonse Lofair’s brother, Tate Lofair.

“Going after my family...”

“What? What is it?” Isaiah Franklin asked, seeing the look on Young-Joon’s face.

“It’s nothing. And I’m not going to reveal Rosaline to the public. Who knows what trouble will happen? I have something else in mind for that.”

“...”

“Let go and sign this.”

Young-Joon pulled Isaiah Franklin’s hand off of him and held out the consent form again. She looked doubtful, but meekly picked up the consent form and skimmed through it. Then, she signed the consent form.

“The first trial in the Netherlands should be underway by now, and it will proceed based on the materials I provided and Elsie’s testimony, but the decisive blow will be your testimony as the actual victim,” Young-Joon said. “So just think about getting better soon.”

*

“This trial concerns the lawsuit filed by the Nicaraguan government against the United States government. Since the trial is conducted under a special agreement between the two countries, the concepts of plaintiff and defendant do not apply.”

Judge Crawford began the trial.

The proceedings at the International Court of Justice could proceed smoothly only if both countries were willing to participate in the trial. While, in principle, UN member states could initiate proceedings unilaterally, trials rarely proceeded in this manner in practice. This was because there was nothing that could be done if powerful countries like the United States simply refused to participate because the trial was unfavorable to them.

Therefore, the fact that the U.S. government agreed to a special agreement to participate in this trial was quite interesting.

Furthermore, considering that the events in question occurred between thirty to fifty years ago, the U.S. government could have legitimately nullified the trial with preliminary objections. They could have claimed that the trial was impossible due to the death of most key figures from the Heagan administration.

However, the Campbell administration’s involvement suggested that they intended to expose and address the past wrongdoings of the Heagan administration. By doing so, Campbell would position himself at an advantage against the Republican Party, which succeeded Heagan, in the next presidential election and potentially win. For that reason, Campbell would likely actively support a Nicaraguan victory.

However, the International Court of Justice was not that easy. As the pinnacle of judicial power to resolve disputes between nations, it should be able to see beyond political maneuvers to clearly see the issues at hand and deliver a just verdict.

There were no plaintiffs and defendants in this trial; the goal was to analyze the case accurately.

“Would the Nicaraguan government please provide a brief summary of the claims?” Crawford said.

Fifteen judges, one from each continent, looked at the Nicaraguan government’s spokesperson and defense counsel with stern expressions.

“The United States government established Groom Lake Air Force Base in Nicaragua in 1958 and a genomics laboratory in 1968. There, genetic manipulation experiments were illegally conducted on Nicaraguan citizens. As a result, there are now approximately one thousand one hundred thirty-two patients in Nicaragua with genetic conditions. We seek compensation for the damages they have suffered,” said the representative of the Nicaraguan defense counsel.

“The U.S. government, succeeding the Heagan administration, is committed to taking responsibility for this case and bringing the full truth to light,” said the defense counsel for the U.S. government.

“We will first proceed with the examination of the U.S. government’s first witness,” said one of the judges.

The first witness was Congressman Norton. He took the stand with an exhausted look on his face.

“You’ve appeared once before the International Court of Justice in the case brought by the Nicaraguan government during the Iran-Contra affair. You were a colonel in the military during that time. Did you also deliver payments for arms to Iran to Groom Lake Air Force Base?” asked the American defense counsel.

“That’s right,” replied Norton.

It seemed like he had already given up.

“And that money could have been used at the genomics lab, right?”

“Probably.”

“Then I have a question for you,” asked the defense counsel for the U.S. government. “At the time, the Heagan administration had so little money at its disposal that it had to traffic arms to Iran, an enemy country, to raise money to support the Contra rebels.”

The defense attorney pulled out a yearbook and checked off the box for 1986.

“And the date of the arms sale was 1986. But the genomics lab at Groom Lake Air Force Base, as announced by the Nicaraguan government, was in 1968, and a lot of research was done there for about eighteen years after that,” said the attorney.

“Where did the money come from to build the best-equipped hospital ward and laboratory of its time, to take hundreds of mothers and conduct eighteen years of embryology research? You were employed at Groom Lake Air Force Base at the time, Congressman Norton. Do you know anything about this?”

“...”

Congressman Norton bit his lower lip.

“Chenover Bank invested a lot of money in Groom Lake Air Force Base.”

Translator’s thoughts: I honestly can’t wait for Lofair’s downfall!! I want them to crumble down and lose everything they have!! I want to see Lofair groveling at Young-Joon’s feet, begging for his forgiveness.