Chapter 450 — Self-Recommendation

"Good, that's good!" Fatty Lai had been afraid that the herbs he'd bought might all be fakes—as long as some were genuine, that was enough. "Then, Divine Doctor Lin, just pick out the good ones and use them!"

"Will do. Grandpa Guan, do you have a decoction stove here?" Wei Zhao asked.

"I do. I'll have Auntie Liu bring it over," Guan Xuewen said. As a master of traditional Chinese medicine, he naturally had no shortage of decoction equipment at home.

"Then... should I step out for a bit?" Fatty Lai was a sensible man. Worried that Wei Zhao might have taboos about being watched while preparing medicine, he thought he'd spare himself the annoyance and withdraw for a while.

"No need. Sit right there—I happen to have a few questions about the company's opening that I'd like to ask you!" Wei Zhao waved a hand, motioning for Fatty Lai to sit down.

"Ask me?" Fatty Lai was flattered beyond measure. He rubbed his plump little hands and said, "I wouldn't call it being asked—I can only offer a few suggestions! Rest assured, I'll tell you everything I know and leave nothing out! Divine Doctor Lin is doing me an honor by letting me speak!"

Auntie Liu soon brought over the decoction equipment. Wei Zhao deftly selected some fresh herbs and tossed them into the pot. What looked like a casual grab was in fact measured with perfect accuracy.

Fatty Lai marveled inwardly, though he didn't think much of it. Wei Zhao's medical skill was far beyond such trivial flourishes—compared with his other abilities, this was nothing at all.

Even Guan Xuewen was somewhat astonished at how swiftly Wei Zhao's hands moved. It seemed Wei Zhao hadn't even looked, yet he had already finished selecting the herbs.

"Fatty Lai, my pharmaceutical company has two drugs ready to launch at the outset. One is a powerful painkiller with no side effects, and the other is a wound medicine. How do you think we should promote them once they hit the market?" Wei Zhao asked.

"Divine Doctor Lin, this wound medicine—is it a finished medicine with effects similar to Divine Doctor Kang's Golden Wound Medicine?" Once the conversation turned to business, Fatty Lai put on a shrewd look, and the image of the earlier bawling crybaby and spineless wimp was nowhere to be seen.

"More or less. I've never seen what Golden Wound Medicine looks like, but my wound medicine also promotes rapid healing of injuries and leaves no scars!" Wei Zhao nodded.

"Then it should be about the same!" Fatty Lai pondered for a moment, then said, "My suggestion is to launch the wound medicine first and use it to build up our reputation!"

"Oh? How so?" Wei Zhao looked at Fatty Lai. Both he and Guan Xuewen had thought to release the two drugs together; they hadn't expected Fatty Lai to want to release them in batches.

"Heh heh, we release only one drug, with effects similar to the most miraculous product on the market—Divine Doctor Kang's Golden Wound Medicine. That way, everyone will start comparing us with them!" Fatty Lai said. "At first they'll have some doubts about our product, but once they find its effects are just like Divine Doctor Kang's, they'll gradually start leaning toward us!"

"Of course, that requires two conditions. One, our price must be lower than theirs. Two, our supply must be ample—because from what I know, several of the ingredients in Divine Doctor Kang's Golden Wound Medicine are in very low supply, and they give priority to certain special institutions and the military, so the quantity sold to the civilian market isn't large! So if their product can't be bought, consumers will choose ours!"

"Naturally, if our product's effects are clearly superior to theirs, we won't need to sell at a lower price. Or, if we can't increase our production capacity either, then no matter what, the market will remain in a state of shortage, and whether we compete with them for market share becomes meaningless."

Fatty Lai finished it all in one breath, then wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Wei Zhao and Guan Xuewen were both stunned. They hadn't expected Fatty Lai to actually have some real skill—he wasn't just a crybaby, but a talent.

"Then the sales of the painkiller..." Wei Zhao had little experience in business, so he continued to ask humbly.

"As long as our wound medicine scores a hit right out of the gate, the painkiller won't be a problem!" Fatty Lai said. "Once our first product hits the market and is accepted by consumers, the second product will basically need no promotion at all! Of course, holding a live launch event is also an option."

"I see!" Wei Zhao nodded, taking it in. "Then what about the auction I was planning earlier—should we still hold it? I was preparing to put a few Life-Extending Detox Pills up for auction, but..."

Here Wei Zhao hesitated. He wasn't close to Fatty Lai, so naturally he couldn't make the refining of the Life-Extending Detox Pills sound too easy—if he made it sound like making candy, then the fact that he'd swindled him out of a whole building for half a pill would surely make Fatty Lai feel he'd been robbed blind! Even though it had been Fatty Lai's own idea to offer it... Wei Zhao didn't want Fatty Lai cursing him behind his back.

So he went on, "But the Life-Extending Detox Pills are extremely difficult to refine. Many of the ingredients are nearly extinct, so the number is limited, and they can't possibly be mass-produced and sold. If we auction them, won't it seem like they have nothing to do with the pharmaceutical company's products?"

"Of course not! That's a gimmick!" Fatty Lai waved his hand repeatedly upon hearing this, thinking to himself that the Life-Extending Detox Pills really were a treasure—how wise he'd been to claw half a pill out of that dog crap! He guessed Wei Zhao didn't have many of these pills left in his hands either; they were priceless treasures indeed!

"I thought it was a gimmick too, at first—but the way you tell it, the gimmick doesn't seem to serve any purpose at all?" Wei Zhao asked.

"How do you figure it serves no purpose?" Fatty Lai waved a hand. "We can announce the Longevity Detox Pill to the public as a limited-edition made from rare medicinal ingredients—because the success rate of refining it is very low and the raw materials are scarce... Hmm, we might as well say the expert who supplied us with the formula gave us an out-of-production batch of ingredients! Rarity lends value, after all. By the time this Longevity Detox Pill earns a good reputation and shows real curative effects, our wound medicine will rise right along with it!"

Wei Zhao nodded, thinking Fatty Lai's idea was a sound one. "Do you know where we could hire a professional manager to run the company?"

"Well..." At Wei Zhao's words, a flicker of excited anticipation darted through Fatty Lai's eyes, and his face flushed slightly. "What do you think of me?"

"You?" Wei Zhao was taken aback for a moment before he understood what Fatty Lai meant. "You're saying you want to be the professional manager?"

"That's right. What do you think of me? I've been knocking around the business world for over ten years now—you could say I'm fairly experienced!" Fatty Lai said, thumping his chest.

"But your trading company and your real estate company..." Wei Zhao looked at Fatty Lai in puzzlement.

"The trading company will handle pharmaceutical sales from now on, and the real estate company will build our branch offices from here on out!" Fatty Lai said with a wave of his hand. "I founded both of those companies myself—what I say goes!"