Planning Ahead

"Dad, welcome home."

As soon as he stepped into the main control room, Little X's clear child's voice rang out, "Xia Yin auntie came into the data center today."

"I know, I let her in."

Chen Chen locked the door behind him, placing the scattered miscellaneous items on the floor. "Anything else? Did you spot any suspicious individuals?"

"I detected 3,567 suspicious individuals passing by our front door," Little X replied.

Chen Chen chuckled. "Those aren't suspicious people; they're just going home from work."

"Oh, I don't quite understand..."

Little X mumbled.

It had to be said, Little X's learning ability was outstanding. Chen Chen rarely encountered questions that exceeded Little X's intelligent scope anymore.

After taking everything out of several boxes and confirming they were all the props he needed, Chen Chen sat down in front of the computer. He removed a USB drive from the tape stuck to his arm and plugged it into the computer.

Soon, five or six bags of NZT-48 were retrieved from the computer screen.

Chen Chen looked at the newly retrieved six bags of NZT-48, a slight emotion stirring within him.

Since purchasing the data center, the Transformer had also been upgraded to the maximum model allowed by the government. The amount of electricity that could be charged per day was now fifty times what it was before.

This was what they called exponential growth.

From the first time he retrieved NZT-48 and raced against time, it took Chen Chen a total of 4 months to earn his first sum of capital, and that was only because of the Zheng Jian incident, which brought him to the attention of the school's upper echelons early.

Then, Chen Chen spent another three months successfully resolving the drug's side effects.

However, from this moment on, Chen Chen entered a phase of exponential growth.

From the appearance of the second prop to Chen Chen developing the Little X Translation Assistant and then collaborating with Facebook, Chen Chen only took three months.

If Chen Chen had envied rich second-generation individuals like Xia Yin before, then now, most rich first-generation individuals couldn't compare to Chen Chen.

And it had been less than a year since Chen Chen obtained the USB drive.

The reason Chen Chen suddenly materialized so much NZT-48 now wasn't because he was losing his mind, but to prepare for the future.

After careful consideration and multiple calculations, Chen Chen believed he might face three crisis scenarios in the future:

The first scenario: being held hostage and having no opportunity to take NZT-48.

The second scenario: losing both his USB drive and NZT-48 domestically.

The third scenario: losing both his USB drive and NZT-48 abroad.

With that thought, Chen Chen walked to the workbench and poured the entire contents of one bag of NZT-48 onto a plate. He then used the manual grinder Xia Yin had bought to crush the pills one by one.

Beside the grinder were several boxes of Amoxicillin.

Every time he crushed an NZT-48 pill, Chen Chen would open an Amoxicillin capsule, pour out the powder inside, and replace it with the NZT-48 powder.

Once he had enough for a blister pack, Chen Chen took out a roll of aluminum foil and heat-sealed them with another small machine.

Finally, Chen Chen put all these sealed capsules into the packaging boxes. Several boxes of "Amoxicillin" were completed.

This method of hiding the drugs was designed to deal with situations where someone might break into the data center and hold him hostage, and he wouldn't have a chance to take NZT-48.

Regardless of why the other party would hold him hostage, the most important thing for him at that moment would undoubtedly be to swallow an NZT-48.

Therefore, an NZT-48 disguised as a cold medicine might allow him to escape danger.

However, a box of Amoxicillin could hold a maximum of 16 pills, which was only suitable for emergency use.

Next, Chen Chen took a pot, poured a bag of edible wax into it, and heated it with an induction cooker until the edible wax melted.

Then, Chen Chen added a bag of black food coloring.

Instantly, the wax turned a dark, inky black color.

That wasn't enough. Chen Chen then took a bag labeled "Denatonium Benzoate" and scooped a spoonful into the pot.

Denatonium Benzoate is the bitterest substance known to the world. At a concentration of 0.003%, it is already unbearable. It is often used as a bittering agent and an aversion agent in consumer and industrial products.

Perhaps its most famous use is in Nintendo's Switch game cartridges.

