Elixir Supplier

Pathological changes were a terrible thing to happen to any patient. Cao He looked terrified. “Can you give me more details?”

“What more details do you need?” the doctor asked. “Let me be honest with you. I was talking about the possibility of cancerization.”

“What? How could it be possible?” Cao He asked.

“Tell me, what do you think is the cause of cancer?” the doctor asked.

“The sudden change of genes,” Cao He said.

“Well, we won’t talk about genes now. To make it simple, cancer starts to develop when the internal environment of a human body changes and the human body is harmed continuously by external factors,” the doctor said. “Cao Meng is in such a condition. He hasn’t been able to eat anything. Once he starts to eat, his body will respond fiercely to resist the food. All the organs of the human body have their own functions. The stomach and intestines digest the food. They need to maintain their function by food intake. Otherwise, they will start to have problems, like an empty house. If you leave a house or a field to be empty for too long, the weeds will start to grow. If the stomach stops working for too long, it will also have problems.

“Do you have any good suggestions?” Cao He asked.

“Not really for now. I will arrange a meeting with other specialists to discuss Cao Meng’s case. Maybe the other doctors have a way to treat him,” the doctor said.

“Thank you,” Cao He said.

“You are welcome,” the doctor said.

Cao He felt depressed after walking out of the doctor’s office.

“What did the doctor say?” asked Cao Hui, who had just returned from running some errands.

“Not good.” Cao He shook his head.

It was not good indeed.

Cao Hui kept silent for a while before saying, “Maybe you are right. Our big brother should admit what he has done was wrong. It is better for the doer to undo what he has done.”

“Can you visit the village where Wang Yao lives? Don’t tell our big brother,” Cao He said.

“OK,” Cao Hui said.

The next day, Cao Hui went to Wang Family Village by herself. She soon found Wan Yao’s clinic. There was no patient inside the clinic. She knocked at the door and went in.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Wang,” Cao Hui said.

“Good afternoon,” Wang Yao said with surprise.

Cao Hui looked well-educated, and she was quite good-looking. However, she looked tired. “My name is Cao Hui. I am Cao Meng’s sister.”

“I know who you are. Please sit down,” Wang Yao said.

Cao Hui was from an isolated village in central China. She graduated from one of the best universities in China. She had an accounting degree. She and Cao He were from the same village. Wang Yao couldn’t imagine people like Cao He and Cao Hui would work for people like Cao Meng. He was amazed that two excellent young people were working for a scumbag like Cao Meng.

He was curious about why Cao He and Cao Hui were so loyal to Cao Meng. Two people who could have a right future chose to become gangsters.

“May I ask why people like you would work for Cao Meng? I’m just curious,” Wang Yao said.

“Cao He and I are from the same village. Our village is very poor,” said Cao Hui as she looked through the window. She was thinking about her past. “Most people from that village lived off of farming. We weren’t really starving, but we were pretty much short of food all the time. The nearest school was five miles away. I had to walk there every day. I stayed on campus when I was studying in middle school. The food there was terrible. I told myself I had to study hard to enter a good university so that my life would change completely. I didn’t want to stay in that village anymore.”

Cao Hui pause briefly and continued her story. “My family wanted me to quit high school because I have two younger brothers. My parents wanted me to start to work so that I could bring home money for my brothers to go to school. You know how it is like in the countryside, girls are treated like trash. My dad said even if I could study in the university, he couldn’t afford to pay the tuition fees. I said I would apply for a loan. My family was apparently not happy with me. I didn’t go home for two months. I had to borrow money from my teacher to buy food in the school.”

“Have some water.” Wang Yao gave Cao Hui a glass of water.

“Thank you,” Cao Hui said. “So, I continued to study until the last year of high school. However, my mother fell sick that year. She needed $40,000 for a treatment fee. That amount might be nothing nowadays, but it was a huge amount of money for my family back then. My dad used up all his savings and had to borrow money for my mother’s treatment. He asked me to quit school one day.”

