Blood Queen - Chapter 27

Chapter 27: Zhong Pharmaceuticals

***

July 15, Monday, 10:00 AM.

The headquarters of Zhong Pharmaceuticals Group, a famous private pharmaceutical giant known throughout S Province and even the entire country, is located in the prime CBD area of W District, C City.

30 years ago, Zhong Pharmaceuticals was just a small workshop producing pharmaceutical intermediates. Later, due to some unknown opportunity, it suddenly began a rapid expansion, becoming a leading enterprise in the pharmaceutical industry.

While this development speed is not uncommon in the ever-changing China, it is extremely rare in S Province.

The headquarters building, designed by renowned construction designers, is elegant and dignified. Under the bright sun, the glass surface of the entire building shimmers with a brilliant dark green luster, dazzling to the eye.

Zhong Jing, dressed in formal attire, enters the building. At the long front desk in the spacious lobby, several female clerks stand up with surprised looks.

“Young Master Zhong… Mr. Zhong, you’re here?”

“Is my dad not here?”

Zhong Jing, holding his phone, shows some impatience on his face, making the girls a bit nervous.

“The Chairman has gone to Japan on a business trip. For the specific return time, we need to contact the Administrative Center to confirm. You can rest in the Chairman’s office first.”

The receptionist, blushing, quickly picks up the desk phone in front of her.

“No need, I can find my way.”

With that, Zhong Jing puts on a bright smile and turns stylishly towards the elevator area.

“Hehe, do you think Young Master Zhong is here today to meet that new Assistant Tian from the Administrative Center? I’ve seen that woman, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree last year and entered the group right away. She’s beautiful, has a good temperament, and is from a prestigious university! She even had dinner with Young Master Zhong last time!”

“I heard it was that Manager Li from the Information Center, the one who looks like a vixen! She’s 4 or 5 years older than Young Master Zhong!”

Faced with the future heir already acknowledged by the Zhong Group, the receptionists naturally burst with gossip.

Rumors about Zhong Jing’s ambiguous relationships with several stunning female employees in the group have long been an open secret.

…

Zhong Jing’s arrival, to some extent, is no less significant than the appearance of Chairman Zhong Hai himself. This father and son have their own busy themes, and their appearances at the headquarters are few and far between.

The beauties from the Administrative Center, using various methods and reasons, brush past or chat with Zhong Jing. A corridor that’s not particularly long takes Zhong Jing a full five minutes to traverse before reaching the door of his father’s office.

Assistant Tian, hailed as the new-generation goddess of the Administrative Center, dressed in classic business attire paired with black stockings, opens the door access to the Chairman’s office for Zhong Jing with a dignified smile.

But until the door closes again, Assistant Tian fails to see any valuable hint on the face of the future leader of the Zhong family, leaving her secretly disappointed.

Quickly walking to his father’s desk, he takes out a laptop from his briefcase, rapidly connects to the intranet, and enters his data backend permission account.

As an unlisted company, the outside world naturally cannot know the true operational situation of Zhong Pharmaceuticals Group, but the industry valuation of over 100 billion also indirectly proves Zhong Group’s strong revenue capability recognized by the industry. Its digital information management is naturally extremely complex.

After more than a decade of version iterations, Zhong Group’s information management has become quite comprehensive. The backend permissions are clearly defined, and access records are permanently saved, which makes Zhong Jing, who is trying to query some sensitive historical data, hesitate.

No matter how mysterious the group’s rise was, his father, Zhong Hai, has always been a very cautious person. If he really became a broker between the vampire world and the normal human world, that would be one thing, but if it involves deeper connections, Zhong Jing can hardly imagine whether he would do something as Wan Yue hoped.

Moreover, in his father’s eyes, he has long been fixed as a prodigal son who doesn’t care about the family business. Suddenly starting to query the group’s business information from more than a decade ago would inevitably raise some suspicions.

His finger hesitated for several seconds on the filter query button without pressing it. Zhong Jing took a deep breath and finally closed the laptop, falling into deep thought.

A few days ago, Wan Yue’s very direct communication with him finally turned the page on the 13-year-long prologue and entered the main topic. He had been waiting for such a day, but when it came, he suddenly felt a bit timid.

All the guesses and predictions actually came from his own family.

His father, Zhong Hai, was busy all year round and rarely came home. His mother was a pet fanatic, with cats and dogs in the house once so numerous they could compete with the young him for space and snacks.

The person said to be his brother was not close in childhood either. Most of the time, the two brothers played separately, not interfering with each other.

In his childhood family life, the closest person was actually the family nanny who changed every 2 years.

From the moment he crawled out of the back garden to pursue Superman, Zhong Jing felt he had finally found a direction that belonged to him, and his empty and boring life suddenly had the possibility of excitement.

3 years ago, he took over part of Wan Yue’s mysterious work and truly began to understand the unknown side of this world.

Temperature-raising medicine, boiling blood medicine, internal and external hormone inhibitors, the mysterious world is actually not mysterious at all. They are all products of this civilized world, and compared to antibiotics and cold medicines, there is no essential difference, only the users are different.

Is Zhong Pharmaceuticals Group, as Wan Yue hinted, also one of those beneficiaries wedged between normal human society and the vampire world?

