Chapter 46: Planning Ahead

“Welcome home, Dad.”

The clear and boyish voice of Little X greeted when Chen Chen stepped into the control room, “Aunty Xia Yin came by the data center today.”

“I know, I told her to come.”

Chen Chen locked the door and placed a bunch of things on the floor. “Any other suspicious activity aside from that?”

“I noticed 3567 suspicious individuals passing through our house,” Little X replied.

Chen Chen chuckled. “Those aren’t suspicious individuals. They are just people getting off work.”

“Oh, I don’t understand...”

Little X mumbled.

Little X possessed a spectacular learning ability. It was very rare to see Little X stumped by a question beyond its intellectual scope.

After taking out the items from the boxes and making sure that they were the tools he needed, Chen Chen sat down in front of the computer. He took out the USB drive which was attached to his arm with a tape and inserted it into the computer.

After a moment, five to six packets of NZT-48 were extracted from the computer screen.

Chen Chen could not help but feel a sense of delight swelling up when he saw the newly extracted packets of NZT-48.

After purchasing the data center, he had the transformer upgraded to the largest model permitted by the government. It was able to generate fifty times the previous amount of energy generated.

This was what was known as exponential growth.

Chen Chen was in a race against time ever since the first time he had instantiated NZT-48. It took him four months to attain his initial capital fund. That was largely attributed to Zheng Jian’s case which managed to put him into the radar of the higher-ups in the school.

After that, it took him another three months to alleviate the side effects of the drug.

Following that, he began to set off a trend of exponential growth.

From acquiring the second tool to the development of the Little X Translation Assistant and leading up to the collaboration with Facebook. Chen Chen had managed to accomplish all of this in just three months.

In the past, Chen Chen was so envious of people like Xia Yin who had come from wealth. Now, most of the wealthy could barely compare themselves to Chen Chen.

It had hardly been a year since Chen Chen had acquired the USB drive.

The reason that Chen Chen had instantiated so many NZT-48 this time was not because he had lost his mind but it was him planning ahead for the future.

After plenty of consideration and playing out countless scenarios, he foresaw three potential crisis he could face in the future:

First, outside interference rendered him unable to take NZT-48.

Second, losing the USB drive along with the NZT-48 while in China.

Third, losing the USB drive along with the NZT-48 while overseas.

Arriving at this thought, Chen Chen walked to the workbench and poured a packet of NZT-48 onto a plate. He then used the manual grinder that Xia Yin had bought to grind the pills.

There were several boxes of amoxicillin set beside the manual grinder.

Each time he crushed an NZT-48, he would open an amoxicillin capsule and pour out its contents. He would then replace its contents with the NZT-48 powder.

After having accumulated a plastic shell worth of ground pills, he took out a roll of aluminum foil and heat-sealed them using a small machine.

After that, Chen Chen put all of the sealed capsules back into the packaging. With this, several boxes of “Amoxicillin” were manufactured.

This method of concealing the drug was to counteract situations where someone infiltrated the data center to threaten him, preventing him from being able to take NZT-48.

In such a situation, regardless of how the other party was going to harm him, taking NZT-48 was of the utmost priority.

NZT-48 disguised as common medicine may be able to get him out of such a precarious situation.

However, a packet of amoxicillin could carry sixteen capsules at most so it would only be good for emergencies.

After that, Chen Chen took out a pot. He poured edible wax into the pot and began to heat it with an electric stove until the wax had melted.

Then, Chen Chen mixed a packet of black color food coloring into the pot.

The wax instantly became jet black.

That was not the end of it. Chen Chen then took out a packet of powder labeled “Ammonium Benzoate”. He scooped up a spoonful of powder and poured them into the pot.

Ammonium Benzoate was the most bitter substance known to man. Just a concentration of 0.003% was already unbearable. It was commonly used as a bittering or aversion agent in the manufacturing process of daily necessities and industrial products.

Its most common usage was for the manufacturing of Nintendo’s Nintendo Switch video game card.

The Nintendo Switch video game card was about the size of a fingernail. To prevent children from swallowing it, Nintendo applied a layer of this bitter solution onto the card.

The moment the game card touched the tongue, it would leave a strong, bitter taste like that of a grapefruit peel. It would take some time for it to subside.

When this information was publicized, it started an internet trend. A bunch of people who had nothing better to do went out of their way to buy one to taste it.

In a way, it had accomplished what Nintendo had intended.

Since NZT-48 was dissolvable in water but not in wax, he did not have to worry about it dissolving into the pot. After a round of stirring, the pills morphed from its original crystal clear appearance to an unrecognizable state.

Chen Chen scooped up the pills and dried them out on the table.

After they were dried completely, he took out several packets of chewing gum he had bought on the way here.

Instead of buying the usual round-shaped variation, Chen Chen went with the tin-shaped packaging which contained compressed candy.

Chen Chen unwrapped the chewing gum packaging and tossed out its contents. He then stuffed the air-dried NZT-48 inside...

After that, he put one of the packages of chewing gum into his pocket.

Backup.

With this, he would not have to worry about accidentally losing it. Nobody else would eat this unknown, black, and bitter candy.

These two methods should be able to deal with the first emergency scenario.

The second scenario was if he had lost the USB drive and NZT-48 in China.

The development leading up to him losing the USB drive and its consequences were beside the point. What Chen Chen had to figure out first was how he was going to turn the situation around or escape after losing two of his massive crutches.

Chen Chen tossed out the previous pot and replaced it with a new pot filled with water. He poured the remaining five packets of NZT-48 into the pot...

Chen Chen had already conducted experiments on NZT-48 and could not be any more familiar with its properties at this point. It could be dissolved in water, withstand high temperature without affecting its chemical properties, and exposed to the air for a long time without deterioration.

With these exquisite properties, Chen Chen did not need to worry about any accidents.

After all of the pills had been dissolved, Chen Chen retrieved a pack of high-potency edible gel and poured them into the pot.

After mixing the solution evenly, the substance in the pot turned into a translucent jelly-like substance.

Chen Chen then took out several sets of molds from under the bed and filled the molds with the liquid.

Chen Chen only took them out of the molds after they had cooled down and completely solidified.

Several soft objects made of translucent silicone appeared before Chen Chen.

Chen Chen smiled faintly when he saw these “Silica gel”. He opened the fix box Xia Yin had brought over.

The contents of the box shone brightly. There were twelve bars of gold inside.

Labels like “Issued by XX Bank in Mainland China” and “Investment Bullion 500g” were etched on the gold bars.

Chen Chen barely paid a glance at the gold bars. He took out two transparent plastic boxes from under the bed and put the silica gel-like substances into the boxes.

Coincidentally, both of the plastic boxes had room for six two-fingers-wide objects.

Chen Chen fit in six gold bars into both of the boxes.

Just like that, two boxes of investment bullion weighing six kilograms were beautifully packaged.

All he had to do now was to deposit these boxes into the bank.

Banks these days had a line of business where they rented out these things called “Safe Box”. People could deposit valuable items in these “Safe Box” designated by the bank.

Valuables such as house deeds, bars of gold, important contracts, et cetera.

The advantages of this method were that barring situations like confiscation of property or the devastation of the government due to natural disasters, the safety of the items was all but guaranteed.

Just like the saying, the safest spot for hiding was to hide in plain sight. Even if Chen Chen was hunted down by other forces in the future, NZT-48 would never fall into the hands of others.

After all, who would have imagined that the most valuable items within the two boxes of gold bars in the safe box were the silica gel used to hold the gold bars in place?