The noisy competition hall suddenly went quiet. Then, as one big figure after another entered, the place exploded again. People who recognized them quickly whispered to their neighbors, naming which Capital big shot had arrived and who was in charge of the entire event.
Some started guessing that the unfamiliar young woman walking beside the chief judge must be the president of Wu City's Medicinal Herb Association.
As the big shots took their seats, the Wu City team was guided to the very front—ironically, the seats that used to belong to the disqualified Fuhai Association.
Feeling the burning stares of envy and resentment from both sides, the pharmacists from Wu City were completely dazed. Everything that happened today felt too surreal to be real.
The competition setup itself was simple. It was just the old Capital Association's venue with a few upgrades, but the key difference was the lineup—rare herbs from across the country were stacked in displays behind each association's booth.
From a glance, these were all near-extinct herbs in the apocalypse era. The more herbs a team brought, the more confidence they seemed to have.
The spotlights flared to life, and machines hummed to a start.
"Quiet! Ahem, testing, testing—" The mic crackled as a bespectacled man stepped into the light with a professional smile, as if nothing unusual had ever happened. "Everyone ready? Then, I announce, the competition officially begins!"
It was as if the hours-long delay and chaos earlier had never existed. No explanations, no apologies.
Of course, no one in the hall dared to complain. After what happened to Fuhai, nobody wanted to follow in their footsteps.
"First of all," the man continued cheerfully, "I'm your host for today, you can call me Xiao Ai. I'll be sharing live reactions from our nationwide audience, explaining the rules, and helping everyone understand what's happening. Audience members can vote for your favorite association, but votes don't count for the actual results—ha! The winner will be decided by one chief judge and five appointed judges."
He clapped his hands briskly. "Alright, everyone knows the rules, right? Good. Bring in the props!"
The Wu City pharmacists, who'd just taken their positions, blinked in confusion. "Uh… what rules exactly?" one of them whispered.
Jing Shu raised an eyebrow. Great. She'd spent the last few days preparing everything except… the actual rules. Still, she vaguely remembered hearing it was simple—just do it.
Then the "props" arrived.
A row of stretchers was carried in, each holding a moaning patient. Thirty in total, matching the number of associations. The one placed before Jing Shu held an old man clutching his belly, groaning in pain. His body was full of tubes, each leading to a sealed bag filled with writhing parasites pulled from his flesh.
Every patient looked the same—tormented and weak, all victims of parasitic infections eating away their organs.
During rehearsals, there hadn't been anything this extreme. Now they were using actual infected patients, right in a live broadcast watched by high-level officials nationwide.
If any of the medicines provoked the parasites, things could get ugly. Some pharmacists were already pale. This wasn't what they'd been told during simulations—they thought they'd only be testing their samples in labs, not on living people.
"As everyone knows," Xiao Ai said, pacing the stage, "this competition aims to find an association capable of producing or substituting Bodhi as a large-scale raw material. The winning association will receive full production rights and government backing to manufacture this crucial medicine.
Now, each association will administer their prepared medicine to their assigned patient. Anesthesia doesn't work on these cases anymore. This round focuses on pain relief and parasite suppression rates.
Oh, and Bodhi is banned for this round."
Jing Shu rubbed her chin as realization dawned. So the first round was meant to find an alternative to Bodhi? In her past life, she remembered that only Bodhi worked against these parasites. No other anti-parasitic medicine had any effect.
Beside her, Wang Danai trembled nervously, feeling a bit lightheaded. Several judges on the stage had just glanced over with kindly expressions, and most unbelievably, they had even smiled at her. Were high-level figures nowadays all this approachable? She turned to look at Jing Shu and shook her head—clearly, Jing Shu was the real expert here.
"Huh? What's going on? If we can't use Bodhi in the first round, then what are we supposed to use? Many in the association who listened to you have cultivated Bodhi and were hoping to shine in this competition."
Another pharmacist added, "President, we've tested several alternatives these past few days, but the results weren't promising. Theoretically, none of them work. In practice, it's even worse…"
"If there's no cure, the most we can do is boost immunity and buy a little time," someone muttered.
"What's the point of that? That's just suffering longer."
Jing Shu shook her head and calmly raised her hand. "Wu City's Association forfeits this round."
The entire hall erupted.
"What? Forfeit?"
"Wu City's giving up? What are they thinking?"
"I heard they've got a whole stash of Bodhi. Guess they don't care about finding substitutes. Still, they were supposed to be a top contender."
"Doesn't matter. Bodhi's not a real solution anyway. There's not enough to go around, and it only suppresses the parasites, not kills them. What we need is a replacement."
From the stretcher, the old man screamed, "What about me? It hurts, it hurts so bad! Someone, please, just make it stop! I'd rather die!"
Laughter came from the nearby booths. "Poor Lao Zhou, haha! Came here hoping for treatment, and his association gave up! Oh man, that's rough—ouch, easy! That hurts too, damn it!"
Xiao Ai nodded as if he'd expected this outcome. The big screen flickered, showing Wu City's score as zero for the first round.
The judges murmured among themselves on the platform, too far away for anyone to hear.
Soon, the commotion settled down. Other associations went back to focusing on their work, while Jing Shu quietly gave a few short instructions before stepping aside to watch.
Wang Danai nodded eagerly, then pulled a small black pill from her pocket and fed it to the old man assigned to Wu City.
While the other pharmacists were sweating and panicking over their test results, a sudden excited voice cut through the noise.
"I'm cured! The pain's gone, I'm completely fine! Who was laughing at me just now?"
"What? Who's cured? Lao Zhou?!"
"Bullshit! Didn't Wu City forfeit? How could he be fine?"
The old man jumped off the stretcher full of energy, walked over to the guy who'd mocked him earlier, and gave him a playful kick. "Lao Yu, after all these years you're still teasing me? Look at me now! They might've forfeited, but they had the antidote! Want me to ask them to help you too?"
"Wait, you're actually cured? Then I want them too! Screw this treatment, I've had enough!"
"Me too! I want Wu City's Association to treat me!"