Is he really, as Wan Yue said, challenging the most evil side of this world in the identity of a warrior? And the first target might very well be his own father.

His thoughts became more and more chaotic and deeper. Zhong Jing shook his head several times.

…

The door opened, and Assistant Tian walked in, bringing Zhong Jing a cup of coffee, always maintaining an elegant smile on her face: “Mr. Zhong, it’s confirmed that the Chairman will be back tomorrow. It’s almost noon now, do you need me to arrange lunch for you?”

The Assistant Tian in front of him was very beautiful, with a very appropriate temperament. Zhong Jing had some ambiguous social interactions with her a few months ago, but now, his mind was completely drifting in another world.

“Mr. Zhong… why don’t we have lunch together? The career advice you gave me last time was very inspiring, I’ve been thinking about how to thank you…”

Assistant Tian said with a blushing face, her voice faint.

“Miss Tian, my own firm has taken on a project to provide business consulting for horizontal industry-university-research cooperation for a small agricultural company. I was wondering if the group has undertaken similar cooperation in the past many years, I’d like to refer to it.”

Zhong Jing seemed not to have heard Assistant Tian’s lunch invitation, instead taking out a cigarette and lighting it.

“Related to agriculture? Please wait a moment, I’ll help you check.”

Assistant Tian concealed her disappointment and quickly got up to walk to her own workstation outside the door. After about ten minutes, the sound of a printer working could be heard, and a few minutes later, three sheets of business data lists appeared in front of Zhong Jing.

“This is a joint industry-university-research project undertaken by the group, S Province Agricultural and Forestry University, and a certain livestock company in 2013, researching the extraction of various biological enzymes from cattle internal organs.”

“This is a cooperation between the group and a certain fishery company in 2016, a drug development cooperation based on fungal infections in freshwater aquaculture fish.”

Assistant Tian squatted beside Zhong Jing, marking the printed materials with a pen, very professionally.

“Are there any smaller-scale cooperations? These are all projects with very large capital requirements, not suitable for my client.”

Zhong Jing casually browsed the materials in his hand, not finding the information he wanted.

“Smaller scale?” Assistant Tian was stunned, “The group should have had some in its early stages, but because it’s too long ago, I’m afraid it hasn’t been entered into the database. Would you like me to ask the Information Center if there are any archived paper materials?”

“No need, thank you. I’ll ask my father for it.”

Zhong Jing stood up, looked at his watch, grabbed his suit jacket, returning to his carefree demeanor, and stared at her curvaceous figure with a smile: “It’s 11:30 now, if you’re free at noon, please do me the honor of having a casual lunch together, Miss Tian!”

“Mm-hmm!”

The beautiful female assistant tried to control her inner excitement, nodding obediently and modestly.

The work schedule at Zhong Group’s headquarters is not strict, with lunch and rest time totaling one and a half hours, or even two hours if you notify your department internally.

The exquisite and simple lunch only lasted half an hour before ending. Zhong Jing took Assistant Tian to a hotel near the group, and booked a private room…

…

…

Near an old community in Yushui Street, J District, on the top of a high-rise building, under the scorching sun, several men in black were looking into the distance at an unremarkable residential building, each with a somewhat gloomy expression.

“Big Brother, we’ve been observing for nearly a month. Before the Wang family’s fief knight got into trouble, we didn’t dare to get too close, and there were also one or two guys with unknown backgrounds hanging around those two girls. Yesterday I found out they were moving, so I arranged for someone to secretly follow them.”

The middle-aged man in black speaking was terrified, addressing a pretty boy who looked almost unreal, with fear clearly visible in his eyes.

“Boss, these two girls are absolutely top-notch! In just over a month, they’ve both jumped to Servant-level! That scent, even from half of Yushui Street away, you can sense it! They must both have rare blood types, and they’re just newly initiated rookies, with terrible control over their boiling blood and pheromones!”

Another young man in black quickly added.

“A bunch of fools, you’re only telling me this now? Did you want to eat them all by yourselves before?”

The pretty boy snorted coldly, revealing a hint of greedy killing intent in his eyes, “A special constitution that’s hard to come by in decades, no, maybe even hundreds of years. Although their level is a bit low, it’s still useful for me to break through to Baron!”

As he spoke, a faint aura emanated from the pretty boy’s body, already at the peak of the upper Knight realm.

“Big Brother, if only you had come back earlier, that fief knight before was too crazy, so we were more cautious… Once Big Brother advances to Baron, your status will be incomparable, what kind of goods won’t be at your fingertips? The brothers can all benefit and have some soup to drink!”

The previous middle-aged man in black quickly stood out to flatter, with a fawning expression.

“You should have some self-awareness, as long as you’re not a Baron, you’re all trash!”

The pretty boy turned back coldly, looking at his underlings, the self-satisfaction and brutality in his eyes becoming more obvious: “If it wasn’t for that woman going crazy because of pregnancy and suddenly bringing in the Dark Arrow Unit, the best opportunity would have been to eat a fief knight!

“Forget it, you must find the whereabouts of those two girls! If you haven’t lied to me, the two of them together can be considered equivalent to a knight.”

“Yes, boss!”

The men in black nodded and bowed.