Chapter 238: New Targeted Drug

North America, suburbs of Los Angeles, Hobe Mountain.

This was where the manor of a man named Leigh Yashin was located.

Unlike other private manors, this particular manor was located at the foot of Hobe Mountain, almost completely isolated from the other villas.

That was not all. Perhaps due to the place being inhabited for a while, the entire manor was old and run down. It looked more like the haunted house of a theme park than a proper manor.

Broken and littered bricks and tiles, rusty iron railings, and lawns that had not been fixed for years – these attractions showcased the current sad state of the manor.

However, despite the poor state of the manor, there were dozens of expensive cars parked at the parking lot by the entrance.

Now and then, a new expensive vehicle would appear by the entrance of the manor and would be guided by the security personnel into the parking lot.

After that, the gents and ladies dressed handsomely would exit their vehicles and be escorted through the front door by the host of servers.

It was only upon walking past the entrance of the manor where one could see the magnificent furnishing inside. There was a thick, beautifully woven, and eye-catching rug, and countless intricate and gorgeous golden inscriptions lined up along the walls. All this and not forgetting the incredibly large chandelier hanging above the hall which illuminated the place with a brilliant shine, giving the place an otherworldly presence.

Inside this place, the windows did not offer a view into the outside world. There was also a distinct lack of mirrors to look into. This purposeful arrangement was so that people would not feel the passage of time while they were in here, allowing them to endlessly bask in the ambient of the place.

Leigh Yashin Manor. The sheer implications of this name were something that only the members of the top political brass of North America would understand.

This place was a casino established by the Edwards family by virtue of their huge influence. It was only opened to a tiny group of selected billionaires.

At the present, inside the tightly guarded top floor of Leigh Yashin Manor where the Edwards family operated, a young man and an elderly man sat together, discussing something.

The elderly man was none other than Robert Edwards, the very person who had helped Chen Chen with Hollywood films. The blonde-haired and blue-eyed young man appeared to be no older than nineteen years old. He carried a distinct prideful aura about him.

“Uncle, this is yesterday’s turnover from the casino, you can go over them.”

The young man presented two checkbooks before Robert.

Robert shot a look at the young man with a blank expression before he briefly went over the checkbooks. While he was flipping through it, he asked dully, “What’s the occasion, coming all the way here to my place? I didn’t let you take charge of management just so that you can laze around.”

The young man smiled in response. “Don’t worry, dear Uncle. I won’t disappoint you. The reason I came here is to notify you of a new announcement made by God’s Forbidden Zone.”

“Any news?” Robert asked, his eyebrows immediately curved upwards.

Ever since joining God’s Forbidden Zone, both Robert and his family had received a great number of surprises from the organization. Last year when they had just joined, the organization only had two developed projects which were “Age-reversal Treatment” and “Cloned Organ Transplantation”. Other projects also included the “Alzheimer’s Disease Reversal Treatment” and “Neural Stem Cell Connection Regeneration” which were still in their developmental stage.

Despite only having two fully-developed projects, the organization still managed to persuade all the families to join them.

Robert originally thought that the other projects that were said to be under development would take at least several decades before seeing their completion. He never had high hopes for it and only thought of it as him purchasing thirty years of his life at the price of a billion dollars.

As it turned out, it only took half a year before Alzheimer’s disease had been overcome – this was what the first batch of his relatives who went to God’s Forbidden Zone to receive the “Age-reversal Treatment” claimed.

After that, God’s Forbidden Zone began making similar announcements in the sites on the dark web. The organization claimed they had developed a class of drug known as AD-001 and that any members in the Disciple Council experiencing any symptoms of Alzheimer’s may head to Eco Science City to receive treatment.

Here they were again. Did God’s Forbidden Zone just finalized yet another project?

“Yes, Uncle.”

The young man seemed to have expected this sort of reaction from his uncle. He swiftly logged onto his computer and opened a hidden webpage. A logo depicting a human hand touching a robotic hand immediately filled the display.

This was the webpage of God’s Forbidden Zone. There were multiple authentication factors for logging in and it was impossible for someone who was not a member of God’s Forbidden Zone to find this webpage.

The main page of the website was simply white text on a black background without any sort of additional decoration. It looked like a bottomless abyss, perfectly fitting the private aesthetic of the dark web.

