179: A good cat is one that can catch mice.

"Director, I'm an old-timer at the factory; would I ever harm our plant? If I said I want it, I definitely want it."

"Alright then, how much can your relative offer?"

Seeing how certain the other party was, Factory Director Wu's lips curled as he asked.

"1,100 per bottle. What do you think, Director?"

"This..."

Factory Director Wu feigned contemplation, his gaze sweeping toward the crowd.

One of the people who had also expressed a desire to buy earlier smiled slightly as his gaze passed over them.

He raised his hand: "Director, my relative says they can go up to 1,300. The condition is they want the whole lot."

"You want it too?"

"Yes. Actually, the relative who asked me to buy is also in the medicinal materials business; they even handled sales for our factory before."

The man nodded.

"Holy crap, for real? Old Liu, you have a relative who wants to buy too?"

The first man frowned, speechless.

"Hehe, Old Li, our factory's medicine is so effective, isn't it normal for everyone to scramble for it? Since it's for the good of the factory, a higher price doesn't matter."

"But this price is too..."

"Too what? I heard from the finance people that the factory spent millions just on that one truckload of raw materials. Adding in other materials and the technology, I don't think it's expensive. At least at this stage, our medicine is worth the price. Even if production goes up and the price drops later, that's for the future. Having stayed at the factory for so long, you must know the principle of 'first to arrive, first to thrive.' Those so-called specialty drugs often cost thousands or tens of thousands per bottle, and their effects aren't even as good as ours."

Old Liu said nonchalantly.

Old Li frowned. He didn't respond but pulled out his phone again to make a call.

After a brief exchange while covering his mouth, his expression relaxed. He raised his hand again.

"Factory Director Wu, my side can offer 1,500."

Then, he looked triumphantly toward Old Liu, a hint of provocation in his eyes.

The latter blinked, showing joy instead of surprise.

However, this joy was well-hidden. After pretending to struggle for a while...

...he spoke up again: "1,800."

"Fine, fine, fine! For the sake of the factory, I absolutely must have it today. 2,000!"

Old Li's face clearly showed he was losing his cool; he was no longer relaxed. After holding it in for a long while, he spoke through gritted teeth.

Old Liu observed the other's expression and cast a quick glance at Factory Director Wu.

Factory Director Wu gave a subtle, imperceptible shake of his head.

Old Liu immediately clicked his tongue and let out a long sigh, falling silent.

"Old Li, are you sure about 2,000 per bottle?"

"Yes, Director. As long as you can guarantee that all of the factory's current batch of medicine is sold to my relative, the price is absolutely no problem."

"Alright. But you know the factory's situation, and there's only so much stock. If you want to buy, you have to pay first before picking up the goods."

"That's fine. I'll notify my relative right away. I just don't know roughly how much stock the factory has?"

"I'll have to ask the Technical Department to find out."

Factory Director Wu wasn't in a hurry to give a number. After letting everyone return to their posts, he went with Ye Tian to the old man's laboratory.

"Mr. Ye, their appetite is quite large. Are we really going to sell to them?"

"Why not? Medicine is produced to be sold. Now that we can sell it for twenty times the expected price, only a fool wouldn't do it."

"But if we sell to them and they use it to seize the market or for research..."

"They'd need the skill to actually research it. As for seizing the market, selling kangfuxin liquid at 2,000 a bottle—do you think those pharmacies are stupid? Besides, without the production formula, would they dare to sell it haphazardly?"

"True. Then how much should we sell to them?"

"We'll know once we ask the old man."

As they spoke, the two of them found the old man.

After hearing Ye Tian's description, the old man chuckled.

He began to help with the calculations.

"Based on what they know, we purchased a total of 20,000 catties of live Cockroaches. After drying, the raw materials should be around 7,000 catties. Based on the normal ratio of Cockroach ethanol extract, we can get 2,000 catties. A normal bottle of recovery new requires 100 grams. That is to say, the raw materials we have can produce a total of about 10,000 bottles. As long as we don't exceed this number, it won't arouse suspicion."

"Alright, then ten thousand bottles."

Ye Tian nodded, finalizing the number.

Soon, through Old Li's mouth, this number appeared before Zhang Guangsheng.

"Boss, the person at the Pharmaceutical Factory said they have ten thousand bottles."

"That many?"

Zhang Guangsheng frowned.

