Chapter 28: Taxes Only Within Machine Gun Range! Chapter 27 The Thoughtful

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Protagonist:

Milton

Mins

Milton spent quite a bit of time flipping through the ledger; by then Brandon and Luz, those two starving ghosts, had already scraped their plates clean and come to the meeting room.

Seeing Milton's strange expression, they also hurriedly looked at the ledger.

What Milton was looking at showed two medicines for diabetes; they looked similar in effect, but the prices differed greatly.

However, the two rough men looked for a long time and couldn't think of what was wrong, asking blankly: "Uh, two different medicines, different procurement prices... isn't that normal? What's wrong?"

When procuring other medicines, it was also common for drugs of different brands and ingredients but similar effects to have different prices.

Nothing strange about that.

Milton pointed at the paper page on the bill with his finger and said: "When 'Boss' wrote these words, he clearly used a lot of force; the character impressions are embedded into the next page... which shows he also had doubts."

"Ah?!" Brandon was shocked. "You can tell that? You can see that?"

Of course he couldn't tell.

Milton muttered a sentence in his heart... this explanation was too far-fetched; he was just brushing off these two geniuses.

The main reason he could spot the clue was not "Boss's" doubts, but the name of this medicine.

Pioglitazone, mainly used to treat type 2 diabetes... and the biggest problem with this medicine was that it was launched in 1997!

In other words, it was a medicine from the future, still in the trial stage now; if Milton were not a transmigrator from the future, he probably wouldn't be able to realize the problem at this time!

And according to Milton's understanding, taking this medicine could very likely cause liver failure, with a large number of death cases after taking it appearing globally; not long after, this medicine was forced to stop selling.

It's an early development version now; estimated hidden dangers are greater, side effects are greater.

This is treating people directly as experimental samples!

Unfortunately, if "Boss" were still here, at least there would be one more strategist to discuss plans together... now Milton could only rely on himself.

Milton deliberated for a moment and asked: "Now, one question: why would 'Boss' have doubts? Where did he feel something was wrong?"

Logically speaking, the amount of information "Boss" could get wasn't much different from Brandon's; he also shouldn't have been able to discover the problem with this medicine.

In other words, "Boss" didn't notice something wrong from the price and medicine name... then, where did he discover the suspicious point from?

He probably just felt something was off, but hadn't developed to the extent of realizing where the problem lay.

Brandon and Luz nodded blankly in agreement: "Right, what did 'Boss' discover?"

You two are superfluous coming over...

Milton couldn't be bothered with them, tapping the table with his hand, planning to continue flipping backward to see if there were clues in Boss's miscellaneous notes.

But suddenly, Milton seemed to think of something, abruptly raised his head to look at Brandon, and asked: "Were all the medicines on 'Boss's' procurement list received? Would he write down medicines that weren't received?"

Brandon nodded very affirmatively: "Since it's on the receiving list, no matter how much, there definitely was a receipt."

After saying this, the two looked at each other for a second.

They both stood up at the same time and ran toward the Pharmacy on Basement Level 2!

Medicine!

Find that bottle of medicine; maybe important clues could be discovered—given Milton's current situation, he absolutely couldn't investigate slowly bit by bit like the police, use official power to mobilize resources, detain relevant Foundation personnel, fix evidence, inspect the chemical composition of the medicine, confirm it was illegal medicine smuggling, and finally convict.

He had to catch them red-handed at the scene and issue a fine to the Qingteng Foundation!

Brandon searched around the corresponding position in the Pharmacy for a while and said somewhat strangely: "Let me look... can't find it; all are those familiar goods."

Milton couldn't be bothered to look with his eyes; he directly opened the Panel and began scanning this pile of Red Contraband.

Soon, he found the target named "Pioglitazone" among a pile of medicine names.

The medicine bottle was carefully kept by "Boss" in a separate compartment, with a quantity of only one bottle.

But...

Brandon came over, looking at the medicine bottle in Milton's hand, and asked thoughtfully: "Is it this bottle? The pills are indeed different, but why does the bottle holding them say Glibenclamide?"

Milton shook the medicine bottle and smiled hehe: "Because this kind of medicine hasn't been approved for sale anywhere in the world yet; of course it can't be sold directly at pharmacies, so the original packaging must be replaced."

"... Boss, I feel you're always looking down on my knowledge?"

Being able to fight is one thing, but why do you know so much too?

And it seems Milton isn't proud of killing 11 assassins, but is proud of his knowledge?

Does a scholar live inside this murderous maniac's heart?

Milton didn't hide his contempt at all; he pointed at the medicine bottle again and asked: "Where do you usually procure this kind of medicine from?"

Brandon answered quickly this time: "Generally, goods are taken directly from the Fan Kang Gang. If there's an accident and goods can't be taken according to plan, 'Boss' will communicate through other channels, such as regular pharmacies, or even hospitals."

Milton sat on the Chair, organizing his thoughts bit by bit: "Didn't you procure from other black vendors?"

"Uh... we are the biggest black vendors in this area..."

"But actually there's not much difference; anyway, they all come through the Checkpoint; some just went through legal procedures, while another part is smuggled goods..."

"At least for the medicines in this Town, I can be sure the vast majority come through the Checkpoint. Because those coming through other channels can't control costs and can't compete with us."

Milton found a clue from Brandon's answer: "You mean, this bottle of medicine in my hand was also smuggled through the Checkpoint?"

Brandon was speechless for a moment: "Uh, this..."

He was also the manager of the Pharmacy; his authority was similar to "Boss's," but he indeed hadn't heard Inspector Menard mention this medicine "Pioglitazone"... which shows this medicine might really not have come through the Checkpoint.

"Forget it, can't count on you."

Actually, Milton had basically confirmed by now that this medicine wasn't smuggled through the Checkpoint, but it was best to find more evidence to confirm.

If it really couldn't be found, just assume this for now.

Milton shook his head, putting his gaze back on the ledger — just now he had wanted to check the miscellaneous notes, but hadn't had time.

Now he could take a closer look; maybe the "Boss" had some annotations after all?

To tell the truth, this procurement ledger of the "Boss", though extremely brief, didn't miss a single piece of genuinely useful information.

Very quickly, Milton found the answer he wanted in one line of notes.

"Menard said he had never smuggled medicine of this name, hadn't even heard of it."

Good.

The explanation connected... why the "Boss" would detect something suspicious, turns out it was detected from the import channel side.

Of course, even without this note, Milton also leaned toward this answer; now this note completely confirmed his guess.

"Confirmed, this medicine didn't come through the checkpoint." Milton put down the ledger, opened his mouth and said: "Now, let's first compile all the clues we've obtained."

"First, the unlisted new medicine's price is cheaper than the old drug; second, speculation that the Qingteng Foundation is secretly testing the drug; third, this medicine's import channel isn't the cheapest checkpoint; fourth, to deceive people's eyes and ears, they switched the medicine bottles."

"Starting from these four clues, what conclusion can we reason out, or rather, what reliable guesses can we have?"

Brandon wore a face of confusion: "I don't know."