The first page of the logo showed detailed progress of several projects as well as the research progress for new projects. Even the information of the Blacklight virus BE-006 and the vaccine were publicly displayed, clearly an indication of the website’s confidence in its security and privacy protocols.

At one point, Robert had invited several top international hackers to infiltrate the website as a way of testing God’s Forbidden Zone. The outcome proved to be rather surprising –

Before the hackers had barely started, Robert received a call from God’s Forbidden Zone where he was given a warning to not attack the organization’s website. Otherwise, they would deduct his information credit as punishment.

After having employed hackers to invade the website, their identities were almost immediately uncovered by the organization. Robert was flabbergasted by the results and no longer underestimated God’s Forbidden Zone ever since.

He had a feeling that God’s Forbidden Zone must have a trump card of their own as well.

By the time he was finished with these thoughts, his nephew had moved the cursor to the title of the announcement:

[God Forbidden Zone’s Cancer Research Team has successfully tackled six common cancers in succession. Results include triple-negative breast cancer, poorly differentiated mixed liver cancer, and more. A targeted cancer drug boasting a successful treatment rate of up to eighty percent is developed!]

Robert’s eyes glowed up when he read the title.

With the development of modern medical technology, it was not uncommon to see increased life expectancy. Any common person who knew to take proper care of themselves should be able to easily see themselves living past eighty-years-old.

However, as the life expectancy went up, more diseases that were formerly unheard of began to emerge. One of them was the prime killer of mankind – cancer.

Robert had come to understand that the chances of being diagnosed with cancer rose exponentially as one aged. To sum it up, it was simply a matter of chance when it came to cancer.

Due to a present deficiency, genetics in the human body gradually lost its genetic coding abilities with each division. With the ever-increasing amount of division in the human body, there would be the occasional malfunctioning cells that had divided into abnormal cells which would then be eliminated by the immune system.

However, as a person continued to age and the number of cell divisions continued to increase, there would be several cells that became essentially immortal. Appearance-wise, they may appear no different from a regular cell, but they would slip away from the pursuit of the immune system and hide in a secluded corner where they began to endlessly reproduce.

It was only after they had reproduced beyond a certain threshold when a person began to exhibit various symptoms. However, by this point, it was already the later stages of cancer and there was very little man-made medicine could do about it.

Apart from aging, the continuous damaging and repairing of human tissues over a long period may cause genetic mutations which led to cancer as well.

For instance, long term exposure to harsh sunlight would damage skin tissues and the frequency of exposure to harsh sunlight and skin cancer was directly proportionate. Meanwhile, smoking could also damage the lung cells and cause cancer, chewing gum may induce oral cancer and esophageal cancer, drinking alcohol may increase the chances of liver and stomach cancer.

Therefore, despite having his lifespan extended by thirty-some years thanks to God’s Forbidden Zone, Robert was always concerned about the unfortunate possibility of him being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or cancer, which in that case, would be difficult to survive at all.

Based on the current observation, did this mean God’s Forbidden Zone had overcome cancer, the disease of the century as well?

Robert was overcome with emotions. However, overcoming cancer was still a bold claim. From the looks of things now, it may appear that they were only able to overcome several types of cancer.

Still, it was an excellent start.

“Uncle, it’s this one.”

The young man clicked inside and let Robert have the mouse. “The contents of this announcement states that they hope that we, North American families, will aid them in speeding up the North American FDA and European EDQM certification process for these drugs and also to continue to look out for them.”

“Putting it on the market again?”

Robert frowned. “If God’s Forbidden Zone is going to put every drug they manufacture on the market anyway, what are we joining their organization for? We can buy these drugs on the market anyway.”

“Uh, the situation may be different from what you expected.”

The young man shook his head and explained, still looking at the announcement, “It states here that they’re only applying certification for three targeted drugs for common forms of cancer and that they’ll be reserving the other three for servicing people like us. They’ll only be publicizing the remaining ones if they manage to develop more new anti-cancer drugs.

“Additionally, the announcement also states that they’re doing this to increase the revenue of God’s Forbidden Zone as the cost of these projects are far too significant. The billion dollars investment from each of our families won’t suffice...”

The young man explained.

Robert revealed a thoughtful look as he listened to the young man’s explanation.