Because Switch game cartridges are only the size of a fingernail, Nintendo, to prevent children from accidentally swallowing them, coated the cartridges with this bittering agent.

As soon as a person's tongue touched the game card, it would be overwhelmed by a grapefruit-like bitterness that would linger on the taste buds for a long time.

However, after this news was exposed, it instead attracted many bored people to specifically buy game cards to try them out, even forming a cultural trend online.

It was like an unintentional act yielding unexpected results.

With that thought, Chen Chen poured the remaining NZT-48 from the previous bag into the pot...

Because NZT-48 dissolves in water but not in wax, there was no need to worry about it melting in the pot. All the pills simply tumbled around in the pot, instantly transforming from their original crystal clarity to a sight that was hard to look at.

Then Chen Chen fished out these pills and placed them on the table to air dry.

After they had dried, Chen Chen took out a few boxes of chewing gum he had bought along the way.

Chen Chen didn't buy the common bubble gum but a type packaged in a flat tin box containing pressed candies.

Chen Chen unsealed all the chewing gum boxes, dumped out the pressed candies inside, and filled them with the dried NZT-48...

Chen Chen put one of the gum boxes into his pocket.

As a backup.

This way, it wouldn't matter if he accidentally lost it later. Besides himself, surely no one else would eat these dark, bitter, unknown candies.

These two methods should be sufficient to deal with the first type of emergency.

The second type of crisis was losing both the USB drive and the NZT-48 in the country simultaneously.

There was no need to dwell on why the USB drive was lost or what the consequences of losing it would be. Chen Chen only considered how he would turn the tables or escape after losing both his lifelines at the same time.

With that thought, Chen Chen directly discarded the previous pot, got a new one, filled it with water, and poured all five remaining bags of NZT-48 into it…

Chen Chen had already tested the NZT-48 long ago and was very familiar with its properties. It dissolved in water, could withstand temperatures up to one hundred degrees Celsius without changing its chemical composition, and could be exposed to air for extended periods without spoiling.

With these excellent characteristics, Chen Chen wasn't afraid of any unexpected situations.

After all the pills had dissolved in the water, Chen Chen took out another bag of high-strength edible gel and poured it into the pot.

Once Chen Chen had stirred it evenly, the liquid in the pot had completely turned into a semi-transparent, jelly-like substance.

Next, Chen Chen took out several molds from under the bed and poured the liquid into them.

He only took them out after the liquid had completely cooled and solidified.

Immediately, several soft, semi-transparent, silicone-like objects appeared before Chen Chen's eyes.

Looking at these "silicones," Chen Chen smiled faintly, then opened the last box Xia Yin had brought.

The inside of the box was dazzlingly bright, containing twelve gold bars.

The gold bars were inscribed with phrases like "Issued by XX Bank, Central Continent Region" and "Investment Gold Bar 500g."

However, Chen Chen didn't even glance at the gold bars. He took out two transparent plastic boxes from under the bed, opened them one by one, and placed the silicone-like soft objects into the plastic boxes.

Coincidentally, each plastic box had six finger-width gaps.

Then, Chen Chen inserted the six gold bars one by one.

Instantly, two exquisitely packaged boxes, totaling 6KG of investment gold bars, were ready.

Next, all he needed to do was store these boxes in a bank.

Modern banks offered a service called "safe deposit boxes," where people could rent space to store valuables they deemed important.

For example, property deeds, gold bars, important contracts, and so on.

The biggest advantage of this method was that unless there was a confiscation of assets or a natural disaster like the collapse of the regional government, the items stored were completely safe.

As the saying goes, the most dangerous place is often the safest. Even if Chen Chen were chased by other forces in the future, the NZT-48 would not fall into their hands.

After all, who would have thought that among the two boxes of gold bars stored in bank safe deposit boxes, the most valuable item would be the silicone that fixed the gold bars?

Thanks to [Wu Di Wan Wan Nian] for the reward. May Wu Di live for ten thousand years, ten thousand years, ten thousand years!