Given the pursuits of these wealthy elites, Gilbert and Steve Jobs jointly established a medical center in Sacramento, where the treatment costs were outrageously high.
At the same time, Gilbert invited several of Master Shikong's disciples to work there. While Master Shikong himself had long withdrawn from worldly affairs, his disciples were not bound by such restraint.
One of them, a middle-aged man in his forties named Yuanneng, was said by Master Shikong to have mastered about sixty percent of his medical skills.
Unfortunately, Yuanneng's worldly desires had not been extinguished. At Gilbert's invitation, he bid farewell to his master and traveled to a foreign land to become a practicing physician.
This medical center mainly focused on traditional Chinese medicine, supplemented by Western medical practices. On its opening day, all hospital rooms were immediately booked by wealthy clients.
Each year, the revenue from hospitalization fees alone reached around fifty to sixty million dollars. Keep in mind, that was just from room charges. When combined with consultation fees, medication costs, and other expenses, the total annual income easily exceeded one hundred million dollars.
This clearly demonstrated that the medical industry was indeed a highly profitable business. In North America, medical capital stood on equal footing with military and Wall Street financial capital.
At first, the major medical conglomerates did not pay much attention to the center, thinking it was merely a vanity project by Jobs and Gilbert.
But to their surprise, it actually worked. Almost every wealthy individual began flocking there for treatment.
Even many rich investors from within the medical industry went to the center for treatment and, after returning, praised it highly, saying, "Very good results."
That immediately caught the attention of the major medical corporations. Representatives from these conglomerates were soon sent to negotiate with Jobs and Gilbert.
However, when Jobs saw the arrogant attitude of the representative, he ordered security to throw him out.
Jobs was an extremely proud man, and there were very few people he truly respected—Gilbert was one of them. A conceited corporate envoy showing off before him naturally infuriated him.
Gilbert, on the other hand, received the representative with politeness. Yet, being a master of verbal deflection, he avoided giving any concrete answers, leaving the envoy feeling as though his fists had landed on cotton—completely powerless.
When acquisition failed, the medical capitalists decided to destroy the center instead.
They persuaded several congressmen under their sponsorship to propose a motion in Congress, citing "national security concerns" as justification to shut the medical center down.
However, before Gilbert and Jobs even had to respond, the wealthy clients currently staying in the center or awaiting treatment immediately activated their own political connections. They urged the congressmen they funded to publicly oppose the motion.
They argued that the medical center was established for the sake of humanity's health and destiny, standing on the side of all mankind.
Both sides stood firm—each claiming to act in the public's best interest. Yet the medical conglomerates soon realized that shutting down the center was impossible.
So they came up with two alternative strategies. The first was similar to what big tech companies did: if you cannot buy them, then poach their people.
However, the true core of the center lay in Master Shikong's disciples, and the master himself occasionally visited to oversee treatments. Losing a few insignificant staff members made little difference.
The second strategy was to go to China and find other skilled healers. Surely, Master Shikong and his disciples were not the only ones with exceptional medical ability.
As a result, a long-standing illusion in the West was shattered. People had always assumed that Western medicine was superior and that traditional Chinese medicine was an outdated practice. But when Western medical capital began searching for Chinese doctors, this belief was overturned.
Classical Chinese medical texts such as Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Diseases, Compendium of Materia Medica, and Huangdi Neijing became required reading in many foreign hospitals and medical schools.
More importantly, the popularity of traditional Chinese medicine in the West drew global attention to Chinese medicinal herbs, giving China a new source of export revenue.
Many trade companies specializing in herbal exports made fortunes from it.
This entire chain of events was something Gilbert had never anticipated.
No wonder, in those popular urban web novels of his previous life, the protagonists always possessed extraordinary medical skills. It turned out that those web authors had long understood a fundamental truth of the world.
It showed how precious life was—people would do anything to preserve it. Whoever could control the life and death of others would become the ruler of the world.
Because of the impressive success of the Sacramento Medical Center, Gilbert and Jobs decided to expand, planning new centers in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago.
Their future goal was to open branches in London, Paris, Berlin, and Madrid as well.
For the sake of prolonging their own lives, the wealthy would gladly pay any price. And to protect the existence of these centers, they would willingly allow themselves to be used by Gilbert and Jobs.
This was how Gilbert forged his own golden body of power. From this point on, unless through physical means, no one could do anything to harm him.
Of course, the key figure in all of this remained Master Shikong.
The master's eyes seemed to see right through Gilbert. Once, he said to him, "Benefactor, I sense that you are not someone of this world."
Gilbert was momentarily stunned. "Then, Master, tell me—where do you think I am from?"
"The poor monk does not know," Master Shikong said with a deeper meaning in his tone. "Perhaps in your previous life, you were a man of the East, reincarnated here in this life, but your soul remains unextinguished."
These words gave Gilbert quite a fright. He thought Master Shikong might have discovered that he was someone reborn!
It was probably because of Gilbert's uniqueness that Master Shikong regarded him differently, was willing to help him, and even sent his disciples to serve as resident doctors at the medical center.
Master Shikong also gave Gilbert a calligraphy scroll inscribed with the words "The highest good is like water, embracing all forms."
Gilbert did not quite understand it. He assumed it was a Daoist saying and guessed that Master Shikong meant for him to do more good deeds to ensure peace and safety for himself.
He had always followed that principle, donating to various charitable foundations, though perhaps that still was not enough.
Gilbert had already discussed with Naomi Watts that, when the time was right, they would establish a charitable foundation to carry out truly meaningful acts of kindness.
Another matter was related to Jobs—the Pixar Studio.
After a long tug-of-war, Disney finally reached an agreement with Pixar a few days ago, under which Pixar would become a subsidiary of Disney.
Jobs, through this deal, entered Disney's board of directors and became one of its shareholders.
The acquisition made a huge stir in Hollywood, though few were surprised. Hollywood had long expected this outcome; Pixar's joining Disney was only a matter of time.
In addition, reports on the investment activities of the Fruit Group—what companies they had invested in, what stocks they had purchased—were all presented to Gilbert one by one.
Companies like Banana and Watermelon also sent their quarterly financial statements for Gilbert to review. Amazon invited Gilbert to attend its shareholders' meeting, while Tesla was rolling out its new prototype cars.
Meanwhile, Musk was setting up a space technology company and asked Gilbert whether he would be interested in joining him.
After handling all these miscellaneous affairs, it was already past one in the morning.
And by six o'clock, Gilbert had to get up again, eat breakfast, and begin another day of filming work.
Successful people always share certain traits, one of which is boundless energy. Bill Gates once said that when he first founded Microsoft, he slept only four or five hours a day but still felt full of energy.
Gilbert was the same—always able to tackle his work with a vigorous and focused mind.
Today, however, was slightly different. Normally, after finishing work with Ivanka, she would give Gilbert a massage—or the two would "exercise" together.
When other women were not around, Ivanka was the closest person to him.
But Ivanka had gone out to have fun. After finishing his work, Gilbert had no massage to look forward to, so he just wanted to rest.
At that moment, however, the doorbell of his room rang.
"Who is it?"
"It's Emma…"
....
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