Chapter 3200 — Close on Its Heels

This was Han Jingyi's creation. Even if Han Jingyi had given it to Kang Jingming for free, Wei Zhao would have had nothing to say about it, let alone about pleading on the Liu family's behalf. So Wei Zhao agreed outright.

In fact, as long as Han Jingyi was not angry, Wei Zhao would not be angry either. Earlier, Wei Zhao had felt that all of Han Jingyi's painstaking research had been handed over to Kang Jingming through Liu Jinghan's negligence and Liu Tianli's betrayal—that it had been a poor reward for Han Jingyi's efforts. But Han Jingyi herself clearly did not think there was anything wrong with it.

The news that the medicine cauldrons of Guandafu Pharmaceuticals could be upgraded spread like a spring breeze through the ancient sects and great families, sending those sects and families who had been sitting on the fence running back to the Cultivator's Chamber of Commerce!

And those families and sects that had bought Guandafu Pharmaceuticals' fifteen-in-one medicine cauldrons were grinning from ear to ear! Although the price they had paid for their cauldrons was high, and others had once thought them fools for it, now it turned out wonderfully the other way around—those who had bought the Xuandan Sect's cauldrons were the ones who had been penny-wise and pound-foolish!

The Xuandan Sect claimed their cauldrons were original, but the people of these sects and families were no fools. Who could fail to see that the Xuandan Sect was copying Guandafu Pharmaceuticals' cauldrons? The functions were identical, not altered or added to in the slightest. Original? Who would believe that?

And Guandafu Pharmaceuticals' swift counterattack proved the point: they were striking at the counterfeit and pirated cauldrons on the market. If the Xuandan Sect's work was truly original, then let them upgrade theirs right now—if they could!

The Xuandan Sect's medicine cauldron sales center went from a roaring bustle to a deserted door, with no one paying it any attention! Everyone dutifully went to the Cultivator's Chamber of Commerce to register for the auction, and those who had already bought cauldrons headed off in droves to the Liu Group to have them upgraded!

And so the Xuandan Sect's first-grade automatic medicine cauldrons vanished like a fleeting blossom; the handful who had bought them were filled with regret, unable to return them and unable to go to the Liu Group for an upgrade either, since the Liu Group did not support upgrades for pirated chips.

"Damn it! Wei Zhao is too cunning. He must have had this countermeasure ready long ago—the moment we copied it, he'd upgrade and set a trap for us!" Kang Jingming said bitterly.

"Enough, don't talk about that anymore. The initiative is in their hands now, and the only thing for us to do is keep pace with Wei Zhao—we can't let them leave us too far behind!" Ancestor Xuanchen was entirely calm. "The pressing matter is to buy a fifteen-in-one medicine cauldron ourselves, crack the program inside it, and use it to upgrade the products we've sold. As long as our after-sales service keeps up, then even if ours are copies, they'll sell just as well!"

"That's true, but the key question is: how do we get our hands on the program in that fifteen-in-one cauldron?" Kang Jingming said with some worry. "The method we used before can't be used a second time, that's for sure. Even if I go to Liu Tianli again, it's useless. Never mind whether he could get me in—even if he did, Liu Jinghan has probably changed the password by now, so we still couldn't get into the vault."

"Think of a way on this. Talk it over with Dr. Benjamin II and see whether he has any means of cracking the new program," Ancestor Xuanchen said. "After all, he's been in contact with those source programs now. See if there's some other approach."

"All right, I'll ask him," Kang Jingming said with a nod.

Once the discussion was over, he phoned Dr. Benjamin II.

"Dr. Benjamin II, I have a matter here that I need to talk to you about!" Kang Jingming said bluntly once the call connected.

"I know. This is about the upgraded fifteen-in-one medicine cauldron, isn't it?" Dr. Benjamin II had clearly been paying attention to the cauldrons on the market; he already knew about Wei Zhao's upgrade.

"Exactly, that's the very thing. If we don't improve and upgrade ours, then no one will buy our products anymore! What's at stake here isn't just my profit—it's your center's profit too. We split the money together, so if you don't come up with something, all our earlier efforts will have been wasted," Kang Jingming said.

"Who says I'm not coming up with something? These past few days I've been studying the programmer driver you copied for me!" Dr. Benjamin II said. "With the programmer's driver, I can crack the parameters and definitions of that special microcontroller chip. With those, I'll know the general principle of the microcontroller chip and can set about cracking it."

"Oh? Really? So you've already broken that microcontroller chip?" Kang Jingming had never expected that the programmer driver he had copied so casually would turn out to be so useful!

"Naturally. Give me a few days and I'll be able to read the program out of the microcontroller successfully!" Dr. Benjamin II said. "Without this microcontroller driver, I'd probably never manage to crack it in my lifetime, but with it, everything has become much easier."

"Excellent! All right then, I'll send you a fifteen-in-one medicine cauldron in the next few days. You crack the program, and we'll offer upgrade services for our cauldrons too," Kang Jingming said.

"Fine, mail one to me," Dr. Benjamin II said. "By the time your package arrives, I should have cracked it more or less."

"Good, then I'll go get it ready!" Kang Jingming said.

What Wei Zhao had not expected was that a week later, the Xuandan Sect also rolled out a medicine cauldron upgrade service—and the upgrade fee was only a hundred million yuan, half of Wei Zhao's two hundred million! What was more, the Xuandan Sect announced publicly that whenever Guandafu Pharmaceuticals upgraded its cauldrons, the Xuandan Sect would promptly produce an upgrade of its own, within no more than a week.

The moment this news came out, the users who had bought the Xuandan Sect's cauldrons were instantly elated, and the sects and families who had been preparing to buy Wei Zhao's cauldrons began to waver and hesitate! After all, the Xuandan Sect's cauldrons were much cheaper, and so was the upgrade fee!

The upgrade might be a little slower than Wei Zhao's, but not by much—about a week's wait was still acceptable. The most important thing was that it could be upgraded at all!