Chapter 571 — Divine Physician Kang Nearly Kicks the Bucket: "Yes, yes! Eat the dog meat!" Divine Physician Kang came alive with energy at once: "Zhaoming's idea is best after all. The dog ate the Longevity and Detoxification Pill, so we eat the dog—surely there'll be some effect!"

The rest of the Kang family thought this made sense as well, and so the whole household bustled into action and stewed the dog meat. The beast had been a sturdy one indeed—it took the family an entire evening to polish off every last scrap.

Everyone wants a longer life. Once Divine Physician Kang had been guaranteed more than his fill, the others fell to scrambling for their share, until in the end they were forcing it down with gritted teeth, every one of them waiting for a miracle to be born.

But their hopes were fair, and the outcome was sorry. The next day, apart from everyone being stuffed to bursting and passing rather more stool than usual, nothing whatsoever came of it—the dog meat had been eaten for nothing.

Divine Physician Kang grieved over it. Truly this was a season of troubles; the Kang family's ill fortune had struck far too savagely. His heart bled—those four hundred million and more in family assets had taken him years of bitter toil to amass, and now they were simply gone!

"Grandfather, since the Longevity and Detoxification Pill was eaten by the dog, surely the dog couldn't have digested it completely, could it? There might well be some of the pill left in its droppings. How about I eat a bit of the dog shit and see?" Kang Zhaoming's mind was quick. Since the dog meat had done no good, he turned his attention to the dog's dung.

"This..." Hearing Kang Zhaoming's words, Divine Physician Kang felt there was something in them. That dog dung might well hold remnants of the Longevity and Detoxification Pill! If Kang Zhaoming were to eat it, perhaps he might stumble onto another bargain.

So Divine Physician Kang gritted his teeth and said, "I'll eat this one myself! You had your turn last time—this time it's mine to try!"

There was not much of the dog dung to go around, and everyone eyed it with longing, but once Divine Physician Kang had spoken, the sons and grandsons of the Kang family could only yield to him this precious chance to keep the whole of it for himself.

This batch of dog dung stank far worse than usual, yet Divine Physician Kang, for the sake of long life, had no choice but to force it down. He was nearly choked to death by the stench; had he not clenched his teeth and held on, he might well have thrown it all back up.

But this time, Divine Physician Kang was disappointed again—and worse than disappointed: he nearly surrendered his old life for it.

Once the dog dung went down, the vomiting and diarrhea duly arrived, but it expelled no toxin. After two or three days of torment, Divine Physician Kang was on the verge of dehydration. Seeing that things could not go on this way, the Kangs rushed the old man to the hospital, and the examination came back: food poisoning...

The doctor said that had he been brought in two days later, the old man would likely have been a goner.

At first the Kang family was puzzled—how could eating a bit of dog dung bring on poisoning? It was Divine Physician Kang himself who, upon waking, roused them all from their dream with a single word! The pill was named the Longevity and Detoxification Pill, so of course its business was to expel toxins! What he had eaten was the very poison the dog had excreted—so of course he had food poisoning.

After all their scheming and every trick in the book, the Kang family's efforts ended with Divine Physician Kang nearly losing his life. From his hospital bed he convened a family council and designated the affair a Kang family secret of the first order; never again was anyone to mention it.

There was no other reason than that it was too humiliating. If word of this ever got out, the Kang family would be truly finished.

For now they had best honestly carry out Kang Zhaoming's girl-chasing plan; the practical path was to work on Guan Xin, to extract the formula for the Longevity and Detoxification Pill straight from her, and then the Kang family could weather this crisis.

Wei Zhao looked at the calm, shadowed expression in Zhong Yongliang's eyes there on the sickbed and had a vague sense that something was wrong with him, yet could not puzzle out what Zhong Yongliang meant to do. By instinct, Wei Zhao guessed that Zhong Yongliang would surely take revenge—only he did not know whether that revenge would fall upon the Gu family or upon An Jianwen.

On the way back to school, Wei Zhao and Kang Xiaobo sat together. Kang Xiaobo made no secret of his satisfaction: that little bastard Zhong Yongliang had finally got his comeuppance, with a kidney carved out of him—let's see whether he can still go prancing about after this.

"What's happened to Tang Yun? Why didn't she come to school today? Do you have Xiaofen's home number? Give her a call and ask?" Wei Zhao was rather worried about Tang Yun. He had not seen her for days and missed her terribly, and he could not think why she was avoiding him—what misunderstanding lay in it?

"Oh, today? They're demolishing the shantytown. They say people came to discuss the compensation, and every household has to leave someone at home. Liu Xinwen asked for leave, so Tang Yun is probably at home too," Kang Xiaobo said.

"So that's it." Wei Zhao nodded. Tang Yun's mother had told him about this before, and he had agreed with them that after the demolition he would put up some money for a storefront unit. Hearing Kang Xiaobo's explanation, Wei Zhao set his mind at ease; so long as Tang Yun was at home, there should be nothing to worry about.

"Boss, let me tell you something. Yesterday Zou Ruoming's old man came to my place..." Kang Xiaobo recounted what had happened at the teahouse, and especially how the Zou father and son had been frightened out of their wits at the mere mention of Wei Zhao's name, which delighted him immensely.

Wei Zhao only smiled faintly at the telling. Having petty men like that afraid of him gave him no particular sense of achievement; only Kang Xiaobo would get so worked up over it.

Today was a great day in the shantytown, for a development company was going to redevelop the place. This was in fact good news—the residents all longed to live in proper apartment buildings, and of course they wanted a handsome sum in compensation too.

It was not that no development company had ever cast an eye on the shantytown before; in the end they had all quietly dropped the matter because the cost of development was too high. Compensation and rehousing for the displaced households fell to the developer, but the shantytown was not like an ordinary old-town renovation: shabby as its houses were, for historical reasons each family's plot was sizable.

Besides the house each family lived in, there were bicycle sheds, storerooms, thatched huts—all of them with property deeds, all of them to be compensated by area when demolished. Reckoned that way, apart from the dwelling, every household had several hundred meters of shed or warehouse space. How much money would it take to tear all that down?

A family might not even be covered by three or five apartments! Under such conditions, what development company would dare take on the project? Wouldn't it be a losing proposition?

But there was no help for it—the shantytown had its historical reasons. This had originally been farmland, later converted into a town; only at the end of the 2000s did it come to border the city, and over a decade of development it had gradually grown into part of the main urban district.

In the days when land was cheap, no development company thought this spot worth a glance; but later, as the surrounding amenities went up and housing prices climbed, the place had become too expensive to demolish.