Hatred for Iron That Could Never Become Steel

Inside Anshintang's herbal medicine decoction room.

With a sharp smack, Yu Baiwei slammed the bottle in her hand onto the table.

The liquid inside was pitch-black and incredibly viscous!

Clearly, the decoction had been ruined.

"Why is it still wrong?"

Yu Baiwei flailed her hands irritably.

After venting for a while, she stopped.

"No, I have to ask Old Xu. Did he give me the wrong prescription?"

She walked a few steps before noticing a black stain from the medicinal liquid on her right hand.

She hurried to the sink, turned on the faucet with the index finger and thumb of her left hand, and began scrubbing under the rushing water.

After washing, she held both hands near her nose and sniffed. Feeling that the smell was still there, she continued washing.

After repeating the process several times, she took some tissues from the table and dried her hands.

When she stepped outside, she again pinched the clothes at her shoulder and leaned over to smell them. Then she frowned.

"How disgusting!"

She had originally planned to go downstairs to find Old Xu, but Yu Baiwei changed direction and decided to change clothes first.

She couldn't stand this smell for even a moment.

However, she had only taken two steps when a voice from behind called out to her.

"Miss!"

"The master is asking you to go see him!"

Yu Baiwei turned around, glanced back, waved her hand, and continued walking.

"Fine, I'll go over in a bit!"

The servant behind her said awkwardly,

"The master told you to go over immediately!"

Yu Baiwei stopped again and asked impatiently,

"What's so urgent?"

Before the servant could answer, she said firmly,

"I'm going to change clothes!"

"I'll be there in a moment!"

"Tell him I said so!"

Without waiting for the servant to say anything else, she quickly disappeared at the end of the corridor.

Yu Jun waited in his seat for over ten minutes. When he still didn't see Yu Baiwei, impatience began to show on his face.

"Why hasn't she arrived yet?"

Hearing this, his subordinate hurried out to ask around.

He had just reached the doorway when he happened to run into the returning servant and reprimanded him.

"Didn't I tell you to go find Miss?"

"Where is she?"

The servant replied timidly,

"Miss was in the decoction room just now. She said... she said she'd change clothes before coming up."

Yu Jun's brow furrowed.

"You didn't tell her I wanted her to come over immediately?"

The servant stood there trembling.

"I... I did!"

Yu Jun's breath caught. Then he let out a long sigh.

"Then we'll wait."

About ten minutes later, Yu Baiwei finally arrived.

By then, she had already changed into a different outfit.

Her hair was still damp. She had probably taken a shower as well.

"Grandpa, you wanted to see me?"

Yu Jun suppressed his anger and forced down his emotions.

"Mm..."

Then he cast Yu Baiwei a faint glance.

"Xiao Wei, answer me this. About three days ago, I ran into you driving a young man away in the lobby on the first floor."

"Was he the one who used the equipment in the decoction room to prepare a batch of medicinal liquid?"

Yu Baiwei froze slightly, seemingly not expecting her grandfather to have called her over to ask about this.

She glared at Professor Xu beside her, anger welling in her heart.

Didn't you say you wouldn't tell Grandpa about this yet?

You sold me out the moment you turned around!

What a bastard!

Professor Xu didn't dare meet her eyes. He merely stood quietly to one side.

"I'm asking you a question!"

Yu Jun noticed Yu Baiwei's little movements, and his anger grew. Without realizing it, he raised his voice.

Yu Baiwei jumped and hurriedly said,

"Yes! That person... that person..."

She had originally wanted to say that the man was a swindler, but when the words reached her lips, she realized something was wrong.

Since he could refine such highly effective medicinal liquid, calling him a swindler didn't seem appropriate.

"That person really did prepare medicine here."

Yu Jun took a deep breath.

"And then? Tell me everything that happened during this period, word for word!"

"Don't leave out a single detail!"

Seeing that the matter had been exposed, Yu Baiwei stopped hiding anything.

"After you scolded me that day, I went to the decoction room because I wanted to prove that the man was a swindler!"

"Then I found a bottle with medicinal residue in the trash. To test the toxicity of the medicine inside, I went to Professor Xu..."

Yu Baiwei gave Yu Jun a rough account of the situation.

It was basically the same as what Professor Xu had told him.

"You know very well that we're currently developing the Fourth Generation Serum!"

"After discovering a serum more effective than the third-generation product, the first thing you should have done was tell me!"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Yu Jun asked with an ugly expression.

Yu Baiwei stammered,

"I thought, Grandpa, aren't you looking for the formula for the Fourth Generation Serum?"

"If I could analyze and test the ingredients in this serum, then I would be the one who..."

At that point, Yu Jun completely lost his temper. He slapped the chair and stood up.

"Then you would be what? You would have developed it?"

"Do you have any brains?"

"Which serum of this kind has a simple production process?"

"Not to mention you—even the top research teams of the three major pharmaceutical groups would have to rely on luck to replicate this serum after obtaining it!"

"Who do you think you are?"

Yu Jun was truly furious this time.

Zhenyao Workshop and Miaofang Pavilion had already launched their fourth-generation products, while Anshi Hall still had no news.

He had already been irritated enough as it was.

Now he had learned that his granddaughter had driven away someone who might originally have had the chance to cooperate with Anshi Hall, then deliberately concealed news of a possible new serum. At last, he could no longer hold back and exploded.

If she had merely been fooling around as usual, he could have turned a blind eye. After all, what else could he do when he had only one granddaughter?

But this time, it concerned the major matter of the family's development. He had no choice but to be angry.

When Yu Baiwei saw that Yu Jun was truly furious this time, aggrieved tears immediately streamed down her face.

"Grandpa, I was wrong!"

Looking at Yu Baiwei's pitiful appearance, Yu Jun opened his mouth, wanting to say more.

In the end, he sighed, waved his hand, and said impatiently,

"All right, go out!"

After Yu Baiwei left the room, Yu Jun muttered,

"We have no choice but to attend this auction!"

Time flew by.

Soon, it was the following evening.

To avoid the crowds, Jiang Fan left an hour early. At around seven in the evening, he arrived at the underground auction house on Seven Treasures Street.

Unexpectedly, when he arrived, more than half the seats in the underground hall were already occupied.

People were also constantly coming and going through the entrance.

Most of them were upper-class figures dressed in luxurious clothing, though a small number looked like relatively modest ordinary people.

Since Jiang Fan was the consignor of the item being auctioned, a servant led him inside.

As they walked, Jiang Fan asked,

"It's so lively here. Aren't you afraid the authorities will investigate?"

According to Jiang Fan's way of thinking, an underground auction house should be an under-the-table operation, so it ought to keep an extremely low profile.

The first time he had come here, it had indeed seemed very tightly controlled.

But why had it become so lively and conspicuous today?

Jiang Fan couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Hearing Jiang Fan's question, the servant smiled faintly.

"Although this is an underground auction house, all the officials above know about it!"

"As long as no major problems arise, they basically turn a blind eye!"

"By putting some illegal channels here, they can keep a close watch on them at all times. It actually puts their minds at ease!"

Jiang Fan immediately understood.

Put simply, it's one of their methods for maintaining stability.

Jiang Fan followed the servant around the surrounding gallery. As they reached a corner, someone suddenly hurried past him.

Their shoulders accidentally collided.

"Ow!"

The other person let out a shrill cry.

After being tempered by his qi and blood, Jiang Fan's body was as hard as steel.

To an ordinary person, colliding with him was like hitting iron. Although he had only been defending passively, he had still injured the other person, so he turned around and apologized.

"Sorry!"

But the moment he turned around, both he and the other person froze.