Chapter 48: Selling the pot?
The Gaocheng family's mansion, the Gaocheng couple's bedroom
At this moment, this bedroom, which was originally elegantly and luxuriously decorated, has become messy - Persian carpets dotted with gold and silver thread patterns, Imari porcelain from the famous Kyoto house, and colorful "Kyo Yuzen" silk kimonos. , the mink coat originating from Russia, the Ukiyo painting scrolls inherited from the Edo period, Patek Li Tsui’s Swiss watch, French Chanel furniture, perfumes and skin care products...all these luxuries that represent the noble status of the upper class were violently dismantled by the owner of the house, and then stuffed into a huge machine in the center of the room. , eventually turning into a string of numbers and stacks of banknotes, spit out from a hole at the bottom of the machine.
"...Mom! No! Isn't this your favorite sapphire necklace?"
Miss Takagi Saya was walking out of her room holding two small dresses and a pair of red leather shoes that she had outgrown. When she looked up, she saw her mother holding a string of sapphires each the size of a pigeon egg. He stuffed the necklace into the [automatic pawn machine] and couldn't help but scream.
However, Mrs. Yuriko Takagi smiled and shook her head, while resolutely stuffing the sapphire necklace into the machine's pawn entry.
At the same time, Soichiro Takagi also walked over with a large box, pawned a dozen high-end suits, five or six pairs of leather shoes, and a box of gold-plated tie clips, and then worked together with his wife to lift the latest style home theater The LCD TV is stuffed with an [automatic pawn machine] - there are no TV programs to watch now anyway, and even the power supply will be cut off in a few days, so what's the use of keeping it?
In addition, the floor lamp, table lamp, sofa and dressing table in the bedroom had all disappeared without a trace at this time.
Although Gao Cheng and his wife are very open-minded about this and feel that these things should be taken with them whether they are alive or dead, their daughter does not think so.
——Looking at the empty room that quickly changed from familiar to unfamiliar, Takagi Saya couldn't help but feel her eyes turn red, and she felt an urge to cry.
"...Whew, furniture has been pawned, electrical appliances have been pawned, clothes have also been pawned, and even mom's jewelry has been sold! Dad! Mom! Do you want to put all the valuable things in our house into these? Go into the bottomless pit of liars in another world?”
She threw her old clothes into the [automatic pawn machine] and yelled vented.
Then, Takagi Saya was grabbed by the shoulders by her mother, Takagi Yuriko, and looked into her eyes, persuading her earnestly:
"...Saya-chan! Stop fooling yourself! You should know better than us whether they are liars or not! The bamboo dragonfly that can fly when inserted into the head, the wonderful submarine that can sneak into the ground, the handbag that can catch living people ...All of this is enough to prove their identity! What’s more, they saved your life from the zombie-infested Fujimi Academy! Our Takagi family doesn’t have the tradition of repaying kindness with enmity!”
"...Moreover, regardless of whether the cat-shaped robot and its companions are really the Doraemon and others we know, they do have the ability to treat people infected with the zombie virus! Now these people from another world are us The only savior! Don’t offend me no matter what! What’s more, the whole world is in ruins, and these expensive brand-name products at home are not as useful as a bottle of mineral water and a pack of compressed dry food!”
His father, Soichiro Takagi, also sighed, touched Saya's hair, and echoed, "...If zombies invade this mansion, no matter how expensive these things in the house are, they won't be able to save our lives. Even if we follow the original instructions, We plan to escape from the city and seek refuge in the Ona Lake Mountains. These bulky belongings cannot be moved either... So... stop being so mean! Saya! You are causing trouble for everyone!"
"...Okay! Dad, Mom, it was my fault for me to bear this." Under the gaze of her parents, Saya Takagi lowered her head unwillingly, "...But, for this vaccine, they actually prescribed it to us. The price of 280 billion yen is too outrageous!”
Regarding this typical layman's point of view put forward by his daughter, Takagi Souichiro and Takagi Yuriko exchanged complicated looks... In the end, Takagi Yuriko coughed dryly and answered: "...Um... Saya-chan, you may not understand very well. This matter. However, according to the information collected by my mother during her years of investment and financial management on Wall Street, it is true that it will cost so much money to develop a new vaccine..."
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——In a modern society with strict scientific systems and complex legal procedures, the birth of any new drug is no longer a flash of inspiration created by a few talented scientists in a small workshop, but has become a costly undertaking. Huge, time-consuming system engineering.
First, scientists must create a variety of compounds that may affect the body's physiology, biochemistry, and pathology based on current understanding of disease and the workings of the human body. Then, from the huge compound options consisting of hundreds of thousands of compounds, we screen out suitable objects, continuously improve its composition and structure, reduce its toxicity, enhance its target specificity, and make it suitable for use in Metabolism in the human body remains stable in a normal environment, so as to obtain the initial test product, then determine its quality standards and stability studies, and clarify its production method.
After a series of efforts, the new compound can finally leave the chemistry laboratory and enter the animal experiment stage. However, after confirming the efficacy of a new drug in animals and roughly understanding its pharmacological and toxicological characteristics, it is still necessary to enter the human experiment stage that requires huge ethical responsibilities and clinical risks. In order to save money and avoid lawsuits, Pharmaceutical companies often use these experimental drugs on people in poor third world countries. Even the major cities in Japan, where the economy had not yet taken off in the early post-war period, served as a candidate base for Ruihui's human experiments for a period of time.
Next, through a series of carefully designed and arranged drug clinical human experiments, thousands of subjects are recruited for research, and only after reliable results are obtained and approved by the drug regulatory authorities can this compound become a drug. New drugs are put into production and circulation. Therefore, in the modern pharmaceutical industry in Europe, America and Western countries, the research and development of most new drugs with truly breakthrough effects often takes more than ten years, and the research and development costs may be as high as billions of dollars!
(There are also new drugs with low research and development costs. For example, when Lao Laowang was an intern in the hospital, he had a terrible headache from memorizing the names of the drugs. It was obviously the same compound, but it had seventeen or eight names, and it was still changing. There are more and more cases every year, because every time the government imposes price increases, pharmaceutical companies will change the names of their products to avoid price cuts - obviously, the research and development costs of this kind of domestic "new drugs" are infinitely close to zero...)
In short, in this case, Doraemon offered the natives of this world 280 billion yen, or 2.8 billion U.S. dollars, for a special vaccine against the zombie virus... although it cannot be said to be cheap. Wumart, but it is already a "real price" within the average price range of the industry.