The metal gate made a “clang clang” sound, each clang felt like a heavy blow to his heart, frighteningly heavy.
“Here we are, go in!”
The man rudely shoved him, almost making Old Bray fall flat on his face.
He angrily turned around and glared at the man, saying impatiently, “Young people these days… really have no respect for their elders. My bones are almost falling apart at this age, can’t you be more gentle?”
Facing his complaint, the two men acted as if they didn’t hear him. Instead, the man waiting in the room burst into a hearty laugh.
“Old Bray, it’s been over twenty years, but you haven’t changed a bit.”
The string in Old Bray’s heart tightened instantly, his pupils dilated, and he stammered in shock, “How is it you? Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”
In the darkness, a pair of polished leather shoes stopped in front of him, gradually moving upward revealing two long and sturdy legs.
Above them was the man’s refined and elegant face.
He looked to be in his early forties, with a pair of gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and his slender eyes were as cunning as a fox’s.
A perfectly measured smile appeared on the man’s face as he slowly walked over, his steps deliberate.
Standing tall in front of Old Bray, he looked down at him.
His lips parted.
“You must be surprised. Wondering why I’m not dead? Why I’m here? I think once you see this, you’ll understand.”
As he spoke, the man gently lifted his trouser leg, revealing a white prosthetic limb underneath.
No wonder his gait seemed unnatural earlier, it was because of the prosthetic.
Lowering his trouser leg, he covered the prosthetic, but the trauma in his heart remained uncovered.
Suddenly, he viciously stomped his intact foot onto Old Bray’s back.
“Do you remember this leg of mine? Teacher!”
The last word was almost spat out through gritted teeth.
The pain on his back was nothing compared to the turmoil in Old Bray’s heart at this moment.
He struggled to take a breath, even as he was being stepped on, his hands remained clenched into fists.
“Your leg is the result of your own wrongdoing, you brought it upon yourself.”
“I dare say I’ve never wronged you. Back then, I sincerely wanted to groom you for the Academy.”
This statement once again angered the man, his once handsome face contorted in anger.
“You still dare to say you’ve never wronged me? If you really wanted to groom me, why did you take in another disciple behind my back?”
“And in the end… the one you recommended on the list wasn’t me, it was him!”
“Not only that, you sent me to Drifield. Do you know how close I was to dying there?”
The man’s resentful roar echoed in the cramped cell, like a vengeful spirit crawling out from the underworld.
Old Bray opened his mouth, wanting to explain his intentions.
“It’s because you were too impatient, that’s why I thought sending you to Drifield for a few years would temper you.”
The man’s name was Hassan Hester.
When Old Bray was the dean of the Academy, he picked Hassan out from thousands of students, considering him the most talented medical genius.
Indeed, Hassan was a rare talent.
He graduated from university at 18 and became the youngest academician at 20.
In Old Bray’s eyes, he was not only his favorite disciple but also like a son to him.
Unfortunately, Hassan was flawed-he was too proud and arrogant.
He couldn’t stand the slightest criticism, and his impulsive nature always clashed with others.
To correct his character, Old Bray deliberately took in another disciple, Jude, who was a year younger than him.
Jude was talented, and what’s more, he was filial.
Old Bray couldn’t help but praise more than a few times, unexpectedly stirring up Hassan’s jealousy.
To suppress Jude, he made things difficult for Jude and almost caused Jude to lose his life.
Discovering the truth, Old Bray, in a burst of anger, threatened to cut ties with him and transferred him to the frontier.
A research institute had just been established there, under very harsh conditions.
However, the more challenging the environment, the more it could strengthen a person’s will.
If he could patiently focus on his research, achieving something significant a few years later would only accelerate his promotion.
But Old Bray never expected his talented student to collude with foreign organizations due to poverty, selling experimental equipment and leaking plenty of scientific secrets, which later led to his being sentenced to death.
However, for some unknown reason, on the day of the arrest, a great fire broke out at the science institute, killing five people.
One of them closely resembled him in appearance and stature, and among the remains, his identity card was found.
Thus, Old Bray thought he was dead, took care of the body, and sent the ashes back to his hometown.
Regardless, having been Hassan’s teacher, he felt partly responsible for the student’s wrong path.
And his obedient and filial younger disciple, unfortunately, perished in an accident the third month after the fire, dying in a foreign land.
Until his last breath, he was concerned that his motherland couldn’t be without a CT scanner.
At that time, no domestic companies could produce CT scanners, which had to be imported from abroad at exorbitant prices.
To change this situation, Jude led a team abroad for investigation and purchased a CT scanner, intending to disassemble it themselves.
However, on their way back by ship, escorting the machine, they encountered a leaking problem.
There was only one lifeboat available, which, with the machine aboard, could accommodate only one more person.
Seeing this, Jude tearfully handed a blood-stained report and a will to his colleague. He then sank with the craft into the water, dying at the age of 29.
Because of his sacrificial act, the first domestic CT scanner was introduced in 1993, saving many lives.
Yet, no one knew that their survival was due to the grand sacrifice of one individual. Jude’s will contained only one sentence: “Teacher, I’m sorry to disappoint you. Please take good care of yourself after I’m gone.”
After two disciples met accidents, Old Bray couldn’t bear to face Jude’s family and resigned, living incognito.
Little did he know, the person he personally cremated had come back!
Hassan didn’t mind revealing another cruel truth to the elderly man. “By the way, I’m sure you’re puzzled by your young disciple’s death. His trip abroad to buy the machine was a secret operation; how could it have been a coincidence that something happened?”
“Why?”
“Because I was the one who leaked his whereabouts and had someone bore through the ship overnight.”
Hassan’s intentions were simple. He had lost his leg and sought compensation from these two. Unfortunately, by the time he was ready to take his revenge on Old Bray – he had disappeared. This disappearance lasted for twenty years.