Selling Medicine

The next day, when Wang Yan woke, the sky was already bright.

Liu Sihui had made breakfast long ago. She came in to wake him.

"Get up and eat. I bought you some toiletries."

Looking at Liu Sihui in front of him, Wang Yan couldn't help recalling the excitement of the night before. And since it was morning, his thoughts started to wander.

"Where's Tiantian?" Wang Yan asked.

"She finished breakfast, and my mom took her out for a walk."

At that, Wang Yan said nothing. He got straight up and pulled Liu Sihui into bed as she let out a startled cry. He'd been drinking yesterday, so things hadn't been very clear. He needed to go over it again.

A little over twenty minutes later, Wang Yan finished washing up and sat at the table for breakfast, supporting his aching back.

Looking at Liu Sihui, whose flushed face still showed traces of their passion, Wang Yan thought ruefully, As expected, it's the ox that gets worn out. I'm already not up to it. I need to make getting fit a priority. He resolved to exercise and improve his health, keeping his performance consistent and lasting longer.

After thinking it over, Wang Yan said to Liu Sihui, "I understand what you're thinking."

Seeing her open her mouth to speak, Wang Yan said, "You don't need to overthink it. I don't mean anything else by it."

"Since things have come to this, let's not be a casual fling. Let's live together and make a life of it."

"Me, I'm a bachelor, and I like Tiantian."

"You can quit your job. You know I have plenty of money from dealing in these pills. I don't need your income. What do you think?"

Wang Yan asked her directly.

Liu Sihui looked at Wang Yan for a while, her expression complicated. She opened her mouth but didn't say anything.

When she remained silent, Wang Yan continued, "Then it's settled."

"When you sell the medicine, keep it as discreet as possible. You can sell less; the most important thing is staying safe."

"Also, take cash," Wang Yan reminded her.

Liu Sihui nodded to show she understood.

Seeing that she seemed much more relaxed, Wang Yan figured she'd come around. "All right, eat up."

The two of them ate and chatted, exchanging a few words now and then.

After breakfast, Wang Yan tidied up and got ready to study English.

Just then, Liu Sihui's mother came in with Tiantian.

When she saw Wang Yan, Liu Sihui's mother said nothing. She knew her daughter's situation and could only sigh that her daughter had had a hard life.

Wang Yan greeted her, then coaxed Tiantian for a while. After saying goodbye to Liu Sihui, he left.

As for the quiet conversation between Liu Sihui and her mother, that was none of Wang Yan's business.

Wang Yan's learning speed still wasn't inhuman, but it was very fast. Being bound to the System had improved his mental ability, and he'd added three points to it himself, making his mental strength thirty percent higher than an ordinary person's.

That meant Wang Yan learned 1.3 times as fast as an average person. For something like English, which required a lot of rote memorization, it would take him about four months to manage a halting conversation. After that, he just needed to keep building his knowledge and practicing.

Other things that required insight were another matter. But once he had accumulated enough knowledge, he'd be able to make connections between different subjects, and his ability to grasp things would improve by leaps and bounds. With a strong mind, it was practically like having a cheat code.

While Wang Yan studied English, Liu Sihui began contacting people.

She picked out the people she thought were trustworthy, then reached out to each of them privately online or by phone. In one day, she sold more than twenty bottles.

When Wang Yan came home that night and saw stacks of cash, he was shocked. He'd never had so much money of his own before, not even in his previous life.

He worked it out carefully. If he sold all 150 bottles of medicine, he could make 675,000 yuan.

Wang Yan's costs were much lower than Cheng Yong's, after all. Old Wang had a pocket dimension—there were no middlemen taking a cut.

He hadn't realized how much he'd make until he added it up. Wang Yan couldn't help exclaiming, "Fuck, criminal law really is a guide to getting rich."

To show his appreciation for Comrade Liu Sihui's outstanding work, Wang Yan rewarded her enthusiastically that night. He nearly wrecked his back.

With that in mind, the next day Wang Yan found a place that taught Sanda and Mixed Martial Arts. It would let him improve his fighting ability and his health at the same time.

