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

Stardust Motel in West Philadelphia.

Mulder sat on the toilet seat, holding a bottle of whiskey he had just bought at the convenience store, washing the scrapes on his knees.

The pungent smell of alcohol mixed with the excruciating pain from his wound acted like a powerful sobering agent, clearing his head, which had been throbbing slightly.

"hiss--"

He gasped, his muscles tensing. The pain only made his heart pound faster.

Several freshly developed photos were scattered on the sink. Although the images were somewhat blurry due to being taken secretly, the contents of the form were still clearly legible.

"Registration Form for Recycling and Scrapping of Used Equipment":

Model: Home-use type for seniors

"Core engine (heart), central processing unit (brain)..."

Mude grabbed a towel, wiped his face, and walked out of the bathroom.

The room was a complete mess, like a doghouse. The walls were covered with photos, clippings, and sticky notes—clues from his previous investigation into Walter Pharmaceuticals.

The room was a mess, like a ransacked archive.

The yellowed wallpaper was covered with photos, newspaper clippings, printed financial statements, and various sticky notes—all the clues he had gathered during his investigation of Walter Pharmaceuticals.

He walked to the wall, picked up a yellow sticky note, uncapped the marker, and wrote down the name he had seen on the form.

George Williams.

Mulder drew a question mark next to the name. All he knew for now was that the man was dead, sold off like scrap. But he needed to know how he died, how he went from a living person to a pile of $500 worth of parts.

He drew a downward arrow next to it and began to deduce based on his experience.

"Step one: structural unemployment," Mudd wrote at the beginning of the arrow.

"It's not just about losing your job. When the factory closes down, your skilled assembly techniques become worthless. You've been left behind by the times."

"No address, no job. No job, no house. It's a vicious cycle."

He recalled the snippets of conversation he had overheard at the homeless camp.

"Step Two: The Welfare Trap."

This is a more insidious noose, woven from meticulous bureaucracy.

In the United States, poverty is a complex mathematical problem.

If you have absolutely no income, you can apply for food stamps (SNAP) and housing assistance.

But once you find a low-paying job that barely makes ends meet, such as working the night shift as a stock clerk at Walmart, your income will be just a little bit above the poverty line.

That little bit, maybe an extra $50 a month, is enough to make you lose all your benefits eligibility.

The rent subsidy is gone.

Medical insurance is gone.

Food stamps are gone too.

Real disposable income plummeted instantly.

Thus, you find yourself in an absurd paradox: work makes you poorer.

In order to survive, the rational choice was to resign and return to the streets to wait for relief.

Or, like old Joe, seek another, cheaper form of solace.

"Step Three: Chemical Enslavement"

When life loses all hope, when the body is in unbearable pain from long hours of homelessness and manual labor, painkillers become the only salvation.

It's legal.

It has the FDA's endorsement.

It has a doctor's prescription.

It can block pain signals from nerve endings and stimulate dopamine receptors, making you temporarily forget that you are a lost dog.

It will devour your last savings, your house, and your dignity until you are left with nothing but an empty shell.

Step 4: Asset liquidation (scrapping)

Mulder's fingers trembled slightly, but he forced himself to continue writing.

When your money is drained, when your body is ruined by drugs, and when your drug resistance reaches its peak and you can no longer contribute profits to pharmaceutical companies, you have fallen below that invisible line.

Above this line, you are an American citizen, a taxpayer with the right to vote, and a god protected by the Consumer Protection Act.

Water Pharmaceuticals will use the most exquisite GGs and the most attentive smiling service to empty your wallet, and lawyers will fight for your privacy rights.

Once you fall below this line...

You've gone from being a "customer" to a "raw material".

Social support systems will disappear from you as quickly as the tide recedes.

Police don't look for missing drug addicts.

Hospitals will not admit homeless people without insurance.

The law no longer protects you, and ethics no longer constrain you.

You've become a biological sample bank waiting to be sold.

Your spine is a "high-strength support".

Your liver is a "biochemical filter".

Your blood is "engine oil".

On the balance sheet of capital, you are no longer a person, but a "residual value" to be amortized.

"This is the kill line!" Mud muttered to himself.

Someone created and maintained this line.

Through precise calculation models, they addicted the middle class, pushing hundreds of thousands of people precisely below this line, and then harvesting their bodies like harvesting mature genetically modified soybeans.

This is not just a crime.

This is an industry!

...

The next morning, at the University of Pennsylvania, in the campus café.

This is the heart of the ivory tower.

Sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows onto the gleaming wooden floor, creating an atmosphere that seemed to exist in a parallel universe to the cold, bloody underground cold storage room of the previous night.

Mudd had put on a simple disguise today, looking somewhat different from his usual self. He sat in a corner, a cup of untouched black coffee in front of him.

His gaze swept past the students who were discussing macroeconomic models and fixed intently on the doorway.

At the next table were several medical students, who were having a heated discussion.

"...The core of the Hippocratic Oath is 'do no harm,' but how do we define 'harm' when resources are limited?" a girl wearing glasses asked. "If an organ from a homeless person can save a scientist who is more valuable to society, does that align with utilitarian ethics?"

"Come on, Susan," another boy interrupted her with a laugh. "The reality is, whoever can afford to pay is the 'more valuable' person."

This is reality. These privileged students, living in their ivory towers, are using the most academic language to find theoretical justifications for the impending massacre.

Based on the license plate number he had noted down that night, he spent the entire morning using some of his old connections at the bureau. Although most people had blocked him, there were always one or two who owed him favors who were still answering his calls.

He found the registration information for the van—it was registered under the name of an offshore company called "Lin's Import and Export Trading".

Following the clues, he found the young man's name in the list of public courses of the "very famous professor" mentioned by the homeless man by comparing the course teaching assistant information.

Alice Lin.

Or you could call him "Lock A".

Recipient of the "Frontiers in Life Sciences Scholarship" sponsored by Water Pharmaceuticals, a top student in medical school.

Around 10:30, the figure he was waiting for appeared on time.