"I just had someone calculate it. The Cockroaches they bought from those guys would make roughly that much medicine. If we buy this batch of medicine, they will once again be in the position of 'the cleverest housewife cannot cook without rice'."

"Then you must keep a close watch. They must not be allowed to buy a single Cockroach ever again."

"Rest assured, Boss. I've already given orders to all the breeding bases, large and small; they won't have any way to buy Cockroaches anymore."

"That's what you said last time, but what happened?"

"That was an accident. But this time, haven't we already taken over Hongfa as well?"

"Fine, then buy them all. If we handle these ten thousand bottles well, they might even save us a lot of money."

"Save?"

The Assistant said, somewhat puzzled.

"I've already had the Headquarters send over pharmaceutical experts. With their technology and so many samples, they might be able to quickly crack the formula. When that happens, I'll see how those guys who are trying to fleece us keep acting so smug."

The Assistant's eyes lit up: "That's right! Those guys feel like we have to beg them, and every one of them is refusing to budge. If we have this batch of medicine, we can completely leave them hanging for a few days and see if they can still be so arrogant."

"Exactly. And right now, we are the only ones on the market with stock. If we really can't figure it out through research, we can still sell them off."

Zhang Guangsheng said with narrowed eyes.

"Hehe, what a great 'white wolf with empty hands' move, Boss. We won't lose out either way."

...The two finished their discussion and didn't delay.

They directly transferred the money to the Pharmaceutical Factory account provided by Old Li.

"Mr. Ye, has the money arrived?"

Hearing a 'ding' from Ye Tian's phone.

Factory Director Wu quickly asked.

"Yes. Thanks for the gift from nature."

Ye Tian glanced at the balance on his phone with satisfaction, his face full of smiles.

"Should we let the old man start production now?"

"No rush. We don't have the raw materials yet. I'll go back and get some."

Ye Tian smiled slightly.

He drove back to the Breeding Farm.

Since the goal was to scam them, he naturally wouldn't be willing to use the sterile Cockroaches from the old man's side.

The ones in the Breeding Farm were perfectly adequate. Anyway, once the other party got the medicine, they would have no other option but to let it rot in their hands.

As for whether it was clean or hygienic...

...that was the concern of the other party's personnel; Ye Tian couldn't care less.

Not long after.

Ye Tian returned to the Pharmaceutical Factory with a truckload of essence extract.

the old man went straight to work.

Before dinner, ten thousand bottles of the medicine were produced.

However, the old man was a researcher after all and wouldn't be as careless as Ye Tian.

Even for medicine intended to scam someone, he wasn't sloppy; he strictly followed the necessary production standards.

At the very least, all the data fully met the standards. The only difference from the previous samples was probably the psychological discomfort.

But as long as no one knew these goods came from a Waste Disposal Plant, there would be absolutely no problem.

Soon, the goods were hauled away by Old Li.

As for who they were being delivered to, Factory Director Wu and Ye Tian didn't bother to ask.

As for whether Old Li was in league with the other party, it was just as Ye Tian had told Factory Director Wu before: did it matter? Regardless of whether it's a black cat or a white cat, if it can bring profit, it's a good cat.

At this moment, Ye Tian was also on the phone with Zhang Liang.

"Liang Zi, how many Cockroaches do we have now?"

"Over 30,000 catties. Wang Jia and the others have been catching more and more these past few days. But that bald guy is very shrewd; he insists on only 20,000 catties a day. If this continues, our warehouse probably won't be able to hold them all soon."

"Then don't store them. Find the other party and sell them."

"Sell? But the contract stipulates that they only need to purchase 20,000 catties a day."

"Does the contract stipulate that you can't sell to anyone else besides the Pharmaceutical Factory?"

"That... it seems not."

"There you go. Just ask them that."

"Understood, Brother Tian. I never realized you were so good at business before."

Zhang Liang seemed to catch the hidden meaning and chuckled.

"In the past, no such sucker came to me to do business."

Ye Tian said with an innocent face.

Soon, the two hung up.

Zhang Liang called Zhang Guangsheng directly.

"Boss Zhang, the goods have arrived. Please come pick them up. Oh, right, there are over 30,000 catties this time, so please send a larger truck. What? You don't want that many? Fine, then I'll see who else wants them. Several people came to my base today asking if I'd sell Cockroaches. Since you can't take this many, I'll talk to them. What? The contract only says I can't sell to the Pharmaceutical Factory, it doesn't say I can't sell to others, right? If you're going to be like that, there's nothing I can do. It's you who doesn't want them, not me refusing to give them to you... That's more like it. It doesn't matter who I sell to. I'll wait for you to come pick them up, Boss Zhang!"

