Chapter 432: Public Opinion

The chief sat in his chair in silence for a long time. His thoughts were so chaotic that he took a few sips of tea. He looked at his subordinate not far away. Just as the policewoman thought that the two of them were going to continue staring at each other, he suddenly asked, “What do you think of Li Hu?”

The unexpected question made the policewoman stand rooted to the ground for a long time. Why is he asking this question? She recalled the Mr. Lu that the chief mentioned earlier. She happened to know someone with the surname Lu, and it was Lu Ming from the magazine news.

A genius who was rumored to be famous in the outside world.

Could it be that that gentleman had personally gone to the police chief to ask him to let Li Hu go? He could have minded his own business, but he still had to get involved in this mess! No matter what, from her perspective, he was really a good person! She could immediately understand why Lu Ming Corporation had so many supporters.

Who wouldn’t like such a conscientious enterprise?

“Little Meng?”

The chief saw that his subordinate was clearly distracted and said helplessly, “What are you thinking about? It’s time to come back to your senses.”

“Huh?”

Little Meng was pulled back to reality by this sentence. She smiled guiltily. Their place was small to begin with, and the police officers who were available were often dispatched, so the relationship between the higher-ups and the lower-ups was more casual. The chief treated them like his own children and he never fussed about such things.

“I’ve not interacted with Li Hu, so I don’t know what his personality is like, but I think he must be very popular. First, the nurse stopped us and made all kinds of excuses to not let us in. Then, when we were leaving with him, we happened to bump into the villagers of the Divine Medicine Village who came to the hospital for checkups.”

After the villagers learned that they had brought Li Hu back for interrogation, they immediately launched an attack on them. Their goal was to stall for time and let Dr. Li produce the antidote first! This was because the relatives of these villagers were still lying in bed, hovering between life and death! Li Hu was their only hope in Shixiong. After all, no one knew what might happen.

“Please, Miss Police Officer and Sir, we’ll kowtow to you! Yes! Kowtow! We’ll give you money. Please don’t take Dr. Li away! He’s the best doctor here. If he can’t do anything about the antidote, won’t we be doomed?!”

“Please show mercy!”

If Li Hu hadn’t told them to wait for him and that he would be back soon, those people probably wouldn’t have let him leave so easily. However, Little Meng couldn’t forget the pleading gazes of the villagers and the scene of so many people kneeling down. She even cried! On the way back, she couldn’t calm down for a long time, and neither could the other male police officer who went on the mission with her.

She said in a choked voice, “These villagers have been farming all year round. Where did they get the money from? Now, they’re willing to fork out all the money they have for Dr. Li. They raised the money, a dollar at a time! If we don’t let him out in time, won’t those patients lying in the hospital die because of us?”

She had chosen this profession to uphold justice, but she had never thought that she would one day become a murderer indirectly.

Thinking of this, she took a deep breath and said, “Chief, why don’t we let him go? If the higher-ups investigate, you can throw me under the bus.”

The chief shook his head. “How can I let a young girl like you be the scapegoat? Let me think about it. Go back to work first. Tell them to be polite to Dr. Li!”

“Okay.”

…

The chief mulled over this for several days. Before he could think of how to have it both ways, the infectious disease spread throughout the country and even to the capital! Part of the reason was that Dr. Li did not make an antidote and was locked up in the police station. If it was just the Divine Medicine Village, Tang Wenyi and the others could still suppress the news with their connections, but now, more and more people gradually knew about it—

Most of the patients were unlucky people who had taken Xingwei Preventive Medicine which was not effective at all!

This made them wonder if Xingwei was suspected of making fake medicine. The ones who criticized him the most were naturally the group of people who trusted Xingwei back then. This matter gained traction on Weibo because of this. Their comments were naturally not polite and were targeted at Xingwei!

[If I remember correctly, the village chief of the Divine Medicine Village passed away like this a while ago, right? A doctor stood up and said that there was something wrong with the preventive medicine. In the end, not only was the post deleted from the platform, but Xingwei got the police to investigate him for spreading rumors. If more people had paid attention to this matter at that time, perhaps the infectious disease would not have spread so quickly.]

[That’s why I say that it’s good to be powerful. They ignore the lives of us people and only care about money! Can the higher-ups tell me in detail about that doctor? This is the first time I’ve heard of it. It’s enough to show how powerful their methods are. Those who don’t know might think that they’ve never seen money in a long time!]

[I know about this! It seems that the doctor thinks that the preventive medicine is made of starch and that eating it will cause harm to the human body. I’m also curious. How did such a medicine pass the review? Could it be that there’s someone above? Can the officials explain?]

[F*ck! Preventive medicine? Xingwei, return my hard-earned money! Previously, my wife and I were afraid of getting this illness, so we spent a lot of money buying this preventive medicine. In the end, my wife is lying in the hospital bed with her life on the line. I’m also having health problems! Recently, I had to take on a huge loan to pay all these huge expenses! I don’t even have a shoulder to cry on!]

…

Seeing that the whirlpool of public opinion was getting bigger and bigger, Xingwei finally held a press conference. As soon as Lei Jiacheng and Tang Wenyi went on stage, the cameras below flashed non-stop. Fortunately, the latter wore sunglasses in time. Because of this, her sisters had been mocking her recently!

Do they think I’ve run out of options?

Her lips curled into a faint smile. She wanted to see who would get to have the last laugh!

“Regarding this matter, many people have already been involved in the infectious disease storm. I want to clarify that this medicine is definitely real! Everyone, please rest assured! The people around me and I have all taken this medicine, but there are no side effects at all. Those who have problems are either jealous that we have the prescription or have taken other medicine!”

Lei Jiacheng was the first to speak. He could not hide the fatigue on his face, but he was overjoyed in his heart! Before he went on stage, Xu Xiaojing specially applied some makeup on him for the purpose of sadfishing and weathering this crisis.

He went on to say, “Please believe us! In case some people suspect us, we specially did a professional drug test overnight! Please look at the big screen!”