tkworld Chapter 173 Who is the hunter, and who is the cat that died of curiosity?
Chapter 173 Who is the hunter, and who is the cat that died of curiosity?
In the early mornings in the old town of Changxiang City, the air is always filled with the smoky smell of frying dough sticks and the musty smell coming up from the sewers.
But today was a little different. The neighbors noticed that whenever they passed by the Renxin Pharmacy, their hair would inexplicably stand up, like a dandelion with its hair standing on end in anger.
"Boss, this meter is spinning faster than the wheels of my secondhand Wuling Hongguang." Su Qing leaned on the counter, her dark circles as heavy as if she had just returned from poaching at a panda base. She held a crumpled bill in her hand, her fingertips crackling from static electricity. "If this keeps going, this won't look like a pharmacy, it'll look like a Bitcoin mining farm."
Wang Minyu was squatting in front of a money tree by the door—this tree had recently mutated, its leaves were turning purple, and it would sway to the rhythm of the music.
He was holding a spray bottle filled with the residue of "Resurrection Soup" diluted a thousand times.
"Mining is so tacky." Wang Minyu didn't turn around, using tweezers to remove a withered leaf with an eye pattern growing out of it. "We're giving Earth dialysis. By the way, how long has Liu Jie been back?"
"Three hours and forty-five minutes." Zero's voice came from the speaker disguised as a lucky cat, carrying a mechanical, languid tone. "Zhao Dezhu has received the signal. According to my audio monitoring of that 'button,' Zhao Dezhu just laughed like a pig in his 88,000 yuan executive chair."
The big machine in the backyard was running in a low-power mode, emitting a buzzing sound like a giant mosquito trapped in a glass bottle.
To avoid suspicion, Pierre covered the machine with a tarpaulin and hung several strings of cured meat next to it, calling it "magnetic storm dried sausage".
Guan Shan carried in a case of Wanglaoji herbal tea, covered in sweat: "Boss, I saw the people in that tenement building across the street have left. Did they take the bait?"
"Took the bait?" Wang Minyu stood up, patted the mud off his hands, "They think they've already won, and are just getting ready to go home and get their pots."
Meanwhile, on the top floor of an office building in the CBD, in the chairman's office of Kangmei Pharmaceutical.
Zhao Dezhu fiddled with the "poison packet" he had pried out of Liu Jie's shoe, then looked at the small black button launcher on the table.
He was indeed in a good mood, not only because he had obtained leverage over Renxin Pharmacy, but also because he felt that the kid surnamed Wang was still too inexperienced.
"Poisoning... Hmph, such a despicable tactic." Zhao Dezhu threw the "poison packet" into a drawer; it was evidence for the final showdown. "But, did you get the specifications for that machine?"
Liu Jie stood in front of the desk with his head down, his whole body still trembling slightly uncontrollably.
That five-minute "fear-inducing" experience has made him see everyone as a mushroom now.
"I...I got it." Liu Jie handed over a USB drive, his hands trembling. "And Wang Minyu asked me to give this to you." He pointed to the button.
"Oh? What's this?" Zhao Dezhu picked up the button and shook it near his ear.
There is no sound.
"He said...this is a gift for you." Liu Jie swallowed hard, not daring to say the words "you will never forget it."
Zhao Dezhu scoffed and casually tossed the button into his suit pocket: "Playing tricks. Alright, go to the finance department to collect your money, and then... disappear for a while. The Health Bureau is going to be making some big moves these next few days, and I don't want anyone dragging this rat out."
Liu Jie felt as if he had been granted a pardon and ran away as fast as he could.
Zhao Dezhu walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked down at the city.
He felt that sense of control over everything had returned.
But he didn't notice that the moment he put the button into his pocket, the seemingly ordinary black plastic piece suddenly emitted a faint purple light.
A wave of infrasound, which can only be received at a specific frequency, silently rippled outwards from him.
Inside Renxin Pharmacy.
Wang Minyu put down the spray bottle, turned to Su Qing and said, "Turn on all the surveillance cameras in the store, especially the ones pointing at the backyard. Also, have Guan Shan block half of the heat sink of that MRI machine."
"Block the vents?" Su Qing pushed up his glasses, his brows furrowing deeply. "That machine will overheat and alarm, it might even start smoking. You're treating a multi-million dollar machine like a fire poker?"
"It has to smoke." Wang Minyu pulled out a bag of sunflower seeds from under the counter, cracked one open, and said, "If it doesn't smoke, how can we appear 'panicked'? If we don't appear panicked, how will Boss Zhao be willing to come in person to 'inspect the results'?"
Just then, the wind chimes at the door rang.
The people who came in were not patients, but a group of people in uniforms. The leader was the same inspection team leader from the health bureau from last time. However, this time he was followed by several reporters carrying cameras, and... several technicians in white coats carrying sampling boxes.
There were also a few familiar faces—these were the top lawyers from Kangmei Pharmaceutical's legal department.
"Mr. Wang Minyu, is that right?" The team leader had a stern face, but his eyes revealed a sense of helplessness, clearly under pressure. "Someone has filed a formal complaint alleging that your store has been illegally releasing toxic substances into the groundwater well, seriously endangering public safety. We need to take samples of the water source and seal them off."
The reporters' flashes went off in a flurry, and the sound of camera shutters sprayed like a machine gun.
Wang Minyu didn't speak, but just looked at them quietly. Then, an expression of "guilt" naturally appeared on his face.
His hand trembled, and the sunflower seeds in his hand scattered all over the ground.
"This...this must be a misunderstanding, right?" Wang Minyu's voice trembled slightly at just the right moment. "We're just a small pharmacy, where would we get poison from..."
"Whether it's poisonous or not, we'll know after the test," Kangmei's lawyer interjected with a sneer. "Dr. Wang, I heard you've been setting up a big machine in your backyard lately. You're not refining some kind of illegal substance, are you?"
Just then, a muffled thud came from the backyard.
Immediately afterwards, a thick plume of black smoke billowed out from under the tarpaulin, accompanied by a piercing alarm.
"Beep—! Overheating! Core meltdown warning!" Zero's originally soft and cute loli voice became extremely shrill, sounding like a nuclear power plant was about to explode.
The entire room fell silent instantly.
The lawyer's eyes lit up, a gleam of recognition as he saw his prey fall into the trap.
Wang Minyu's face turned deathly pale (actually, he hadn't eaten breakfast and was experiencing low blood sugar), and he shouted, "Guan Shan! Quickly, splash some water! Don't let it explode!"
In the midst of the chaos, no one noticed that Wang Minyu's fingers, hanging by his side, were gently tapping the seam of his trousers, keeping a rhythm of some kind of pleasure.
The stage is set up, and it's time for the main actors to take the stage.