Chapter 376 — I Stomp, I Stomp: Even If Divine Doctor Kang Knew Nothing of the Healing Art, These Years, to Keep Others from Laughing at Him, He Had Read No Few Medical Books — Could So Utterly Common a Cold-Damage Formula Be Called a Formula for the Ages?

A wastrel! A wastrel! Divine Doctor Kang lamented inwardly. Still, he took comfort that he had his eldest son, Kang Guifeng, and his eldest grandson, Kang Zhaolong, to bring the family honor; the Kang line would carry on, and would not decline after he was gone.

At least down to Kang Zhaolong's generation, there was nothing to fear. As for the great-grandchildren — children and grandchildren have their own blessings; Divine Doctor Kang could not govern what happened after his death.

Divine Doctor Kang laid Kang Zhaoming's prescription beneath Kang Zhaolong's award certificate, and nodded as though nothing had happened: "Good. Whether or not this prescription is of any use, it is Zhaoming's heartfelt gesture."

Once Kang Zhaoming had withdrawn, it was Kang Xiaobo's turn to go up and present his gift. When the host called Kang Xiaobo's name, Kang Xiaobo suddenly grew nervous: "Boss, will this work?"

"It will. Of course it will! Just get up there and you are fine!" Wei Zhao patted Kang Xiaobo's shoulder in encouragement.

Kang Xiaobo nodded, and carrying the little box of antique make that Wei Zhao had given him, he walked up onto the stage.

"Second Grandfather, what I hold in my hands is a rare elixir, called the Longevity and Detoxification Pill. Once taken, great quantities of impurities are expelled from the body, achieving the washing of marrow and the cleansing of bones; after the detoxification, the body's entire physiology returns to its peak, and one may gain at least five to ten years of life!" With that, Kang Xiaobo offered up the little box with both hands: "Second Grandfather, happy birthday!"

"Oh?" Divine Doctor Kang frowned, and displeasure rose in him at once. As Divine Doctor Kang, a man at the very summit of the medical world, he had never so much as heard of this Longevity and Detoxification Pill! That after taking it one could wash marrow and cleanse bones and truly attain long life — was such a thing possible?

Divine Doctor Kang felt that to accept this pill would plainly cost him face. He was Divine Doctor Kang — did he need such a pill? And a thing that sounded as unreliable as an immortal's elixir, at that!

Yet before Divine Doctor Kang could speak, Kang Zhaoming leapt out with a whoosh and snatched the little box from Kang Xiaobo's hands! He had been fretting over how to find a reason and an excuse to attack Kang Xiaobo, and here Kang Xiaobo had delivered himself right to his door!

"Kang Xiaobo, stop playing the mystic and the ghost! Longevity and Detoxification Pill? As if! Do you take yourself for some wandering hawker of miracle pills?" Kang Zhaoming glared. "Who am I? I am Divine Doctor Kang. What does our family not have? And yet I have never heard that any such thing exists in this world!"

"There is a great deal you have never heard of!" Kang Xiaobo said coldly.

"Hmph, what sort of trash is this? Then I shall open it and show everyone!" Hearing that Kang Xiaobo still dared to argue back, Kang Zhaoming flew into a rage. "You will not shed a tear until you see the coffin!"

So saying, Kang Zhaoming opened the little box in Kang Xiaobo's hands, drew out a black pill, and burst into loud laughter: "You call this broken ball of mud a Longevity and Detoxification Pill? It can wash marrow and cleanse bones? Have you read too many martial arts novels? Have you gone mad from qi deviation?"

"Second Grandfather, my birthday gift has been presented and my goodwill delivered. Since Second Cousin will not believe it, there is nothing I can do." Kang Xiaobo forced down the urge to turn on him then and there, and spoke still without servility or arrogance.

"What? Feeling guilty?" Seeing Kang Xiaobo's look, Kang Zhaoming took him for guilty. "Kang Xiaobo, do not imagine I do not know why you came. Are you not here to stand up for that bitch? Goods I have already had my fill of, and you treat her as a treasure! You dress up something we have never heard of as an immortal elixir and give it to me — is that not simply to make our family a laughingstock? I know your mind. You want people to see that a family of physicians has never laid eyes on such an elixir! That is what you think, is it not? But your clever reckoning has gone wrong. I do not care for your trash!"

With that, Kang Zhaoming flung the Longevity and Detoxification Pill to the ground and stamped on it. That was not enough for him; he ground it back and forth hard with the sole of his shoe until it was a sticky smear of powder, and only then did he stop. "There. Your birthday gift has been presented. Now get down."

Through it all, Divine Doctor Kang did not say a single word, standing there with a dark face. He too had had his doubts before — never mind Kang Xiaobo, even his own eldest son could not produce such an elixir; so where had Kang Xiaobo gotten his? It must surely be a fake!

He could forgive Kang Zhaoming, for Kang Zhaoming was his own grandson; but he could not forgive Kang Xiaobo. He felt that Kang Xiaobo had come to stir up trouble. Especially after hearing his grandson Kang Zhaoming's words — so this grand-nephew of his, Kang Xiaobo, had come to fight over a woman, to save face for her!

"Outrageous!" Divine Doctor Kang gave a cold snort and looked at Kang Xiaobo's father. "A fine son you have raised. Take him away at once! Must you make a spectacle of yourselves here?"

And yet toward Kang Zhaoming, who had been so arrogant and overbearing in crushing the pill, Divine Doctor Kang asked nothing and reproached him not a word — plainly he was shielding him.

Kang Xiaobo's father was furious. Though it seemed somewhat improper for his son to offer some immortal elixir as a birthday gift, from first to last it was Kang Zhaoming who had stirred up the trouble; how was it his son who made a spectacle of himself?

"Xiaobo, have you been bewitched by someone? Who gave you this worthless elixir? Hurry and apologize to your Second Grandfather!" Kang's father scolded Kang Xiaobo lightly, and to give him a way down, shifted the blame for the elixir onto another — meaning that Kang Xiaobo had been misled by someone and it had nothing to do with him.

"Impossible! How could the pill the boss gave be a fake? It is someone with eyes who cannot see, who does not know good goods when they are before him!" Kang Xiaobo was furious too; he stiffened his neck and said stubbornly: "Such a good thing, wasted. What a pity!"

Kang Xiaobo trusted Wei Zhao without reservation; if Wei Zhao said it was an immortal elixir, then of course he believed it was one. Kang Xiaobo had been holding himself in for a long while, and now even his father blamed him — at last he exploded.

"Xiaobo, the gift has been delivered in any case. Some people falsely style themselves divine doctors, when in truth they are nothing but old, dim-eyed quacks." At this moment Wei Zhao, with Tang Yun and Xiaofen, walked over and spoke lightly to Kang Xiaobo.

"This is a matter of our Kang family. What place have you to speak?" Divine Doctor Kang had been enraged earlier when Wei Zhao exposed the ginseng, and now, seeing him leap out again to meddle in his family's affairs, he showed him no more courtesy!

Today's birthday banquet had already been thrown into utter chaos by Kang Xiaobo and his classmates, and Divine Doctor Kang simply tore off all pretense! This was his great day of celebration, and these people had come to make trouble — how could he endure it? Faster, and safer!

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