American Medicine God: Starting by Inheriting a Pharmaceutical Company and Selling Medicine

Late at night, the air in New Jersey was filled with the damp smell of rust.

The top floor of the Water Pharmaceuticals office building was brightly lit. Victor stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the strike camp outside the factory gate in the distance, where several bonfires burned. The faint sounds of singing and slogans, filtered through the glass, sounded like an absurd pantomime.

"They're still resisting and rallies." Old Jack stood behind Victor, holding a silver coffee pot. "Frank is giving a speech, saying your 'ultimatum' today is a sign of capitalist weakness. He says you're getting desperate."

"I was indeed anxious." Victor turned around, took the coffee, his eyes calm as still water, "but not because I was afraid, but because I didn't have time to play this childish game with them."

He walked to his desk, where a hand-drawn diagram of the labor union's organizational structure was placed.

This is a pyramid structure.

At the top of the list is Frank Sheeran, a Teamsters agent from Philadelphia. His name is circled in red by Victor, with a large X next to it.

"Frank is a rock."

"He's stubborn and inflexible. What he wants is political capital, a ladder for future promotions within the union. You can't buy someone like that with money, unless it's a lot of money—and he's not worth that."

Victor's finger slowly slid down and stopped at the second level of the pyramid.

Those were the five members of the "Strike Committee".

“But these five are different,” Victor said softly. “They are the foundation. Frank stands on their shoulders waving the flag. If the foundation crumbles, the flag will fall into the mud.”

"The information is all here, young master." Old Jack handed over a thin folder.

Victor opened the folder. The first page had a somewhat blurry photograph. It showed a burly, kind-looking middle-aged Black man holding a little girl, grinning from ear to ear.

Bob Miller.

42 years old. Foreman of Workshop 2. Vice Chairman of the Strike Committee.

In the hearts of the workers, he was "Honest Bob" and one of Frank's staunchest supporters.

"Tell me about it." Victor took a sip of coffee, the bitter taste spreading on his tongue.

"Bob is a good guy, but he had bad luck."

His youngest daughter, Lucy, has congenital valvular insufficiency. Doctors say she won't survive the winter if she doesn't have surgery this month.

"Surgery fee?"

"Twenty-two thousand dollars," old Jack added. "Bob only had two thousand dollars in savings. He was counting on the union's medical mutual aid fund, but Frank told him that the application process required approval, and since it was during the strike, the fund was frozen and prioritized for maintaining the basic living needs of the strikers."

Victor smiled.

"See, this is the paradox of collectivism." He closed the folder. "For the benefit of the majority (the strike victory), the urgent needs of the minority (his daughter's life) must be sacrificed. Frank thinks this is reasonable; after all, the greater good comes first."

Victor took a checkbook from the drawer and pulled out a pen.

The pen nib scratches across the paper—that's the sound of money flowing.

"Get the car ready, Jack." Victor tore off a check, gently blew on the ink to dry it, and said, "We're going to play God for once."

...

The slums of Camden.

This is the shadowy area of ​​New Jersey. Dilapidated red-brick apartments are crammed together like rotting teeth, streetlights flicker, and garbage cans reek of decay.

A black Lincoln sedan glided through the flooded street and finally came to a stop in front of an old apartment building.

Old Jack opened the car door for Victor, but instead of following him upstairs, he stood warily beside the car, his hand hanging naturally at his waist—the bulge there was clearly not a wallet.

Victor walked up the stairs alone.

The hallway was filled with the smell of boiled cabbage and cheap tobacco. This smell reminded him of the days in his previous life when he was hiding from debt collectors in a Southeast Asian slum. No matter the time or place, the smell of poverty is the same.

Third floor, room 302.

A sliver of dim light shone through the crack in the door, and the faint sound of violent coughing could be heard from inside.

Victor raised his hand and knocked on the door.

"Tap, tap, tap."

The sounds inside the room abruptly stopped.

After a long while, the door was finally opened a crack, revealing a security chain. Bob's haggard face appeared behind the crack. He was wearing a faded yellow t-shirt and holding a half-empty bottle of beer.

The moment Bob saw Victor, his pupils contracted sharply, and he instinctively tried to close the door.

"If I were you, I wouldn't do that, Bob." Victor didn't force his way in, but simply stood calmly in the doorway. "Unless you want to shut out your only hope."

Bob froze. He looked at Victor, then at the darkness deep in the hallway.

"Are you here to cause trouble?" Bob's voice was hoarse, trembling with a hint of bravado. "Frank said that if you dare to cause trouble..."

"Frank can't save your daughter."

Victor interrupted him. A simple sentence shattered all of Bob's defenses.

Bob's hand loosened. The security chain slipped.

The door opened.

The furnishings inside were heartbreakingly simple. There was a dining table with a missing leg propped up by bricks, a black-and-white television with static, and a small bed in the corner separated by a curtain. The coughing was coming from there.

Victor went straight to the dining table. There were several empty medicine bottles on the table, containing cheap painkillers and antibiotics.

"The union's insurance hasn't been approved yet, has it?" Victor picked up a medicine bottle, looked at it, and casually tossed it back onto the table.

"That's the procedure..." Bob said, head down. "Frank said that if we hold on and win the strike, the company will cover all the insurance..."

