CH 228

Wang Chao was stunned. He looked at Lin Chen with a look of innocence and disappointment. “A’Chen Gege, why aren’t you scolding me?”

Only Wang Chao would ask such a question.

“Do you want me to say it’s because everyone makes mistakes, or because I don’t want to scold you?” Lin Chen pinched the teenager’s face.

“The latter, the latter!” Wang Chao’s face immediately lit up. He jumped up from the brick floor, turned on the power switch, and rushed back inside like he had been resurrected.

The first thing he did was turn on the laptop, and the second thing was to start peeling an orange.

“Who do you think could set a trap in the hospital’s prescription database to track the location of anyone searching for Cerebralcon use?” Lin Chen walked to the window and re-tied the curtains, letting the bright sunlight shine into the living room. There were two cushions on the ground and a fruit plate on the coffee table, floating and dancing. Everything looked peaceful and quiet, but everyone knew that the truth wasn’t like this.

“Other than Zhourui Pharmaceutical, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else, right?” Wang Chao stuffed his mouth full of oranges, and his face was still pale with anxiety. “You need both technical expertise and money, and someone has to keep an eye on it all the time… Of course, it could also be Shen Lian, but if she’s that capable, then that’s quite terrifying.”

Wang Chao put his hand on the keyboard as if he were about to start working, but Xing Conglian stopped him. “Wait, why are you in such a hurry?”

“Boss, shouldn’t we investigate who did this right now?”

Lin Chen stood at the window and looked at Xing Conglian. He quickly understood what he meant.

Although everything was extremely urgent right now, with the possibility of a large-scale adverse drug reaction event, a pharmaceutical company hiding the truth, and a woman with an inscrutable mind making it hard to predict her actions, they could only sit down in this room and think before they figured out how to handle these things.

“Let’s sort out our thoughts first. What is the most urgent thing to do now?” Xing Conglian closed the door and locked it.

“The most urgent thing… Isn’t it to immediately warn everyone to stop taking drugs that contain the original Tern ingredient and then go to the hospital for a check-up?” Wang Chao asked.

“What are they checking for? Do you have a treatment plan?” Xing Conglian was sharp. “Then why warn people? Don’t forget, when we issue a warning, Zhourui Pharmaceutical and Shen Lian will react, and Shen Lian may have access to many dangerous substances. What if she starts poisoning people?”

“Then let’s catch Shen Lian first and issue a warning to the public later?”

“Where do we catch her, and what if we can’t catch her?”

“According to what you’re saying, this is a dead end!” Wang Chao was very frustrated as he scratched his head. “And it’s all because of me that things have become such a mess.”

Huang Ze reacted quickly. “Xing Conglian, what do you mean? Are you really not going to report to the authorities to find a solution, issue a warning to the public, and launch a large-scale manhunt for the culprit, Shen Lian?”

“You, calm down,” Xing Conglian said impatiently, trying to pacify Huang Ze.

“Xing Conglian!” Huang Ze raised his voice.

Lin Chen said, “Huang Ze, have you considered the problem here? If we issue a warning to the public rashly without understanding the truth, it will cause a huge social panic. And what if this panic is exactly what the culprit wants to see?”

Huang Ze’s expression froze, as if he had understood some of the key points. He knocked on the coffee table and said coldly, “So when you accepted the media interview, you didn’t mention the issue with Shen Lian because you were afraid that the public would panic? Lin Chen, do you know that you will be responsible for concealing information from the public without notifying them if something goes wrong!”

“I will take responsibility no matter how big it is,” Lin Chen replied calmly.

“You are too conceited!” Huang Ze was very angry.

“Inspector Huang, did you come here to argue?” Xing Conglian’s tone didn’t reveal any emotions. “How about I let Wang Chao argue with you for a while?”

“Why me, Boss?” the teenager said unhappily.

In this tense atmosphere, Mr. Xiao Zhan shrank weakly in the corner and raised his hand. “I… Can I go first?”

“No!” Huang Ze and Xing Conglian said in unison.

“Then… Then can I express my opinion?” Mr. Xiao Zhan spoke again.

“Please do,” Xing Conglian said politely.

“I just think that from a scientific point of view, your suspicion about the original Tern is just speculation. Don’t forget that Cerebralcon also passed inspection by the Food and Drug Administration. So… do you have a laboratory we can rely on to prove… prove… I don’t know what you want to prove.”

Xing Conglian nodded. “Mr. Xiao Zhan is an expert in chemical engineering and relatively familiar with the case. We would like to ask you to lead the TERN detection work. We also extracted some related substances at the crime scene last night, and we hope you can complete the comparison as soon as possible.”

“No, no, I didn’t mean that. My skills are not good enough, and there are so many experts here…” As he spoke, Mr. Xiao Zhan suddenly became dumbfounded. “Wh… The crime scene from last night… You mean the barbeque stall where zombies were biting people?”