Time always flew by. In the blink of an eye, half a month passed, and Liu Sihui had safely sold all 150 bottles.

Looking at the more than 600,000 yuan in cash in front of her, Liu Sihui said, "If I didn't have to check whether the patients were trustworthy, I could've sold them even faster. Even so, plenty of people wanted to buy them and couldn't."

Liu Sihui really was talented. She'd come up with a mutual-guarantor system: anyone who wanted to buy medicine had to find five people to vouch for them. Thanks to this, not a word had gotten out. Patients felt utterly helpless about the price of medicine in China, and quite a few had given up on treatment and resigned themselves to waiting for death. Now there was a medicine that worked just as well but cost a fraction of the price. It was like rain after a long drought. Of course they'd keep the secret close. If word got out, everyone might as well wait to die.

Wang Yan understood that this approach could work in the short term, but probably not in the long term. They were only human. There was no way to make sure nothing ever went wrong.

But the short term was enough. In a month or two, Wang Yan would hand the operation over to someone else.

"Hold on to this money for now. Find a decent school and get Tiantian enrolled. Things can't go on like this. It's not good for her to be so withdrawn." Wang Yan took out ten bundles of cash and gave them to Liu Sihui.

Seeing that Wang Yan thought of her daughter as soon as he made money, Liu Sihui was deeply touched. That night, she came up with several special ways to show her appreciation to Comrade Old Wang.

The next day, Wang Yan had planned to get up early. He'd kept up his routine for half a month, and the fatigue had mostly passed. But the opposing side's firepower was too strong, and he spent another day supporting his aching back.

"Go look at schools for Tiantian today. Consider everything carefully. Her situation is special, after all," Wang Yan reminded her.

"I'm going to India to get some more medicine."

After leaving Liu Sihui's home, Wang Yan first visited Wang Jia and Lü Shouyi. He spent some time with their child, exchanged a few words with them, and left 100,000 yuan for Wang Jia to buy nutritional supplements or whatever she needed. After a few instructions, he headed to the airport, bought a ticket, and flew straight to India.

After some time, he arrived in India. Wang Yan called the driver who'd acted as his interpreter last time, and they headed straight to the pharmaceutical company.

After catching up with the owner and chatting for a bit, Wang Yan still couldn't understand what the other man was saying, though his English had improved a little over the past half month. Once they'd chatted enough, Wang Yan explained why he'd come.

The owner was delighted to hear that Wang Yan had sold all the medicine in just half a month. A market meant money to be made.

He happily signed a contract with Wang Yan and agreed to keep things confidential. Of course, if there was money to be made, he could keep a secret.

Wang Yan then bought several hundred more bottles and asked them to remove the packaging. It wasn't difficult, and it wasn't a large order, so the Indian owner agreed without a second thought.

After saying goodbye amid the Indian owner's enthusiastic laughter, Wang Yan took a taxi to the airport hotel as usual.

The next day, he stored the medicine in his pocket dimension and boarded a flight back to Shanghai.

When he returned to Shanghai, Liu Sihui had already contacted enough people over the past couple of days. Wang Yan handed the medicine over to her, and she immediately distributed some of it.

That evening, the family of three ate together. It was Liu Tiantian's first day at school. She'd probably had a blast, because she was in a great mood. She chatted and laughed through dinner, seeming much more outgoing. Wang Yan and Liu Sihui were relieved.

Over the next two months, Wang Yan made several more trips to India.

Liu Sihui kept the group of patients she'd organized within a manageable size, and security was excellent. If there'd been more, Wang Yan wouldn't have had enough room in his pocket dimension. Mainly, he didn't want to make the operation too big.

Now, as he looked at the millions of yuan in cash at home, he barely felt anything.

During this period, Wang Yan opened a stock account and deposited only 100,000 yuan. He didn't dare put in more. His money was dirty, and he had to bring it into circulation little by little.

Following information he remembered, he'd made 50,000 yuan so far. Wang Yan was satisfied. He knew nothing about stocks, but he was learning as he went, and with his foreknowledge, success was only a matter of time.