"Do you believe me?" Victor turned around and looked directly into Bob's cloudy eyes.

Bob fell silent. Of course he didn't believe it, but he dared not disbelieve it. It was his only lifeline.

"Do you know where Frank used to sleep?" Victor pulled a photograph from his suit pocket and threw it on the table.

In the photo, Frank is seen with his arm around a blonde woman, enjoying a meal at an upscale steakhouse. The wine bottle on the table is more expensive than all the furniture in Bob's room combined.

“He’s celebrating, Bob. He’s celebrating your ‘unity,’” Victor said softly. “He’s using your lost wages to build his reputation in the city’s elite circles. For him, it’s a political show; for you, it’s life.”

Bob stared intently at the photo, his breathing becoming rapid, his fists clenched until they turned white.

"So what?" Bob jerked his head up, his eyes filled with hatred. "You capitalists are worse than him! You want to bleed us dry!"

"Let me correct you," Victor said, holding up a finger and shaking it. "I don't want to exploit you. I'm just doing business. In business, if you can't create value for me, I won't pay you. It's fair."

"Get out!" Bob yelled, pointing to the door. "I won't betray my brothers!"

Victor did not move.

He simply reached into his pocket, took out the already filled-out check, and gently placed it under the empty medicine bottle on the table.

The blue check paper looked particularly glaring under the dim yellow light.

"Twenty-five thousand dollars," Victor quoted the figure.

The room fell eerily quiet instantly. Only the suppressed coughing of the little girl in the corner could be heard.

Bob's gaze was fixed on the check, as if drawn by a magnet. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down, an irrepressible longing rising within him.

"This is not a bribe, Bob."

"This is 'advance pay.' I'm the boss, and I have the right to give my employees advance pay; it's perfectly legal."

"What...what do you want me to do?" Bob's voice trembled so much it was almost inaudible.

"It's very simple."

"At the voting meeting tomorrow, stand up and tell everyone what you wanted to say to Frank."

"That's all?"

"That's all," Victor said with a smile. "Tell everyone that your daughter is dying, and the union is still going through the motions. Tell everyone who gave you this check when you were at your most desperate."

Bob's hand trembled as he reached for the check. His fingers were rough, calloused, and black oil stains clung to his fingernails.

When his fingertips touched the cold paper, he felt as if he had been burned, and he pulled his hand back, but in the end he still held it tightly.

At that moment, Victor heard the sound of something breaking. It was the crisp sound of a spine snapping.

"You're a devil, Mr. Corleone," Bob said, tears streaming down his face.

"Perhaps." Victor turned and walked towards the door. "But the devil is often more generous than God. Remember to find Lucy a good doctor."

Stepping out of the apartment building, a cold wind hits you in the face.

"All done?" Old Jack opened the car door.

"The human heart cannot withstand testing, especially when it is placed on a scale with the lives of loved ones on the other side." Victor sat in the car and wearily rubbed his temples.

"Who's next?" Old Jack started the car.

"George from Workshop Three," Victor said with his eyes closed, "that gambler. I heard he owes five thousand dollars in loan sharks in Atlantic City, and the Mafia is going to chop off his fingers tomorrow."

"Five thousand dollars can buy the loyalty of a workshop foreman, it's a good deal," Old Jack commented.

"Then go and pay it back for him," Victor said coldly. "Tell him that if I'm not satisfied tomorrow, Fat Tony will personally collect the debt."

……

That night, black Lincoln sedans crisscrossed the slums of Camden and Newark.

Victor, like a diligent salesman, knocked on the doors of each strike committee member's home.

He brought not poetry and distant places, not slogans and encouragement, but what everyone urgently needed most.

For the gambling addict George, he was his savior;

For Mike, an ambitious young technician, he was the mentor who promised him the position of "production supervisor";

He was a generous philanthropist to the old accountant whose mortgage payments had been defaulted on due to the strike and whose house was about to be foreclosed on by the bank.

Victor did not use violence. In this society governed by the rule of law, violence is the lowest form of force.

He used a weapon more terrifying than violence—information asymmetry and the devastating effect of capital.

Frank thought he was fighting a united group of workers, but he didn't know that every pore of these workers was filled with the helplessness of life. Frank used "ideals" to unite them, while Victor used "reality" to tear them apart.

In the United States in 1981, reality was always more powerful than ideals.

Four o'clock in the morning.

The Lincoln sedan was parked again in front of the Water Pharmaceuticals office building.

The east was already showing the first light of dawn, but the light was hazy and had a lifeless chill.

Victor stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window once again.

In the distant strike camp, the campfire had already gone out.

"Young Master, everything is arranged." Old Jack stood behind him. "Five committee members, four have been taken down. Only one die-hard remains. What should we do with him?"

“Nothing needs to be done.” Victor looked out the window, his eyes deep. “When four of the five pillars are broken, even if the remaining one is made of titanium alloy, it won’t be able to support the house. It will be crushed by the collapsing roof.”

"Jack, get ready for today's voting meeting."

"Do we need to increase security?"

"No." Victor's lips curled into a cruel smile. "We need the media. Notify the biggest newspapers in New Jersey, and the television stations. Tell them there will be big news today."

"We want the whole world to see how justice triumphs over evil."

Although in Victor's script, only God knows who is righteous and who is evil.