As Mr. Xiao Zhan spoke, he sat on the ground and leaned back, almost losing his balance, and fell to the ground.

Xing Conglian looked at the young man and smirked at Huang Ze, meaning: Do you see how a normal person would react?

Huang Ze’s face was ashen, and he got up in anger and walked towards the bathroom.

Xing Conglian ignored Huang Ze and pondered for a moment before saying to Wang Chao, “Regardless of who made the move in the hospital prescription database, all they wanted was a warning when someone found out about the drug problem. It’s most likely still Zhourui Pharmaceutical that did this. Follow the plan we just discussed and start downloading the cases. Since they want to know who found out, we’ll tell them clearly.”

“Do we need to trace the person who tampered with the hospital prescription database?” Wang Chao asked.

“For this small matter, you can handle it yourself. Don’t ask me for permission.”

“Oh.” Wang Chao interrupted, as if suddenly remembering something. “But Boss, what if Zhourui Pharmaceutical finds out that we have targeted them and starts erasing all the criminal evidence on a large scale?”

Xing Conglian replied seriously, “You have to understand that even if we didn’t discover the problem with their previous generation drug, Zhourui Pharmaceutical wouldn’t leave us any handle. Moreover, they can completely push the problem onto Shen Lian’s shoulders, play the sympathy card, and maneuver their way out of trouble. Therefore, in order to sanction Zhourui Pharmaceutical, we must prove that their management knew about the problems with Tern and didn’t report it to the Food and Drug Administration in a timely manner, didn’t stop production, and allowed toxic drugs to circulate, while attempting to cover up the problem with the old ingredients through a new drug.”

“But how do we prove this?” Wang Chao began to bite his thumb again.

Lin Chen didn’t say anything; he just glanced at the teenager’s laptop.

Wang Chao took a sharp breath. “You’re not trying to set a trap for Zhourui Pharmaceutical, are you?”

“How could we? Your A’Chen Gege and I are not those kinds of people,” Xing Conglian replied coldly.

Wang Chao reluctantly swallowed his saliva and asked, “But even if we can dig a pit for Zhourui Pharmaceutical, how do we dig out Shen Lian?”

From the beginning until now, Lin Chen had been thinking about this problem: How to find Shen Lian. This woman was like a thorn that was hard to pull out of his throat, as if she were almost invisible. Of course, they could, as Huang Ze suggested, issue a nationwide wanted order to search for Shen Lian using the crowd tactics. But the problem was that what happened at the barbecue stall was too horrifying, and they had no idea what Shen Lian would do before she was truly arrested.

The most difficult thing in life could only be a choice.

Lin Chen took an apple from the fruit plate and said lightly, “Shen Lian has her own demands. For someone like her who does big things, those demands are most likely grandiose. We need to figure out what her demands are.”

“But, since we have discovered the problem with the drug, should we really not issue a warning? Grandparents and parents will still continue to take the drugs. Isn’t this what Shen Lian wants? What should we do?”

“Of course we should issue a warning…” Lin Chen held the apple but didn’t take a bite. He looked around and suddenly had a bad feeling. “Where’s Huang Ze?”

Lin Chen asked.

……

In the restroom.

It was the same place where Lin Chen had hugged Xing Conglian earlier. Huang Ze, the police inspector, was saying goodbye on a phone call that was nearing its end.

“Director Liu, the situation is roughly like this. I will report the details to the bureau when I return later.”

The person on the other end of the phone had a solemn tone. Huang Ze replied with a few “yes” before he hung up. Just as he was about to hang up, the restroom door was pushed open.

Someone like Huang Ze, of course, wouldn’t squat on a toilet to make a secret phone call. He was standing in front of a sink, dressed neatly, with one hand still on the faucet, letting the water flow down.

Lin Chen stood face-to-face with Huang Ze. He looked at the calm inspector and immediately understood what Huang Ze had been doing just now.

“Are you crazy?” Lin Chen asked.

“The crazy one is you, Lin Chen! Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to. Neither you nor Xing Conglian can bear the responsibility for this kind of thing.”

Lin Chen found this amusing. “So, based on the consideration of the mental state of us frontline investigators, you decided not to consult with us and directly report to your superiors?”

“Watch your words. This is a normal situation report,” Huang Ze said.

Lin Chen couldn’t be bothered to discuss the nature of the incident with him any further. “How much did you reveal to your superiors? Tell me the details.”

“Lin Chen, watch your own identity. The case of Zhourui Pharmaceutical will soon be taken over by a higher-level department…”

Huang Ze was about to say more but was interrupted by Xing Conglian.

And it was indeed an interruption. Xing Conglian used a simple grappling technique to flip over Huang Ze’s wrist and, with a snap, took his phone away. Before Huang Ze could react, Xing Conglian shouted, “Wang Chao, get the surveillance footage from the restroom, and let’s listen to what Huang just said in our bathroom.”