Buying Medicine

A day later.

"Cough, cough, cough!"

After a bout of violent coughing, Fang Linyan's face was deathly pale. His teeth clenched so hard they ground together, and cold sweat covered his forehead. His whole body bent over like a shrimp out of water.

It took him a long while to recover. Then he wiped his lips with a handkerchief. Seeing the shocking blackish-red stains on it, he tossed it aside without a word and stepped into an old apartment building.

After checking the apartment number, he went to the unit on the right side of the third floor. He was just about to knock when the door opened on its own. A burly, close-cropped man with a blue tattoo on his neck opened it. One of his arms was in a cast and slung across his chest. He barked rudely,

"Get lost, kid!"

Then he shoved past Fang Linyan and left.

As soon as Fang Linyan stepped inside, he caught the smell of disinfectant. The floor was filthy, the furniture was in disarray, and bloodstained tissues and cigarette butts were scattered about. But there was no sign of anyone. He coughed and called out,

"Is Doctor Zhou here?"

A toilet flushed in the bathroom nearby. A moment later, a pale, haggard, gaunt middle-aged man emerged. He was unshaven and looked as if he'd just pulled an all-nighter. His eyes were sunken, and his white coat was filthy, with several clumps of dried blood on it. Who knew how long it had been since he'd washed it?

The man didn't answer. He asked coldly and warily,

"Who sent you?"

Fang Linyan spread his hands.

"Old Xia, the car guy, said you could get things here that couldn't be bought anywhere else."

At the mention of Old Xia, Doctor Zhou finally relaxed. He lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, then sized up the gaunt Fang Linyan and said impatiently,

"You bring money? Take it out and put it on the table!"

Fang Linyan pulled two thousand yuan from his pocket.

Seeing the money, Doctor Zhou picked it up and counted it before saying flatly,

"Mm. You want Madness Powder or Happy Water? I've also got Wave King No. 1. Those are the only three, though Wave King No. 1 costs extra."

Fang Linyan shook his head.

"No. I want EVE, and that inhalable Hercules Super Nitrogen Pump. Twenty EVE pills and two bottles of the Super Nitrogen Pump."

Doctor Zhou froze, then swore at him in annoyance.

"Are you fucking trying to kill yourself? EVE and Hercules won't get you high at all. They'll just numb your nervous system so badly you won't be able to sleep at night! Keep taking them like that, and you'll have serious kidney failure in two or three years!"

Fang Linyan replied impassively,

"Two or three years is too long."

Doctor Zhou stared at him in disbelief.

"What?"

Fang Linyan said,

"I have terminal lung cancer. I'm not here to get high. I'm buying medicine so the days I have left won't be so unbearable."

Doctor Zhou fell silent for a moment.

"Have you had it confirmed?"

Fang Linyan gave a bitter smile.

"I really wish I hadn't."

Doctor Zhou said nothing more. He turned and went inside, then soon came back with a paper bag.

"This is Caloni, smuggled in from the Netherlands. If you take it with Hercules Super Nitrogen Pump, it'll work better as a painkiller. But you can only take one pill at a time, and no more than three a day. Understand?"

With that, he tossed the bag to Fang Linyan. Then he glanced at the money on the table, took out a single hundred-yuan bill, and impatiently shoved the rest back at him.

"Now get going. Don't hold up my business. Honestly."

Fang Linyan was stunned, but Doctor Zhou had already pushed him out the door. He stood there in silence for a moment. He didn't say thank you. He simply walked a few steps, turned, and looked back at Doctor Zhou before leaving.

About half an hour later, Fang Linyan returned to his lodgings with the medicine.

Taken together, the two drugs could suppress the pain of Fang Linyan's terminal cancer and wring the last bit of energy from his failing body like water from a towel. It was certainly no good for him. It might even cut his expected lifespan of eight months down to four. But what other choice did he have?

A sheet of paper already lay on Fang Linyan's desk. Several lines of scrawled writing covered it, summarizing the clues and information he had gathered. But the sudden, excruciating pain of his terminal cancer had forced him to stop and go out to buy medicine.

What he had written on the page was Fang Linyan's analysis of Fang.

Yes. Anyone with eyes could see that Fang Linyan's only real chance of survival lay with that powerful and mysterious man, Fang. What Fang Linyan had to do was kill him and take back the reverse-transcription viral vector injection.

It was the only chance at survival Fang Linyan could find!!

But killing a formidable man like Fang was an impossibly difficult task for him. Hell, even killing a chicken might be beyond his strength at this point!

***

Meanwhile,

The upheaval at the docks,

The theft of the reverse-transcription viral vector injection had already caused a tremendous stir. The thing was at least two generations ahead of the cutting-edge technology available today, and the organization that had made it was extraordinarily powerful.

The organization capable of taking it from a secret research facility in Sweden wielded immense influence of its own.

Now they had lost both their people and their cargo. They hadn't even left a single survivor at the docks. They vowed to investigate the truth and recover the stolen goods at any cost.

Yet based on the information they had gathered so far, they were completely in the dark about the attackers' identities. They were utterly baffled. According to the many experts who had visited the scene, the battle was full of anomalies that defied their understanding.

They had no idea that the information they were desperately searching for lay on a young man's desk.

After taking the newly purchased medicine, Fang Linyan sat back down at his desk. Two unnatural spots of color had appeared on his pale cheeks, and his eyes seemed to shine. It was the surge of energy he had gained by burning through his life without regard for the cost. He began fleshing out his notes.