Ding-dong... The door closed, and in less than three minutes, the doorbell rang again.
Wang Xu thought Yu Zecheng had returned, but upon opening the door, he found Xie Ruolin leaning against the frame, mysteriously observing his surroundings.
"What are you doing here?" Wang Xu frowned at the sight of Xie Ruolin.
With a fawning smile, Xie Ruolin pointed sneakily toward the hallway and chuckled crudely, "That man... was Yu Zecheng, wasn't he?"
"Does it have anything to do with you?" Wang Xu replied noncommittally, not denying anything.
"It doesn't, yet it does." Xie Ruolin invited himself in, not standing on ceremony with Wang Xu as he walked into the room, looking around. "Two teacups. One is yours, and the other belongs to Yu Zecheng."
At that, Xie Ruolin reached out and dipped a finger into the teacup. He continued, "The tea hasn't been touched and is still warm, which means your meeting was very brief. Let me guess what you wanted with Yu Zecheng. Tea? Definitely not. You have business!"
Whether it was an illusion or not, when Xie Ruolin mentioned "business," Wang Xu saw a look in his eyes like a stray dog spotting a meaty bone.
This wasn't surprising; Xie Ruolin would follow whoever fed him. He was a member of the Central Statistics Bureau, yet he dared to sell their intelligence to the Underground Party at a high price.
To such a man, it was all about profit; he didn't care about right or wrong.
Wang Xu remembered a particularly impressive scene from the TV series.
Xie Ruolin held two gold bars and asked Yu Zecheng which one was noble and which one was filthy.
Yu Zecheng couldn't answer that question. From another perspective, it depicted that Xie Ruolin had no bottom line—or if he did, it was simply the difference between one gold bar and two.
"Yu Zecheng is careful but lacks boldness; he's not a good businessman. Brother, if there's a way to make a fortune, maybe we can cooperate. I'm much more open-minded than Old Yu." Xie Ruolin lived downstairs from Yu Zecheng and truly looked down on his cautious nature.
In these times, the bold feast while the timid starve.
He believed he could take over Yu Zecheng's business. No matter what Yu Zecheng and Wang Xu had discussed, he was confident he could over-deliver.
Hearing Xie Ruolin's words, Wang Xu shook his head slightly. "You're overthinking it. I don't have any business here."
"No business? Impossible. When Yu Zecheng left, his bag was filled with gold, wasn't it? I can't be wrong; I'm more familiar with the sound of gold clinking than my own mother's voice. Give me a chance!" Xie Ruolin didn't care that Wang Xu had flatly refused him.
What is a businessman? Someone who doesn't care about face, only money—that's a real businessman.
What Xie Ruolin loved most was poaching others' clients.
It was challenging and rewarding. He had enjoyed doing it for a long time, prying away whoever he could.
"You're overthinking it. Goodbye..." Wang Xu had already settled things; he would have to be crazy to let Xie Ruolin interfere.
Without another word, he made a gesture for the guest to leave and then slammed the door shut.
Outside, Xie Ruolin looked conflicted. From the sound of Yu Zecheng's bag, he estimated there were at least twenty or thirty gold bars.
Encountering such a massive deal but being unable to touch it was more painful than being killed.
Twenty or thirty gold bars... How much intelligence would he have to sell to earn that much?
For a moment, Xie Ruolin's eyes flickered; he wasn't willing to give up just like that.
The next day... Before dawn, Yu Zecheng, who had left with the gold bars yesterday, returned carrying an incense burner and a painting.
As soon as the door opened, before Wang Xu could ask, Yu Zecheng spoke first. "A Ming Dynasty King Wen Lotus Incense Burner, inlaid with fine jade. And from one of the three masters of the Northern Song Dynasty, the progenitor of the Southern School of landscape painting, Dong Yuan's 'Autumn Mountains in Misty Rain'. Have a look at the goods."
Wang Xu didn't understand paintings, so he looked at the King Wen Lotus Incense Burner first.
The incense burner was bronze-colored and about the size of an ashtray, fitting perfectly in his hand.
Starting from the base, the entire burner was shaped like a lotus flower, opening layer by layer.
A ruby was inlaid on the top. One look at its luster revealed it had been frequently handled, carrying a heavy sense of history.
