Chapter 1873 — It's Over

"It shouldn't be..." Kang Zhaolong's face was ashen too. "Every one of those medicinal ingredients he named is in our weight-loss formula—not a single one off. So if he's saying it out loud, he must have had it tested by an authoritative lab... We're finished. This time we're finished for good."

Hearing this, Kang Guifeng too seemed to lose his soul; father and son, dazed and hollow-eyed, made ready to return to the Kang household and deliver the bad news.

Meanwhile, though Xu Shilan's song drew a crowd, it was only the entertainment press that took an interest; the business reporters from before were all busy working out how to dig deeper into the scandals behind Divine Doctor Kang's products.

Before she sang, however, Xu Shilan had declared firmly to the fans and cameras present: "I have been using Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals' products all along. Healthy, non-toxic, free of side effects—that is the foundation they stand on. They may cost a little more, but medicine has its price; health does not."

Everyone nodded in agreement. Yes—that old fraud Divine Doctor Kang's wound medicine was cheap, but only because it had been cut with fillers; and all the rest of his products were pure deception, the weight-loss pills most poisonous of all.

Then Xu Shilan added: "Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals' promotion on their trauma medicine is a genuine promotion—the quality is exactly what it was before, not watered down. I stake my reputation on it."

For a star of Xu Shilan's stature to give such a guarantee was to take a considerable risk—but it also proved, indirectly, her confidence in Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals.

Wei Zhao was watching her from the audience too, and every word Xu Shilan spoke had been improvised on the spot; none of it had been rehearsed.

So the corner of Wei Zhao's mouth curved upward. This girl was rather interesting, and she knew how to be grateful—his help had not been wasted after all.

The two of them could hardly be called intimate friends, but in that moment Wei Zhao unhesitatingly counted Xu Shilan among his important friends—for no other reason than that trust.

The launch had now reached its close, and a flawless close it was. If Fatty Lai failed to make a fortune from here on, it would be a miracle.

Over at the launch venue, Fatty Lai and Kang were both overjoyed. After today, Divine Doctor Kang was no longer even worthy of being called a rival. The Divine Doctor Kang Pharmaceutical Group probably had no counter left to play; tomorrow their products would be seized.

"Let's head back and pack—tomorrow we should be off to Donghai City. School's about to start." Wei Zhao said this to Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu beside him. For some reason, he kept feeling that something was missing from his side.

"Mm!" Though Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu were both devoted fans of Xu Shilan, they had already arranged that once the launch ended, Xu Shilan would come to the Gu family villa to hang out with them—so they had no need to wait around like the other fans, hoping for one more glimpse of her.

The Kang household in Donghai.

At this moment it was in utter chaos. Kang Guifeng and Kang Zhaolong had brought the news of the launch home, and Divine Doctor Kang's blood surged straight up; he collapsed on the floor with a cerebral hemorrhage and was rushed to the hospital.

Kang Zhaoming only gave a bleak smile and muttered to himself, "It's come, has it? It's finally come..."

Kang Guifeng and Kang Zhaolong had no heart now to attack Kang Zhaoming. The Kang family had reached its most perilous hour: seizure of goods, products pulled from the shelves, stock that would not sell—and on top of that, lawsuits from consumers and enormous compensation claims.

One could say the Kang family now was in a sorrier state than Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals had ever been.

At the Gu family villa, Xu Shilan arrived stealthily in a black business van with tinted film on every window.

Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu were delighted. Since Xiaoxiao's departure, Xu Shilan had not come to the Gu villa again; they exchanged the occasional text, but Xu Shilan was busy, busy every day, and truly had little time to chat with them.

Sometimes a message from her would go unanswered for ages—days, even—but even so, the two of them felt a great superiority over other fans: any text they sent, Xu Shilan would surely answer once she saw it.

A few days before Xu Shilan came to Songshan City, Gu Mengyao had already warned her not to bring up the matter of Tang Yun again. Xu Shilan found it strange, but she agreed all the same.

Still, when Xu Shilan heard that Feng Xiaoxiao was not dead but had been taken as a disciple by some great sect, she was overjoyed. She was very fond of the girl; it felt as though the two of them were bound by fate—not sisters, yet closer than sisters.

With Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu, by contrast, though she knew them well, she had never felt that same closeness she felt with Feng Xiaoxiao.

It was a strange thing, the affinity between people; Xu Shilan herself could not quite explain it.

Only, the time Xu Shilan could spend at the Gu villa was limited. Her every day was packed tight by her management company; even this half day was stolen from a busy schedule.

What surprised her—and did not much surprise her—was that Wei Zhao remained as cold as ever. He nodded to her, then went back to his room to do heaven knows what, leaving her to sing karaoke in the living room with Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu.

By any reckoning, she had done him a great favor, and today she had taken a risk to speak up for him at the launch—he ought, at the very least, to have been a little warmer. But recalling how Wei Zhao had always been, Xu Shilan knew this was simply how he was: he had never once treated her as any kind of star.

In his eyes she was nothing but a pretty girl, and pretty girls had never been in short supply around him...

At the thought, Xu Shilan felt a little dejected. The man was infuriating.

Xu Shilan spent the night at Gu Mengyao's home. Early the next morning she was picked up by her manager's car, and Wei Zhao and the others were about to set out for Donghai City.

The university applications had long since been submitted. All three had chosen Donghai Engineering University: Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu picked the economics department. Gu Mengyao genuinely wanted to learn something about business, so that one day she could help her father... or Wei Zhao.

Shen Yushu, for her part, had no strong opinions of her own; whatever Gu Mengyao studied, she studied.

Wei Zhao had applied for a very obscure major: the pharmaceutical program in the botany department of the school of biology.

That program dealt with things related to medicinal materials—obscure even among the obscure. Anyone who truly wanted to study plants would not apply to such a specialized pharmaceutical program, and anyone set on studying pharmacy would apply to a dedicated medical university.

But for such a program to exist in a science and engineering institute, there was surely a reason. When Wei Zhao filled in his application, his thinking was simply that it suited his interests and would let him stay near the young lady and little Shu. As for whether he would actually learn anything, he did not much care.

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