CH 226

Mr. Xiao continued to chatter on, but Lin Chen was no longer paying attention to the rest of what he was saying.

He immediately called Xing Conglian and requested to meet up.

“Why do you suddenly want to come over? Is something wrong?” Xing Conglian asked.

“I just attended the new drug launch event by Zhourui Pharmaceutical, and suddenly realized that we may have been misled by Shen Lian all along. This matter is indeed related to Nordren, but Shen Lian’s goal has never been about Nordren. Nordren is more like a huge shadow covering the truth, obscuring the details we should have seen.”

“What details?”

“I don’t know yet.” Lin Chen paused and asked, “Where is the memory card taken from Duan Yang’s home? I have a reliable friend who can take a look.”

“It’s at the University of Pharmaceutical Science,” Xing Conglian replied.

“Does Wang Chao have a backup?”

“Of course. If there isn’t, I’ll drag him out and give him a beating.”

Xing Conglian quickly connected Wang Chao to the conversation, and the young man’s cheerful voice rang out.

“A’Chen Gege, your personal assistant, Wang Chao, is at your service.”

“I’m at the Hongjing Hotel, you’re at the Transportation Bureau, and your boss is at the police station. How can we meet conveniently?” Lin Chen asked, “You may also need to search for some things, so bring Duan Yang’s memory card with you…”

“Let’s go home! Let’s go home!” Wang Chao was very excited.

Thinking of Inspector Huang, who was still with Xing Conglian, and what happened a few days ago, Lin Chen couldn’t answer for a moment. “I’ll follow your boss’s opinion.”

“We must go home!” Xing Conglian said happily.

Lin Chen shook his head helplessly, hung up the phone, and dragged Mr. Xiao Zhan away.

Mr. Xiao Zhan was very reluctant and kept turning his head as he drove his car. “Mr. Lin… can’t we still talk to someone from Zhourui?”

Lin Chen saw that the young man was truly pitiful. When he approached the door, Xing Conglian happened to come down from the steps.

Lin Chen finally breathed a sigh of relief, pointed to the figure of the gentleman at the door, and said to Mr. Xiao, “There’s no need to talk to them.”

“Why not?”

“How much is a single order from Zhourui Pharmaceutical? You need to have a long-term vision,” Lin Chen said to Mr. Xiao Zhan while pointing to Xing Conglian.

People like Mr. Xiao Zhan had crawled and worked under Director Zhan’s hands for a long time, so they knew how to be subservient, but sometimes they could be overly subservient.

In short, after seeing Xing Conglian in the courtyard, Mr. Xiao Zhan kept calling him “Director Xing”, leaving Xing Conglian at a loss.

Lin Chen hadn’t been home for a long time, but everything was unchanged.

The flowers and plants were flourishing, and the koi in the small pond didn’t look thin at all. The house was cleaned, and there were prepared fruits in the refrigerator.

Huang Ze sat on the sofa in the living room, observing his breath and pretending not to notice anything. Wang Chao was happily teasing Inspector Huang while setting up the projector and introducing his new games to him.

Lin Chen subconsciously opened the door to his room, then exited and looked at the room’s location before opening the door again.

“Where are my things?” Lin Chen couldn’t help but ask as he grabbed onto Xing Conglian’s arm.

His room was empty, not just in terms of furniture but also his bedding, books, and even his clothes were missing.

Xing Conglian looked at him as if to say, “What are you talking about?” and pulled him to the master bedroom door, pushing it open. “Consultant Lin, this is your room.”

Lin Chen looked at the double bed that replaced Xing Conglian’s single bed, which had a very simple checkered sheet on it. His books had been put away in Xing Conglian’s bookcase, who had also added a desk to the room. Though the room was still overly simple despite these additions, the fresh smell of the new bed sheets lingered. Lin Chen didn’t know what to say for a moment.

Xing Conglian pushed him into the room, hooked the door with his foot, and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Why did you act so quickly?” Lin Chen walked to the desk and asked.

Xing Conglian hugged him, then reached out to put his hand on the hem of his shirt. “I’m a man who’s always prepared.”

Lin Chen sat on the desk and laughed. “But there is already a study room in the house. Why do we need another desk here?”

Xing Conglian leaned over to his ear and said, “Consultant Lin, imagine this: you’re wearing a white shirt, sitting at this desk working, with the lamp on, and it’s night outside the window…”

“What about you?” Lin Chen asked.

“I’m lying on the bed watching you, of course.”

“Lying down?” Lin Chen kissed Xing Conglian on the cheek.

Before Xing Conglian could answer, Mr. Xiao Zhan shouted outside the door, “Director Xing, we’re ready.”

Xing Conglian distanced himself a little and asked, “What’s with this ‘Director Xing’?”

“Oh, I told Mr. Xiao Zhan that you could offer his family’s factory a big order.”

“I thought he was interested in me.”

“He’s interested in your money.”

“Ah, you’re interested in my money too.” Xing Conglian said, “That way, I can use money to keep you tied to me forever.”

Lin Chen couldn’t help but turn around and hug him, saying, “But I prefer to earn money to spend on you.”

Just then, Huang Ze’s voice rang out, “Xing Conglian, have some professionalism!”

