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

New Jersey General Hospital, Emergency Room.

"Get out of the way! Get out of the way now!"

Two nurses rushed in pushing a stretcher. The boy on the stretcher was about sixteen or seventeen years old, his body was convulsing violently, and pink foam was constantly coming out of his mouth.

"Blood pressure 60/40! Blood oxygen saturation dropped below 80%!" the nurse screamed.

Dr. Gregory, the head of the emergency department, rushed over and pried open the boy's eyelids.

The pupils are dilated and the light reflex is absent.

"Watch his breathing!" Gregory roared. "Kusmore is breathing, deep and labored. That's classic metabolic acidosis!"

He grabbed the boy's arm; his skin was an eerie grayish-purple, and his fingernails were as black as if they were painted.

"What did he drink before that?" the doctor asked the companion who brought the boy, a hoodlum who also looked dazed and had snot running down his face.

"It's...it's Purple Water!" the thug stammered. "The new version. Cheap, powerful..."

"Damn it!" Dr. Gregory slammed his fist on the bed rail. "This is the twelfth tonight! Prepare the sodium bicarbonate IV drip! And ethanol! We need ethanol for competitive inhibition!"

But it was too late.

The heart rate curve on the monitor suddenly straightened out and emitted a piercing long beep.

Amidst the piercing beeping, Hank Schrader stood in a corner of the emergency room, clutching a freshly printed blood toxicology report.

"It's not a heroin overdose," Hank said in a low voice.

Agent Grimz, standing next to him, leaned over to take a look at the data and gasped.

"Methanol content 120mg/dL!" Grimald exclaimed. "This child didn't drink cough syrup, he drank windshield washer fluid!"

Hank raised his head, his gaze passing through the chaotic crowd and landing on the face of the boy who had just died.

"Someone added industrial alcohol to the purple water," Hank said through gritted teeth. "To save that damn ethanol tax, they sold poison to kids."

He stuffed the report into his pocket and turned to walk out.

"Notify SWAT. This isn't a drug bust, it's a murder investigation."

......

The basement of an abandoned textile factory in North Newark.

The air here is terrible. There's no ventilation system, just a few old industrial fans whirring, stirring up the strong smell of solvents in the air.

There was no stainless steel reactor, no tomographic imaging equipment, only a few iron drums and plastic pipes bought from a hardware store.

Fat Tony sat atop a mountain of banknotes, a thick cigar between his fingers.

"Faster! Faster!" he yelled at the sweating workers. "The demand outside is insane! Does Victor think he can starve the market by stopping production? Ha! I can do it myself!"

In a corner of the room, a man in a dirty white lab coat was pouring blue liquid into a large bucket. The bucket was clearly marked with a skull and crossbones logo that read "Industrial Cleaning Agent".

He was the "pharmacist" that Fat Tony found, a lousy guy who was fired from a pharmaceutical company because of problems with drug manufacturing.

"Boss, this batch of alcohol has a strong smell." He wiped the sweat from his face and said somewhat guiltily, "Even though I boiled it, the bitterness still won't go away."

"Add sugar! Idiot!" Fat Tony waved his hand impatiently. "Add twice the amount of saccharin, and a bit more grape flavoring. Those addicts only care about whether they can float away, who cares about the taste?"

"But……"

"No buts!" Fat Tony stood up, walked to the bucket, and looked at the murky purple liquid.

He doesn't understand chemistry. He doesn't know that industrial alcohol is called "denatured ethanol" because methanol is forcibly added to it.

He was even less aware that methanol and ethanol form an azeotrope. Simple heating and distillation simply cannot separate them. Those "folk purification methods" he heard about on the street were as ridiculous as trying to filter water with a sieve.

In the human body, ethanol is a source of pleasure, but methanol is the scythe of death.

Once in the liver, methanol is rapidly converted into formaldehyde by alcohol dehydrogenase, and then oxidized into formic acid.

