Chapter 241: Laboratory

When Henry regained consciousness, a crescent moon was hanging high in the sky. It was clearly the middle of the night.

The autumn desert in California still held a hint of chill. Katie, the little tiger who had eaten her fill, was curled up in Henry’s arms. It was hard to tell if she wanted to steal some warmth or help her owner stay warm.

The surroundings were quite peaceful; the venomous snakes and scorpions common in the desert simply didn't approach Henry’s direction. Not that they could pierce Kryptonian skin even if they did coil around him.

Remembering he had missed dinner, the hungry Henry picked up Katie and walked toward his container-house laboratory. He simply assumed he had been dazed from sleep earlier and didn't think much of it.

The lock hanging on the door was just a cheap one bought at a hardware store.

In a place like this, if someone actually saw the container house, using a high-end lock would be like putting up a sign that said "There is no silver three hundred taels here," telling others that there was something valuable inside worth protecting.

Using an ordinary lock served only to deter the honest, not the wicked. It told those who saw it that this was not a shelter for refugees and that they should not enter without permission.

Because shelters generally set up in the wilderness would not use locks—a device representing privacy—to restrict strangers from entering or leaving.

Opening the door, the inside of the container house was pitch black, but this did not hinder a Kryptonian with super vision. Henry walked to the deepest part of the container and pulled the power switch.

The lights, representing civilization, instantly illuminated the interior of the container, revealing everything.

There were no partitions inside the container; it was actually just an empty 40-foot shipping container. Henry had placed a few things inside and used it as a house.

Even the ventilation holes connected to the wind power equipment were in good condition, maintaining airflow inside the container without leaving any strange odors.

And the wind power equipment Henry designed was not like a windmill, with a man-made object standing conspicuously in the desert. If it were, anyone who saw it would know something was wrong.

Henry had designed a wind tunnel that gathered wind from all four directions, disguised as a natural landscape. Only at the gathering point inside the wind tunnel did he install the turbine fans for power generation.

The solar panels had also undergone similar camouflage. It could be said that as long as one didn't observe them from close range, one certainly wouldn't see any traces of man-made objects from a distance or in satellite photos.

Considering the issue of freshness, he only kept some emergency dry rations here. Fortunately, there was a single-burner stove, so making some hot food wasn't much trouble.

The power switch he had turned on earlier was actually hidden among a pile of shelves. Besides emergency food, the shelves were filled with raw materials for synthesizing medicine.

In the corner was a sofa bed that could be used for sitting or lying down, and the remaining space was occupied by a long table filled with various glass vessels. Those beakers, Erlenmeyer flasks, and funnels were the equipment Henry used to synthesize drugs.

However, those glass bottles were clean now and didn't emit any strange odors. It was just that because the container was ventilated, dust accumulated easily. Even adding screens to the vents couldn't stop the fine sand and dust from invading.

It wasn't that Henry hadn't thought about getting a BB-series core robot here to handle daily cleaning. But a core robot required a server for computational support, and one could imagine how much electricity that would consume.

Although he had installed wind and solar power equipment for the lab, along with a diesel generator as a backup, the power supply couldn't be used recklessly.

Therefore, this place was mainly for chemical synthesis. Other tasks that consumed a lot of power were still carried out at his rented apartment.

Having arrived at a new place, the curious Katie was looking around everywhere. She even climbed onto the table with her front paws, trying to jump onto it like she did at home.

Henry had no intention of indulging this little tiger. Mainly because the glass equipment on the table was easy to break; on the other hand, he couldn't let her develop the habit of getting whatever she wanted.

Family hierarchy was silently established through this back-and-forth tug-of-war. Verbal authority was, of course, useless to a tiger; he had to use actions to make her understand.

So, seeing Katie stand up and prepare to jump onto the table, Henry didn't say a word. With a flick of his foot, he sent Katie rolling away.

Then she wouldn't give up and tried again. Henry flicked her again. She tried again, he flicked her again. Three times...

Ah, she was playing now!

Henry simply flipped Katie over with his foot and stepped on her belly, suppressing her. Finally, he could eat his freshly heated canned pork in peace...

This was the wilderness in the middle of the night. Although he had super speed and could fly, flying to a 24-hour supermarket would require traveling quite a distance. Struck by laziness, Henry had to make do with the supplies in the lab.

As for the tiger struggling desperately under his foot and scratching him with her claws, she naturally couldn't hurt a Kryptonian in the slightest, nor could she break free from that strange foot. At most, she just tore his pant leg to express her feelings.

In a few bites, he finished the canned food. Only then did Henry release Katie, wash the bowl, and take inventory of the remaining materials on the shelves. He calculated which materials needed to be replenished to make new medicine.

Some raw materials could be obtained through regular channels, but some regulated materials were more troublesome to buy. To find a way, one had to spend a bit more money.

Although it was essentially the same as buying finished medicine—some were easy to buy, some were hard, and one had to go through the underground black market—the price difference was worlds apart. The saying that one can of medicine could buy a ton of raw materials was definitely not an exaggeration.

The liberated Katie, however, had lost the urge to jump on the table and instead followed behind Henry’s butt. As if seeking revenge, she bit and scratched at Henry’s pant legs.

Even when pushed away by a light kick, Katie persisted, rushing forward to continue her unfinished great cause.

Fine. Playing with a tiger—a Kryptonian’s physique crushed everything in every aspect, so he wasn't afraid. But it looked like it was going to be hard on his pants...

In just this short while, although his pants weren't torn to shreds, the pant legs were already in tatters.

However, Henry had also finished taking inventory of the materials and made a procurement plan. Most of the costs could be paid from that 600,000-plus in dirty black money, so there was no need to touch his bank account.

Not to mention the regulated materials, even the unregulated ones could be bought from underground suppliers. Although the price would be a bit higher, it could be paid with black money. Compared to the high percentage loss from money laundering, this price difference was acceptable.

Moreover, buying from public channels meant leaving a purchase record. If he encountered CIA intelligence analysts, they might very well analyze his behavior from these records.

This pile of black money was also the reason Henry wanted to make some medicine for backup. Previously, he almost only made it when he needed it and didn't have the habit of stockpiling medicine.

Insufficient funds were one aspect; on the other hand, it was because he couldn't estimate the usage of the medicine at the beginning. If he made some that he didn't end up using, it would be a waste of money and time. And this estimated quantity was a figure he could only arrive at after half a year of business experience.

As for the remaining money, Henry opened a secret door in the container house and put it into a safe in the cave.

It was inappropriate to keep this money at the black clinic or the rented apartment. It was better to keep it in this remote laboratory.