When Vice President Ouyang brought him the news, Wei Zhao was shocked, and furious as well. This was nothing short of outright counterfeiting, and he did not need to think twice to know who was behind it: Kang Zhaoming. The man loved this sort of trick—the Kang family had done the same thing back in the day.

"Brother Lin, I'm under tremendous pressure at the Cultivator's Chamber of Commerce right now. Quite a few of the sects that had agreed to attend today's auction simply didn't show—they went straight to the Xuandan Sect to buy instead. Sure, the medicine cauldrons auctioned today still brought in a billion yuan, so on the surface it looks fine, but the enthusiasm for bidding is clearly lower than before. And with the Xuandan Sect selling in such huge, unlimited quantities, it won't be long before the market is saturated. The cultivator market is only so big, after all, and our customer base is fixed. Once these people have bought the Xuandan Sect's cauldrons, they won't be buying ours. So the Chamber is now split into two camps. One faction keeps lobbying the Grand Elder President to drop your products and take on the Xuandan Sect's instead!" said Vice President Ouyang.

"I understand. Let me look into it and I'll put together a proposal for you," Wei Zhao said gravely.

"All right, Brother Lin, I'll wait for your word!" Vice President Ouyang was naturally on Wei Zhao's side, but the Cultivator's Chamber of Commerce was not his to command. Even with an elder backing him, the pressure was still enormous.

Wei Zhao had barely hung up when Liu Jinghan's call came in. He picked up at once. "Jinghan. What happened? Has Kang Zhaoming managed to counterfeit the medicine cauldrons? Did he get hold of the manufacturing data?"

"Brother Wei Zhao... I wanted to talk to you about this too. It was my negligence..." Liu Jinghan said, full of apology.

"What happened?" Wei Zhao asked.

"The most important part of our first-grade automatic medicine cauldron is the source code in the microcontroller. That source code has always been in my own keeping, stored in the vault in my office," Liu Jinghan explained. "But Kang Zhaoming found my father and used him to open my office door and get into the vault. He copied the source code off my computer..."

"Liu Tianli?!" Hearing her explanation, Wei Zhao's expression turned ugly. Last time, out of regard for Han Jingyi's plea, he had let the Liu family off—and now, of all things, Liu Tianli had pulled another stunt like this! Wei Zhao wanted nothing more than to kill him on the spot. "How did he get into the office? And how did Kang Zhaoming find him?"

"My current office is the one my father used to have. After he stepped down, he went to a drug rehabilitation center. Since leaving the center he's been living in a sanatorium. What I never expected was that Kang Zhaoming would track down my father and tempt him with forty cartons of cigarettes laced with drugs, just to make him open the office and the vault! Because it used to be my father's office, he still had a key—and I never reset the vault's passcode and fingerprint data, so naturally my father could get in..." Liu Jinghan explained, somewhat helplessly.

"Jinghan, last time I let Liu Tianli off because of a friend! But he didn't repent—far from it, this time he's landed me in an even bigger mess. This time I definitely won't let him off. I hope you can understand!" Wei Zhao had murder in his heart this time. Liu Tianli was a man who truly enraged him. Letting him off last time was one thing, but to show no remorse now—there was no need for Wei Zhao to spare him again.

"..." Liu Jinghan fell silent. She knew the mistake her father had made was far too grave. But he was her father after all, and she did not want him to die! In truth, people who used drugs had lost their reason; it was normal for them to be easily tempted, and Liu Jinghan understood that. If anyone was to blame, it was Kang Zhaoming for being so vicious as to use such a trick.

"Brother Wei Zhao... a friend of mine wants to talk to you..." Liu Jinghan hesitated, then said it anyway.

"Oh? Who? Someone pleading for Liu Tianli?" Wei Zhao frowned and asked.

"Brother Wei Zhao, it's me..." Han Jingyi's voice suddenly came over the line.

"Jingjing? What are you doing in Yanjing?" Wei Zhao was taken aback. He had never imagined that Liu Jinghan's friend would turn out to be Han Jingyi!

"Yes, Brother Wei Zhao, I came to Yanjing to discuss some things with Sister Jinghan! After all my research these past few days, I've added several new pill-refining programs to the first-grade automatic medicine cauldron—enough to upgrade the ten-in-one model. Once upgraded, the ten-in-one cauldron becomes a fifteen-in-one, with five new first-grade pill refinement programs!" Han Jingyi said. "Two of them are important pills, and three are less commonly used ones! Here's what I'm planning: anyone who has bought our deluxe ten-in-one cauldron can pay a two-hundred-million-yuan upgrade fee and have it upgraded to a fifteen-in-one. And the single-model cauldron can likewise pay a fifty-million-yuan upgrade fee to add any one new pill, turning it into a two-in-one."

"Oh? That's wonderful news!" Wei Zhao was overjoyed. This way, the problem facing the Cultivator's Chamber of Commerce would solve itself! Wei Zhao's cauldrons could offer follow-up upgrades, while the Xuandan Sect's could not!

The Xuandan Sect's cauldrons were cheap, but they were one-off products, while Wei Zhao's could be upgraded later. Which was the better bargain went without saying. If the products were identical, these sects and great families would certainly buy the cheaper ones—but since they were not, they would naturally choose the upgradable ones. However short of funds these ancient sects might be, none of them would buy a cauldron that couldn't be upgraded just to save five hundred million.

"Yes, yes—so will Brother Wei Zhao let this matter go now?" Han Jingyi asked.

"Let it go?" Wei Zhao was somewhat taken aback. He had not expected Han Jingyi to plead for the Liu family again and try to smooth things over. Yet he was not displeased in the least; instead he said, "Jingjing, have you thought this through? All of this was your invention, yet because of Jinghan's negligence Liu Tianli stole it away. Doesn't that upset you?"

"Not at all! It's about time Jingjing did an upgrade anyway. Kang Zhaoming has churned out a mountain of counterfeit cauldrons, and if they can't be sold, they'll just sit in his hands and cost him even more—how wonderful is that!" Han Jingyi said.

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