Chapter 498 — We'll Sell a Deluxe Edition Too

"What I mean is, Xiaoxiao, you're not a child anymore—it's about time you found yourself a boyfriend, isn't it?" Feng Tianlong cleared his throat. He too felt that this was hardly the right moment to raise such a subject with his daughter, yet he had no choice but to say it.

It was the peculiar condition of Feng Xiaoxiao's body that forced the thought upon him. Other parents dreaded the notion of their children falling in love too young, to say nothing of bearing a child out of wedlock—yet Feng Tianlong wished for nothing more than for his daughter to give him a grandchild, and soon.

In truth, deep in his heart, Feng Tianlong knew: his daughter's illness was all but beyond cure. However far he traveled, however many doors he knocked on, hope remained desperately thin. Even if a miracle doctor appeared, the most he could do was prolong her life a few years; to hope for a full recovery was a fool's dream.

That was why he was so urgent about his daughter finding a boyfriend: he wanted to see her life continue. And so, at this moment, he cast aside all hesitation and broached the matter with her outright.

"That... there's no need for that, is there?" Feng Xiaoxiao grew even more flustered. "Me... what would I want a boyfriend for?"

"I won't say any more about it. Just handle it as you see fit!" Feng Tianlong smiled and drove off.

He dropped Feng Xiaoxiao at the hotel, gave her a couple of hurried instructions, and drove off at once. People were waiting for him on the other side; he had no choice but to go on ahead.

Feng Xiaoxiao sat alone in the hotel room, turning her father's words over in her mind. What on earth did he mean? That he approved of her finding a boyfriend? She found it rather strange—surely she was not yet of an age to marry...

Ah! Feng Xiaoxiao suddenly remembered her own peculiar circumstances. Hadn't her mother been about this age when she gave birth to her? Her hereditary illness was a strange thing indeed—passed down to daughters, never to sons. A boy would be perfectly fine; only a girl would suffer from it. She recalled the rare occasions when her father spoke of her mother's youth: it seemed her grandfather had been just as anxious to see her mother take up with her father, and the two of them had not even registered their marriage before she came into the world.

Still, her father was a devoted man; all these years, he had never remarried. And now, no doubt, his thinking was the same as her grandfather's had been. Feng Xiaoxiao shook her head. But times had changed. She was still a high school student—find a boyfriend and have a baby? Wouldn't that be a little absurd?

Never before had Feng Xiaoxiao given such matters any thought, for in her eyes her brief life held no friendship—and certainly no love.

Feng Xiaoxiao wanted no entanglements with anyone, needed no one's pity, and wanted least of all that grief of parting in life and death. So for eighteen years she had kept no true friends—only a pack of dubious cronies and hangers-on. She had never let her heart stir for any boy, because she did not want to face that unbearable pain of having to let go.

Yet Feng Tianlong's words had, for the first time, plunged her into deep thought. Her, find a boyfriend? Was that allowed? Could she be permitted to like someone too?

Heh—Feng Xiaoxiao shook her head with a bitter smile. Who would ever like her? To take a girlfriend like her, one about to die at any moment—that would be eight lifetimes of bad luck, wouldn't it? Before anything could even come of it, she would be gone...

Huh? Feng Xiaoxiao suddenly thought of Wei Zhao! If that was how it was, then let Wei Zhao fall in love with her—even if she never dumped him, he would surely suffer terribly, wouldn't he? At this thought, her resolve only hardened...

"Second Uncle, Lai Changyi and the others have left..." The young man who had earlier bid against Fatty Lai for the sheepskin scroll map spoke softly into his earpiece.

"Xiaokun, follow them and see which hotel they're staying at. Then find out the identity of that young man at Lai Changyi's side!" The middle-aged man seated beside Yu Haitian gave the young man his orders.

"Yes, sir!" The young man called Xiaokun nodded. Once out of the auction hall, he flickered and vanished into the vast night.

Fatty Lai had no car in Yanjing, and the hotel where the three of them were staying was not far from the auction hall—about a kilometer on foot. Fatty Lai might be fat, but his health was decent enough; Guan Xuemin was hale and hearty, and an occasional stroll would do his health good; as for Wei Zhao, there was no question at all.

So the three of them did not take a taxi but simply walked back to the hotel. It was a chance to stretch their legs, and once back at the hotel's tea restaurant they could still get a bite of late-night supper.

"Boss, have you decided what we're going to auction?" Fatty Lai was still thinking about making another splash at the auction, and fearing Wei Zhao might have forgotten, he offered a reminder.

"I really haven't decided yet." Wei Zhao frowned slightly and sank into thought. What Divine Doctor Kang had put up for auction was a deluxe edition of his Golden Wound Medicine; if he himself brought out a deluxe edition of a trauma medicine, it would plainly look like he was following the trend...

"Boss, the way I see it, we might as well put out a deluxe edition of our trauma medicine too. They have one, we have one—no need to make it complicated!" Seeing Wei Zhao's difficulty, Fatty Lai made his suggestion.

"Wouldn't that be following the trend? Wouldn't that put us a notch below?" Wei Zhao countered.

"Well... Boss! I have no choice either. Our pharmaceutical company is still in its early stage, and I don't plan to release too many kinds of medicine. Having the Life-Extending Detox Pill as our signature is enough. If we have too many varieties, it won't show off how good our trauma medicine and painkillers are. Besides, we should play our trump cards slowly—laying them all out at once goes against sound business principles," said Fatty Lai.

"Then it'll be a deluxe edition of the trauma medicine!" Wei Zhao nodded, his mind already made up. "Our deluxe trauma medicine will be different from Divine Doctor Kang's. I'll add a few medicinal ingredients to it—it will have a marked effect on old, long-standing scars, quickly sloughing away the dead flesh and growing new tissue!"

"Gah?" Fatty Lai's eyes went wide, and he stared at Wei Zhao in disbelief. "Boss, does it really have such miraculous effects?"

"It's nothing so miraculous—just a few extra Chinese herbs added to the base trauma medicine, that's all. Only the cost goes up quite a bit." Wei Zhao shrugged and spoke quite matter-of-factly.

"That... a bit higher cost is no problem. It's an auction piece, after all—a premium item. The ordinary version won't have it added," Fatty Lai said. "Going by the price Divine Doctor Kang's deluxe Golden Wound Medicine fetches every year, a single box goes for over five hundred thousand!"

"Oh? That's quite high—the cost will certainly be covered!" Wei Zhao was somewhat surprised. A single box of Golden Wound Medicine could sell for five hundred thousand?

"What's that? Five hundred thousand is nothing at all to those rich people. They're the sort who make hundreds of thousands a second. If they cut their hand, healing a day sooner might mean earning that much more!" Fatty Lai laughed. "To be honest, I bid on a box myself last year!"