"I'll give you an account. Transfer the money over to it. Once I've confirmed the funds have arrived, I'll give you an address, and you send that man called Wei Zhao to collect your daughter and her best friend. Remember — he comes alone. If there's more than one of you, the men we've left watching them would just as soon kill the hostages!" Zhen Yingjun said. "Of course, I'm sure Mr. Gu is a smart man and won't choose to call the police. The men beside me were able to do away with Qing Bo — they can just as quietly do away with your entire family!"

Gu Pengzhan was somewhat puzzled as to why the man would name Wei Zhao specifically to fetch them, but at his side Wei Zhao was the only one he could rely on. If Wei Zhao did not go, who else could he send?

"Fine, I won't call the police. I hope you'll keep your word as well," Gu Pengzhan said.

"You can rest easy on that account. We kidnappers have our own rules of the trade. Look at how professional we are — you ought to trust that we're professionals!" Zhen Yingjun said. "The account number is..."

Zhen Yingjun recited a string of account numbers. After Gu Pengzhan had written them down, he checked them over with him once more, then hung up.

After the threats, Zhen Yingjun was confident that Gu Pengzhan would not dare call the police. With the brutal strength Ma Zhu had displayed, Gu Pengzhan would surely fear retaliation afterward.

The Gu Pengzhan of today was a man whose every word carried weight within the Gu Group, so when he called in the company's working capital, no one dared utter a word of protest. But all of the working capital combined came to only two hundred and ten million — and that was at the cost of the company's operations for some time to come.

Once those two hundred and ten million were withdrawn, the Gu Group would not have a single cent of working capital left, a fatal blow to the company. But Gu Pengzhan could not afford to care. What concerned him was his daughter's safety — even if it meant resigning the chairmanship afterward and handing over his shares as compensation to the shareholders.

Wei Zhao did not understand business operations, but he knew what fatal consequences would follow for a company with no working capital. So when he saw Gu Pengzhan about to draw out every last cent the company had, Wei Zhao spoke up: "Uncle Chu, let me raise some for you."

"You?" Gu Pengzhan was slightly taken aback. He knew nothing about the company Wei Zhao and Fatty Lai had started, nor had Gu Mengyao told him. He had merely assumed that Wei Zhao and Fatty Lai were on fairly good terms, and it had never occurred to him what role Wei Zhao played in Dr. Guan Pharmaceuticals.

"Heh..." Wei Zhao took out his phone and dialed Fatty Lai's number. "Fatty Lai, how much cash do you have on hand?"

"Boss? Cash? Why are you asking about that all of a sudden? What's going on? Has something happened?" Fatty Lai asked.

"I need it urgently," Wei Zhao said.

"Cash, at most I could scrape together thirty or forty million. Everything we made from the auction went into buying production lines and building the factory. Our products aren't on the market yet, and at present most of our capital is sitting in the warehouse in the form of medicine..." Fatty Lai explained.

"Thirty or forty million — that's a bit short..." Wei Zhao sighed. He hadn't expected money to burn so fast; running a pharmaceutical company took such enormous investment. In truth, Fatty Lai had wanted to build the best and biggest pharmaceutical company, and the production lines he had purchased were the most advanced in the world at present. Dr. Guan Pharmaceuticals was not the same as the Kang Shenyi Pharmaceutical Group: besides the trauma medicine, Dr. Guan would gradually roll out more advanced drugs such as "painkillers," and if possible even mass-produce the Longevity Detox Pill — which would certainly require highly advanced equipment. So Fatty Lai had simply gone straight for the best in one move.

By the current reckoning, thirty or forty million in working capital would be enough to successfully launch Dr. Guan Pharmaceuticals' first flagship product, Dr. Guan Trauma Medicine. They might not even need thirty or forty million, since the earlier poisoning incident at No. 1 Middle School had already made Dr. Guan Pharmaceuticals' name known — there was no longer any need for advertising.

And once the product hit the market and sales climbed, it would instantly generate profits in the hundreds of millions.

Wei Zhao knew Fatty Lai had made his plans entirely according to the company's current situation, and would never have expected him to suddenly need money, so he did not blame him.

"Boss, how about I borrow some from my brother?" Fatty Lai had caught the urgency in Wei Zhao's voice and made the suggestion.

"No need," Wei Zhao said, knowing that Fatty Lai and his elder brother were not always on good terms, and so declined. "You have Liu Tianyi's cell number, don't you? Give it to me. I'll borrow a little from him."

"I do. Hold on a moment — his number is 139..." Fatty Lai gave him a number.

Wei Zhao noted down Liu Tianyi's number and dialed it.

Liu Tianyi had written down Wei Zhao's number back then, but Wei Zhao had never noted his. Now that Wei Zhao called, Liu Tianyi was startled — he had not expected Wei Zhao to call him of his own accord.

As the young head of the Liu family, Liu Tianyi naturally knew how important Wei Zhao was to the Lius. One could say he had tried every means to get close to Wei Zhao, yet the chance had never come. He and Wei Zhao had had some unpleasantness earlier, so their relationship had never been a smooth one, and afterward he had offended Wei Zhao over his wife's nephew Wu Chengtian, which drove the Liu family's relations with Wei Zhao to freezing point.

Fortunately, he had been modest and low-key ever since, and things had eased a little.

Liu Tianyi regretted it endlessly. If not for that spendthrift wife of his, how could he ever have fallen out with Wei Zhao? Watching Wei Zhao's Longevity Detox Pill become a sought-after auction item, watching his own father go from a dying old man to robust health, Liu Tianyi felt ever more keenly how important it was to have a good relationship with Wei Zhao.

So he envied Lai Changyi. That Fatty Lai had been nothing but a small merchant whose business was none too large, but now he had transformed himself into Wei Zhao's underling — and that was really something, enough to make a man insufferably proud.

In the past, when Liu Tianyi spoke with Fatty Lai, he was polite, but he still held the upper hand. Now the two of them had swapped places: even in speaking with Fatty Lai, Liu Tianyi had grown careful and cautious. There was no help for it — the man's boss was formidable.

Yet Liu Tianyi did not feel this to be any disgrace at all. There were not many people currying favor with Fatty Lai as yet, but he believed that as the great families came to understand Wei Zhao's marvels, those with no way to reach Wei Zhao would think up every means to get on good terms with Fatty Lai.

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