Chapter 1282 — The Kang Family's Crisis! "Grandfather is right: now that the trouble has already come about, shifting the blame is of no use. The pressing thing is to find some way to solve the problem!" Kang Zhaoming declared with righteous indignation. Pampered good-for-nothing that he was, and insufferably full of himself, the fellow still knew how to come out with this sort of set speech.

"Yes, Zhaoming is quite right - the pressing task is to solve the problem! You two useless wretches, look at Zhaoming: he is the one who has the Kang family at heart. And what about you? The moment something goes wrong you start shoving the blame around. Is the Kang family no longer your Kang family?" Divine Doctor Kang raged.

Kang Zhaolong and Kang Guifeng were both thoroughly vexed. What had come over Kang Zhaoming? His luck had been uncannily good lately - but these were not things they could say aloud.

"Grandfather, actually Uncle and Big Brother are only anxious - they simply lost their footing a little!" Without waiting for Divine Doctor Kang to press him, Kang Zhaoming began laying out his countermeasure: "In my view, on this misstep our Kang family must take certain measures to keep our losses down to a minimum. First, we must suspend all purchases of Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals' trauma medicine. I suggest we take some of that trauma medicine into our laboratory for testing and comparison. We may not be able to reverse-engineer the formula, but whether it contains those rare medicinal herbs used in our Divine Doctor Kang's golden-wound salve - I shouldn't think that would be much trouble for you, Big Brother?"

What Kang Zhaoming expounded at such leisure was, in fact, much the same as what he had said the last time round, only now it sounded rather more polished and rigorous - and that was because he had prepared for it well in advance. Although he had not foreseen that his big brother would certainly come out the loser, he had, still smarting from his defeat the previous time, gone on praying all along that his brother's plan would fail, and so he had made some preparations ahead of time. He had never imagined they would come in handy just now!

"Quite right! Zhaoming speaks well. Zhaolong, take some of Doctor Guan's trauma medicine at once and run the analysis and comparison - see whether those rare herbs are present in it! That is of the utmost importance. If they are not, then we have been well and truly swindled this time!" Some unease had in fact already begun to stir in Divine Doctor Kang's own heart: "In that case, we must unload our stockpiles as quickly as we can!"

"Yes, Grandfather!" Kang Zhaolong had no choice. Though Kang Zhaoming had stolen the show, he still nodded with a darkened face and gave his assent.

To work out the composition and formula of Doctor Guan's trauma medicine was no easy matter! With the scientific techniques available today, picking a formula apart is far from simple; were it that easy, there would be no such thing as secret recipes anywhere in the world! Even the finest restaurant recipes would soon be analyzed out of someone's hands, let alone finished pills!

With the longevity-and-detox elixir of old, the Kang family had thrown in enormous effort yet failed to get to the bottom of it, ending instead with a load of bull - which shows just how agonizingly difficult it is to analyze a medicine's formula!

But to test whether a particular medicine contains a handful of known, fixed ingredients is quite another matter, and far easier: analyze it according to the properties of those ingredients, and the answer can be determined at once!

And so the test report on Doctor Guan's trauma medicine was rushed back to the Kang family at the greatest possible speed. Looking at the string of red X's across the report, Divine Doctor Kang nearly fainted on the spot! A red X meant the ingredient was absent - which is to say, not a single rare medicinal herb was to be found in Doctor Guan's trauma medicine!

No wonder the medicine sold for so little - without those precious herbs in it, the cost naturally came tumbling down!

"None of them - not one!" Divine Doctor Kang hurled the report into Kang Guifeng's face: "You wretched boy, look at it yourself! A grown man like you, and your brain doesn't work as well as Zhaoming's? You should have had it analyzed ages ago. And now look at what you've done - a warehouse full of junk! It has tied up that much of the Kang family's working capital. What do we do about that?"

"Father, please calm your anger - I didn't foresee this either, did I? Besides, it was Zhaoming who brought me Doctor Guan's trauma medicine formula in the first place; you saw it yourself, it was identical to our own formula. Who could have thought they would still cut corners?" Kang Guifeng said, his face a mask of misery. "You can't really blame me for this, can you?"

Kang Guifeng left the sentence unfinished, but anyone could hear what he meant: if anyone was to blame, it could only be Kang Zhaoming - whose fault was it that he had brought back a bogus formula?

"Son of a bitch!" At his eldest son's words Divine Doctor Kang finally exploded. He sprang up and cracked his palm across Kang Guifeng's face: "You make a mistake yourself and still blame someone else? Zhaoming did bring the formula back, that's true - but didn't Zhaoming say last time that Guan Xuemin might well have cut corners and altered it? How come you never heard that? Do you only listen selectively?"

Struck across the face, Kang Guifeng subsided at once, clutching his reddened cheek, the very picture of dejection: "I'm sorry, Father!"

"Grandfather, since it has already happened, let's find some way to deal with it. My father and I were both in the wrong, it's true - but we only did it to strike at Doctor Guan for the sake of the Kang family!" Kang Zhaolong said hastily, trying to smooth things over.

"Then tell me - what ought to be done?" Divine Doctor Kang nodded and asked.

"First, we should dump the stock in the warehouse as quickly as possible. This stuff all has a shelf life; once it expires, it's stuck in our hands for good, and that is a great deal of money! If we must, we would rather take a small loss than fail to get it sold off. Since this trauma medicine has been made with corners cut, its efficacy certainly won't be what it was - so if the market turns negative and we haven't managed to get out in time, we'll be the ones taking the loss!"

"It's the only way, I suppose!" Divine Doctor Kang sighed. "The Kang family's finances can no longer stand this kind of battering. Our pillar industry has taken such a blow from Doctor Guan Pharmaceuticals that it is nothing like what it once was; and the Xiao family has broken off our engagement. One wrong step, and every step that follows is wrong! Never mind being elevated to the rank of a great clan - at this point, even holding on to our former glory is getting difficult!"

"Grandfather, still, we shouldn't lose heart - we should take the offensive. Since we already know that Doctor Guan's trauma medicine cuts corners in its raw materials, we can perfectly well issue a statement denouncing such sharp-practicing, and let their reputation suffer..." Kang Zhaolong ventured, unwilling to concede, hoping to repair his image in his grandfather's eyes. After all, he had been the Kang family's designated third-generation head! And now, for no reason anyone could explain, the title had passed to Kang Zhaoming - he could not swallow that.

"Bullshit! What utter nonsense!" The moment Divine Doctor Kang heard Kang Zhaolong's idiotic idea, he flew into a rage: "How can you be so simple-minded? What makes you think they've cut corners? Are you going to go and say so out loud - just because their medicine doesn't contain those rare herbs?"

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