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

Having decided to "make the fire burn even brighter," Victor immediately took action.

One day after Katie quickly contacted the Detroit unions and negotiated the relevant price, Victor's private jet landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.

He chose this burning city.

He knew very well that lobbying over the phone or receiving envelopes from K Street lobbyists wouldn't be enough to truly instill fear in the politicians in Washington. On the political chessboard, money is the fuel, but public opinion is the flame.

He needs to demonstrate power, an uncontrollable power that comes from the bottom up.

Welcome to the Rust Belt!

This is Hamtramck, once the heart of General Motors and the engine of the American Dream. But now, it has become a vast industrial graveyard.

The abandoned factory buildings stand like the skeleton of a giant beast in the cold wind, and the broken windows, like empty eye sockets, gaze upon this decaying land.

Three thousand unemployed auto workers gathered here.

They weren't the kind of middle-class people holding up signs and protesting mildly on the streets of Manhattan. They were truly penniless. They wore thick canvas jackets stained with oil, baseball caps with the "UAW" (United Auto Workers) logo, and waved wrenches, iron bars, and wooden signs with vulgar slogans.

In the center of the square, a brand-new Toyota Corolla sedan was placed on a makeshift wooden platform.

"Bang!"

A burly man with a full beard swung a baseball bat and slammed it hard against the windshield of the Toyota.

The sound of shattering glass triggered a near-frenzied cheer from the crowd.

"Go back to Japan!"

"Buy American! Use American products!"

Angry slogans rose and fell.

Victor stood on the makeshift platform, looking down at the raging sea of ​​people below.

He had changed his clothes today, wearing a slightly worn dark blue work jacket over a gray flannel shirt, the cuffs of which he had rolled up.

He spent a full half hour picking out this outfit at a secondhand clothing store called "Goodwill Relief Station," and even deliberately rubbed some dust onto the elbows of his jacket.

"How's it going, boss?"

Katie stood behind him, wrapped in a thick wool coat, holding a chipped thermos. Her makeup was much lighter than usual, almost bare-faced, and her hair was simply tied in a casual ponytail. At that moment, she looked more like a caring housewife than a powerful, million-dollar female executive in Manhattan.

"It feels like sitting on a powder keg," Victor said in a low voice, a glint of excitement in his eyes. "But this is exactly the gunpowder we need."

At this moment, the union leader, a man with a thick, red neck named "Big Mike," shouted into the microphone:

"Brothers! Quiet! All of you, shut the fuck up!"

The speaker emitted a piercing whistling sound.

"We lost our jobs! We lost our homes! We lost our dignity! Why? Because those greedy Washington politicians sold our markets to the Japanese! Because those Wall Street vampires sold our future for a few percentage points of profit! Now, they're not only taking away our car factories, but also our last thing!"

He suddenly pointed at Victor.

"Please welcome Mr. Victor Corleone! CEO of Water Pharmaceuticals! He's the only boss who dares to say 'Fuck you' to the Japanese!"

Sparse applause broke out. Workers have a natural hostility toward people in suits, even if he's wearing work clothes now.

Victor walked up to the microphone. He adjusted the height of the stand, deliberately making the microphone emit a piercing feedback sound.

The entire room fell silent.

Victor didn't speak immediately. He silently surveyed the pairs of bloodshot, angry, yet bewildered eyes below the stage. He saw unpaid mortgages, sick children unable to afford medicine, and the pain of being abandoned by the times.

"I don't want to lie."

Victor spoke, his voice hoarse and low, as if squeezed from his chest.

"I am a capitalist. I own a private jet, and I live in a big house. In the past, you might have called me a vampire, and I might have called you... a consumable."

A commotion broke out in the crowd; some people whistled, while others began to hurl insults.

"But today, I'm just like you!"

Victor slammed his hand on the podium.

"Because just yesterday, Kenji Tanaka of Sakura Pharmaceuticals sat in my office and arrogantly told me that my company was now his. Just like your factory was now his! He brandished his checkbook like he was wielding a samurai sword, trying to chop off all our heads!"

"They're offering a high price to buy it, what's wrong with that?" a young man wearing glasses shouted from the crowd. "At least you can take the money and leave! We don't even get severance pay!"

"That's right! I could take the money and leave!" Victor pointed at the man who had shouted, his eyes wide. "I could take a billion dollars and sunbathe in Hawaii! I could buy a vineyard in France and drink myself into a stupor every day! But I refused! Do you know why?"

Victor pulled an orange vial from his pocket and held it high. It was OxyContin.

"Because if I sell, the factory will move to Tokyo. The workers there are more obedient, cheaper, and I won't have to pay overtime!"

"And your children, your sick parents, when they need this medicine in the dead of night, writhing in pain, have to be mindful of the Japanese! If the Japanese say they'll raise the price, you'll have to empty your pockets! If the Japanese say they'll cut off the supply, you'll have to endure the pain!"

This is a complete logical fallacy. The relocation of pharmaceutical factories has no direct correlation with drug prices. But under this emotional pressure, logic is the least valuable thing. Fear is the universal currency.

