Interstellar to 80s: A Scientist's Farming Mission

Chapter 597: Chapter 612: Winning the Lawsuit

The latest press conference from Luo’s Pharmaceutical once again caused a massive stir.

Mrs. Luo gave a simple demonstration of the mechanical exoskeleton. A man missing both legs wore a device that wrapped around his waist. From it, three supports, each as thick as a little finger and made of an unknown material, extended down each side, ending in perfectly controllable mechanical feet.

With this device, the man who had lost his legs was able to stand up. He even hopped a couple of times.

Luo’s Pharmaceutical claimed the device could be used to replace any body part.

Luo’s Pharmaceutical made this incredible announcement with casual brevity before moving on.

When the reporters tried to ask follow-up questions, everyone from the company had already vanished.

Same style, same infuriating habit.

Regardless, thanks to the media frenzy, Luo’s Pharmaceutical once again dominated the headlines for a full week.

The previous blood pressure medication had already shocked and enticed countless people. Now, with the addition of this exoskeleton device, the scales began to tip for those who were tempted.

Those who had already been itching to make a move could finally no longer restrain themselves.

The headquarters of Luo’s Pharmaceutical was rumored to be where all of its research findings were stored.

After the release of the blood pressure medication, Luo’s Pharmaceutical had upgraded its security by several levels. Even so, there was an endless stream of infiltration attempts, thefts, and other such activities.

Far away in his village, Cheng Jun gradually let his guard down under the village chief’s persistent efforts.

During a drunken night, he accidentally let it slip that he was a member of the research and development center at Luo’s Pharmaceutical.

The village chief used a meeting at Luo’s Pharmaceutical as a pretext to familiarize himself with the company’s layout. With that, all the pieces were in place; he was just waiting for the right opportunity.

「One dark and windy night at Luo’s Pharmaceutical.」

An Ning and Mrs. Luo sat in the monitoring room, each with a cup of tea. A plate of snacks sat on the table between them.

“They’re here.”

Mrs. Luo stared intently at the monitor for a long while.

“Where? I don’t see anyone.”

An Ning extended a finger and tapped a spot on the screen. Mrs. Luo was beginning to wonder if she was going blind.

“Hold on.”

An Ning tapped a few controls on the console. Instantly, an infrared figure appeared on the screen. A moment later, the scene changed again, and the figure’s face became visible.

“Incredible! How could I not see him before?”

“Ninjutsu.”

An Ning continued to explain, “It’s not that he’s truly invisible. He’s just using the principles of light and terrain to create a visual blind spot. If your eyes don’t pick up the signal, your brain doesn’t register that there’s anything to see.”

“But clearly, we’re a step ahead.”

Mrs. Luo wholeheartedly agreed with An Ning.

The two watched as the man in black destroyed several cameras. What he didn’t realize was that while the external cameras of the Luo Group were real, they were also just the obvious ones. The company had a second, covert network of cameras in place.

After all, for a pharmaceutical company holding such important formulas, one could never be too careful with security.

“He’s certainly done his homework,” An Ning commented. “He’s very familiar with the facility’s layout, and every move has been carefully calculated. He’s actually quite skilled.”

An Ning acknowledged his skill, but then her tone shifted. “Still, we’re better.”

On the screen, the man in black carefully made his way to the research lab and opened the first main door with a cloned keycard.

“How is he going to get through the next doors?”

“There are always some tricks of the trade.”

And just as she said, after passing through the first door, the man in black took a fist-sized black device from his waist and attached it to the second electronic door.

“A decoder. A pretty advanced one, too. Good thing we switched out the lock on that door, otherwise he really wouldn’t have been able to get it open.”

If the man in black had heard them, he probably would have died from coughing up blood in sheer frustration.

It was the first time anyone had seen someone “help” a thief by swapping in a simpler lock for them to break.

In any case, the man in black successfully got inside and began searching for his targets.

The traditional medicine formulas, the blood research, and the exoskeleton were his top priorities.

The man in black rummaged silently until he finally found a box. Inside, it was filled with yellowed papers covered in Chinese characters and diagrams.

‘Formulas?’

‘Left out in the open like this?’

BZZZZZZT—

Before the man in black could figure out what was wrong, the alarms blared.

The man in black’s first instinct wasn’t to run—it was to commit suicide.

‘He realized it was a trap!’

But it was too late. He was completely paralyzed, unable to move a muscle. He couldn’t even bite down on the poison capsule hidden in his mouth.

‘Could this be the ancient power of Huaxia!’

No one was there to answer him, and he would never find out.

A second later, he lapsed into a deep coma.

When the man in black woke up, he was in a fresh set of clothes, his head completely shaved. The poison capsule was gone from his mouth; if his interrogators hadn’t been worried about impeding his speech, they would have pulled all his teeth out, too.

He was in a small, windowless room, with only a single, scorching, blinding lamp overhead.

Two figures sat in the shadows cast by the lamp, and they began to interrogate him.

But the man in black refused to say a word.

The people across from him weren’t in a hurry. They continued at their own pace, asking questions slowly and steadily.

Ten hours. Twenty hours. Thirty hours.

The man in black hadn’t slept for thirty hours. They were using sleep deprivation tactics on him, a method known as “eagle boiling.”

He kept a single thought strung tight in his mind: ‘I can’t talk.’

But his interrogators were in no rush. The voice that had been with him for over thirty hours just kept on going.

“Where are you from?”

“I’m from Country R.”

The words slipped out of the man’s mouth.

The voice from across from him then offered a friendly greeting in the same language.

“Hello.”

“AGHH—You— You tricked me!”

As it turned out, the interrogator had suddenly switched languages. In his hazy state of mind, the man in black had instinctively let his guard down for less than a second upon hearing his native tongue.

From there, the interrogation broke through his psychological defenses step by step.

When he was shown the arrested village chief, his colleagues who had been lying in wait in the village, and the person in charge of acquiring the traditional medicine company, his defenses crumbled piece by piece.

The evidence was irrefutable: details of how he came to Huaxia, how he infiltrated Luo’s Pharmaceutical, how he broke in, how he contacted the other conspirators—they had the times, the locations, even the verbatim transcripts of his conversations.

“You did this on purpose! You planned all of it! This is a setup! It’s entrapment!”

“Entrapment?”

The interrogator across from him shook his head and laughed, but his tone suddenly turned sharp.

“Did I force you to steal the formulas? Did I force you to break into Luo’s Pharmaceutical? A leopard really can’t change its spots. Do you think you can just commit a crime and then shamelessly cry ‘frame-up’ to fabricate facts and rewrite history?”

The interrogation continued.

The village chief and his associates were arrested on charges of espionage. Luo’s Pharmaceutical sued the backers of the traditional medicine company for the theft of their formulas. The lawsuit became a massive public spectacle, escalating all the way to the international courts.

In the end, the evidence presented by Luo’s Pharmaceutical was simply too overwhelming to refute, and they won the case.

The lawsuit was seen as a signal of Huaxia’s rise, a symbol of its unwavering resolve.