Chapter 2558 — Solving the Problem

"I..." With Wei Zhao standing right there, Yu Xiaoke could not speak plainly, nor did she want to pour all of it out to the old director—she feared the old woman would only worry. So she said, a little gloomily, "Wei Zhao, the children and I are all grateful for your help. On behalf of the orphanage, I thank you for everything you've done!"

Those five words—"on behalf of the orphanage"—came out flat and unyielding, and their meaning was plain enough: I thank you because of the orphanage, and I speak only for the orphanage. If you expect any personal gratitude from me, that is impossible.

Wei Zhao assumed it was simply that time of the month and her mood was unsteady. He thought no more of it. He was no longer the Gentleman Thief, and there was no reason Yu Xiaoke should be gentle with him; he did not take it to heart. He smiled faintly. "Ha, I only did a small favor in passing. It's nothing."

"Oh..." Yu Xiaoke heard him, but did not quite believe him. In passing? You came all the way from East Sea City to Pine Mountain City, and you call it passing? Even a fool would not believe that—and Yu Xiaoke was no fool.

Seeing that Yu Xiaoke seemed unwilling to talk, Wei Zhao said nothing further. Only the orphanage's old director furrowed her brow, unable to guess what had gotten into the girl today. Visitors who came to donate—even those who gave only a hundred or two hundred yuan—were always met with a smiling face from Yu Xiaoke. Yet today, when Wei Zhao had solved such a tremendous problem for them, she behaved like this...

Not long after, Uncle Qing arrived at the orphanage by car. These days Uncle Qing was overflowing with gratitude toward Wei Zhao; had Wei Zhao not insisted on treating him with the courtesy due an elder, Uncle Qing would have been happy to address him as a peer.

"Sorry to trouble you, Uncle Li." Yu Xiaoke knew Uncle Qing too, though not well. She handed the Swiss francs to him and thanked him most politely. Her manner was utterly different from the way she had just treated Wei Zhao, which left Wei Zhao thoroughly puzzled. How had her attitude improved so much in the space of a few moments?

With the orphanage's affair settled, Wei Zhao did not linger. He checked the time—Ying Ziyu and Chen Xi were not yet out of school—so he drove straight to Fatty Lai's pharmaceutical company.

The orphanage and Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals' new tower were not far apart. The two plots of land had been acquired at the same time and built up at the same time, and Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals had only grown larger, now fully supplanting the former Miracle Doctor Kang Pharmaceutical Group.

These days, whenever people spoke of wound medicine or trauma medicine, it was Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals' products that came to mind first. Miracle Doctor Kang had become a thing of the past, and Miracle Doctor Kang Pharmaceutical had simply given up manufacturing altogether. The military procurement contracts, too, had been halted after the scandal over Miracle Doctor Kang Pharmaceutical Group's weight-loss drugs.

So, having lost all its markets, Miracle Doctor Kang Pharmaceutical had been forced to close its doors. Fortunately, the Kang family now had the formidable Kang Zhaoming, who had cultivated good relations with the hidden You family. That enabled him to help the You family sell some low-grade pills—pills that still enjoyed considerable recognition in the top-tier auction market.

Take a first-grade pill like the Small Restoration Pill. Its effects fell far short of the Small Restoration Elixir, but it was still quite effective for ordinary injuries, and above all it could speed a patient's recovery after surgery.

Pills of this kind, once refined by the hidden You family, were beneath the family's dignity to sell themselves, so they simply left it to the Kang family to handle. Do not scoff at these first-grade pills—their value was by no means small. In many cases, a single first-grade pill could fetch even more than a second-grade one.

The reason was simple. The mundane world held no shortage of the wealthy, but in the cultivation world, though wealthy families were hardly rare, they all knew the true worth of things and would never bid too high for such pills. Naturally, the bulk of the profits on these first-grade pills still went to the hidden You family; the Kang family shared only a small portion.

Even so, the profits from a year of auctions were enough to let the Kang family look down on many a corporation—no less than what Miracle Doctor Kang Pharmaceutical Group had once earned, and perhaps even more. After all, the cost of auctioning pills was very low, far lower than running a company.

Wei Zhao parked in front of the Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals tower. As he stepped inside, a security guard stopped him. "Good day, sir. Might I ask whom you've come to see?"

Wei Zhao smiled faintly, recalling a time some while ago—his first visit to Pine Mountain City, when he had entered the Gu Group and met with a similar scene. Still, it showed that Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals had grown far more formal than before; in the old days one could simply walk in.

"Is Kang in?" Wei Zhao asked. Fatty Lai was abroad, so he had come straight to Kang—and in fact, it was Kang he had come to see this time.

Since graduation, Wei Zhao had not seen Kang, his old sworn brother, for a long while. Each had been busy with his own affairs, and neither had much spare time.

"You're looking for Vice President Kang. Do you have an appointment?" the guard asked at once, hearing that Wei Zhao wanted Kang.

"An appointment? No. Just let him know I'm here," Wei Zhao said.

"I see... Then how should I address you, sir?" The guard was not the sort to simply turn a man away; he asked politely.

"Wei Zhao," Wei Zhao said.

"Wei Zhao... all right!" The guard turned and headed for the front desk to notify Kang's secretary. Halfway there, though, he suddenly came up short, swung around, and stared at Wei Zhao in astonishment. "You said—your name is Wei Zhao?"

"That's right..." Wei Zhao looked at the guard, somewhat baffled, unable to guess what was the matter—why stop halfway and turn back to ask such a thing?

"Mr. Lin, please come in..." The guard hurriedly turned back and gestured him forward, saying respectfully, "I'll take you to Vice President Kang!"

"Oh? All right..." Wei Zhao was perplexed. "Why aren't you going to notify him anymore?"

"It's like this: the first article of our security department's regulations states that Mr. Lin and Doctor Guan may enter the company without being announced. President Lai set that rule himself," the guard explained. No wonder the name Wei Zhao had sounded a little familiar to him—thank goodness he had suddenly remembered.

Nor could he be blamed for being slow. Guan Xuemin did not come to the company often, but now and then he did, to discuss the company's future direction with Fatty Lai, so the guards all knew him.

Wei Zhao, however, was a different matter. Since the tower's completion, this was the first time Wei Zhao had ever appeared, so it was only natural the guard did not recognize him. (To be continued)

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