“Here you are?”
I came to the factory in Darapanan to inspect Asend’s production status.
Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack.
As I entered the factory, the crisp sound of Asend being produced by the machines rang out.
It seemed Asend was being produced without a hitch.
The factory was in good shape, and Edward looked even better.
Edward had been holed up in the mountains making medicine.
Now that he had come out into the bustling city to make medicine, he absolutely loved the situation itself.
At first, he had trembled with anxiety, asking whether it was really all right to make medicine here.
He had been wary and suspicious of everyone who passed by.
But before long, Edward had completely adapted to the environment.
He chatted with people, ate delicious food, and watched TV and used the internet in the evenings.
He said that making medicine in an environment like this was heaven itself.
The research conditions were good, too, so his job satisfaction was high, he said, giving me a thumbs-up.
Well, he had probably been making medicine by the light of an oil lamp in the mountains, so an environment like this must have felt unfamiliar.
I smiled as I watched the Asend piling up one after another, then followed Edward toward the office.
I could laugh even when looking at Asend now.
Normally, just seeing Asend would have made me nauseous.
Asend = airplanes.
Having to carry it on my back? Thinking about the process of carrying it until I could board a plane and hide it in a warehouse on the Chinese mainland, I would have looked at Asend with tears in my eyes.
But I no longer had to worry about that.
Thanks to the New People's Army, or NPA.
Thanks to the New People's Army, I could get goods into China through smuggling.
Thank you. I’ll never forget this favor for the rest of my life.
I’ll make sure the mileage is accumulated in your name.
Anyway.
To be honest, I couldn’t trust this newly established New People’s Army route one hundred percent.
It was still in the testing phase, after all.
They were extremely confident, claiming that none of the goods they had sent so far had ever been intercepted.
But you never knew.
I might get caught through sheer bad luck when I sent my own goods.
And the New People’s Army had never sent medicine before.
China was sensitive about medicine, if nothing else.
This could turn out to be a different story.
From China’s perspective, the New People’s Army was practically family, albeit from a different mother, so they had let most things slide. But they might treat medicine differently.
“What? This bastard’s selling medicine? Medicine’s not allowed. Get lost.”
They might cause trouble like that.
So for now, I sent just one container.
And I only filled it halfway.
Someone might think one container was no big deal, but it was by no means a small amount.
If I nearly killed myself filling my inventory to capacity, I could fit slightly more than a one-ton box truck.
But a container was about five times the size of a one-ton truck by itself.
In other words, one container could hold the amount I would have to make five round trips to deliver.
It was truly enormous.
I wished I could fit containers in my inventory, too.
But more importantly, I could send two containers, three, four, or an infinite number of them.
As long as I could keep producing Asend, I could send as much of it to China as I wanted.
Of course, that was assuming it didn’t get intercepted in China.
Anyway, since we were still in the testing phase, I had only sent half a container.
If that got caught, the Asend would simply disappear.
That would really hurt.
It wasn’t that I was worried about the money.
I was upset because the smuggling route might disappear.
And if the smuggling route disappeared, it meant I would have to carry everything around again.
Of course, I wasn’t going to just sit around doing nothing either.
I would still make deliveries through my inventory, but the quantities were different~ The quantities.
When I entered the office, Edward offered me some coffee.
“Would you like some coffee?”
“Sure. I’d appreciate a cup.”
Edward handed me a cup of coffee.
As I accepted it, I asked,
“There haven’t been any problems with Asend production, right?”
“Of course not. There’s no problem with production, but…”
“But?”
“I keep hearing that Asend has side effects.”
“Side effects? Didn’t you say there were no side effects?”
“When did I ever say there were no side effects? I said it didn’t cause neurological damage.”
“Ah. Right. I got confused.”
“I said there might be psychological damage. I told you we’d have to see how the medicine circulated before we could know for sure.”
“So what side effects does it have?”
“There are about three side effects. The first is that it doesn’t last very long. When making the medicine, I thought it would last four or five hours, but the effects wear off after about three hours.”
“Three hours?”
“Yes. It can be shorter or a little longer depending on the person’s condition, but basically, it lasts about three hours.”
“How is that a disadvantage? That’s an advantage.”
“Huh? It’s just that the result was different from the calculations…”
“Doesn’t that mean people will consume more medicine?”
“That’s true, but…”
“That’s an advantage. A definite advantage. Next disadvantage.”
“Hmm… The second is that when you come down from the medicine, you suffer from extreme hunger.”
“You get hungry?”
