Chapter 10: Damn It! You Greedy Profiteer!
[Li Tiezhu’s Rage Level +200]
The second-rate scoundrel, who’d been strutting around arrogantly just a second ago, suddenly froze in shock. Rong Ziyin’s reaction was completely different from the script they’d carefully planned.
He understood the livestock station charged fees for disease prevention, but wasn’t Rong Ziyin’s price outrageously high? He only made three hundred bucks selling a battery. If he really had seventeen thousand, what the hell would he treat ducks? Why not just buy a whole flock himself?
Damn it! This crooked merchant.
[Anger Level +200]
He’d come to cause trouble for Rong Ziyin, yet Li Tiezhu found himself genuinely fuming—and the more he thought about it, the angrier he grew.
But Rong Ziyin just kept pressing him, “Are you unwilling to pay? According to the station’s regulations, we can’t provide treatment without payment.”
“That’s not it! Your pricing is ridiculous! This duck isn’t even worth 1,700!” Li Tiezhu stomped his foot in fury.
Yet Rong Ziyin remained unruffled. “How could it not be? We have clearly marked prices here!”
“Tell me, how many ducks do you have?”
Li Tiezhu instinctively followed Rong Ziyin’s line of questioning and answered, “One.”
“Ah, so it’s a pet after all.” As he spoke, Rong Ziyin pulled out the invoice to prove to Li Tiezhu that 1,700 yuan was absolutely a reasonable charge.
Biochemical blood routine: 260 yuan.
CT scan: 120 yuan.
Duck plague test: 80 yuan….
The list went on, totaling over twenty items.
[Confusion Level +1000]
So why does vaccinating a single duck require this many tests and procedures?
Li Tiezhu stared blankly at the list. The village animal health station had been operating for years and was famously inexpensive. Even if they offered more services, castrating a pig only cost five yuan! What on earth were all these items Rong Ziyin had listed?
Wasn’t this just bullying him for being uneducated?
What infuriated the ne’er-do-well most, however, was that Rong Ziyin’s invoice didn’t even spare the equipment fees. A basic syringe costs ten yuan.
Ten yuan!
Don’t treat him like a fool—pharmacies sold these syringes for a couple of yuan each. Rong Ziyin had jacked up the price tenfold! He was clearly a crooked merchant!
“Does your boss know you’re charging like this?” Li Tiezhu opened his mouth to confront Rong Ziyin.
Rong Ziyin: “He knows! It’s state policy.”
Saying this, Rong Ziyin opened the computer system to show Li Tiezhu. The prices were clearly listed, and they were indeed that high.
[Awkwardness Level +300]
Rong Ziyin: “Are you getting it done or not?”
Li Tiezhu swallowed hard before finally retorting, “At this price, do you think the duck farmers in the village will accept it?”
Rong Ziyin: “They’re different from you. They get subsidies.”
Li Tiezhu cried out in anguish, “Then why don’t I get any?”
Rong Ziyin: “Muscovy ducks qualify as pets. Yours don’t meet the subsidy criteria.”
Li Tiezhu looked ready to cause a scene.
Rong Ziyin cut him off with his next line: “You got this duck from Xiaowang Village, right?”
Li Tiezhu: “???”
Rong Ziyin: “Did you know their ducks are diseased?”
“Do you think this duck you’re holding might be sick?”
“I’m not a damn vet, how should I know?” [Anger Level +400] Li Tiezhu now thought Rong Ziyin might be a lunatic.
But Rong Ziyin nodded and concluded on his own, “Oh, so you know it’s sick and did it on purpose.”
Wait! How was it on purpose? Rong Ziyin was talking to himself, and Li Tiezhu sensed trouble brewing.
Just then, a knock sounded on the door of Rong Ziyin’s office at the Animal Husbandry Station. Li Tiezhu turned to see the village chief walking in.???
Why was the village chief here? Li Tiezhu, feeling guilty, instinctively wanted to run. But Rong Ziyin grabbed him by the collar.
“Get off me. I’ve got business to attend to.”
“Sorry, I need to speak with you too.” Rong Ziyin looked frail but had a surprisingly strong grip, his tone still polite. Li Tiezhu struggled for a while but couldn’t break free. Rong Ziyin then handed him directly over to the village chief.
“This is the man. He deliberately brought back sick ducks to infect the village’s flock,” Rong Ziyin declared to the village chief.
“Damn it! I didn’t! I’m not! Don’t misunderstand!”
Li Tiezhu tried to protest, but with the sick duck right there and Rong Ziyin’s irrefutable evidence, he suddenly found himself without a rebuttal.
“What? How could he do that?” Hearing Rong Ziyin’s account, the village chief grew furious and immediately grabbed Li Tiezhu to interrogate him.
“No! Chief, listen to me! This duck is jumping around like crazy. How can you prove it’s sick?”
As if to back up the ne’er-do-well’s claim, the duck flapped its wings, flaunting its vitality.
Rong Ziyin firmly pressed down on the duck’s back, slamming the entire bird face-first onto the ground.
“Holy shit, what about my dignity?!” As the comment flooded the screen, the duck instantly granted Rong Ziyin 700 anger points and whipped its head around to peck at him. But the moment Rong Ziyin released his grip, he swiftly seized the duck’s neck.