For whatever it’s worth, the announcement did make some good points. Corporations such as Novartis and Pfizer had exhausted an astronomical amount of funds annually as well and if not for the countless financial groups backing them, they would hardly manage to develop so many specialized drugs.

As things were, Blacklight Biotechnology, the company under God’s Forbidden Zone’s wing still had a long way to go before exhausting the amount of funds the likes of leading biomedical corporations like Novartis and Pfizer had allocated.

Besides, people like himself had greatly benefited from God’s Forbidden Zone which was further expanding its influence...

With that in mind, Robert finally nodded. “I know, I’ll discuss this with your father and your uncle, don’t worry about it.”

“Understood.”

The young man returned Robert with a nod before leaving his office.

Over the next few days, as the plague of Blacklight virus finally came to an end and countries all over the world began to recover from the aftershocks stemming from Africa, the world’s economy began to gradually recover.

While each nation silently nursed its wounds inflicted by the virus, another emerging piece of news caused an uproar across the medical industry yet again. The sheer magnitude of this article even shattered the boundaries of the industry and expanded its impact across society as a whole.

The information was as follows: Blacklight Biotechnology had developed three classes of specialized cancer drugs, which included triple-negative breast cancer, poorly differentiated liver cancer, and squamous cell carcinoma. Their results on advanced cancer and cancer cell metastasis were proven to be extremely potent, boasting a recovery rate of over eighty percent.

The moment the news broke out, it incited a spark across the globe. This was especially the case once people started receiving the news that Blacklight Biotechnology had submitted the first batch of certification applications to the CFDA in the Mainland, FDA in North America, and EDQM in Europe.

These institutions were the food and drug regulatory agencies of their respective major continents. The drugs would be permitted to be marketed in these continents upon receiving their stamp of approval.

Apart from the amusement with Blacklight Biotechnology, there was another more impactful reason for the tremendous reception this revelation was met with. These variants of cancer were some of the most lethal, difficult to cure cancer with the steepest mortality rate. A specialized drug to remedy these variants of cancer would effectively drag down the mortality rate of cancer by more than twenty percent!

Imagine tossing a hand grenade into a lake. In a split instant, countless media bodies erupted out of the water in a grand splash. All continents in the world were more than eager to direct their attention to this place. After experiencing the depressive episode caused by the Blacklight virus, there was finally an upward trend of an economic boom.

[Biotech company Blacklight Biotechnology accomplishes yet another major achievement, world-leading Biotech corporation Pfizer may welcome their strongest competitor of the century!] – Wall Street Journal.

[Blacklight Biotechnology official statement: Cancer may cease to become an incurable disease!] – New York Times.

[The greatest equivalent of an atomic bomb in the medical world: Many variants of disease overcome; Blacklight Biotechnology will be entering clinical trial phase!] – Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

[Blacklight Biotechnology’s announcement stuns the entire Earth Federation!] – UC Forum.

What followed after was countless fervent discussions of this topic on all forums across the world. “Blacklight Biotechnology” became a trending keyword and sparked a new article of interest:

“Big Fruit V: Beating cancer? I thought this was something that was going to take centuries to happen...”

“Fishy Clear Skies: Is this company paying to be trending! [Angry]”

“Passing Years: The most haunting and lethal disease of this era is none other than cancer. Among the three anti-cancer drugs developed by Blacklight Biotechnology, triple-negative breast cancer is the most lethal variant of cancer. Poorly differentiated liver cancer also ranks among one of the most malignant and quickest developing forms of liver cancer. Meanwhile, squamous cell carcinoma is the most common form of lung cancer, accounting for fifty percent of all lung cancer. It’s precisely because these are the cancer forms of highest mortality rate and occurrence that this article is drawing such rigorous attention.”

“Sigh: As a student trapped in biology, I think the person above gives a fine analysis. But I’d like to add that there’s another reason apart from what he stated, this is the very company that developed the Blacklight virus vaccine earlier. Now they’re following it up with such an incredible stunt, don’t you think this company is pretty dope?”

“04 Book Fan: So this is what they call the second-dimension, ah... Sorry, wrong channel.”

Everyone began to feel that the phrase Blacklight Biotechnology was starting to appear more often. In addition, it set off a new wave of trending topics with each appearance.