“Yes. Basically, Asend stimulates the brain and central nervous system tremendously. It seems to use up a great deal of energy during that time, so when the effects wear off, the body craves sugar.”
“That’s not a problem either. It’s only natural to get hungry after using your brain. Why is that a problem?”
“It’s more severe than you’d expect.”
“That’s fine. If you’re hungry, you eat. China has plenty of food, too. That’s great—use your brain, then eat.”
“…”
“And the last one?”
“The last one is the most serious. There are cases where people can’t remember the work they created while under the effects of the medicine.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. They write something themselves, then later can’t remember what it’s about.”
“What if they take Asend again?”
“Then they remember it again and can do the same thing. They return to their previous state.”
I got up and abruptly hugged Edward.
“Hey~ Edward, you really developed something amazing.”
“What?”
“I don’t know why even the things you call disadvantages suit me so perfectly. In the end, it means people have to take more medicine, right? That way, we can sell more.”
“You said you weren’t greedy for money. Why are you trying to sell more medicine?”
“I’m not greedy for money. But do you think we’re selling medicine to China right now?”
“Then what are we doing?”
“We’re giving China a dream. We’re helping them achieve dreams that can never be achieved.”
“What?”
“So you don’t have to worry about the little profits we happen to make along the way. They’re just a kind of commission.”
“A commission?”
“A commission for heading toward a dream. People can dream while they’re taking Asend, can’t they? I hear things have been especially hard for people in China lately. You’re giving dreams and happiness to 1.4 billion Chinese people. It’s an incredible thing that no one but you has ever accomplished. Take pride in it.”
“No… That’s not what I meant.”
“You’re doing great! But there is one thing I’m curious about.”
“What is it?”
“I heard that taking Asend makes you smarter. Is that true?”
“Huh? It makes you smarter? Why would it?”
“I heard something like that.”
“It doesn’t make you smarter. It just makes you feel smarter. How could a stupid person suddenly become smart? There’s no ability to know things you haven’t learned. That makes no sense.”
“Really?”
“For example, say there’s someone who believes the Earth is flat. Normally, it would be difficult for them to explain it, but after taking Asend, they feel as if they can explain why the Earth is flat, so they write it down in a notebook. Then, after coming down from the medicine, they get hungry and eat some candy first. After that, they look at the notebook again. They can’t understand a single word. What on earth does this mean? They wonder about it, then take another Asend, and suddenly understand it. No matter how plausibly they explain why the Earth is flat in that notebook, it’s still nothing more than a personal delusion. The Earth doesn’t become flat. Their brain is thinking according to their own ideas, so they simply believe those ideas are the truth. That’s a little different from becoming smarter. It may occasionally be helpful, but probably not by much.”
“So that’s how it works.”
“It gives you confidence and conviction in the thoughts you already have? I suppose you could say it heightens your exhilaration.”
“I like it. It suits me. Either way, it makes people happy, right? That’s all that matters. It’s more than enough.”
******
Even during that time, Asend continued to do its work.
Diligently and quietly, it was giving dreams and happiness to the people of China.
It was spreading joy.
It was gradually conquering not only the cities along the coast, but also the inland cities.
More precisely, the coastal cities had finished distributing samples and begun sales, while samples were being released in the inland cities as well.
Xi’an, Chengdu, Chongqing, Changsha, Beijing…
It was following the same route as the Opium War.
Slowly, steadily, one step at a time, it was devouring China.
With the determination not to leave a single place untouched.
I, too, was doing my best not to be outdone by Asend.
Even today, I was working hard to sell Asend.
Though I wasn’t the one actually doing it.
I was cheering on the people working hard to sell it from behind.
In front of me, the people involved—including Chen Zihao, who had built the purchasing website—were busily running the purchasing program.
Apparently, even that had been automated. Once the money was deposited, it automatically sent out the location.
Bringing him here really had been the right choice.
Chen Zihao contacted me through the secretly created messenger and said,
“Boss. They say Guangzhou is running short on goods.”
“What?”
How did that make any sense?
How much Asend had I brought to Guangzhou, and they were already out?
Although I had diverted the first batch, which was supposed to be distributed as samples, to sales, I had still brought the equivalent of a box truck.
Even if we had released a large quantity as samples, we shouldn’t already be running out.
We had brought more than six million units to Guangzhou.
No matter how much we had scattered around as samples, running short already was a bit of a problem.
“How much have we sold?”
“Approximately 700,000 units.”
Gasp!
Already 700,000?
Since the minimum purchase was ten units, that meant at least 70,000 people had bought it.
That was an incredible pace.
