UGB Chapter 188, Family, is a paid DLC.
Chapter 188, Family, is a paid DLC.
The voice on the other end of the phone was like an old cassette tape worn down by time—both familiar and strange.
Wang Minyu's posture while holding the phone remained unchanged, and there wasn't even a trace of emotion on his face.
He held the stainless steel tea mug in his other hand, brought it to his lips, and blew away any non-existent foam on top.
"Brother...it's me, Wang Jinghui."
The voice on the phone was filled with suppressed fear and rapid breathing, with the sound of wind and faint metallic scraping in the background.
"I'm in Changxiang City. I... saw people from the 'S' organization. They kidnapped my parents."
"Oh." Wang Minyu's response was just one word, as flat as if he were listening to today's weather forecast. He even took a sip of warm water to moisten his throat.
This extreme calmness completely stunned Wang Jinghui on the other end of the phone, and all the tearful complaints and pleas he had prepared got stuck in his throat.
He had anticipated his brother's anger, his questioning, and even his cold hanging up, but he hadn't expected this "oh."
An "Oh" that sounds like "The cafeteria's lunch today is braised chicken with potatoes."
"Brother! Didn't you hear me? Mom and Dad have been captured! It's those...those monsters! They said...they're going to use Mom and Dad to...lure you out!" Wang Jinghui's voice rose with emotion, tinged with tears.
Wang Minyu placed the teacup on the table, making a soft "clang" sound.
The sound wasn't loud, but it instantly froze the atmosphere in the entire pharmacy.
Su Qing, who was using a centrifuge to clarify a glass of lemon water, stopped what she was doing.
Pierre, humming an opera tune in the kitchen as he researched how to replicate French foie gras using pig brains, had his knife hanging in mid-air.
Guan Shan, who was wiping his entrenching tool with a piece of deerskin in the corner, paused, his eyes sharpening.
Only Li Siyuan and Zhao Na were still in the front hall, writing a prescription for a middle-aged man who was experiencing palpitations and shortness of breath due to stock market losses, saying "hit the sandbag for half an hour every day." They hadn't yet noticed the strangeness here.
"First, I don't have a younger brother." Wang Minyu's voice remained calm, cutting through the other person's emotional connection with the precision of a scalpel. "Legally, I'm an orphan. Second, the two people you mentioned are biological relatives, not parents. Their lives or deaths are none of my concern. Third, and most importantly..."
He paused for a moment, seemingly organizing his thoughts, but more likely he was exerting an invisible pressure on the other person.
"How did you get this number?"
This problem is more damaging than all the previous indifference combined.
This encrypted satellite phone was a one-way communication method given to him by Captain Zhou, and theoretically, no one else could possibly know about it.
There was a deathly silence on the other end of the phone, with only Wang Jinghui's increasingly heavy breathing audible.
"I...I..." he stammered for a long time, "I found it under Dad's pillow...he secretly wrote it down..."
"Really?" Wang Minyu remained noncommittal. "Then how did they find you? And how did they know that using the two of them as bait would lure me out?"
A series of questions, like a series of surgical forceps, peel away the layers of the other person's psychological defenses.
"I don't know! I really don't know!" Wang Jinghui's voice finally broke down. "I ran away from the hospital, and they found me! Brother, I beg you, I know they were wrong before, it was my fault! But they... they gave you your life! You can't just stand by and watch you die!"
It's the same old excuse again.
Wang Minyu even felt a little bored.
He picked at his ear and shifted into a more comfortable position, leaning back in his chair.
"Address," he uttered succinctly.
Wang Jinghui, as if grasping at a straw, hurriedly gave an address: "The western suburbs... the abandoned cement factory in the western suburbs! They said you have to come alone, and you're not allowed to call the police, or else..."
"understood."
Wang Minyu hung up the phone before he could finish speaking, and then promptly added the number to his blacklist.
The whole process was smooth and efficient, without any unnecessary delays.
He picked up his teacup and took another sip of water, as if he had just received a sales call.
"Boss..." Su Qing walked over, his expression grave, "This is clearly a trap."
"Of course it's a trap." Wang Minyu threw his phone on the table. "And a very clumsy one at that. The researchers in the S organization are alright, but their kidnapping skills are worse than an amateur's."
He tapped the table, and Zero's voice immediately rang out from the speaker disguised as a lucky cat. This time, it carried a hint of curiosity from the newly upgraded emotional module: "Should I trace the source of the signal from just now? And analyze Mr. Wang Jinghui's heart rate, voiceprint, and micro-expressions (if he had his camera on) to determine the credibility of his words?"
"No need for that much trouble." Wang Minyu waved his hand. "What he said is probably true, but he's hiding some information that's detrimental to him. For example, how he was 'coincidentally' found by the S organization. Zero, help me investigate this Wang Jinghui. I need all his information from birth to now, focusing on his activities after leaving the hospital, and his possible points of contact with the S organization."
"Task received. Preliminary data collection and modeling analysis are expected to take three minutes," Zero replied.
Wang Minyu nodded and looked at Guan Shan: "Dig out that 'mother kidney stone' in the backyard and wrap it up. Pierre, concentrate your latest batch of 'Sage's Soup' and put it in a spray bottle."
Pierre's eyes lit up: "Boss, you mean... you want to give them a unique 'aromatherapy' treatment?"
"No." Wang Minyu shook his head, a cold smile on his face. "I'm on a house call, I need to bring some local specialties for the patients."
He stood up and walked to the front hall.
