But that day, someone came to the clinic in distress.
“Dr. Smith, I took the diarrhea medicine you prescribed, but I’m still not feeling better.”
“Really?” Sophia smiled. “That shouldn’t be the case. I checked your pulse, and based on your symptoms, you should have recovered within a day.”
“That’s right. I’ve taken it before, and it worked fine. But this time, for some reason, it’s not effective. I still have a bit of diarrhea. Dr. Smith, could you prepare some herbal medicine for me instead? I suspect these pills don’t work at all.”
Sophia frowned and took the medicine to smell it.
A mix of scents rushed into her nose—Nothing seemed off.
This medicinal paste contained many ingredients. With one sniff, Sophia could detect more than twenty different herbs.
She smelled it for a while and didn’t notice anything unusual. Just as she was about to put it down, something felt off.
There was a faint scent of dried tangerine peel in the medicine.
But it smelled different from the dried tangerine peel she usually used.
Sophia put a piece of the medicine into her mouth and chewed. As soon as she did, her brows knitted tightly.
That evening, when Livinus returned home and was about to start cooking, he saw Sophia rush in.
“Hungry?”
“Livinus, I need to talk to you.”
“What is it?”
Sophia placed the medicine in front of him and stared at him. “Tell me, doesn’t your company claim that this medicine is made with dried tangerine peel aged for over 20 years? I remember the advertisements saying that.”
After Livinus took over, he did not increase investment in television advertisements for medicine. Instead, he produced emotionally resonant commercials for Traditional Medicine. These ads were creative, beautifully shot, and always evoked nostalgia for the current generation. As a result, they became incredibly popular.
For example, in one advertisement, a man and a woman go through decades of unfulfilled love. The audience assumes it is a touching film about the greatness of true love. Just when they are moved to tears, the male lead suddenly takes out a box of medicine, hands it to the female lead, and tells her, “My feelings for you are just like this medicine—unchanged for thirty years.”
The audience wanted to curse at that moment, yet they were deeply touched. It was only then that they realized they had just been fed a love story while also being persuaded to buy traditional Medicine.
This was the essence of Scott Coporation’s advertising.
The core concept of the ad was that the dried tangerine peel used in the medicine was from the year the male and female leads were born. After thirty years, it was incorporated into the medicine.
Thus, the phrase “love like dried tangerine peel” was born.
Livinus noticed Sophia’s troubled expression and said in a deep voice:
“That’s right. Scott Coporation’s dried tangerine peel is aged over 20 years and sourced exclusively from Alaska . We would never substitute it with the inferior tangerine peel from other regions.”
“But you’re not only using non-Alaska tangerine peel now—you’re also using peel that is less than five years old.”
“Impossible!” Livinus’s brows furrowed tightly. He refused to believe such a thing could happen under his management.
Dried tangerine peel is a unique medicinal ingredient. Aged peel over 20 years can sell for 5,000 to 6,000 dollars per pound, and in years of shortage, prices can go even higher. The reason is simple—the older the tangerine peel, the more valuable it becomes.
Peel aged less than three years is merely called fruit peel, while only those aged over three years qualify as dried tangerine peel. Alaska dried tangerine peel is considered the best, with a sweet and sour taste and high medicinal value. In contrast, tangerine peel from other regions is merely sour and lacks the same healing properties.
The older the dried tangerine peel, the more expensive it gets. Fifty-year-old tangerine peel has astonishing medicinal value and can be sold for around 120,000 dollars per pound.
That’s a conservative estimate. It goes without saying that Scott Corporation would never use the fifty-year-old peel in its medicine. However, using twenty-year-old peel was entirely feasible.
Since the company’s founding, the old master had great foresight. Knowing the value of dried tangerine peel, he had started stockpiling it decades ago, ensuring a steady supply.
Over the years, Scott Corporation had accumulated enough dried tangerine peel to sustain its operations.
Livinus had also been producing and storing new batches while using the old ones, ensuring a continued supply for many years.
However, in recent years, Scott Corporation has expanded rapidly, and the reserves of aged tangerine peel are running low. To maintain the quality of their products, Livinus instructed his team to purchase Alaska dried tangerine peel.
He had personally overseen the procurement process, ensuring that no compromises were made. Such an issue should have been impossible.
He quickly put some of the medicine into his mouth. The moment he chewed it, his expression turned ice-cold.
