Chapter 400 — It Really Works

Kang Cuipu and Kang Jingming were cast from the same mold, both cut from the cloth of scheming scoundrels, or else one could not have had the father sending a fake ginseng root at the birthday banquet and the son sending a fake prescription!

So Kang Cuipu understood at once what Kang Jingming meant: that there was nothing wrong with Kang Jingming at all, and he was deliberately putting on this act!

Kang Cuipu showed nothing on the surface, but inwardly he was praising his son as truly formidable, the pupil surpassing the master and outdoing even himself in cunning!

"Child, you truly are a good child!" Hearing Kang Jingming's words, the divine doctor Kang could not help but be moved to tears: "Zhaolong, since he cannot go to the hospital, you examine him for me. Take his pulse and see how he is."

"Yes, Grandfather." Kang Jinglong looked coldly at Kang Jingming putting on his performance. As for what sort of person Kang Jingming was, he, his cousin, knew all too well: full of tricks since childhood and craven in the face of death. If he were truly at death's door, how could he possibly refuse to go to the hospital? So Kang Jinglong guessed that Kang Jingming was eight parts faking it.

But he could not say so. To speak of such things at such a moment was clearly inappropriate. Yet Kang Jinglong did rather envy Kang Jingming. He himself was the genius of the family, his grandfather's successor, and yet Kang Jingming had stumbled into sheer dumb luck, having eaten a worthless little pill and thereby come to be held in high regard. Had he known it would turn out this way, he would rather have swallowed it himself.

Of course, if at the time it had been Kang Jinglong who asked to test the medicine on his own body, the divine doctor Kang would not have agreed either. After all, Kang Jinglong was the future hope of the Kang family. Even knowing full well that the elixir would not kill a man, the divine doctor Kang would never take the risk of letting Kang Jinglong try it.

At this thought, Kang Jinglong's heart settled somewhat. He walked over, took hold of Kang Jingming's wrist, and checked his pulse. Though weak, there was nothing seriously wrong.

"Hm?" Kang Jinglong was a meticulous man, and he suddenly noticed that the pores of Kang Jingming's body seemed to be covered by a layer of greasy yellow-black oil: "What is this? Something coming out of your body?"

Kang Jingming had until then been paying attention only to his symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea, and had not noticed that there was still a layer of sticky filth on his body: "This... what is this?"

"Marrow cleansing and bone renewal? Can that little pill really be a longevity-and-detox elixir?" Kang Jinglong stared in astonishment at the matter being discharged from Kang Jingming's body: "It is gone, it should be gone now! I have seen similar descriptions of marrow cleansing and bone renewal in certain ancient medical texts, and this is exactly the effect they describe!"

"It really is a longevity-and-detox elixir?" The divine doctor Kang was astonished as well, and at that moment could not help but feel a twinge of regret. If only he himself had eaten it, how much better that would have been! Kang Jingming was young, so what toxins did he need to expel? It was he who ought to be enjoying longevity and expelling toxins! But the remaining half had clearly been cut off and could not be eaten now; it would have to be sent to the group's research institute for composition analysis and laboratory testing.

"It should be right!" Kang Jinglong nodded. "But used on Zhaoming, the effect is not especially pronounced. For one thing, he is young and has fewer toxins in his body; for another, he only ate half."

"Good. Zhaolong, take the other half of the longevity-and-detox elixir to our group's research institute at once for composition analysis and laboratory testing. If our group can master the formula for this medicine, then the Divine Doctor Kang brand will surely rise to yet another level!" The divine doctor Kang instructed Kang Jinglong with some excitement.

"Yes, Grandfather!" Kang Jinglong nodded, though inwardly he smiled bitterly. Composition analysis was not so easy as that. If the ingredients were ordinary, well and good, but if some exotic herb had been added, there was basically no hope of ever analyzing and identifying it.

In the special-care ward of a high-end hospital in Donghai City, an old man lay weakly on the bed. In the outer room of his ward, a square-faced man was talking in low tones with a doctor: "If my father does not get a kidney transplant, how much longer can he hold on?"

"Less than a month." The doctor shook his head. "We have done all we can."

"If he does get a transplant, what are the chances?" the man asked. This man was Lai Pangzi's elder brother, Lai Changtian. "Money is no object!"

"Mr. Lai, frankly speaking, Mr. Lai the elder is in very poor condition. A transplant now, and I fear he would not even survive the operating table." The doctor spoke honestly: "With your family's means, finding a matching kidney donor is not a problem; if the proper channels fail, there are also black-market ones... but that is not a matter that money can solve."

"Doctor, can you think of something else?" Lai Changtian hesitated a moment, then said: "Or, at least, could you make him wake up? Lying there in a coma like this is no way to go on."

It was not that Lai Changtian truly cared whether his father lived or died. The crux of the matter was that before his father fell into the coma, he had not made a will. If his father passed away just like this, then the remaining estate could only be split evenly with his younger brother! He was not reconciled to that. He had poured far more of his heart's blood into the group than his younger brother, Lai Changshan!

Lai Changshan was in charge only of real estate and trade and sales. True, in the eyes of others these two industries were already high-margin lines of business, but what Lai Changtian was in charge of was manufacturing!

Compared with real estate and trade, this electronics manufacturing business, with its vast industrial park, was the true core industry of the group! Even if the real estate and trade divisions were carved off and given to Lai Changshan, the group would not be gravely wounded.

But Lai Changtian feared that his younger brother would contest control of the industrial park with him. That was the last thing Lai Changtian wanted to see, so he had to get his father to wake up and make a will!

His father was no fool either, and he certainly would not want to see the electronics industrial park he had built with his own hands torn to pieces by family infighting! The best solution was to leave the two subsidiaries in real estate and trade to Lai Changshan, and perhaps give Lai Changshan a share of the electronics industrial park as well, but without any say in management or decision-making, and with the shares in his hands not to be sold at will, and if sold, only to himself at market price!

Such was Lai Changtian's calculation. The terms were not unreasonable, and he was confident that for the sake of the industrial park's prosperity his father would surely agree to his proposal. But if his father went just like that, Lai Changtian could not guarantee that his younger brother would not come to seize power.

"He might wake..." The nephew might indeed, but once he woke, the man would probably be finished all the same. "...The doctor understood Lai Changtian's meaning and so explained.

"This... let me think about it!" Lai Changtian frowned. He did not even know whether, in the instant of waking, there would be time to set down a will.

Just as they were speaking, the door of the sickroom was suddenly pushed open, and Lai Changshan, that is, Fat Lai, came rushing in all in a fluster: "News, good news! Dad is saved!"