Free Web NovelChapter 510: Chapter 510: In Hand
"Is that scent coming from you? What perfume are you wearing?"
Lin Xiaoyu asked hurriedly.
Song Sisi put down her chopsticks and pulled a red silk cord from her collar.
On it hung a Ten Thousand Year Agarwood pendant, as smooth and dark as black jade.
It emitted waves of subtle fragrance.
"It’s not perfume."
Song Sisi’s eyes crinkled into crescents. "This is the very Agarwood you were just talking about, the kind that can cure diseases and save lives."
"Li Xu gave it to me. He said it can ward off evil and promote good health, and he insisted I wear it against my skin."
She would never have shown it to just anyone.
But Lin Xiaoyu and Yang Qing were her best friends.
If they wanted to see it, Song Sisi wasn’t going to be stingy.
Most importantly, this was a symbol of Li Xu’s love for her. If she didn’t let anyone know, wouldn’t it be like wearing a fine gown in the dead of night?
Silence.
A dead silence.
Lin Xiaoyu’s and Yang Qing’s eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets.
Was this the legendary Ten Thousand Year Agarwood that could supposedly bring the dead back to life, the one that the experts from Japan couldn’t even buy for a hundred million?
Doctor Li actually had it made into a pendant and gave it to Song Sisi?
And such a big piece, too?
"Oh my god..."
Lin Xiaoyu clutched her chest. "That’s not a pendant, that’s a mountain of gold."
"No, it’s more expensive than a mountain of gold." Yang Qing swallowed hard. "She’s wearing several lives around her neck."
"This PDA... is way too extravagant."
Watching Song Sisi’s blissful expression, the two of them suddenly felt like their hot pot had lost its flavor.
"Sisi, you’re just too lucky," Lin Xiaoyu lamented. "I want a boyfriend like that, too. I’m not asking for Agarwood, even a speck of it would be fine."
Song Sisi smiled and tucked the pendant back into her shirt. "Alright, alright, hurry up and eat. The tripe is getting overcooked."
Though she said that,
the sweetness in her heart was even richer than the scent of the Ten Thousand Year Agarwood.
...
「By a remote, ancient riverbed in Guangxi Yulin.」
A small truck and an excavator shattered the tranquility of the area.
There were only three people on site: Ding Kaifang, and his two most trusted aides, Da Liu and Xiao Zhang.
All three were core employees of the Ding Group.
They all held shares in the group.
They would never betray him.p>
Moreover, they were tight-lipped and reliable.
"President Ding, is this the place?"
Da Liu wiped the sweat from his forehead, pointing to the mark Li Xu had left behind.
"Yes. Let’s get to work."
Ding Kaifang clutched the coordinate map Li Xu had given him. "Remember, take this secret to your graves. If anyone leaks a single word, don’t blame me for being ruthless."
"Don’t worry, President Ding."
"We absolutely won’t let anything leak."
The two men immediately assured him.
The roar of the excavator started, its huge bucket carefully scraping away the topsoil.
As they dug deeper, a faint, subtle fragrance began to fill the air.
Ding Kaifang twitched his nose and thought to himself, ’Doctor Li wasn’t lying. We haven’t even seen the thing yet, and the scent is already here.’
"Stop. We’ll dig by hand now."
After digging down about two meters, Ding Kaifang halted the excavator.
The three men jumped into the pit, picked up shovels and brushes, and began the delicate work.
Half an hour later, the giant log that had slept for six hundred years finally saw the light of day again.
It was a dark brown piece of Agarwood, so thick one person could barely wrap their arms around it, and over five meters long.
Although eroded by time, its surface somewhat carbonized and decayed, the whole thing was still as solid as iron.
"Whoa... How heavy do you think this is?"
Xiao Zhang patted the enormous log. It felt cool and hard to the touch.
"At least two or three tons."
Da Liu estimated. "Just from its density, you can tell it’s no ordinary piece."
Ding Kaifang walked over, squatted down, and reached out to gently stroke the rough bark.
A strange, warm smoothness traveled through his fingertips, as if the wood were still alive.
He took a deep breath.
A rich, woody scent mixed with the fragrance of the earth rushed into his nostrils.
While it wasn’t as overpowering or soul-piercing as the Ten Thousand Year Agarwood,
it was still enough to be refreshing and invigorating.
"Good stuff... This is really good stuff."
Ding Kaifang muttered to himself, his eyes filled with fervor. "So this is the Ten-thousand-year-old Agarwood Doctor Li mentioned... Even if it’s not the highest-grade kind, this is still a national treasure."
"Hurry, get it on the truck. Wrap it up tight with the tarp. Don’t let it get bumped or scratched."
The three of them worked together, directing the excavator to use its hoist cable to lift the Agarwood onto the truck.
Afterward, Ding Kaifang personally inspected it, wrapping it tightly in several layers of thick, waterproof canvas and shock-absorbing cotton, disguising it as ordinary construction timber.
"Let’s go. We’re driving back to Feng City through the night. No stopping on the way. Except for gas and bathroom breaks, nobody leaves the truck for a second."
...
「Two days later. The core warehouse of Ding’s Pharmaceutical Factory in Feng City.」
As the rolling metal door slowly descended, the truck, back from its successful trip, finally came to a stop.
Ding Kaifang had huge, dark circles under his eyes, but his spirits were unusually high.
He had barely slept a wink the entire way, terrified that something might go wrong.
After receiving the call, Li Xu rushed over immediately.
When the layers of canvas were peeled back to reveal the enormous log of Agarwood, Li Xu couldn’t help but let out a gasp of admiration, even though he had been mentally prepared.
"Holy cow. I never expected the whole thing to be so breathtaking."
He stepped forward and used a small knife to gently scrape away a bit of the surface.
Beneath it were dense, dark brown resin lines, full of oil.
"Although it’s not the soft-resin type you find in the highest-grade Agarwood, this is still a top-tier, hard-resin Agarwood."
Li Xu nodded. "And given its age, it has absorbed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth for ten thousand years. Its medicinal value is immeasurable."
"It promotes qi circulation to alleviate pain, warms the core to stop nausea, and aids qi absorption to calm asthma... This thing is a treasure through and through."
Ding Kaifang stood to the side, grinning from ear to ear. "Doctor Li, it’s so huge. I did a quick calculation. If we slice this up for medicine, even if we used it every day, it would probably take us decades to finish. After all, prescriptions that use Agarwood are pretty rare."
Li Xu smiled. "If it were just for my clinic, forget decades—we’d have a hard time using it all up in a hundred years."
"But..." Li Xu mused for a moment. "If we were to make this into a patent Chinese medicine and supply it to the City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, or push it to a wider market, then it would be consumed much faster."
Letting such fine medicinal material sit around collecting dust would indeed be a waste.
Medicinal ingredients only realize their value when they are used to cure people’s illnesses.
But he still hadn’t decided whether to develop it on a large scale.
After all, it was a non-renewable resource. Once you start industrial-scale production, it’s a bottomless pit.
"Let’s just leave it here for now. I’ll come get it when I need it."
Li Xu patted the giant log.
...
Back in his office, Ding Kaifang had just sat down and taken a sip of water when the sales manager, Wang Lei, knocked and entered.
"President Ding, you’re back."
Wang Lei reported, "Everything at the factory has been running normally recently, and sales for our main products are stable. But..."
"But what?"
Ding Kaifang put down his teacup.
"In the sanitary napkin market, Sophie has made a move."
Wang Lei took out a competitor analysis report. "They’ve launched a so-called ’ultra-premium’ sanitary napkin, with a single-piece price as high as 500 yuan!"
