With that, Kang Zhaoming turned and walked away.

Divine Doctor Kang sighed, his face growing heavier by the moment.

"Grandfather, don't listen to Zhaoming's nonsense. He must still be shaken by what happened before—give him a few days and he'll be himself again!" Kang Zhaolong was only too glad to see Kang Zhaoming in such a state; if Kang Zhaoming kept sliding into despondency, the hour would come when Kang Zhaolong was once more the heir apparent.

"Guifeng, Zhaolong, the two of you had better get over to that launch and see what Wei Zhao and Fatty Lai are really up to!" Divine Doctor Kang spoke with a distinct unease. "There are things we cannot afford not to guard against..."

"Yes, sir..." Kang Guifeng and Kang Zhaolong answered, though neither took it seriously. The Kang family's products were selling like the noonday sun; they did not believe Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals had any trick left to turn the tide.

Of course, it never occurred to them to ask: had Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals not also stood at its noonday height once—and had it not gone down the road to ruin in the blink of an eye?

At the new-product launch, to the astonishment of every media outlet present, Fatty Lai unveiled several new products, each one matched item for item against the Divine Doctor Kang Pharmaceutical Company. Aside from the earlier trauma medicine, still heavily promoted and now priced roughly on par with Divine Doctor Kang's—though a shade dearer—every other product was in fact priced considerably higher than the Divine Doctor Kang line!

Every reporter in the hall and every onlooker in the crowd was left blinking in disbelief. At such prices, with such similar products, how did Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals expect to compete with the Divine Doctor Kang Pharmaceutical Group? It held no advantage whatsoever!

True, many had already noticed that Divine Doctor Kang's golden wound medicine was plainly not as effective as it once had been—but it won on price. Doctor Guan's trauma medicine worked well but cost more, and given the choice, most people would settle for second best.

And though Doctor Guan's trauma medicine was also on promotion, it was buy one, get one free—ninety-nine yuan for two bottles, forty-nine fifty apiece—whereas Divine Doctor Kang's golden wound medicine was ninety-nine yuan for three, working out to a mere thirty-three yuan a bottle!

Set side by side, not one of Doctor Guan's products held the advantage. Admittedly, if the trauma medicine still worked as it once had, some customers might pay a little more for the Doctor Guan version—but what of the other products?

Yes, the superstar Xu Shilan was their spokeswoman, but unless one were an utterly devoted fan, who would pay more for Doctor Guan's goods? Everyone else would sooner not play the dupe. It was not that they could not afford it; there was simply no reason to spend the extra money.

"Hmph, and I thought they'd have some clever trick up their sleeve. It looks like Father was worried over nothing!" Standing amid the crowd, Kang Guifeng gave a cold laugh and said to Kang Zhaolong, "Nothing but a parrot mimicking others, no innovation at all, and the prices sky-high into the bargain. If they can beat our Kang family, I'll eat my hat!"

"Exactly. Who knows what Kang Zhaoming frets about all day long. If Wei Zhao meant to come after us, he would have come long ago—why wait until now? Look at the Gu Group: how much the An family swallowed down, and how much they had to cough back up. That starting capital for Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals is probably the settlement the An family paid Wei Zhao." It had to be said, Kang Zhaolong's guess was uncannily accurate—he had struck the nail square on the head.

"And what good does any of that do them? Come on, let's go back. Apart from Xu Shilan's fans, no one will buy their products," Kang Guifeng said.

But the two had scarcely turned to leave when Fatty Lai's voice rang out again: "The new-product launch has reached its end here—but before Xu Shilan sings, I should like to take this occasion to condemn the unscrupulous practices of a certain brand in our industry!"

"Whoa—" The media in the hall erupted at once. Of everything at this launch, Fatty Lai's remark was plainly what interested them most. Until now, Doctor Guan's products had shown not the slightest competitiveness, and they had written the whole event off as a flop.

But who would have thought that this was the real highlight!

Kang Guifeng's eyelid twitched, and he stopped dead in his tracks! At present, the only player in the industry capable of competing with Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals was the Divine Doctor Kang Pharmaceutical Group. If there was dirt to be dished, it would surely be about them.

"Father, let's stay and hear what they have to say!" Kang Zhaolong sneered. "If they spout nonsense, we can sue them for libel!"

Meanwhile, Fatty Lai produced a test report from an authoritative institution and began to hold forth at leisure.

He never named the brand outright, but the products he targeted—the "Golden Wound Medicine, Deluxe Edition," the "All-Pain Relief Formula," the "Weight-Loss Pills"—were all flagship products of the Divine Doctor Kang Pharmaceutical Company. Now that he laid them out one by one, anyone with eyes knew exactly whom he meant!

When Fatty Lai precisely identified the chemical components contained in these medicines and spelled out the harms of the weight-loss pills, the faces of Kang Guifeng and Kang Zhaolong changed on the spot!

They knew well enough about the chemical components in the "Golden Wound Medicine, Deluxe Edition" and the "All-Pain Relief Formula"—Kang Zhaolong, in particular, was in charge of all research, development, and production, and was no stranger to either drug. But hormones and aminopyrine were not prohibited substances; at worst, adding them amounted to concealment. Those "weight-loss pills," however, were nothing short of slow murder!

Yet the formula had been handed over covertly by the You family, and not a single soul in the Kang household could decipher its pharmacology or the properties of its ingredients. Kang Zhaolong, professional in the field though he was, could make neither head nor tail of the pharmacology within; and now that Fatty Lai had suddenly dragged it all into the light, both men's faces turned green at once!

The fallout from the "Golden Wound Medicine, Deluxe Edition" and the "All-Pain Relief Formula" would be comparatively easy to defuse—hormones, after all, properly used, are also medicines that cure, and aminopyrine is likewise found in painkillers and cold remedies.

But those "weight-loss pills" were a death sentence for the Kang family! If what Fatty Lai said was true, the Divine Doctor Kang Pharmaceutical Group would face pressure without precedent! Anyone buying medicine would recoil at the very first impression; no matter how cheap the group's drugs might be, consumers would not accept them—because people spend money to cure their illnesses, not to buy their own deaths.

When Fatty Lai finished recounting the side effects of the weight-loss pills, the whole hall erupted. The media had found their big story and their bombshell; and among the onlookers, some had been taking Divine Doctor Kang's weight-loss pills themselves, some had relatives or friends on them—and now every one of them raised their voice to curse the unscrupulousness of Divine Doctor Kang!

To concoct such a poisonous thing—taken over the long term, was this not simply a slow-acting poison?

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