Wang Yan opened a clothing factory called Hushi Tianhui. Tianhui took the "Tian" from Liu Tiantian's name and echoed the "Hui" in Liu Sihui's name. Liu Sihui managed it. He also set up a logistics company called Cao Cao, and brought his brother-in-law, Lü Shouyi, in to run it.

Most of the people hired by the two companies were family members of patients. The men joined the logistics company, and the women went to the clothing factory. Wang Yan wanted to help them out, so he offered good wages.

The two companies were just starting out and were small-scale operations. With the money from selling the medicine to support them, there weren't any major problems. They also gave Wang Yan a way to bring that money into circulation, killing several birds with one stone.

Of course, Wang Yan hadn't neglected his studies or his exercise. More than two months had passed, and he'd been in this world for nearly four months. His progress was obvious. He opened the System Panel.

Wang Yan

Attributes: Strength 7

Agility 7

Constitution 8

Spirit 13

Unallocated Points 0

Storage Space 1m

Skills: English LV1

Fighting LV0

...A pile of omitted Level 0 skills.

During this time, exercise had taken Wang Yan from 183 centimeters tall and 140 jin to 145 jin. His constitution and strength had each increased by one point. His physical condition had been poor before, after all, though even now he still wasn't much to speak of.

In fact, Wang Yan hadn't spent a lot of time exercising. If he'd thrown himself into it wholeheartedly and trained like a maniac, his constitution should have increased by another point by now.

Another thing was that once Wang Yan had learned the basics of English, a skill list appeared on the panel, filled with countless skills large and small. So far, he knew of only one way to improve a skill: study and practice. With English, after more than three months of study, he'd learned the basics and could manage a halting conversation. The list seemed more like a way to acknowledge the useless life Wang Yan had lived for the past twenty-odd years, while telling him, "You're good for nothing. At least have some self-awareness."

What Wang Yan couldn't accept was that the System had rated the sales skills he relied on to make a living as 0. That meant he hadn't even learned the basics. It was a complete denial of his worth. Wang Yan knew plenty of people at companies who went a month, or even several months in a row, without earning a salary. Yet he'd managed to scrape by. He thought this was the System's other way of telling him, "You've been unbelievably lucky, you son of a bitch. You've stepped in dog shit and hit the jackpot."

"You damn System, if you've got something to say, just say it. Why the fuck do you have to insult me in such a roundabout way?" Wang Yan couldn't help complaining about the System.

All in all, Wang Yan had been incredibly busy these past few months, apart from exploring the science of life with Liu Sihui and letting off his increasingly abundant energy.

The rest of his time went to exercise, learning to fight, and studying other things—strengthening his body and enriching his mind. In between, he took care of some company business.

Wang Yan knew his own limits. The countless zeros in his skill list were a constant reminder: he couldn't stop learning. The only way forward was to keep improving.

Wang Yan had arrived in late July. Now it was already nearly mid-November.

That day, while Wang Yan was training at the martial arts gym, he got a call from the owner back in India. The owner said a Chinese man named Cheng Yong had come looking to buy Gleevec.

After hanging up, Wang Yan thought the Indian was pretty damn conscientious.

As expected, what was meant to happen would happen, and what was meant to leave couldn't be held back.

Because Wang Yan had come along, Lü Shouyi hadn't gone to find Cheng Yong.

But if there was no Butcher Zhang, there was always Butcher Li. And if there was no Lü Shouyi, there was always Zhang Shouyi.

After thinking it over, Wang Yan decided to give Cheng Yong the agency rights.

Wang Yan had sold quite a lot over all this time. Novartis should have noticed by now. Sales of their medicine had recently fallen, and anyone could see there was a problem.

It was only because Liu Sihui was so capable that they'd stayed under the radar for so long. But it seemed unlikely they could keep it up much longer.

Wang Yan hadn't planned to put Cheng Yong in the spotlight, but now that Cheng Yong had shown up on his own, Wang Yan decided to let events follow their course.