Formic acid, like a strong acid, corrodes the optic nerve, causing irreversible blindness; at the same time, it blocks mitochondrial respiration in cells, leading to severe acidosis. Just 10 milliliters of pure methanol can permanently blind an adult; 30 milliliters can be fatal.

The methanol content in Fat Tony's "special purple water" was enough to kill an elephant.

"The color is wrong." Fat Tony frowned, pointing to the fluffy substance floating in the bucket. "Victor's stuff is a clear amethyst color, this stuff looks like gutter water."

"It'll be fine after a little time to settle," the pharmacist explained sheepishly. "Or could we say it's a 'concentrated version'?"

"Genius!" Fat Tony laughed, patting the other man's shoulder hard. "Let's call it 'Deep Purple'! Tell those idiots on the street that it's a limited edition, and the price will go up by 20%!"

He was so engrossed in his wealth and celebration that he was completely unaware that he was putting the noose around his own neck.

......

Corleone Estate, study.

The television is broadcasting the evening news.

"A new drug called 'Deep Purple' is spreading on the streets of New Jersey. To date, 15 teenagers have been hospitalized due to poisoning, with 3 dying and 5 suffering permanent blindness..."

The screen showed images of the victim's family members weeping, as well as Hank Schrader's somber face as he faced reporters.

"We must declare war on this crime against humanity," Hank said into the microphone. "Whoever he is, wherever he is hiding, we will find him."

"He messed up."

Old Jack stood behind the sofa, his voice low and menacing. "That idiot, Fat Tony. He thought mixing two liquids together made medicine. He didn't know he was selling poison."

"This isn't just stupid, it's breaking the rules," Victor responded. "If you're selling pleasure, the police might turn a blind eye; but if you're selling corpses, you're public enemy number one."

"David said Hank is already investigating the source of the raw materials," Old Jack warned. "Fat Tony uses a lot of industrial alcohol, making it easy to trace. If he gets caught, he'll definitely implicate you."

"I know."

He stood up and walked to the desk. There sat an old-fashioned black rotary telephone.

Fat Tony was his source of initial funding and an ally he was forced to be with. But Victor never forgot that it was this greedy fool who drove old Corleone to his death and even threatened him with his sister Katie's life.

Victor had been waiting for this day all year.

Faced with the grand blueprint of "Vought Pharmaceuticals," Fat Tony is not just a necrotic tissue, but also a blood debt that must be settled.

Necrotic tissue must be removed, otherwise it will cause systemic sepsis.

This is what is known as risk isolation, and also a belated revenge.

Victor picked up the microphone, took a handkerchief from the drawer, and wrapped it around the microphone—the most primitive but also the most effective disguise of that era.

He dialed a number.

That was the private line he saw on Hank's business card.

"Agent Schrader," Victor lowered his voice, mimicking the tone of a terrified citizen, "I...I want to report this."

The other end of the phone went silent instantly.

"Who are you?" Hank's voice was alert and urgent.

"Don't ask who I am. I just don't want to see more children die." Victor looked out the window at the night sky, his eyes as cold as the Siberian wind. "Newark North, the basement of an abandoned textile factory. That's where you can find the 'Deep Purple' you're looking for."

"Is that fat guy still there?" Hank pressed.

"He's here." Victor looked at the old photo of Fat Tony on the TV screen. "He's counting money."

"beep--"

Victor hung up the phone.

He carefully wiped every fingerprint off the microphone with a handkerchief, then tossed the handkerchief into the fireplace.

Flames erupted, engulfing the white fabric.

"Jack. Handle this call." Victor turned around, straightened his suit collar, and said, "Notify Saul to activate the 'firewall' program. Clean up all financial transactions with Tony, don't leave even a gas receipt."

"Understood." Old Jack nodded. "And Tony..."

"Tony is already dead."

Victor walked to the window and looked at the flashing police lights in the distance above the city. Those red and blue lights drew blood-red streaks in the night.

"In this industry, if you can't control the quality, you can't control your destiny."