CH 227

Countless dust particles floated in the light projected by the projector. In the darkness, it looks like a vast universe, mysterious and intangible.

No one in the room wanted to speak.

Lin Chen stared at the rotating drug molecule structure on the wall for a long time.

Finally, it was Xing Conglian who said, “Let’s get started. Our time may be running out.”

“What do you mean by time running out? I don’t understand at all.” Wang Chao scratched his head desperately. “Why did Shen Lian do this? Is she crazy? Those are all cardiovascular drugs, and over 90% of users are elderly people. Why would she go through all this trouble to make grandparents take this medicine? Why?”

Xing Conglian’s big hand pressed on the young man’s head. “Xiao Wang, with your intelligence, trying to guess a criminal’s thoughts is just asking for trouble. As your A’Chen Gege said, the urgent thing we need to do is find evidence, prove that the previous generation drug has problems, identify the user population, and find a solution.”

Lin Chen thought that perhaps only Xing Conglian could remain calm and say the words “find a solution” in this situation, because they all knew that if this was a type of neurotoxic drug, it was very likely that there was no so-called solution.

“So what exactly is this previous generation drug?” Wang Chao asked.

At this moment, all eyes in the room turned to the young man who had been trembling in the corner, including Huang Ze.

Xiao Zhan sat on the sofa, looking confused. “What… What have you been talking about? I’m just a chemist, and I don’t understand what you’re saying… but… can there be toxic substances in this? If so, how come the Food and Drug Administration hasn’t found anything?”

“I don’t know,” Lin Chen replied, “but you don’t have to worry about that. Please explain to them the previous generation drug and the composition of Nordren.”

Mr. Xiao Zhan stood up in a state of bewilderment, rubbed his clothes with his hands, took the whiteboard pen Lin Chen had just used, and swallowed a mouthful of saliva. “The previous generation drug is Cerebralcon, a cardiovascular drug mainly composed of a fixed dose combination of Tern and ADP antiplatelet agents. As for Nordren, I don’t know much about this drug. From the promotional meeting just now, it is mainly composed of three components.”

Xiao Zhan wrote on the whiteboard:

Nordren: “Tern variant”, “ADP”, “Ton”

Cerebralcon: “Tern”, “ADP”

Mr. Xiao Zhan continued, “Ton is a newly introduced component, which is said to be obtained from the cultivation of a certain soil bacterium in the Dana Rainforest. Since you think there is a problem with the previous generation drug, this new component, Ton, can be excluded, right?”

When he heard “Dana Rainforest,” Lin Chen looked at Xing Conglian, and the other person also met his gaze.

“Ton… this should be the component discovered by Lao Duan, right?” Xing Conglian called out. “Wang Chao.”

“Ding, Wang Chao is online. What can I do for you, sir?” Wang Chao looked at Xing Conglian with a very intelligent and understanding gaze.

“Show Mr. Xiao Zhan the information taken from Duan Yang.”

“Got it!”

The young man quickly responded and handed the tablet to Mr. Xiao Zhan.

“What is this?” Mr. Xiao Zhan was almost in a daze. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“You only need to confirm if the ingredient causing serious side effects mentioned in these materials is Ton,” Lin Chen said.

“I… I need to look at it for a while.”

Mr. Xiao Zhan flipped through the material and asked, “Can you adjust the Ton component published by Zhourui for me to see?”

The slide on the white wall changed to another compound with a smaller structure.

Mr. Xiao Zhan looked up and down, and his brow furrowed tightly. “According to the information on this tablet, the animal experiments with Ton did indeed have problems.”

“From this, it seems that Shen Lian has been providing false information to Duan Yang, and Ton is the culprit that has diverted our attention from the beginning to the end.” Lin Chen looked at Mr. Xiao Zhan. “The new Ton drug has passed the test and wasn’t present in the previous generation, so let’s eliminate Ton from the problem first, okay?”

Mr. Xiao Zhan happily struck out the word Ton on the whiteboard. “If we can confirm that Ton is not the problem, then we are left with Tern and ADP, right?” Mr. Xiao Zhan frowned, lost in thought. “I’m not sure about Tern, but ADP is a composite antiplatelet agent developed by Huihe Pharmaceutical a long time ago…”

“Twenty-three years ago,” Comrade Xiao Wang, who had just finished searching for information, replied.

“So, among the three, only Tern has a problem, and it also changed its configuration?” Lin Chen asked.

“Tern was independently developed by the R&D department of Zhourui Pharmaceutical, mainly used for the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases…” Wang Chao began to recite encyclopedic knowledge.

“Was Shen Lian part of the research team?” Lin Chen asked.

“Shen Lian had just graduated from college and had just returned from the Dana Rainforest at that time. Let me check the timeline…” Wang Chao quickly compared the timeline. “Got it. At that time, Shen Lian submitted a proposal to improve the production process of Tern compounds to save production costs!” Wang Chao snapped his fingers and said to Mr. Xiao Zhan, “My friend, the proposal has been sent to your tablet.”

Mr. Xiao Zhan asked in confusion, “How did you find this so quickly?”

“Ah, we copied the hard drive of Tan Kang’s computer before…”

Upon hearing this, Huang Ze coughed lightly, and Wang Chao gave Huang Ze a disdainful look. “What’s the matter? You’re the most useless one here. Haven’t you noticed?”

