“CEO Shen, Jin Yitang Clinic is pursuing the medicinal market share that traditionally belongs to us. Based on their current pace of development, they will be able to monopolize the market in half a year. On a national level, the rise of Chinese medicine is good for the country and the nation, but for both our organizations, it is undoubtedly a catastrophe,” Cai Renhe said, heaving a sigh as he looked up into the quiet night sky.

  Shen Qingyan stared contemplatively out into the distance. Just like Cai Renhe, she could also foresee the future. If the group didn’t change and take the proper measures, what awaited her would be Huayao Corporation’s destruction. Jin Yitang Clinic had a competitive advantage and what it took to crush them.

  “Huh!”

  Cai Renhe didn’t say anything else. He shook his head, sighed, got into his car, and left.

  “Luo’s Workshop, Jin Yitang Clinic–just who the hell is your owner?”

  Shen Qingyan turned around to take another look at Jin Yitang Clinic with mixed feelings. This mysterious guy landed in Xiahai was shaking up the market and causing so much insecurity to her Huayao Group, Su Li’s Sumir, and Cai Renhe’s Renhe Medicines.

  Then, she got into her car and left as well.

  After Shen Qingyan and Cai Renhe left Jin Yitang Clinic, Xiao Ruyi turned around and walked toward one of the inner rooms that had its door shut. She didn’t open the door and waited patiently just outside the room.

  Not long after, the door opened. Xiao Ruyi’s brother, Xiao Luo, and husband, Tang Ren, walked out.

  Tang Ren’s skin was pale with a tender-looking face. Although he was twenty-four or five years old, it looked as if he still had a child-like innocence inside him.

  “Brother!”

  Xiao Ruyi walked up to him quickly.

  Xiao Luo smiled, nodding his head and said, “Tang Ren’s hypnosis was really successful. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”

  He had hypnotized Tang Ren earlier on, using a Chinese medicine master’s knowledge and skills that he redeemed through the system and transferring it into Tang Ren’s brain at the fastest speed possible. It was a little bit like the movie “Inception,” but a lot simpler and more straightforward. It was exhausting for Xiao Luo, which was why he felt like collapsing after each hypnosis session, but this never showed outwardly on his body.

  Xiao Ruyi handed over a cup of water from the water dispenser to Xiao Luo and said, “I’m not worried about him at all, I’m worried about you.”

  \r \r \r

  “Wow, wife, you’ve just hurt my feelings!”

  Tang Ren put on a sorrowful look on his face and quipped, “It’s extremely tiring to be the one being hypnotized as well.”

  “Go, go, go. My brother’s not even complaining about being tired, why are you complaining? Besides, my brother is a god, you should consider yourself lucky that a god is hypnotizing you,” Xiao Ruyi said. She was not spouting nonsense. In her eyes, Xiao Luo was like a god that could do anything. He even turned her into a highly-skilled traditional Chinese medicine practitioner–so, if he wasn’t a god, then what was he?

  ‘Right, right, you’re right!” Tang Ren raised his thumb and said without much energy.

  THWACK!

  Xiao Ruyi slapped him on the head and scowled, “Neihan Duanzi [1] has already been shut down, and you’re still imitating and speaking like that old lady, don’t you think you’re being annoying?”

  “Wife, I’m a Duan You. Once a Duan You, always a Duan You, it’s a kind of religion, di…… didi……” Tang Ren said.

  “Di-di…… your bloody head!” Xiao Ruyi said, then proceeded to punch and kick him to put some sense into his head.

  Xiao Luo was in a corner drinking his water and gradually regained his senses. The fact that he got his younger sister and brother-in-law to quit their jobs in Jiangcheng and come over to Xiahai was, in a way, being selfish, but he knew he could trust them. He couldn’t merely hypnotize and transfer the knowledge and skills of a Chinese medicine master to anyone. Although Xiao Ruyi and Tang Ren might not always be sensitive to his needs, there was no way they would leak anything that should not be revealed. Even if Zhang Dashan asked, he was sure that Xiao Ruyi would only roar and say: your sister learned it all by herself!

