louisehourcade Chapter 91 For Whom the Bell Tolls
Chapter 91 For Whom the Bell Tolls
"Technology bullying?"
As Li Jianguo pondered those four words, a chill ran down his spine and straight to the top of his head. He looked at Bai Che's profile, which appeared exceptionally cold and stern under the dim blue light, and the image of the young man in his mind who always wore a lazy smile was gradually crumbling and rebuilding into a god-like figure drawing a sword.
The changing light and shadow on the screen did not stop.
As Bai Che's finger pointed, the golden network of relationships that covered the entire globe seemed to be drawn by some kind of gravity, rapidly shrinking and collapsing. Countless tiny branches were eliminated, and finally, all the lines converged on the other side of the ocean, locking onto a few glorious badges with a century-long history.
The image freezes.
A huge, dark blue logo composed of a caduceus and a flask occupies the center of the main control screen—**Phirex**.
This pharmaceutical giant, with 200,000 employees worldwide and a market value of hundreds of billions of dollars, is now, under Fuxi's data analysis, like a clown stripped naked.
"Pfizer?" Academician Qin Bing pushed up his glasses, his brows furrowed. "If I remember correctly, they were one of the main funders for the Phase II clinical trial of the C-17 project. After the project failed, they even issued a statement expressing their 'deep regret'."
"Pity?"
Fuxi's voice rang out at just the right moment, carrying a hint of emotionless mockery.
"Retrieving the Pfizer Board of Directors' top-secret meeting memo dated September 12, 1994 - the scanned copy has been restored."
Swish.
A yellowed scanned document with burn marks on the edges popped up. Although it was old and had even been attempted to be destroyed, the English letters stamped with "TOP SECRET" were still glaringly clear under the restoration power of quantum computing.
The title is simple, yet it exudes a suffocating arrogance:
**Evaluation of the "Necessity" of Terminating Project C-17 and Subsequent Asset Disposal Plan**
"Fuxi, translate the key clauses," Bai Che coldly ordered.
The lines of English text on the screen were quickly highlighted in red and then transformed into glaring Chinese characters.
**[Clause 3: Given the "hyper-efficacy" demonstrated by the C-17 project in Phase II clinical trials, once this drug is launched, it will directly lead to an 85% decline in sales of the Group's "Onco-X" series of chemotherapy drugs, with projected losses exceeding US$2400 billion over the next ten years.]**
**【Clause 4: Initiate "Operation Eclipse". Form a temporary alliance (codename: Cain) with three strategic partners, Novartis and Johnson & Johnson, to immediately cut off all R&D funding for the C-17 project. The official explanation: "Strategic adjustment."】**
"Excessive...effective?"
Qin Bing stared intently at that word, as if trying to bore a hole through the screen. He'd dedicated his life to scientific research, and he'd heard of "termination due to ineffectiveness" and "termination due to toxicity," but he'd never heard of termination because a drug was too effective!
"These beasts!" The old academician's hands trembled with rage. "They're not doing scientific research; they're engaging in monopolistic practices! To protect the profits from old drugs, they've actually joined forces to stifle new ones?!"
"If it's just strangling, that's still merciful."
Bai Che's voice rang out softly. He turned around, leaning against the control panel, his eyes filled with a deathly blackness. "Fuxi, show this old man what 'the violent aesthetics of capitalism' really means."
The screen image suddenly changed.
Instead of a dry document, it was a low-resolution black-and-white video extracted from the depths of a long-abandoned security system hard drive.
The timestamp shows: October 1, 1994, 3:10 AM.
Location: Boston, C-17 Core Laboratory.
In the video, several masked men wearing black tactical vests skillfully pried open the laboratory door. They didn't take any valuable equipment, but went straight to the temperature-controlled incubator.
Those rows of original cyanobacteria strains, which carried humanity's hopes for fighting cancer, were roughly thrown to the ground and then doused with a pungent accelerant.
boom!
Flames shot into the air. The video abruptly ended amidst the intense flames, but this silent scene was more chilling than any horror movie.
