Chapter 863 — Tricked Again
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"Three hundred thousand, Xiaobo—go on, take it. Since your cousin means it as a kindness, there's no reason for you to refuse!" As he spoke, Wei Zhao rose to his feet without further ado and snatched up the cash box sitting in front of Kang Jingming.
Kang Jingming was overjoyed. So Wei Zhao wasn't so bad after all, he thought—the man hadn't come here just to freeload a meal; at the critical moment, he had proven himself enormously useful! The fellow was greedy for money, true, but that was fine—greedy men were exactly what he liked. With a grand old miser like Wei Zhao at Kang Xiaofeng's side, the things he meant to accomplish would go all the more smoothly!
"That's right, Brother Lin speaks the truth—with this much money, there's no reason to refuse!" Kang Jingming chimed in, all smiles. The unspoken second half of his sentence he left unsaid: take a man's money, and you spare him his troubles.
Kang Xiaofeng was struck dumb by Wei Zhao's move. Why was Wei Zhao telling him to take the money? Didn't that amount to handing the formula over to Kang Jingming? He stared at Wei Zhao, alarmed and uncertain, wanting to ask what this was about, yet afraid that some plan of Wei Zhao's would be thrown into disarray if he did.
"Xiaobo, it's only a formula, isn't it? As the company's vice-president, you must have access to these core secrets. When the time comes, just give the formula to your cousin—isn't that simple?" Wei Zhao shot Kang Xiaofeng a look, then went on: "As for the purchasing channels for the raw materials, I'm afraid those won't be so easy to dig up—but we'll do our best!"
"Yes, yes, let's get the formula first and worry about the rest later!" Kang Jingming did not press the point. So long as he got his hands on one thing first, and thus held in his grasp the evidence of Kang Xiaofeng taking a bribe, what information couldn't he have for the asking?
"The formula? Naturally, no problem at all!" Wei Zhao thumped his chest in assurance. "Isn't that right, Xiaobo?"
"That... yes..." Seeing that Wei Zhao had already agreed, what grounds did Kang Xiaofeng have to refuse? Though he had no idea what Wei Zhao was up to, he could only play along.
Kang Jingming had not expected to achieve his aim so easily, and was elated. After dinner, dispensing with further pleasantries with Kang Xiaofeng, he arranged on the spot that once Kang Xiaofeng had secured the formula, he was simply to call him.
Not until they had left the restaurant and Kang Jingming and his party had gone did Kang Xiaofeng, lugging the box of cash, remain utterly bewildered. "Boss, what does this mean? They want the formula—are we really going to give it to them?"
"Ha, of course we're giving it to them. Otherwise they'd have spent three hundred thousand for nothing." Wei Zhao smiled. "But there's no need to steal anything. I'll just write one out for you."
With that, Wei Zhao produced a promotional flyer he had casually picked up at the restaurant, wrote out a formula for Kang Xiaofeng on the blank space on the back, and said: "Here, take it. When the time comes, just call Kang Jingming."
"What? This is a real formula?" Kang Xiaofeng found it hard to believe. He knew a fair bit about Doctor Guan's wound medicine; its ingredients were said to differ from those of Kang the Divine Physician's, not only lowering the cost but even outperforming it. If Wei Zhao handed the formula to Kang Jingming, wasn't that simply handing the profits over to someone else?
"Of course it's a real formula." Wei Zhao nodded, but then smiled. "Only, this formula is the formula for Kang the Divine Physician's wound medicine. Didn't he suspect that you knew their formula too? Well then—perfect. We'll fob them off with this one."
"The formula for Kang the Divine Physician's wound medicine? Boss, how do you have it?" Kang Xiaofeng was taken aback, astonished.