  Looking at how both of them were bickering–one willing to beat, and the other willing to take a beating–Xiao Luo laughed and said, “Alright, it’s getting late. It’s time for me to head back. Take care of Jin Yitang Clinic. Also, you can accept some disciples in anticipation of our expansion of future outlets. But remember this, it has to be someone that is trustworthy.”

  “Brother, you don’t have to worry about a thing.”

  Xiao Ruyi stopped her nonsense, turned around, and said to Xiao Luo, “Oh, right brother, the CEOs of Huayao Group and Renhe Medicines were here earlier on.”

  Xiao Luo laughed and replied, “As expected.”

  He opened Jin Yitang Clinic so he could push back against the offensive mounted by Huayao Group and Renhe Medicines. Since this clinic posed a threat to both of them, there was no way they wouldn’t come to take a look and find out what was going on.

  “You didn’t do anything to them, right?”

  Xiao Luo was worried that Xiao Ruyi might do something to them since the “nine needles” that he had imparted to her could heal and harm.

  “No, I even treated the chronic pains that they’ve been experienced on their bodies for several years. I only knew that they were from Huayao Group and Renhe Medicines much later, so I chased them out as soon as I found that out.”

  Xiao Ruyi was fuming and said, “If I knew who they were right from the start, I would have given them a good treatment for sure. To think that they had the nerves to bully you just because they’re from bigger companies, huh!”

  Xiao Luo chuckled. “Alright, stop being childish. What do you mean by ‘bully?’ I don’t feel that way at all.” ……

  Half a month later, Jin Yitang Clinic was right at the top. Everyone in Xiahai knew or had at least heard about them. Thanks to extensive media coverage, everyone in the country knew that Jin Yitang Clinic, a traditional Chinese medicine clinic, had successfully treated terminally ill cancer patients. The number of the rich and famous who came to the clinic each day was beyond counting.

  Thanks to the influence of Jin Yitang, most people chose to spend at Luo Workshop instead of Sumir. People believed in celebrity endorsements, but it could not compare to a doctor who could treat incurable diseases. In the face of health and wellness, the celebrity effect had a much lesser effect, especially when Jin Yitang publicized the news that Luo Workshop belonged to the same organization as them. The pavements outside of Luo Workshop outlets became as busy as a marketplace. Their daily sales reached an unprecedented height and continued to rise daily.

  Belonging to the same organization as Jin Yitang Clinic– what does this mean?

  It meant that Luo Workshop’s pastry and bread was of good quality, and who knew there might be some traditional medicine inside their pastries. Consumers naturally connected the dotted lines and assumed that they had the chance to live much longer if they consumed those pastries.

  Chai Zhiying was panicking.

  Although she hid it well, Su Li was more or less shaking a little. What Luo Workshop had done far exceeded her expectations. No one could have predicted that Jin Yitang would pop up all of a sudden. The clinic had also caused Shen Qingyan and Cai Renhe to experience a kind of panic that they had never experienced before, and had a direct and tangible effect on Luo Workshop being able to suppress her Sumir operations.

  “Li Li, our Sumir has been making a loss for a while now. If things continue as they are, by the mid of next month, our losses will exceed more than ten million dollars,” Chai Zhiying said, looking like a defeated rooster. She had already admitted defeat to the boss of Luo Workshop who was way too formidable. With one Jin Yitang Clinic alone, he shook the two largest drug manufacturers in Xiahai, making them tremble in fear, and causing their Sumir to be in a complete mess.

  “Ten million? That much?”

  Su Li furrowed her brows. Ten million might not be a lot to her, but the implications of what was to come were horrifying.

  “Shop rental, employees’ salaries, utility bills, cost of raw materials, and much more. While Sumir is not making any profit at all, we still have to pay for all of that. The finance department has already come up with a detailed report,” Chai Zhiying lamented, taking out a document from her bag and handed it over to Su Li.

  Su Li glanced through the report and detected nothing wrong with the calculations. Sumir was indeed making a loss of roughly two hundred thousand dollars daily.

  After closing the document, she said, “Arrange for me to meet the boss of Luo Workshop!”

  “Hmm, alright.”

  Chai Zhiying nodded her head and didn’t seem to have any objections. The only way out for Sumir right now was to work with Luo Workshop.

  Footnote:

  [1] Neihan Duanzi is an app to share memes, and Duan You is a user of the app.