"They acquired the patents at rock-bottom prices through shell companies and then shelved them," Fu Xi explained coldly. "And on the very night the acquisition was completed, an 'accidental' fire caused by aging circuitry destroyed all the original samples and paper records in the laboratory. C-17 was completely evaporated from this world."
Boom!
A muffled thud.
Li Jianguo slammed his calloused fist heavily onto the alloy tabletop, making the water glass next to him bounce.
"This is a crime! This is a crime against humanity!"
The veteran, who had weathered countless battles, now had red eyes and his chest heaving violently. "If this drug had been developed back then, how many people would have survived in the past thirty years? My old sergeant... passed away from lung cancer two years ago..."
His voice was choked with emotion, a mixture of helplessness and rage in the face of an invisible enemy. This enemy carried no guns, crossed no borders; they wore expensive suits, sat in towering office buildings, and slaughtered millions with a single pen.
"Director Li, don't be so quick to get angry."
Bai Che looked at the furious Li Jianguo but didn't offer any words of comfort. Instead, he took out another chocolate from his pocket, slowly tore open the wrapper, and said, "This is just an appetizer. What follows is their real 'bible'."
"Fuxi, give President Su a lesson." Bai Che looked at Su Wanqing, who had been silent all along, "A lesson entitled 'The Goldman Sachs Report'."
The screen flickered again.
This time, it's a Goldman Sachs biotechnology research report published in 2018, with a title that sounds highly professional and forward-looking: "The Genome Revolution".
Fuxi didn't display the entire text, but instead directly selected a section of the core argument that was bolded and highlighted in black. That English passage resembled a series of black skulls, grinning maliciously on the screen:
**「Is curing patients a sustainable business model?」**
**Is healing patients a sustainable business model?**
Su Wanqing's body swayed suddenly.
As a top student in business school, she understood the terrifying logic behind that statement almost instantly.
Fuxi gave her no chance to escape, and directly drew two contrasting curves below this line of text.
On the left is a short red curve—representing a "one-time cure." Patients only need to take two courses of C-17, costing $300, and are healthy forever. Pharmaceutical company profits: meager and unsustainable.
On the right is a long, upward-sloping green curve—representing "lifelong control." Patients need to take inhibitors for life, along with regular radiation and chemotherapy, until death. Total cost over thirty years: $12.
Pharmaceutical companies' profits are a full four hundred times that of the former.
"Four hundred times..." Su Wanqing murmured to herself, her face as pale as paper.
She had always believed that business was about mutual benefit and creating value. But at this moment, that fig leaf was ruthlessly torn away.
In the eyes of these giants, patients are not people, but "users" or "harvested leeks".
Once a patient is "cured," it means losing a "long-term paying customer." Therefore, we must never let patients die too quickly, but we must also never let them recover too completely.
The best-case scenario is to keep them hanging on by a thread, forcing them to squander their life savings and continuously pour them into the pharmaceutical group's account just to survive.
A wave of intense nausea washed over her, and Su Wanqing instinctively covered her mouth, her stomach churning. She looked at Bai Che, her eyes filled with a vulnerable, pleading gaze, as if he were the only pillar of support in this crumbling world.
"Feeling disgusted?" Bai Che walked to her side and gently patted her back. His movements were gentle, but his tone was as cold as ice. "If capital has a 50% profit, it will take risks; for a 100% profit, it will dare to trample on all human laws; with a 300% profit, it will dare to commit any crime, even risk being hanged."
"And now, the profit is 40,000 percent."
Bai Che raised his head, his gaze towards the screen gradually sharpening like a knife. "Since the profits are enough for them to trample on the law, then what does killing a few people matter for four hundred times the return?"
"Murder?" Su Wanqing looked up abruptly, her eyes filled with disbelief.
"Fuxi," Bai Che called softly.
The screen then switched again.
This time, an old photograph appeared. It showed a middle-aged white man in a white lab coat, smiling broadly, holding a little girl as they played on the lawn. His eyes were full of hope for the future.
