Passion Raga Novel (Completed) - Chapter 12

In Berlin

It hurt.

He couldn’t even properly hold onto his consciousness.

Don’t lose consciousness. Don’t let go of your awareness. Even as his own voice screamed in a corner of his mind, ringing in his eardrums, his flickering consciousness was too hazy to perceive his surroundings.

His head was hot. The burning pain, which had begun to spread from his eyes, moved to his head, and then to his entire body.

This clear realization: his body—a part of his body—was writhing in pain, dying.

Even as he wandered through unconsciousness, unable to grasp awareness, that much came to him with chilling clarity. I am dying.

No. No.

He should have found the source of the pain, torn it out before it completely died—before that death spread to his own body. Even if it was agonizing enough to kill him, that source would remain like a poison, eventually killing his entire being.

Where does it hurt?

Everywhere hurt.

But it must be there. The most painful place among them. The place choking his breath.

A sliver of consciousness, gently scanning his arms, legs, damaged internal organs, all of it, eventually groped towards his head. The burning pain was starting there. That place. His eyes, screaming as they died.

He clutched his eyes. To tear them out. But someone seized his hands, which were trying to rip out his eyes, and wouldn’t let go.

Who is interfering? Who is blocking me from maintaining this pain?

Furious anger flapped within the pain, but soon even that had to cease. The agony was too great to sustain resistance.

His eyes. His eyes. Unbearably hot, like they were burning in the fiery pit of hell.

However.

Then, he suddenly realized.

Only after finding the most painful place did he realize that it wasn’t actually hurting there.

His eyes? This, like being poked with a flaming poker? He could endure this much. Even if it hurt enough to choke his breath, it wasn’t the kind of pain that would make him lose his mind. He had never possessed such a weak spirit.

What truly hurt was.

His heart.

His mind. His reason. The pride, self-respect, and the very root of his being that formed the foundation of all of it. This pain, digging into his body as if to kill him, had been targeting his heart.

His self-respect, which had always looked straight ahead without ever looking up or down, and his self-esteem, which he had never consciously acknowledged but had always resided robustly within him, all the things that allowed him to exist as himself, were being cruelly trampled and mocked.

A blacker flame than pain burned him—misery. That was killing him.

The doctor said that if it had gone a little deeper, his eyeball itself might have been enucleated.

Yuri, who had just finished his consultation with the doctor, who said that there would be no external scarring but was still vague about his eyesight, checked that Ling Xinlu was deeply asleep and then immediately headed to James.

“He must have intended to gouge out his eyes completely. And yet, somehow, his eyeballs didn’t come out.”

Just by hearing a few words from the doctor, James immediately understood Riegrow’s original intention. After a moment of silence with a difficult expression, he concluded, “If Dr. Bayern said that it’s better not to expect his eyesight to recover.”

“I suppose so, indeed.”

Yuri briefly agreed and then fell silent. No matter how much he tore at his hair and screamed, James’s cold judgment, which always grasped the cause and effect clearly and dealt with matters, was almost always right when it came to handling work. This time, too, his judgment would be correct. He even had a good eye for things.

“What’s wrong? You’re so gloomy and down.”

Perhaps because they had shared life and death together for so long, James was quite good at reading Yuri’s expressions, which were usually described as stoic and expressionless.

“No, it’s nothing,” Yuri said, shaking his head. James patted his shoulder, nodding as if he understood. “I know, I know, how could this current situation not be a headache?” James, who had just finished a call with the Ling family’s lawyer and reported to Kyle a few tens of minutes ago, swallowed his tears.

It wasn’t the first time Riegrow had ruthlessly trampled on a precious scion of a powerful family, and it wasn’t a rare occurrence either, but that didn’t make the situation any easier to resolve. James shook his head, thinking it was fortunate that this matter could at least be passed on to the lawyer.

“That young man is also unfortunate. He must have lived a life of luxury without lacking anything, but how unlucky was he to meet such a madman and end up permanently disabled? Poor thing.”

“Still… it hasn’t been decided that his eyesight recovery is impossible yet…”

Yuri blurted out to James, who was clicking his tongue. James gave him a questioning look.

Yuri also knew Dr. Bayern’s style. If he, who usually spoke in the most hopeful way possible, said something like that, it was right to assume there was almost no possibility. Moreover, he was a renowned authority in ophthalmology, and in this case, unfortunately, he was not a quack.

“…Ah, right. Now that you mention it, he’s Ling Tangyun’s younger brother. I hope there’s a good outcome.”

Interpreting Yuri’s unusual reply as being more worried because he was the younger brother of someone he was close to, James added a futile wish.

No, it wasn’t because he was Ling Tangyun’s younger brother. Yuri was simply and purely sorry for Ling Xinlu, just for being Ling Xinlu.

I should have brought him sooner. No, if only he had received treatment in Dar es Salaam. No, when I received the call from Sana’a, I should have anticipated this and stationed medical staff in Dar es Salaam.

Yuri knew that he had done his best—and that he had taken the quickest and most appropriate action in that situation than anyone else—yet he chewed on belated regrets.

He left Serengeti for Dar es Salaam, received emergency treatment from a local doctor he had contacted in advance, and immediately flew a private jet to Berlin. From the airport, he was transferred directly to the hospital, where medical staff who had been contacted in advance were waiting. The time it took was only a few hours.