"You lost your cars, that was your livelihood!" Victor's voice grew louder, veins bulging on his neck. "Now, they're going to take your medicine bottles, that's your life!"

"Just imagine! If war breaks out tomorrow, and our soldiers are wounded on the front lines, only to find that the supply chain for painkillers is controlled by the enemy, what will happen? Our children will be screaming on the operating table, while the enemy is counting money on the other side of the Pacific!"

"They want us to kneel and beg them! Just like they want Detroit to kneel! Are you willing to kneel?!"

"No!!!"

The crowd was completely ignited. The sense of deprivation, the fear of the future, and the pent-up nationalist sentiments found an outlet at that moment.

"We can't back down any longer!" Victor unbuttoned his jacket, revealing the shirt underneath. He spread his hands outwards, then brought them back in, making an exaggerated accordion gesture—a signature move of a certain blond man many years later.

Believe me, no one knows patriotism better than me!

"This is America! This is our land! We build the world's best cars, and we build the world's best medicine! Why should others tell us what to do?"

"Defend Vought! Defend America!"

Katie raised her fist at the opportune moment and led the chanting of slogans.

"Defend Vought! Defend America!"

The roars of three thousand people converged into a massive sound wave, shaking the podium.

Several burly men worked together to overturn the totaled Toyota to the ground. The smell of gasoline filled the air. Someone threw out a homemade Molotov cocktail.

"boom!"

Flames instantly engulfed the chassis, soaring into the air and illuminating Detroit's gloomy sky. The black smoke from the burning rubber coiled like a giant black dragon above the plaza.

Victor stared at the raging fire, the flames dancing in his pupils.

This is the flame of activism. It is dangerous, uncontrollable, and capable of burning away all reason. But it is also the most efficient political fuel.

In the firelight, Katie stepped forward and handed a document to the union leader, "Big Mike."

"This is a joint letter from the Teamsters and the ILWU (International League of Truck Drivers)," Katie shouted into the microphone, waving the document. "We've reached an agreement! From today onward, any Sakura Pharmaceuticals product, whether pills or raw materials, that appears in any U.S. port or highway will be refused unloading and transportation!"

"roar!!!"

The cheers reached their peak. This wasn't just a slogan; it was going to translate into real action. While the US is a free market, if dockworkers and truck drivers decided to strike, even God couldn't get the goods in. Once logistics were disrupted, Sakura Pharmaceuticals' operations in the US would be instantly paralyzed.

At the edge of the crowd, several news vans were frantically filming. CNN, ABC, CBS... all the cameras were focused on the man standing in front of the flames.

Victor knew this scene would appear on the television screens of tens of millions of homes across America tonight. He even had the title in mind: "The Last Stand of American Pharmaceutical Companies."

In Washington, those lawmakers who were hesitant to intervene in the takeover will make the "right" choice after seeing the power of these votes. After all, no one wants to lose the entire Rust Belt's votes in next year's midterm elections.

After the speech, Victor, escorted by bodyguards, struggled through the crowd of people wanting to shake his hand and returned to his bulletproof black Lincoln.

"Bang!"

The moment the heavy car door closed, the outside noise was completely shut out. The interior was kept at a constant temperature of 22 degrees Celsius, with soothing classical music playing—it was another world.

Victor leaned back in his leather seat and let out a long sigh. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"Well done." Katie handed him a bottle of Evian water. "For a moment, I even thought you were a real blue-collar leader. That anger, that despair... it's a waste that you're not an actor."

"Blue-collar leader?" Victor sneered, taking off his work jacket and tossing it at his feet. "That's the hardest job, and you only earn hard-earned money. I'd rather negotiate with the vampires of Wall Street."

He glanced through the dark bulletproof glass at the crowds still reveling and burning outside the window.

"But they were very useful. Really useful."

Victor straightened his shirt collar, put his Patek Philippe back on, and resumed his cool, businessman demeanor.

"Let's go. To the airport. Next stop: Washington. Now that the fire's been lit, we need to strike while the iron is hot."

Just then, Katie's cell phone rang. It was an emergency call from Saul.

Victor took the phone, and after hearing just one sentence, his relaxed expression instantly turned ashen.

"What did you say?"

"Boss! Sakura Pharmaceuticals has gone mad! They've been trading over-the-counter (OTC) in the London and Tokyo offshore markets, and the latest data shows that through several hidden shell funds, their shareholding has reached 14.6%! They're only 0.4% away from triggering the threshold!"

Thor's anxious roar came from the other end of the phone.

Victor had planned everything meticulously, but he hadn't anticipated the Japanese would be so aggressive. Their attack was suicidal, completely disregarding compliance costs and premium risks.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath.

"Notify all directors that there will be an emergency meeting at headquarters first thing tomorrow morning. Everyone must be present, whether dead or alive. If anyone is absent, tell him that I will send his secret account in the Cayman Islands to the IRS (Inland Revenue Service)."

Victor threw the phone at Katie and yelled at the driver:

"We're not going to Washington. Turn around! Back to the airport! We need to get back to New York first!"