A brief file was attached to the side:
**[Dr. Davis, principal investigator of the C-17 program. He died on November 15, 1994, in a suicide car crash caused by severe depression.]**
"Davis..." Qin Bing's heart skipped a beat when she saw the photo, and her breathing became rapid. "I know him... He was the most brilliant pharmacologist back then. He said he wanted to give this drug as a gift to all mankind... The official story is that he suffered a mental breakdown because of the project's failure..."
"Mental breakdown?"
Fuxi's voice became unusually deep, as if he were a judge from hell.
A draft email that had never been sent popped up on the screen. It was pieced together by Fuxi from top-secret fragments of a server archived by the FBI.
**[To Louise (his wife):]**
They've gone mad. They're truly devils. Yesterday, that man named "Smith" came again. He showed me photos of Alice (my daughter) on her way home from school. He said that if I dared to say another word to the media, Alice would "disappear" at an intersection without surveillance cameras.
**I must hide the raw data; I can't let them win...**
This email was created two hours before Dr. Davis died.
He did not commit suicide.
Fuxi retrieved a traffic light system log from that year, which contained a string of extremely well-hidden abnormal codes.
「1994年11月15日晚8点23分，波士顿第四大道与橡树街交汇处的红绿灯控制系统遭到远程入侵。东西向绿灯被强行延长了4秒，导致戴维斯博士的车辆在全速通过路口时，被一辆闯红灯的重型卡车侧面撞击。」
Impact force: equivalent to a small artillery shell. Instant death.
"This was not an accident," Fuxi concluded, his voice seemingly tinged with anger. "This was a precision-guided execution."
Dead silence.
A deathly silence more suffocating than ever before.
If the previous withdrawal of investment and burning down of the laboratory could be considered commercial crimes, then this email and this piece of code directly nail the nature of this matter to the pillar of shame for intentional homicide.
Academician Qin Bing clutched his chest, swayed, and almost fell. Li Jianguo reacted quickly and caught him, but his own hands were trembling violently.
A genius who fought for human health did not die at the hands of disease, but at the hands of the greed of his fellow human beings.
Even his death was smeared as a "mental breakdown".
To kill someone, you must also destroy their spirit.
"This is the opponent you are facing."
Bai Che slowly stood up from the chair.
He didn't eat the chocolate in his hand; instead, during his earlier narration, he unconsciously crushed it into powder. Black powder spilled between his fingers, like some kind of dirty ash.
He didn't look back at the shocking evidence on the screen, but turned around to face the three men with solemn expressions and blazing eyes.
At that moment, Bai Che's languid demeanor completely vanished.
If he was like a sword hidden in its sheath before, now that sword has been drawn and is stained with a bloodthirsty desire.
"What? Scared?" Bai Che patted the crumbs off his hands, his tone eerily calm.
"Screw your fear!" Li Jianguo gritted his teeth, squeezing out the three words, veins bulging on his neck. "I haven't known fear since the day I joined the army! Bai Gong, just tell me what to do! If we need to use force, I'll report it to the higher-ups right now!"
"No need to use guns." Bai Che shook his head, a cruel smile curving his lips. "Using guns to deal with capitalists is doing them a favor."
He walked up to Su Wanqing, looking at the future female CEO whose eyes were now burning with intense passion.
"Senior, didn't you ask me before what Zero Boundary Technology's vision is?"
Su Wanqing took a deep breath and straightened her back. That ingrained pride and stubbornness resonated perfectly with Bai Che at this moment. She looked at Bai Che and said, word by word, "I'll do anything you want, as long as they pay the price."
"very good."
Bai Che turned his head, his gaze piercing through the dome of the underground base, as if looking directly at the glittering Wall Street across the ocean.
"Since they treat treating and saving lives as a business..."
His voice wasn't loud, but with the support of Fuxi's immense computing power, it seemed to resonate with the surrounding electromagnetic field, carrying a metallic tremor.
"Since they think human lives are just numbers on reports, and that money can buy anything..."
"Then let's turn this deal into their death knell."
A cold glint flashed in Bai Che's eyes, and his voice was like a thunderclap.
"Fuxi, prepare the ingredients."
"Forty-eight hours from now, I'll show the whole world what real—"
"Price killer".