Xing Conglian moved a little distance away again and asked, “Am I not professional?”

“Your kissing skills are very professional.” Lin Chen jumped down from the desk. “But I haven’t verified other things yet.”

As Lin Chen said this, he opened the door and went out.

It seemed that Xing Conglian wasn’t happy to be interrupted by Huang Ze. He walked to the living room and impatiently said, “Huang Ze, go wash the fruit plate.”

Huang Ze looked puzzled. “Xing Conglian, what do you mean?”

“My Boss means that since we are the hosts and Mr. Xiao Zhan is our guest, and you are the only one with nothing to do, so naturally you should go.”

“It’s already enough to let you sit here.” Xing Conglian pointed to the refrigerator. “Hurry up, or I’ll drive you out.”

Huang Ze stood up in anger and walked to the kitchen.

“Why does he listen to you so much?”

“Probably because he has done something wrong here before,” Xing Conglian said disdainfully. “Let’s start.” He turned to Wang Chao.

Comrade Wang Chao rushed to pull the curtains, and the projector was turned on, projecting the relevant content onto a white wall. The wall displayed the composition formula for Zhourui Pharmaceutical’s new drug, Nordren.

“What… What do you want me to see, Mr. Lin?” Mr. Xiao Zhan was confused.

“Yes, A’Chen Gege, what did you find out at the press conference?”

Looking at the rotating drug structures on the white wall, Lin Chen slowly spoke. “I suspect that the problematic drug is not Zhourui Pharmaceutical’s new drug, Nordren, but its predecessor. Nordren was only created by Zhourui Pharmaceutical to cover up the problems of the previous drug.”

After he finished speaking, there was silence in the room, except for the sound of running water as Huang Ze washed the fruit.

Huang Ze brought the fruit bowl out and slammed it on the coffee table. Seeing that everyone’s faces were serious and silent, he couldn’t help but say in a bad tone, “What’s wrong with you guys?”

Wang Chao finally came back to his senses and asked, “A’Chen Gege, do you have any evidence?”

“From the very beginning, why did Shen Lian use Duan Yang to spread unfavorable evidence about Nordren’s launch?”

Wang Chao replied, “To frame Dr. Duan, Shen Lian used Duan Yang to create a motive for Dr. Duan to possibly kill Tan Kang—that is, the fake academic plagiarism incident.”

“What if it was killing two birds with one stone?” Lin Chen said, “Creating public opinion pressure to delay Nordren’s launch. After all, people are more accustomed to the predecessor drug than the new one that was just promoted.”

Wang Chao: “But—but why did Shen Lian do this? Is she actually a good person?”

“That’s why I brought you here. All the information we have about Nordren at present comes from the fake information fabricated by Shen Lian. The so-called adverse reactions of Nordren may very well come from the predecessor drug.”

Lin Chen took a pen and walked to the whiteboard in the room, wrote the word Nordren and put a checkmark beside it. He circled the word and drew an upward arrow with a question mark beside it.

Xing Conglian asked, “How did you know that Zhourui Pharmaceutical has long known about the problems with the predecessor drug?”

“Why did Zhourui begin to replace suppliers a long time ago? Why would a pharmaceutical company do this?”

“You mean?”

Lin Chen said, “There’s a problem with their drugs, but they can’t identify where the problem is. They can’t even be sure if it’s their own drugs that have problems, so they can only conduct layer upon layer of self-inspection.”

“Does this include Dana’s human experiments?”

“That way they can get results faster, right? What could make a big pharmaceutical company have to secretly conduct experiments and take risks?”

“It must be something that is not allowed in civilized society and difficult to talk about,” Xing Conglian replied.

Lin Chen nodded.

“So you’re saying that we’ve been completely deceived by Shen Lian and Zhourui Pharmaceutical all along?” Wang Chao scratched his head frantically.

“‘Nordren’ is like a huge sun, emitting dazzling light from beginning to end, obscuring all the details behind it,” Xing Conglian said calmly. “Shen Lian messed around with the previous generation drug, and Zhourui Pharmaceutical discovered the problem. Zhourui developed Nordren to make up for the loopholes in the previous generation drug. As the head of Nordren’s R&D, Tan Kang discovered what Shen Lian was up to and was killed by her. Shen Lian then pinned the blame for the murder on Lao Duan…” Xing Conglian paused. “This does reflect that there may be problems with Nordren, but how do we prove your point?”

“First, the false information that Shen Lian gave to Duan Yang was probably based on the previous generation drug. Later, please ask Mr. Xiao Zhan to search for information with a targeted approach, which should reveal some clues. Second, if Zhourui Pharmaceutical confirms that the problem lies with the previous generation drug, they will certainly take action to reduce their shipments. A large-scale shutdown would easily arouse suspicion, or there may be other reasons. Third, we know that if there are really adverse drug reactions, the side effects will certainly be reflected in the medical records of patients who use the previous generation drug. We just need to search for targeted patient case records to find any anomalies.”

“So…”

“So, it’s highly likely that a large number of elderly people have already taken this drug. What Shen Lian has been doing is probably delaying our discovery of the truth. She may be waiting for the day when a large-scale outbreak occurs…”