CHAPTER 360: CHAPTER 81: COATED LITTLE BOMB (PART 2)

Xi Lijuan tried calling a few more times, but there was still no signal. Following Zhou Qiang’s advice, she prepared her yoga class clothes and coat and headed out to learn yoga.

Xi Lijuan’s yoga class was quite close to their home, no need to take a ride; just a twenty-minute walk away. The students in the yoga class were all housewives or busy female entrepreneurs with good family backgrounds and plenty of time, roughly the same age as Xi Lijuan. Having attended the class twice, Xi Meijuan found it quite nice and wanted to keep it up.

Today, she left home a bit early. As she arrived downstairs of the yoga studio and walked past the parking lot, she heard the sound of a mother and daughter arguing.

"Mom, you were driving after drinking again. How many times have I told you, you can’t drink and drive," she recognized the voice as somewhat familiar.

Xi Lijuan glanced inside and saw a mother and daughter. The mother was dressed in yoga clothes, her face flushed, looking like she hadn’t quite recovered from a hangover.

Xi Lijuan had seen this mother before; she was in the same yoga class. She seemed to be a busy businesswoman. She only attended once, and that was midway through a class. She didn’t have yoga attire and joined in her business outfit. Xi Lijuan remembered that her last name seemed to be Zeng.

Looking at the girl speaking, Xi Lijuan felt she looked familiar but couldn’t recall where she had seen her before.

"Hey, Xuerou, shouldn’t you be at school? It must be that nosy driver again. Mom did drink a bit too much last night, but I’m fully sober now. Don’t worry, I even brought medicine with me, the new improved hangover medicine in pill form. Two before drinking and two after, and I’m about to take some now," Mrs. Zeng took out a bottle of mineral water from a black business car, gulped down some water, and then took two hangover medicine pills.

Not long after taking the hangover medicine, Mrs. Zeng’s complexion improved greatly. She had taken two pills before drinking last night and remembered in the morning that she had signed up for a yoga class, so she rushed out, only to be caught red-handed by her daughter who was returning home.

Fortunately, the newly developed hangover medicine was very effective and in no time, it made Mrs. Zeng look much better. After they had found the aged Pueraria Root, Xiao Xian and Zeng Xuerou spent a weekend together and went to a small pharmaceutical factory in Henan.

After visiting the pharmaceutical factory, they realized they had misunderstood the meaning of "small" pharmaceutical factory. In fact, the factory was not small at all; in terms of scale and the number of employees, it could be considered a medium-sized enterprise. Ten years ago, it was a collective enterprise, but after restructuring into a private enterprise following domestic trends, its management couldn’t keep up, and it declined due to the lack of new products.

It used to rely on its signature hangover medicine, but as its effectiveness declined, and with the appearance of famous foreign hangover medicine on the domestic market, it lost its competitive edge.

After Mrs. Zeng took over the factory, she stumbled upon Zhou Ziang, and with Xiao Xian’s Pueraria Root and Mint hangover remedy, they developed a very effective hangover medicine. With the efforts of the old employees of the factory, they also created a sugar-coated hangover pill softened with honey, which tasted like mint candy and was much more convenient to take than the powder.

However, the factory’s foundation was poor, and the wages of workers plus the maintenance of old equipment had already used up the money gathered by Zeng Xuerou and Xiao Xian. No matter how good the effects of the hangover pills were, without promotion, the market wouldn’t open up, and so it was only promoted on a small scale. Recently, Mrs. Zeng had been managing it.

"Excuse me?" Xi Lijuan watched for a while, thinking that every time Old Zhou returned from entertaining clients he would be dead drunk, and taking a powder remedy didn’t work well and often made him vomit all over her. If there was a more convenient pill, that would be much more convenient.

"You’re the lady who delivered the medicine," Zeng Xuerou recognized Xi Lijuan, as middle-aged women like Xi Lijuan were rare, besides, Zeng Xuerou had also learned the skill of never forgetting a face, just like her mother, who was a businesswoman.

"I remember now, you’re the young lady who Xiao Xian entrusted to send things over, and this is your mother? Just curious to ask, where did your mother buy the hangover medicine she just took, would you mind selling me some? My husband is often out entertaining and despite being told not to drink too much, he was still diagnosed with the ’three highs’ (hypertension, high blood sugar, high cholesterol) recently," Xi Lijuan said with a worried expression.

"Xuerou, who is this?" Mrs. Zeng, feeling left out on the side, spoke up to ask.

After a brief introduction, Mrs. Zeng and Xi Lijuan were now acquainted with each other.

"So you are Mr. Zhou’s wife, it’s a pleasure to meet you," Mrs. Zeng felt somewhat embarrassed as the incident of drunk driving had been witnessed by an outsider, and couldn’t help but feel awkward. Zhou Qiang was the head of the foreign trade bureau and had met Mrs. Zeng at several large investment promotion meetings, so they were nodding acquaintances.

"So you are the CEO of Zeng’s real estate, you really are as young and beautiful as the rumors say, it’s hard to tell you have such a grown daughter," Both mothers were of similar age and well-maintained, and they hit it off right from the start, feeling as if they had known each other for years.

Zeng Xuerou watched from the side and helplessly stuck out her tongue, thinking that if others knew how the CEO of Zeng, who couldn’t stop smiling when praised for her youth and beauty, acted like a madwoman when drunk, they would be utterly shocked.

"Xuerou, why don’t you give some of those pills you and Xiao Xian concocted to Aunt Xi," what kind of person was Mrs. Zeng? As soon as she heard Xi Lijuan’s words, she knew an opportunity for free marketing had arrived.

Hangover medicine is for who? Apart from businessmen, officials must surely be a significant clientele, especially with someone like Zhou Qiang, the head of the foreign trade bureau, liking these hangover pills, it wouldn’t take long before it spread among those gathered for investment promotion nearby.

"Oh, right, just take these," Zeng Xuerou stuffed a few boxes of medicine in the secret compartments of several cars at home to prevent her mother from drunkenly driving, and handed them to Xi Lijuan.

Xi Lijuan was a meticulous person. Even though seeing is believing, she still carefully checked the medicine box’s packaging.

The production date and the reputable manufacturer’s name, the trademark, everything was complete. It was just the name of the medicine that was a bit peculiar: "Sugar-Coated Bomb?"

"Yes, it was a name my friend and I came up with, since it’s sweet like candy, but it’s very effective for hangovers," Zeng Xuerou glanced at the medicine’s name; actually, she and Xiao Xian were too lazy to think of one, and eventually, the name was made up by Zhang Yiyi.

Unexpectedly, this name was eventually adopted and in the not-so-distant future, this hangover cure called "Sugar-Coated Bomb" would be sold all over the world, often selling out as soon as it hit the shelves of major supermarkets around the world.

Of course, neither Xiao Xian nor Zeng Xuerou had foreseen any of this, and even Zhou Ziang, who had unwittingly become one of the developers of this hangover medicine, only found out much later. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian (qidian.com) to cast recommendation tickets and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)