I See through Everything

It wasn’t until Jiang Miao mentioned a few days ago that he wanted to acquire a pharmaceutical company that Li Jianming remembered a friend of his was selling one. He decided to connect the two and do Jiang Miao an easy favor.

Jiang Miao took a look. Although New Le Kang Pharmaceutical only had two factories, one of them—the ibuprofen plant—contained a pharmaceutical R&D lab that had been established to develop new drugs. The instruments and equipment inside were worth roughly 80 million yuan, making it the company’s most valuable asset besides the office building and its various licenses and permits.

As for the other production lines—for ibuprofen, face masks, and protective suits—their combined value wasn’t even five million yuan, since it was all third-hand equipment.

Even the two industrial land plots weren’t worth much. Combined, the 96 mu of land, including the factory buildings, were valued at 90 million yuan; the office building was worth around 27 million yuan.

The sellers probably knew they couldn’t ask for a high price for the second-hand lab and factory equipment.

That’s why they had quoted a total price of 200 million yuan.

The price was fine—well within Jiang Miao’s acceptable range. He immediately compiled some information he could gather from the surface web and sent it to his business secretary, Liu Deming, instructing him to have the purchasing department send a team to investigate New Le Kang Pharmaceutical Company.

As for the pharmaceutical company’s structure, Jiang Miao planned to establish it as a joint-stock limited company. He would take the title of Chairman, then hire a professional manager to serve as CEO, with He Youwei as the Chief Technology Officer.

He didn’t plan on holding on to many of the company’s shares himself. He could bring in other necessary partners as shareholders.

However, he, Shuya, and He Youwei would form a separate corporation. They would spin off the pharmaceutical company’s R&D division and sell it to this new entity. All related patents would be registered under the new corporation’s name. It would then license the technology to the pharmaceutical company, free of charge, under an annually renewed agreement.

This way, even without holding a majority stake in the pharmaceutical company, Jiang Miao and He Youwei could still maintain firm control.

To maximize profits, they could even license the technology to multiple domestic pharmaceutical companies.

Jiang Miao himself only intended to focus on the agriculture industry. Shuya might develop something with medicinal fungi down the line, but that was a matter for the future.

Thus, he had a take-it-or-leave-it attitude toward the pharmaceutical company. After all, if he or his family ever needed any medicine, he could simply synthesize some in his own lab.

Even after the company was established, Jiang Miao wouldn’t hand over too much of his technology, as much of it was far too sensitive.

For example, by using his knowledge of genetic patterns, he could apply specific drugs to corresponding gene targets to effectively inhibit telomere shortening. This could slow the aging process to a degree, potentially extending a person’s lifespan by over a decade.

If he released that technology now, he would undoubtedly become a target for the whole world.

Then there was his dietary regimen for cognitive enhancement. If that technology were ever discovered, it would likely spark a world war.

Therefore, the technologies he could license to the pharmaceutical company would most likely be treatments for conditions like systemic lupus erythematosus, special allergies, infertility, Alzheimer’s disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, high uric acid, and various types of cancer.

Anything related to life extension or cognitive enhancement, however, was absolutely off-limits.

「The 6th arrived before he knew it.」

Yang Hejun, the chairman of Chengyi Group, arrived for a visit with five of his employees.

"Brother Yang, hello!"

"Junior Brother Jiang, sorry for the intrusion. A little something for you," Yang Hejun said with a smile, handing him a few bags.

Jiang Miao had no choice but to accept the gifts before leading Yang Hejun and his team into his temporary office.

Tea had already been prepared in the office.

After they were seated, Jiang Miao poured them tea and said with a smile, "Brother Yang, perfect timing. The dock just brought in some wild grouper today. We can have some for lunch."

"You’re too kind, Junior Brother." Yang Hejun took a sip of tea, then shook his head and joked, "At this rate, your company will probably surpass mine soon. It really makes a man feel his age!"

"Haha, I’ve just been fortunate with my timing."

"Nonsense, you’re being too modest. Without real technology, all the opportunities in the world are useless." Yang Hejun’s tone then shifted. "Junior Brother, the main reason for my visit is to see if our companies might be able to cooperate."

"Please, Brother Yang, feel free to speak your mind," Jiang Miao said, refilling his guest’s cup.

"In that case, I’ll be direct, Junior Brother Jiang. I’d like to partner with your company to develop a feed that can shorten the breeding cycle for grass carp. I’ve looked into your eel and Egyptian Catfish feeds, and they both seem to effectively shorten breeding cycles or accelerate growth rates." Yang Hejun had, in fact, already researched Hailufeng Company before his visit.

He was particularly interested after learning Jiang Miao was a Lion Mountain Agricultural University graduate, and he’d quickly asked his contacts at the university to help connect them.

"Grass carp feed?" Jiang Miao had also done his homework on Chengyi Group. The company owned a 16,000-mu aquaculture base dedicated to raising grass carp.

Under intensive farming conditions, grass carp typically take about 1.5 to 2 years to be ready for market.

Such a long breeding cycle not only caused farming costs to skyrocket but also increased uncontrollable risks and prolonged the capital recovery period.

Yang Hejun had been stunned to learn that Jiang Miao could shorten the eel breeding cycle from over a year to just seven months.

"Brother Yang, to be honest, our company has a prior agreement with Haida Group. We’ll be developing a series of custom feeds using Egyptian Catfish Meal for them. Of course, that agreement has no exclusivity clause. So, if we were to successfully develop a feed formula for grass carp, we could certainly license it to Chengyi Group as well."

Yang Hejun was surprised to hear this.

He was certainly aware of Haida Group. They were both Lingnan Yangcheng enterprises, after all, and their businesses even overlapped to some extent.

Chengyi Group also produced its own feed, but it was generally for internal use, with an annual output of only around 40,000 to 60,000 tons.

"In that case, I won’t press the issue," Yang Hejun said, moving on to another topic.

"Junior Brother Jiang, what about the technology for the Egyptian Catfish Meal itself? Could that be licensed to our company?"

Jiang Miao shook his head. "Brother Yang, you’d be better off just buying directly from Haida Group. They’ll be starting mass production of their Egyptian Catfish Meal next year. Since your grass carp have a long breeding cycle anyway, you could feed them with a diet based on Egyptian Catfish Meal for the first year and then switch to other feeds. If you also use flowing-water ponds, you can effectively reduce any earthy taste."

After Jiang Miao’s explanation, Yang Hejun abandoned the idea of raising Egyptian Fish himself. He decided he would just wait until Haida Group’s Egyptian Catfish Meal was in production next year and purchase it from them.