Chapter 607 — Getting Close to Guan Xin

"Well... I do have a man, but he has no ties to the Gu Group whatsoever. Even if we send him to take the fall, the police might not buy it!" Li Cihua said, somewhat troubled.

"Young Master Bing, I happen to have just the man. He's a distant relative of mine. Offer him enough money and he'll gladly take the blame — he's the sort who cares for cash and not for his own life." Jin Gubang thought for a moment. "Best of all, he has a score to settle with Gu Pengzhan!"

"Mm, not bad. Then it's settled — the Medicine King will brew the poison, Zhong Yongliang will do the dosing, and if anything goes wrong, Jin Gubang's distant relative takes the fall!" Young Master Bing could barely contain his eagerness, and so in a few short words he had the whole plan laid out. "Medicine King, you'd best make it something rare, something hard to antidote, something the hospital can't trace. Only then can we bring ruin to the Gu Group's name. Otherwise, if it comes out that someone poisoned him deliberately, the blow to Gu Pengzhan won't be nearly so heavy!"

"Rest easy, Young Master Bing." The Medicine King spoke with confidence. "There are precious few people in this world who can neutralize the poisons I brew! Since folk call me the Medicine King, I have naturally made a deep study of pharmacology. In all my life I have lost to only one man — and he vanished more than ten years ago!"

The Medicine King had every right to his pride. Among all the famed physicians of the hidden families, if the Medicine King claimed second place, no one dared claim first! That was precisely why he had been able to save Uncle Zhu from injuries so grave.

"Mm, good." Young Master Bing knew well the Medicine King's prowess. "Once Zhong Yongliang is out of the hospital, we put the plan into motion! And Lao Zhong, don't brood over it too much — I won't treat you badly. Doesn't Pinliang need a kidney? In the next few days I'll find a matching donor and have one put in for him!"

"Many thanks, Young Master Bing!" Zhong Fabai was overjoyed. Zhong Yongliang's missing kidney had long been a weight on his heart, and for Young Master Bing to step in and find a donor was simply the best news he could have hoped for.

Wei Zhao, of course, had no idea that Young Master Bing had already begun moving against him — though even if he had known, he would have laughed it off. The Medicine King? A man who had to borrow Doctor Kang's common wound salve, and he dared call himself the Medicine King? Why were there so many shameless people in this world? Truly, the world was vast and shamelessness knew no bounds!

He parked the car beneath the Xuehai Bookstore, and Wei Zhao accompanied the two young ladies into the shop.

Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu headed for the senior-high study-aid section. Wei Zhao had little interest in such things. Even if he failed to get into university, Gu Pengzhan would find a way to place him in the same school as Gu Mengyao. Wei Zhao was not Gu Mengyao; he did not much care how he got into university.

Compared with spending every day poring over books and reviewing, he would rather study something else. Wei Zhao was busy enough as it was.

"I'm going to take a look at the medicine section. Come find me there when you've finished buying your books," Wei Zhao said to Gu Mengyao.

"Oh..." Gu Mengyao was flipping open a newly published collection of the latest mock exams from the various provinces and cities. She answered him only absently and paid Wei Zhao no further mind.

Shen Yushu was the same, leafing through a workbook, but when she heard Wei Zhao she waved at him to show she had understood.

Wei Zhao smiled and turned toward the medicine section. It was here, after all, that he had first met Guan Xuewen. Nearly a month had flown by since then, and astonishingly, he and Guan Xuewen had gone on to found a pharmaceutical company together. The turns of a man's life were truly wondrous.

Yet, to his surprise, in the medicine section Wei Zhao saw two familiar faces!

Kang Jingming had been in Songshan City for four days now, carrying a weighty task from his family: to win over Guan Xin! He was to work his way in through Guan Xin and thus learn the formula of the life-extending, detoxifying pill in Guan Xuewen's possession! He did not, of course, believe that Guan Xuewen had invented the formula. In his view, Guan Xuewen was just like his own grandfather, Doctor Kang — by some stroke of luck he had encountered experts of a certain caliber and obtained the formula from them.

He was a skilled hand at wooing women, and so he would not be so rash as to march straight into the hospital and present Guan Xin with flowers or a declaration of love. That was far too trite, and he did not think Guan Xin would accept it either. According to Kang Jingming's investigations, Guan Xin had never had a boyfriend; a move like that would only frighten her off.

So Kang Jingming meant to engineer a chance encounter — in some fitting setting, to run into Guan Xin as though by coincidence, and so achieve an introduction! That would also set her at ease.

But such an opportunity was truly hard to come by. Kang Jingming had kept watch at Guan Xin's doorstep for four days and found not the slightest opening! Guan Xuewen's residence was easy enough to learn of; Kang Jingming had found it without much effort. Yet though he waited nearby and did see Guan Xin every day, he could hardly just walk up and strike up a conversation, could he?

Guan Xin would certainly take him for a rogue, and that was the last thing Kang Jingming wanted.

Guan Xin took the shuttle bus to and from work every day, as regular as clockwork, and it left Kang Jingming no opening at all! Had she taken a public bus or a taxi, he might still have found a chance to stage a coincidence. But the shuttle — he was not a hospital employee, and there was simply no way for him to board it.

This left Kang Jingming thoroughly out of sorts. He called himself the Casanova of the boudoir — when had he ever waited four days without so much as making contact with his target? Just as his patience was wearing dangerously thin, Guan Xin finally came out of the house! It was Saturday, Guan Xin's day off — no work. She left the villa and took the bus straight to the Xuehai Bookstore!

Kang Jingming felt his chance had come. He hastily hailed a taxi and followed, trailing her all the way to the Xuehai Bookstore. Seeing Guan Xin head for the medicine section, he began to ponder how to approach her.

Guan Xin, of course, never noticed that anyone was following her. She was no student of criminal investigation, after all, and it was impossible for her to discover that Kang Jingming was already standing not far away.

Guan Xin had come to the bookstore today to buy some books on the assistant physician examination for integrated Chinese and Western medicine. Back when she was still in school, although her major had been nursing, she had simultaneously studied integrated Chinese and Western medicine. She had chosen that course in the first place because her grandfather was an outstanding practitioner of Chinese medicine, and Guan Xin could not bear to disappoint the old man, so she had picked a discipline related to Chinese medicine as her second major.

After graduating, however, Guan Xin still felt that Chinese medicine was not suited to her, and so she became a nurse. Guan Xuewen was disappointed, but he said nothing more about it. Guan Xin was a girl, after all, and Guan Xuewen had never pinned any great hopes on her.