"This incense burner cost eight gold bars; I got it from an old friend. This painting cost sixteen gold bars; it's the family treasure of a wealthy household moving to Shanghai. I consider this painting a bargain." As soon as Yu Zecheng spoke, Wang Xu was stunned for a moment.
8 + 16 = 24
He had given Yu Zecheng 23 gold bars. Yu Zecheng hadn't taken a cent for himself; instead, he had chipped in one of his own.
What kind of spirit was this? Lei Feng incarnate? Song Jiang reborn?
Wang Xu was shocked. Holding the incense burner and the scroll, he remained speechless for a long time before saying solemnly, "I knew it... You are a great man!"
"Haha, I wouldn't dare call myself a great man. I just want to make a friend of you." When Yu Zecheng said this, Wang Xu understood the situation.
What he had given Yu Zecheng yesterday wasn't just gold bars, but also intelligence regarding Central Statistics Bureau spies lurking within Yanan.
On the surface, Yu Zecheng wouldn't admit to being part of the Underground Party, but he used this method to let Wang Xu benefit, claiming he wanted to be his friend. His true intentions lay elsewhere.
"Alright, I'll definitely count you as a friend." Wang Xu put away the painting and the incense burner with satisfaction. With a lingering smile, he added, "If there's a chance, let's continue cooperating next time."
"No need for next time. I know you're very capable, and I was planning to ask for your help this time." Yu Zecheng paused for a moment in thought before saying, "I have a friend in the medicinal herb business. Now that Tianjin is under Japanese control, the business is difficult. I wonder if you have any connections to get a batch of anti-inflammatory drugs?"
"No problem, anti-inflammatory drugs, I..."
Wang Xu suddenly stopped talking. He tilted his head to look at Yu Zecheng and asked hesitantly, "You're not testing me, are you?"
"No, we're all friends, helping each other out!" Yu Zecheng still had that simple, honest smile, his true thoughts completely hidden.
Wang Xu narrowed his eyes and didn't speak for a long time.
In modern times, anti-inflammatory drugs weren't controlled substances; any clinic would have a box or two in stock.
But in 1940s Tianjin, this stuff was extraordinary. To prevent these drugs from falling into the hands of the Underground Party or the Loyal and Patriotic Salvation Army, the Japanese inspected pharmacies every few days, arresting people at the slightest discrepancy.
He didn't believe Yu Zecheng wanted these for a "friend." Most likely, they were supplies the Underground Party needed to obtain.
The Underground Party was different from the Bureau of Investigation and Statistics. The latter's main tasks were intelligence and counter-intelligence.
During this period, however, the Underground Party's primary task was gathering supplies for the base areas, with intelligence gathering being secondary.
"No problem, but as you know, medicine isn't cheap these days. My drugs are imported, so the price won't be low." Wang Xu emphasized the price because he had already thought of what drug to bring.
penicillin: discovered in 1928, entered production in 1942, and swept the globe in 1943.
Now it was 1940, two years before penicillin's mass production.
By 1943, when penicillin swept the globe and arrived in China, the initial price for a box was half a gold bar. It was reserved for officers and was also known as the "General's Medicine," meaning if you weren't of a certain rank, you didn't even have the right to use it.
Later, as production expanded, the price slowly dropped.
But few ordinary soldiers could use it; at the very least, one had to be a junior officer to receive the drug.
Wang Xu knew his priorities and wasn't a brainless fan of the Nationalists.
He could sell penicillin to Yu Zecheng, but he would definitely demand payment. He wasn't like those "perfect" saints in novels who turned into paragons of virtue as soon as the War of Resistance began.
"What drug is it? Is it effective?" Yu Zecheng didn't ask about the price but about the drug's efficacy.
Wang Xu thought for a moment and said, "With my medicine, whether it's a gunshot wound, a knife wound, or a burn, the possibility of infection will be minimized. For comparison, the best anti-inflammatory drug on the market right now, Baibao Dan, is only thirty percent as effective as mine."
Baibao Dan was Yunnan Baiyao, currently recognized as China's miracle anti-inflammatory drug.
However, Baibao Dan's process had not yet been modernized during this period; its production methods were traditional and still fell short compared to penicillin.
Wang Xu believed that comparing the two, penicillin produced with modern technology should be at least two or three times more effective than Baibao Dan.