Chapter 3159 — An Electric Hot Pot?

His next step was to plant a mole inside the Liu family's electronics factory. The Liu family's operation was hardly a seamless monolith, after all; bribing a worker or two would be easy enough. Kang Jingming had always been adept at buying people with money—he had cut his teeth on it in the old days, and now he had refined it to an art. It took him no time at all to single out a workshop foreman at the electronics plant, a man whose mother was ill and whose household was short of cash. Kang Jingming arranged to meet him at a small café.

"Foreman Su, I have a few questions for you. Answer them truthfully, and this ten thousand yuan is yours!" Kang Jingming gestured at the bag on the table. "Of course, if your answers contain something that interests me, and you're willing to keep helping me, then this five hundred thousand in the case is yours as well!"

To be honest, ten thousand yuan alone did not move Foreman Su much. He was earning several thousand a month, after all; ten thousand was hardly enough to make him sell out the company's core secrets. But when he considered that it was only a few questions, he nodded. What truly set his heart racing was that case of five hundred thousand—if he could lay hands on that sum, he could pay for the surgery his bedridden old mother needed!

So Foreman Su nodded without hesitation. "What do you want to know?"

"Tell me, is the Yipin Automatic Medicinal Cauldron manufactured at your electronics factory?" Kang Jingming was well pleased with Foreman Su's response. This, of course, was because he had done a thorough investigation of the man before approaching him, and knew how hard-pressed his family was—that was why he had laid out so much money with such confidence. Otherwise, were he to fail, he risked exposing his target and putting Wei Zhao on guard, which would make everything far more difficult.

"The Yipin Automatic Medicinal Cauldron?" Foreman Su blinked. "What's that?"

Kang Jingming frowned at Foreman Su's expression. Had he guessed wrong? Was the Yipin Automatic Medicinal Cauldron not produced by the Liu family's electronics factory? Frowning, he took the undamaged Yipin Automatic Medicinal Cauldron out of his pack, reluctant to let it go. "Take a look. You're sure your factory never made one of these?"

"Huh? You mean this? Isn't this an electric hot pot?" Foreman Su pointed at the object in Kang Jingming's hand. "We do make this one. Is this what you've been asking about?"

"An electric hot pot?" Kang Jingming's face darkened. He nodded. "Yes, this pot. Are you still making them now?"

"Yes, still in production. But this pot uses a titanium alloy, the manufacturing process is fairly complex, output is low, and assembly is a real nuisance. We've had to upgrade a lot of our production lines for this electric hot pot, and retrain the technicians!" Foreman Su said. "Mr. Kang, is this what you wanted to know?"

"That's right. The ten thousand is yours." Kang Jingming breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed his guess had been correct after all: the Yipin Automatic Medicinal Cauldron was not made at Doctor Guan's Pharmaceuticals, but at the Liu family's company.

So the move with Xiao Taohong had been made for nothing—but no matter. He could simply treat it as finding an excuse to send her away.

Relief spread across Foreman Su's face. He took the ten thousand yuan Kang Jingming handed him, then asked, "Tell me, what do I have to do next to get that five hundred thousand?"

"Gather data," Kang Jingming said. "Bring me the complete manufacturing process and production data for this electric hot pot you mentioned, and the five hundred thousand is yours!"

Foreman Su hesitated. He was indeed a workshop foreman—but only the foreman of one stage of the process, not of all of them. He knew the production techniques and data for his own procedure, but that did not mean he knew those for every production line.

"I can only try. There's no problem getting the process and data for my own line, but for the others I'd have to collect them slowly," Foreman Su said after a moment's hesitation. "That will mean expenses—treating people to meals and drinks, you understand. To learn these secrets, unless a foreman from another line lets something slip after a few drinks, or carries those files on him and, being drunk, leaves them somewhere easy to snatch, so I can copy and duplicate them on the sly—without that, it would be very hard to meet your requirements."

"You mean the five hundred thousand isn't enough?" Kang Jingming had caught his meaning.

"The five hundred thousand is my fee. Beyond that, I need another hundred thousand for operating expenses—meals and entertainment," Foreman Su said after a pause.

"Fine, no problem!" Kang Jingming nodded and beckoned to a Five Luminaries Sect disciple beside him. "Go fetch another hundred thousand, and give it all to Foreman Su together."

"Yes!" The disciple nodded and went off to see to it, while Foreman Su smiled with satisfaction. Once this job was done, he would take his old mother and flee far away. The surgery would cost two hundred thousand; the rest would be enough for him to live under an assumed name and open a small business.

After handing over six hundred and ten thousand yuan to Foreman Su, Kang Jingming left his contact information and slipped quietly away. He did not want to linger too long in the secular world; if Wei Zhao's people discovered him, it would only mean trouble.

With Foreman Su working for him without anyone the wiser, Kang Jingming could spare himself a great deal of trouble. All he had to do was wait in the shadows and watch how things unfolded.

................

These past days, Wei Zhao had been living very comfortably. Every day, Xu Shilan and Cheng Yiyi practiced their singing upstairs, while Shen Yushu sat in the living room watching television or went upstairs to watch the two of them perform. She seemed happy enough, and yet Wei Zhao could see, deep within her smile, a trace of sorrow.

Wei Zhao could guess that Shen Yushu was anxious about her own future—and that Gu Mengyao's departure had robbed her of her old mischief and high spirits. Her daily cheer was merely a disguise.

But Wei Zhao said nothing. These were matters beyond his power to change; he could not stop them. All he could do was cultivate with every ounce of his strength and throw himself into his study of artificing.