Hanging up, Zhang Liang's lips curled as he arranged for people to start moving the goods.

In the evening.

Ye Tian had just finished dinner.

Zhang Liang's phone called again.

"Brother Tian, it's done. All 30,000-plus catties are sold, totaling about 5 million. That idiot was quite obedient; he probably thinks I'm looking for death. But Brother Tian, are you sure you can maintain this efficiency in the future?"

"I can't say for the long term, but given the scale of Copper City, it won't be hard to keep it up for two or three months. If it really comes down to it, the Housekeeping Company can always open some branch offices in nearby cities. Let's see how long he can hold out."

"That's good then. This life of sitting around counting money every day is actually quite nice."

"This is just the beginning. You'll have plenty more days of counting money in the future."

"Mm-hmm. So how is the Breeding Farm coming along? I haven't seen it in several days."

"Everything is going smoothly. The main structures of the first two factory buildings are already built. They'll probably be finished in another day or two."

"That's good. My parents will probably be over in about a week for an inspection. I hope I can show them a real Breeding Farm before then."

"No problem."

Ye Tian hung up the phone.

He stood on the landfill and looked toward the construction site ahead.

Two factory buildings, two or three times larger than the warehouse, were currently having their roofs finished as work continued around the clock.

As waste disposal factory buildings, they didn't need any interior decoration; once the various passages were set up, they could be put directly into use.

All in all, it could definitely be completed within five days.

Additionally, over at the landfill...

Wu Gengbiao's movements hadn't stopped either.

So far, the number of large machines on the site had reached about fifty.

Plus, there were 25 more sorters.

This wave had pretty much stripped the old machines from all the plastic factories, large and small, in Copper City.

Running at full capacity, they could easily dig out an acre's worth of trash mountains in a day.

In a few more days, the ten acres of experimental land the old man applied for would be almost entirely cleared.

He had a rough idea of the numbers in his mind.

Ye Tian went back inside, took out a notebook, and listed all the miscellaneous items needed for later.

For example, the upcoming circulation tracks, large trash bins, the conveyor belt Cockroach processors needed in the new factory, large crates, and so on.

Especially the large crates. This time, Ye Tian planned to prepare them all at once.

To avoid the frequent lack of materials for replacement like now, which caused a lot of trouble.

Once everything was calculated...

...Ye Tian began contacting the manufacturers of these machines.

Since he had purchased from them many times before, communication was very simple now.

Before long, the orders were finalized.

Only then did Ye Tian bring back a crate of Cockroaches.

He began today's synthesis.

Just as he had guessed yesterday...

...after this period of dietary supplementation and Daofeng's advancement...

...his source blood qi had improved significantly.

He easily broke through his previous limit. Without any heavy eating or drinking, he soaked ten tissues.

Successfully synthesized 13 Gold-level Cockroaches.

As per the old rules, the whole number was fed to Daofeng.

The remaining odd ones were set aside for later use.

The molted shells he obtained were put into a newly purchased jar of grain liquor.

Because the previous jar only had half the liquor left after yesterday's pouring.

Ye Tian felt that throwing more in wouldn't be very meaningful.

Just like sugar water or salt water, there's a saturation point.

Once it exceeds that saturation point, there won't be any significant improvement in the effect.

After finishing these tasks, Ye Tian fed his Gold-rank Gu Insect and inspected the vegetable garden again.

After this period of growth...

...all the plants in the Hundred Herbs Garden had basically shot up quite a bit.

According to Ye Tian's observations, the growth rate brought to the plants by the black soil combined with Earthworms was at least three times faster than in ordinary soil.

In other words, one week was almost equivalent to a month.

And this wasn't even the final speed.

As Ye Tian poured cockroach manure onto the land once a day during this time, the speed was still slowly increasing.

As for why this was, Ye Tian guessed it must be related to the quality of the cockroach manure.

Previously, the Cockroaches in the warehouse were mainly Strong-rank descendants, but now, they were constantly being upgraded.

They were beginning to transform from Strong-rank descendants toward Gold-rank descendants.

The grades were different, so the energy they contained was naturally different as well.