As Lin Ye followed Warfarin into her laboratory, he listened to her explaining what she meant by going to Yen.
"I bet you are confused as to why I am asking that to you?" She smirked at him
If only she could hide her smug face from showing but alas he was used to not getting what he wanted.
"Of course I am," He sighed at how she was acting but he still smiled at her, "With how you were against me going on trips away from the island, this was the last thing I would have thought you wanted me to do."
As they were in her lab, she went and made her comfortable and sat in her chair as he stood in front of her.
"So," He hummed, "What made you change your mind?"
She rested her elbow on the armrest and placed her chin in her palm, staring at him seriously now, "Because I discovered something."
"Hmm?" Lin Ye was now intrigued by this, "Do tell."
"There's a limit to how much we can by doing research in the lab. Even for a researcher as great as me, I am no different than others," She stated smugly, "So I thought we should do something a bit different for a change."
Lin Ye chuckled, "How humble of you."
The smirk on her face did not lessen, "Of course."
Both of them shared their laughs with each other.
"Moving on," When they finally had enough laughing with each other, Warfarin adopted a more serious expression on her face, spreading her arms as she explained," What I want to say is that our current progress is moving too slow for my liking."
Lin Ye, seeing her being serious, gave her his full attention.
"If you are a long-living race like me, this would not be a problem. We can take as long as we want to get the best result we can get." Then she pointed at him and moved closer to him, glaring at the man, "But you're a pure human and your lifespan is not the greatest. Added to how constant you are with getting into accidents, I would be surprised if you live until your 80s."
Lin Ye diverted his gaze away from her nervously, chuckling quietly. Warfarin flopped back onto her seat.
"Although you said that if you would stay on the island to cooperate with my research, what if that doesn't change a thing?" She continued, "Two years? Twenty years? Can you honestly say that you will be still kicking around for that long?"
Lin Ye originally wanted to say yes, but something stopped him from doing so.
Although he had already made his decision. While he was willing to stay on the island for as long as he needed to be to get, he wasn't really excited about being tested for a long period.
A shiver ran down his spine at the idea of her doing "tests" on him. So if Warfarin herself had a better idea he was all ears.
"Then what do you have in mind?" He asked, "And why do you suddenly want to go to Yen? Still didn't explain that."
"Like I said, for research." Warfarin looked at him like he was an idiot, "All of my decisions now are for the development of the cure."
"If only you brought that woman with you, we wouldn't be in this situation to begin with," She grumbled.
Lin Ye wisely ignored her.
"So, about Yen?" Lin Ye said.
Warfarin rolled her eyes angrily, "Can you be patient."
"Okay, you continue to say."
Lin Ye, who admitted that he was wrong on the issue of him not bringing Yelena with him, decided not to argue with Warfarin.
"... Now about Yen," Seeing him being quiet, Warfarin nodded and continued, "One of the main reasons why our progress is slow is because of how little sample we have. You are the only person that we can get the L-Cell. But you alone are not enough to cure the whole population of Terra, no matter how long you live. We need more samples to speed up our research."
"More samples?" Lin Ye thought for a while and asked, "You want to find more pure humans like me?"
"Yes. I've been searching for more of your race," Warfarin nodded, "There are many people in this world who look like them, but they still aren't them. Take Skadi for an example. If you didn't investigate her carefully, you would say that she is a pure human. So it's a very difficult job to find more of your kind. With no clues to go by, I have to start with where it all started, where pure humans were first known."
Lin Ye realised what she meant, "So that's why you want to go to Yen."
"The history of the original human is very ancient. It is even more ancient than the history of the entire Sarkaz tribe. Maybe as old as the history of Terra," Warfarin shrugged and said, "With Yen being the oldest nation in the world I am willing to bet we could find some clues about your race there."
Yen. The closest place that resembled his old home but he had no idea what place it was,
"You want to go to Yen based only on speculation?" Lin Ye raised his brow.
"Of course not," Warfarin snorted softly, "Would I just go to the Yen without a clue?"
Shaking his head, he chuckled, "Sorry for doubting you."
"Ancient documents of Yen are not very easy to find, but compared to those ancient countries that have disappeared, there is still a chance to find something," Warfarin said, "Although I have not found any records of about pure humans in the ancient documents, I might have a clue to help us. A painting."
"A painting?"
"Let me find it first… it should be here… Where was it again?" Warfarin rummaged through the piles of documents on her desk and after a while, she pulled something out of it, "Here we go!"
She showed the painting to Lin Ye.
Lin Ye looked down and found that this was a very historical painting. On it was an emperor of some sort standing on a platform. In front of the emperor were his subjects, each bowing their head like they were worshipping him. In his hand was a black sword.
Any normal person that was looking at the painting, would think that the king had an intimidating aura surrounding him.
However for Lin Ye, when he looked at the ruler, something about the way he was looking at the millions if not billions of people in front of him, Lin Ye thought he looked a bit lonely.
"So, what do you think?" Warfarin said with a smile, snapping out of his thoughts, "Isn't this amazing?"
"Umm," Lin Ye scratched his head, "Nice painting?"
"What?" Warfarin's eyes widened, "Don't you know who this is?"
Lin Ye brought his face closer to the painting. After a while of staring at it, he shook his head "Nope. Not the slightest clue."
"Are you kidding me?! This is the only known record of the first emperor of Yen!" Warfarin shouted at the man, making him flinch, "In some of the documents here, it is stated that the royal family of Yen all come from the descendants of dragons."
Dragons?
The image of Ch'en and Yenwu came into his mind because the two were dragons and have a high rank in Yen
But he still did not know what she was trying to get, "And?"
"... Are you really that stupid or just messing with me?" Warfarin said in a heated tone. She pointed at the emperor, "Look at him. Does he look like he's from a dragon race?"
Only then did he notice how… normal the emperor looked. He did look nothing like Yenwu and with him not wearing a crown, Lin Ye did not see any horns on his head like Ch'en's.
His hair was black, his eyes matched it.
Lin Ye noticed how… eerily familiar the man was with him.
"... He's not a dragon."
It was a statement and not a question.
"Based on this painting, that should be the case," Warfarin said and placed the painting back onto her desk, "What I am sure of is that he's not a Lung, Draken or any other races that are related to dragons like how the Yen portrayed themselves to be."
Lin Ye was getting even more interested in this. He felt like he was discovering something that was not meant to be known by the world.
"Then what is he?"
Warfarin smiled at him, "Take a guess."
He was a little annoyed at this but he was willing to entertain her, "A pure human then?"
"That's what I guess also, " She smiled at him, "If this is true, the man in that painting, the first emperor of Yen, was not a dragon but a pure human. That means…"
Lin Ye filled in, "His descendants should also be pure humans."
{Rhodes Island's Psychologist}
Draft: Jaq
Proofread: Jaq
Edit: Jaq