Huang Ze glared at Wang Chao.

“Okay,” Xing Conglian interrupted Wang Chao. “How much do we know about the Tern ingredient?”

“Tern, Tern, Tern…” Wang Chao kept muttering as he scooped half an orange from the fruit basket, biting into it while he searched. Suddenly, he froze, his actions halted a drop of juice that was dripping on his lips, causing it to land on the laptop. Wang Chao quickly swallowed the juice and looked very nervous as he said, “Boss, I know why Zhourui Pharmaceutical couldn’t solve the problem by stopping production. They had to update and replace the drug completely to eliminate the impact! This—this—this… Shen Lian is simply wicked. Tern was developed by Zhourui, but not only their cardiovascular and cerebrovascular drugs used Tern… ” Wang Chao became flustered and was at a loss for words.

“Explain clearly. Calm down.” Xing Conglian tapped the table.

“Boss, A’Chen Gege, look here. At the bidding meeting in September 2009, a bidding group consisting of five pharmaceutical companies, including Huihe, Yingmeng, and Kang Taidelin, won the right to use Tern and developed multiple new cardiovascular and cerebrovascular drugs based on this. Zhourui Pharmaceutical couldn’t stop production directly because too many partner companies were involved. If they found out that Tern was the problem and wanted to solve it, they would need a reasonable reason to update and replace the main components, so they had to push Nordren to market.”

“This is too exaggerated. Why are so many companies suddenly using it?”

“What’s the problem with that?” Mr. Xiao Zhan said. “For patented products, big companies sometimes pay for usage rights. It’s like many type-2 diabetes drugs are stilbene class… There may be several drugs on the market that use Tern as an ingredient.”

“But if all of these drugs have problems, why haven’t there been any reports of mass adverse reactions until now?” Huang Ze questioned.

Lin Chen quietly spoke up, “Yes, this is probably a matter of timing. Whether it’s using Duan Yang, shifting the focus from Professor Duan, or even using hard-to-find methods to release the murder weapon… Shen Lian is delaying time, and what she may be waiting for is just a large-scale outbreak.”

“But the timing shouldn’t be too far away.” Xing Conglian said.

“Yes.”

“Wang Chao, summarize all drugs that have used Tern and start searching for the names of all personnel who have taken these drugs in major hospitals, and compare their relevant medical records later…” Xing Conglian said, looking at him.

Lin Chen understood and said to Wang Chao, “Pay attention to personnel who have taken related drugs and whether the following keywords appear in their medical records: aggression, irritability, cognitive impairment, intellectual decline, mental abnormality, and logical confusion.”

“Okay, I’ll do it right away!” Wang Chao crossed his fingers and stretched his muscles before starting to search. “But major hospitals are not connected to the internet, so I’ll need a lot of time…”

“It doesn’t matter.” Lin Chen nodded at Wang Chao before getting up and heading to the restroom.

He turned on the tap and washed his face. As the restroom door opened, Xing Conglian walked in.

Lin Chen looked at the reflection of Xing Conglian’s face as the other’s deep eyes stared at the mirror. “Half a day ago, I thought using Teacher Duan’s death to expose Shen Lian was too heavy a price, but just now, I suddenly felt fortunate… Originally, Teacher Duan was just an outsider who was used as a pawn, but he accidentally saved the Gaomeng tribe, who were being used as test subjects. Although he sacrificed his life for it, his death has now cut through all the black curtains. Whether it’s Shen Lian’s purpose or the things that Zhourui Pharmaceutical has concealed, everything has been exposed in broad daylight.”

“This is fate. All those who try to manipulate fate will be manipulated by fate.” Xing Conglian leaned against the wall covered with white tiles with one hand and spoke in an extremely plain, solemn tone. “Lao Duan would be happy about this.”

Lin Chen nodded, unable to refute the last sentence. He hugged Xing Conglian with his wet arms and patted his back, as a way to encourage each other.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Suddenly, Wang Chao’s scream came from the living room. Xing Conglian’s face changed, and he turned and pushed the door out. Lin Chen followed behind and ran into the living room, only to see Wang Chao typing frantically on the keyboard at an unbelievable speed. Lin Chen had never seen the boy look so terrified.

At a certain moment, all of Wang Chao’s movements stopped, and he pushed the laptop away and rushed outside. He flipped the circuit breaker and cut off all the power.

Lin Chen went outside and saw the boy crouched on the ground, covering his face with his hands, looking very confused.

Lin Chen squatted down and patted his back. “What happened?”

Wang Chao bit his thumb, looking anxious and restless. “It’s unbelievable. There’s a trap program in the prescription databases of the top three hospitals in major cities across the country. When anyone starts searching for information on the use of Cerebralcon, the tracking program automatically activates.”

“So what?” Xing Conglian kicked Wang Chao’s butt upon hearing this.

“I thought it was just a matter of checking prescription information, so I set up two virtual machines to get past the tracking program. But when I was downloading the prescriptions just now, I may have been exposed. If the other side is skilled enough, they might be able to track our real IP address. It’s my fault.” Wang Chao was very upset, rubbing his hair.

Lin Chen patted the boy’s back again, not feeling too nervous. He suddenly remembered what Xing Conglian had said earlier. “It may not necessarily be a bad thing, because according to what you said, no matter who set up the trap, they have the opportunity to know that ‘we’ have discovered the secret. Is that right?”