The middle-aged man who lost money in the stock market had just been seen off by Li Siyuan and Zhao Na. The two apprentices were huddled together, quietly discussing the case they had just seen.
"Teacher." Upon seeing Wang Minyu approach, the two immediately stood up straight.
"Your diagnosis was good," Wang Minyu rarely praised, "You knew to address the root cause, rather than just treating the symptoms. However, it still needs a bit more refinement."
"Please give me your guidance, teacher." Li Siyuan bowed his head respectfully.
"Besides palpitations and shortness of breath, didn't you smell a faint, metallic rust odor on that patient?" Wang Minyu asked.
The two were taken aback, thought about it carefully, and then shook their heads.
"That's due to long-term mental stress, causing liver stagnation and internal heat, which burns the body fluids. This, combined with the excessive cortisol secreted due to anxiety, creates a distinctive odor when excreted through sweat. In traditional Chinese medicine, it's called 'liver odor'," Wang Minyu explained. "Just having him hit the punching bag only releases his emotions, it doesn't address the root cause. You should add three mutated mint leaves that we grow in our backyard to his water cup."
He pointed to the mint bushes in the backyard that grew as lush as shrubs: "After being exposed to the radiation from the 'living jade,' that stuff is no longer just for soothing the liver and relieving depression. It can slightly paralyze the central nervous system and forcibly lower cortisol levels. This is called 'physical salvation.'"
Li Siyuan and Zhao Na were stunned when they heard this, and quickly took out their notebooks to write it down.
It turns out that the teacher usually had them plant vegetables and water them not only to cultivate their character, but these seemingly ordinary plants had long become the pharmacy's secret weapon.
"Alright, for the next few days, the routine consultations at the pharmacy will be your responsibility." Wang Minyu patted the two men on the shoulders. "Remember, we don't treat illnesses here; we only 'harvest' emotions. We want patients to come in with doubt and anger, and leave with shock and empty wallets. That's our corporate culture."
After explaining all this, he turned and went back to the back room, where Zero's analysis report was already on the computer screen.
The report is simple in content, but contains a wealth of information.
A month ago, Wang Jinghui, unable to afford the high medical expenses due to a relapse of leukemia, posted a request for help on the dark web.
The one who responded to him was an outer member of the S organization.
The other party promised that as long as he cooperated in staging a play to lure Wang Minyu into the trap, they would provide him with free, state-of-the-art gene therapy to completely cure his illness.
The report also included a screenshot from surveillance footage.
In the screenshot, Wang Jinghui is sitting at a table in a coffee shop, opposite a well-dressed man.
Wang Jinghui's face showed no fear of being coerced, but rather a morbid, desperate excitement.
"See?" Wang Minyu pointed at the screen and said to Su Qing and Guan Shan, who had gathered around, "There are never any coincidences, only pre-designed scripts. He's not a pawn; he's offering himself up as a pledge of allegiance."
Su Qing frowned: "Are we still going? This is basically a trap set for you."
"Go, why not?" Wang Minyu's eyes gleamed with an almost gleeful light, like a surgeon who had just encountered an extremely rare and complex tumor case. "The patient has already registered, and the operating room is all ready. How can I, as the doctor, be late?"
He paused, then added, "And my dear younger brother is quite ill. It's called 'late-stage poverty cancer complicated by brainstem loss syndrome,' and it needs treatment. As for those two relatives, consider them a bonus... medical waste disposal service."
He picked up the printed map of the abandoned cement plant in the western suburbs on the table and drew a circle in the center with a red pen.
"Zero, take over all the surveillance signals in this area. I need real-time footage. Also, help me hack into Changxiang City's traffic management system and create a 'green wave' route from here to the cement plant."
"Boss, are you going to rescue someone or collect tolls?" Pierre asked curiously, holding a freshly made cup of hand-drip coffee.
Wang Minyu took the coffee, smelled it, and a satisfied expression appeared on his face.
"Neither."
He stared at the red circle on the map as if he were looking at an operating table awaiting his incision.
"I went there to collect the 'inheritance'."
An abandoned cement plant in the western suburbs of Changxiang City.
This place was once the pride of urban industrialization in the last century, but now all that remains is a pile of concrete skeletons eroded beyond recognition by wind and rain, surrounded by weeds and stray dogs, like a huge industrial graveyard.
Deep inside the cement plant, in a relatively intact pump room, the atmosphere was so oppressive it felt like you could wring water out of it.
Wang Jianguo and Li Xiumei sat slumped on the cold ground with their hands tied behind their backs and rags stuffed in their mouths.
Just over two hours ago, they were in a cheap hotel, fantasizing about whether to pay off Wang Jianguo's gambling debts or buy Li Xiumei the gold bracelet she had been longing for for half a year after receiving the 500,000 yuan "cooperation fee" promised by the S organization.
The next second, several men dressed in black combat uniforms burst through the door and dragged them to this godforsaken place without a word.
Fear, like dust from a cement factory, seeped into every pore of their being.
Wang Jinghui sat to the side, holding a cup of instant coffee in his hand, but his eyes kept glancing towards the door.
He was dressed in clean casual clothes, which made him stand out from his surroundings.
More than a hostage, he was an accomplice who was restless and uneasy.
A man codenamed "Doctor" is standing in front of an old control panel, wiping a strangely shaped scalpel.
He wore a crisply pressed white lab coat and gold-rimmed glasses, exuding a refined air, but his eyes were like the sharp edge of a scalpel, devoid of any warmth.
He was in charge of this operation.