Even rethinking it, there was no better way, but his heart ached. A sigh escaped him at his powerlessness.

“Right. The crazy second son called me saying your phone was off. He told me to come back immediately and find Jeong Taeui.”

“Ah… now that you mention it. He disappeared, didn’t he?”

Yuri was surprised that he had completely forgotten such an important matter until then and took out his phone from his pocket. However, the phone, which he had forgotten to charge, had a dead battery and wouldn’t turn on.

“What’s going on? First the older brother, now the younger brother, both missing.”

“We’ve already confirmed that he hasn’t left Serengeti. Perhaps it’s not unrelated to Jeong Jaeui’s whereabouts.”

He felt there was a high possibility, but since it was just a guess, he didn’t bother to say it.

Considering Riegrow’s personality, he wouldn’t be able to procrastinate for long, but there was no need to rush back immediately. He had already arranged for all personnel and goods leaving the island, whether by sea or air, to be strictly checked, and the path from Baheb to the villa area was to be thoroughly searched, leaving no dead end unchecked. Even the detailed movements of the Al Saud villa.

It would take at least a few days for the information Yuri wanted to come in. Moreover, Yuri’s role was to pick out only the necessary clues from the countless important and trivial, true and false information that came in, and then use those clues to make inferences and deploy people appropriately again. Unless it was a critical situation, he didn’t necessarily have to be on site.

…However, it goes without saying that it’s better to be close to the scene if possible, and there’s no reason for him to be here either. Besides, if he returns too late, Riegrow will try to devour him.

That’s right. The search for Jeong Jaeui had already spanned over a year. There was no particular reason to rush now. The only one anxious was Riegrow.

That was strangely fascinating. It was a strange feeling.

“Riegrow seems anxious after all. Seeing as he’s even calling you, he must know that it will take a few days for enough information to be gathered.”

“Don’t even mention it. How many times did he call? If you turn on your phone, you’ll probably have countless call records from the crazy second son.”

“…Rick is anxious too.”

Yuri muttered in a peculiar tone.

It was the first time he had seen it. He had always thought that a man like Riegrow completely lacked anxiety or unease. Perhaps Rick himself had lived until now without even knowing he possessed such emotions.

That was probably because of that man. Because of the man who made Rick seem like an ordinary person.

“It seems that even things I thought would never change, do change.”

“Stop it. It sounds like things are getting even more out of hand. When he called earlier, it felt like he was about to kill several people.”

James groaned and waved his hand. Then, glancing at Yuri, he thought for a moment before speaking.

“Now that I think about it, Yuri, by date alone, your contract period ended a few days ago. Your contract expires after this job, but you’re still tied up because it hasn’t been resolved. …Would you rather give up the completion bonus and let the contract expire as is?”

James seriously asked Yuri, who was bound by the contract as long as the work entrusted to him before the contract period expired was not completed. Would he step away from this job now?

In fact, at this point, Yuri had almost finished the job. He just hadn’t ‘confirmed’ that Jeong Jaeui was in Serengeti. So it was fine for someone else to take over from here.

James was offering to end the contract at this point if he wanted, and that he didn’t have to return to Serengeti. Yuri looked at James for a moment. Then he slowly shook his head.

“It’s a job I’ve taken on, so I should finish it. There’s no need to rush anyway. It won’t take too long, as only one crucial thing is proving elusive.”

Seeing Yuri calmly reply while replacing his phone’s battery, James shrugged.

“Right, if you say so, then it must be so. …Are you going back today?”

“No, the last flight has already departed. I plan to return on the first flight tomorrow.”

“It’s late already, indeed,” James muttered and picked up the phone.

“Then I’ll book you a hotel. Near the airport, or somewhere close by here?”

“Ah… …No. It’s fine.”

Yuri hesitated for a moment and then shook his head. James looked at Yuri curiously but put the receiver down without saying anything.

He intended to return to the hospital for now.

Now that he had brought Ling Xinlu to Berlin and he had undergone surgery, there was no longer any reason for Yuri to look after him. Yuri’s job was ‘to find Jeong Jaeui,’ and other secondary matters were not his concern. Whether Ling Xinlu needed a doctor or a lawyer, there were plenty of people here who could help him more professionally than Yuri.

So, from now on, it was unlikely that Yuri would encounter Ling Xinlu again, unless by chance. Their already tenuous connection ended here.

But precisely because of that, he wanted to confirm his safety for just a moment longer. It was a similar feeling to when he had to leave without seeing the man he had rescued from the sea open his eyes.

He had confirmed that Ling Xinlu, lying in the recovery room, had woken from anesthesia, but he wanted to confirm that he properly woke up after falling back asleep, seemingly still in a daze. And if possible, he wanted to stay by his hospital bed until he left for the airport early tomorrow morning.

“………”

He regretted, just slightly, having refused James’s offer just now. Should he have just stayed in Berlin instead of going back to Serengeti? If he had, he could have watched Ling Xinlu recover—that is, if he didn’t return to China and continued treatment at this hospital.

However, he soon erased that regret from his mind. What more was there to watch when their connection ended here? Even just tonight, he thought it would be fortunate if Ling Xinlu, upon waking from anesthesia, didn’t chase away anyone associated with Riegrow, saying he couldn’t stand the sight of them.