At ten thousand won per unit, we had sold more than seven billion won worth.
That was seriously impressive.
Now I understood why people wanted to deal drugs.
But still, we were supposedly short on stock after selling only 700,000?
Something about this didn’t seem right.
We had sold only a little over ten percent of the six million units, and we were already out of stock?
Even if half had been distributed as samples, and even allowing for losses, it was hard to accept.
It meant there was a problem somewhere.
If this was an unavoidable structural problem, we needed to change the structure. If it was a problem with the people, we needed to take action there, too.
I was someone who took betrayal for granted.
No one could overcome their instincts, and betrayal was instinctive.
I didn’t blame anyone for betraying me.
But when someone betrayed you, shouldn’t they be prepared to pay the price?
Shouldn’t they be resolved to stake their life, at the very least, if they were discovered?
Didn’t people take on risks when they challenged something?
Every challenge came with risks, after all.
I should go and find out what had happened.
I could restock the warehouse while I was there, and take a look at the faces of those Yeonggye-seon bastards.
******
At Yeonggye-seon’s temporary headquarters in Shanghai.
Yeonggye-seon’s boss, Chen Wei, was speaking with Han Lin, who handled the organization’s operations.
The two had been childhood friends and had founded Yeonggye-seon together.
They had shared the belief that nothing else mattered as long as they had money.
They had created Yeonggye-seon with that mindset.
There had been no trouble when Chen Wei took the position of boss.
Although Chen Wei played the role of boss publicly, Han Lin handled all the actual work.
He ran the organization and communicated with the outside world.
Chen Wei liked being the boss, while Han Lin liked being able to control the organization.
They didn’t fight difficult battles.
They mainly engaged in phishing, online casinos, and money laundering.
In truth, they did anything that made money.
For jobs Yeonggye-seon couldn’t handle, they outsourced them or collaborated with others.
That was how they had expanded their influence.
Recently, their organization had grown even larger by distributing Asend.
They were handling a rather hefty amount of money.
“This office is pretty nice, too. Should we move the headquarters here altogether?”
“Should we? This place isn’t bad. And the women in Guangzhou are pretty, too.”
Chen Wei gave a lecherous smile.
Their dealings with the Philippines had begun in a somewhat bewildering manner.
The men they had sent to the Philippines to build illegal websites had contacted them.
They said they had been caught, then told them to hear out a good proposal.
It was strange.
People they didn’t even know had sent them money up front.
All they had to do was rent a warehouse.
It was a considerable amount of money for simply renting a warehouse.
Even after renting the warehouse, a lot of money remained.
There was no reason to refuse.
After they rented the warehouse, one day they were told there was candy inside and to distribute it for free.
Then, all of a sudden, they were told to package it in units of ten, hide the packages, take photographs, and send them over.
They even sent a detailed manual explaining what to do.
That was all they had to do.
Yeonggye-seon’s role ended with taking the photographs and sending them.
They were paid handsomely for doing that.
The other side handled the sales and sending out the locations.
It didn’t matter how much was sold.
The important thing was that the smell of money was overwhelming.
When they looked into it, they learned that it was a popular drug these days.
There were far too many people looking for Asend everywhere, and Han Lin knew the warehouse’s password.
Han Lin couldn’t understand why the Filipinos made things so complicated.
He didn’t know why they went to the trouble of hiding it, concealing it, taking photographs, and selling it.
They could just sell it.
The public security authorities? Crackdowns?
No problem.
They only needed to sell wholesale.
The people who got caught would be the ones selling it retail.
As long as you had money, you could do anything—even worse than drugs—and there would be no problem.
If you slipped someone enough money, you could walk out alive even from an execution ground.
That was Han Lin’s way of thinking.
Money was necessary to overcome death.
They sold the Asend they had received for free at forty yuan per unit.
It began to sell like hotcakes.
For purchases of more than ten thousand units, they sold it at thirty-five yuan per unit.
Wow~ There was no sweeter deal than this.
They were selling candy they had received for free.
It had been given to them to manage, but once it entered Han Lin’s hands, it belonged to Han Lin.
Han Lin merely pretended to sell the medicine while siphoning some off and selling it separately.
There was no one watching or checking.
What an incredibly profitable item.
He only hoped days like these would continue.
With the thought of stocking up in advance, he even placed additional orders.
You had to prepare for the future ahead of time.
That was when it happened.
The door opened, and a man wearing a Hawaiian shirt appeared.
“Who are you?”
“Hello? Are you Yeonggye-seon?”
“Who… Who are you?”
“Scott! Take them out.”