“I was very upset and in tears,” Cao Hui said. “God knows what kind of life I had during my high school years. Students from the town ate fried chicken, cakes, and ice cream all the time. I had never tasted any of those. I only ate buns and vegetable. My clothes were always shabby. People looked down on me. I survived and almost finished high school. However, I decided to give up.”

“At that time, Cao Meng came into my life,” Cao Hui said. “He asked me why I was crying. I told him what had happened with my family. He was smoking and kept silent for a long while after listening to my story. He followed me home and gave my family money for my mother’s treatment. He said we didn’t need to pay him back as long as I continued to study. He was happy to provide financial support to my study. At that moment, he was a god to me.”

Wang Yao was surprised to hear that. He didn’t expect that a scumbag like Cao Meng would offer help to a family in need.

“I successfully entered the university. He helped me pay the tuition fees for the first two years. Without him, I couldn’t even finish high school, let alone studying in the university,” Cao Hui said. “My life would be completely different. I would have married someone I didn’t like and had kids. I would have continued to live in poverty and hoped that my children would have a different life in the future.”

Wang Yao suddenly felt sorry for Cao Hui. “So, Cao He was in the same situation as you?”

“Yeah, slightly better, but was pretty much the same,” Cao Hui said.

Cao Meng helped the two young people at the darkest time of their lives. At that moment, Cao Meng was a god to them. No matter how evil he was, he helped them and changed their lives. Of course, the two young people would keep that in mind and return the favor. They would offer assistance if they knew Cao Meng was doing something illegal. They didn’t care. They just wanted to help one of the most important persons in their lives.

After explaining to Wang Yao why she and Cao He worked for Cao Meng, Cao Hui started to talk about her purpose of visit.

“Dr. Wang, can you cure our big brother?” Cao Hui asked.

“Yes, I can,” Wang Yao said.

“What should we do to make you help him?” Cao Hui asked.

“I want him to confess to the police what he did and disclose the person who asked him to commit those crimes,” Wang Yao said.

Just as I expected, Cao Hui though. “I don’t think he knows the person behind this.”

“Then, he has to confess his crime to the police and accept the consequences,” Wang Yao said.

“I see. I will let him know,” Cao Hui said.

“OK. I think you should stop working for them,” Wang Yao said.

Cao Hui just smiled. She and Cao He were returning a favor to Cao Meng. However, neither of them knew when it would end.

Maybe after Cao Meng was put in jail, she and Cao He would eventually get out of his gang. Although they hadn’t participated in anything bad directly in the past few years, they offered a lot of help to Cao Meng.

Maybe it is a good thing to end our working relationship with Cao Meng, Cao Hui thought.

After she left Wang Yao’s clinic, she called Cao He.

“You should come back now,” Cao He said.

Since they had confirmed that Cao Meng’s condition was caused by Wang Yao, the next step was to convince Cao Meng to confess his crimes. However, they were not sure if Cao Meng would listen to them.

Wang Yao kept thinking about what Cao Hui said after she had left. A person’s poor situation often attributed to his or her own fault. He presumed there were many people like Cao Hui and Cao He in China.

What a shame! He sighed.

It was very quiet that night. Wang Yao was sitting outside his cottage looking up at the sky. His dog was lying quietly next to him.

“Do you know, San Xian, I met a poor girl today,” Wang Yao said.

He believed what Cao Hui told him was true because he had read their personal profile. He knew her background but didn’t know exactly what she had experienced.

Woof! Woof! San Xian barked in a low voice.

“There will be a thunderstorm tomorrow,” Wang Yao said.

He went up to the top of the hill the next morning. The sky looked gloomy. He didn’t do breathing exercises or practice Chinese boxing. He just stood there looking at the sky, his surroundings, and the far corner of the village.

He didn’t know when Nanshan Hill started to grow higher. It had continued to grow since. Wang Yao didn’t know how high Nanshan Hill would become. He didn’t want to control it. Plus, he couldn’t control the growth of a hill anyway. Hills had spirit.

It was cloudy the whole morning.