Caught by the throat. The duck instantly provided another 1000 anger points.
Even so, the duck squawked and struggled desperately. Finally, Rong Ziyin thought for a moment, fetched a rope from inside the house, and skillfully tied the duck up tight. Then he spread its wings and began searching.
“Hey, Doctor Rong, are you hunting for fleas?” the village chief asked, a bit confused.
“No, I’m looking for evidence to show him,” Rong Ziyin explained as he searched.
It turned out Rong Ziyin was searching for needle marks on the duck.
Injecting poultry differs from other animals—needle marks are extremely easy to find. For diseases causing widespread systemic damage, subcutaneous injections are typically administered at three locations: the neck, chest, or legs.
The crucial point was that when this duck arrived, Rong Ziyin had already noticed its condition. It was most likely already sick, probably injected with steroids to keep it hyperactive. If Rong Ziyin, lacking experience, had simply given it a vaccine, the duck would have barely survived until the next day. Then Li Tiezhu could have blamed Rong Ziyin for killing the duck and causing trouble.
The village chief listened intently, while Rong Ziyin successfully located the needle puncture.
Caught red-handed, Li Tiezhu had no choice but to reveal the truth. He also implicated his cousin, Wang Dazhuang.
“You treacherous bastard!” The village chief erupted in fury upon hearing this, delivering a vicious kick. They’d barely weathered the sick duck crisis when Xiaowang Village sent more diseased ducks—clearly up to no good!
“Excellent! This Wang Dazhuang isn’t just holding a grudge against Doctor Rong—he’s targeting our entire village!”
The village chief was quite the character. This time, he didn’t make a big scene like last time. Instead, he took advantage of the early morning and dragged this good-for-nothing to the Women’s Federation office in the village.
“So why did he go to the Women’s Federation?” The system didn’t understand.
But Rong Ziyin clearly wasn’t concerned. His attention was entirely focused on the Muscovy duck, which was still flapping its wings.
System: “Is something wrong with it?”
Rong Ziyin: “Hmm. I think it might have other issues.”
With that, Rong Ziyin skillfully flipped open the Muscovy duck’s eyelids for inspection, swiftly collecting secretions. He then examined several other areas. Ultimately, he reached a startling conclusion: this duck was suffering from duck plague!
Like duck tuberculosis, duck plague was a highly contagious disease. The only silver lining was that hybrid ducks were more susceptible to it than the Beijing ducks raised in the village. Therefore, the arrival of this hybrid duck shouldn’t cause significant damage to the village.
Even so, complacency was unwise. Any disease labeled an epidemic was bound to spread. Rong Ziyin could already confirm that the poultry situation in Xiaowang Village was likely critical.
System: Then hurry and notify them!
Rong Ziyin: Wait for the full lab results first.
The more severe the situation, the more steadfast one must be. The moment the results came in, Rong Ziyin immediately called the village chief, but no one answered at the village committee office. With no other option, he asked a villager for the village chief’s mobile number and dialed it urgently.
The phone rang for an agonizingly long time before being picked up.
“Hello?” The background noise was chaotic, faint cries audible in the distance.
But the moment Rong Ziyin uttered the words “duck plague,” the line fell instantly silent.
Simultaneously, the system kept alerting Rong Ziyin: [Received 3000 Collapse Points from Wang Dazhuang, Veterinarian of Xiaowang Village].
Village Chief: “Dr. Rong, this is serious. Could you please come to the county seat?”
“Sure.” Hearing the gravity in the village chief’s voice, Rong Ziyin quickly agreed, packed his things, and rushed toward the county town.
Along the way, Rong Ziyin absorbed emotional boosts from all sorts of people—anxiety points, breakdown points, and even death struggle points from the ducks in his hands.
The duck put up quite a fight, intermittently providing Rong Ziyin with a solid three to four thousand gold coins worth of value along the way. Even so, Rong Ziyin found it somewhat irritating—the constant quacking was genuinely annoying.
System: All I can think about right now is ducks.
Rong Ziyin understood its feelings perfectly. With an hour left before reaching the county town, listening to its constant quacking was genuinely unbearable.
After a moment’s thought, Rong Ziyin decided to open the lottery and pulled a single draw.
System: Why the hell are we doing this?
Rong Ziyin: Crack an egg to kill a chicken and scare the monkeys.
System: …
Duck eggs and ducks share the same lineage. This threat is truly ingenious. Though the duck isn’t human, Rong Ziyin is a real dog!
The System once again plunged into existential doubt about its host’s attributes. Yet what neither it nor Rong Ziyin could have imagined was that the promised salted duck egg—a combat essential for unlucky players—didn’t appear. Nor did they draw the “staring at the stars” salted fish. Instead, another gleaming silver object materialized in Rong Ziyin’s System Space.
Crucially, this item emitted a faint blue glow. R-grade.
System: Holy shit! A shipment?!
Yes, for Rong Ziyin, even an R-grade item counted as shipping out.
Rong Ziyin opened the item details.
Item Details: Frozen hairtail, exceptionally tough, fishy and icy cold. The fisherman’s father’s treasured collection over the years—anyone who has experienced the love education of frozen cod will instantly be overcome with shame for their misdeeds. [Unique, irreplaceable]