In the Xingtai Suburbs, inside a massive sour jujube processing factory, the scene was one of bustling activity.

A conspicuous sign hung at the factory entrance—Northern Divine Wood Sour Jujube Processing Co., Ltd.

They were one of the largest local sour jujube processing companies and one of the primary participants and instigators in this "Sour Jujube War."

A long line had formed in front of the factory’s purchasing station.

Tricycles and small trucks, all loaded with sour jujubes, were waiting to be weighed and unloaded.

The air was filled with the unique, sweet-and-sour smell of sour jujubes.

The company’s procurement manager, Xu Bingguo, stood before the scale with his hands on his hips, directing the workers as they unloaded the cargo.

He watched as basket after basket of sour jujubes was poured out, his brow furrowing from time to time.

The quality of the sour jujubes was inconsistent, a mix of unripe green and ripe red ones.

In fact, the unripe green ones accounted for nearly half of the batch.

"Manager Xu, take a look at this batch..."

A quality inspector beside him approached hesitantly. "The proportion of green fruit is far too high. According to company standards, we shouldn’t be accepting this shipment."

Xu Bingguo waved his hand in annoyance.

"Take it! Why wouldn’t we?" he said to the inspector, lowering his voice. "Do you know what’s going on right now? It’s a mad dash for supply! If you refuse it, the other factories around here would be more than happy to take it off our hands. In this year’s market, we’re lucky to get anything at all. This is no time to be picky."

He walked over to the farmer who made the delivery, pointed at the pile of mixed green and red sour jujubes, and said, "Look here, my friend. You’ve got far too many unripe ones here. The quality really isn’t good enough."

The farmer replied appeasingly, "Manager, there’s nothing to be done. We’re lucky to find any jujubes on the mountains at all right now. If I don’t pick them, someone else will. Please, just give me a fair price."

"Alright," Xu Bingguo said after a moment’s thought. "For the sake of our long-standing partnership, I’ll take this batch. However, I can’t give you a high price for it. I’ll pay you the mixed-fruit rate, which is... five yuan a catty. How does that sound?"

This price was less than half the rate of over ten yuan per catty for pure red jujubes, but it was still significantly higher than the three-yuan-per-catty price for pure green ones.

The farmer did a quick mental calculation and could only nod in helpless agreement.

And just like that, truckload after truckload of raw materials, adulterated with large quantities of inferior green sour jujubes, flowed endlessly into the Northern Divine Wood Company’s processing workshop.

Xu Bingguo knew perfectly well that while this approach would allow him to secure more supply and pressure his competitors in the short term, it was ultimately a self-destructive solution, like drinking poison to quench thirst.

But he saw no other way.

In a market this frenzied, any voice of reason was bound to be drowned out by the torrent of capital.

Inside the processing workshop, the roar of the machinery was deafening.

Turning sour jujubes into Sour Jujube Seeds required a series of complex and meticulous steps.

First was "washing and sorting." 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

The procured sour jujubes were poured into massive washing pools to remove dirt and other impurities from their surfaces.

Then, a conveyor belt carried them to a sorting machine that culled any shriveled, rotten, or otherwise inferior fruit.

The second step was "pulp removal." The clean sour jujubes were fed into a high-speed de-pulping machine.

Inside, the jujubes tumbled and rubbed against each other, and the outer layer of sweet-and-sour pulp was rapidly stripped and crushed into a slurry. This pulp was discharged through a pipe below and could be used to make sour jujube juice or cakes.

What remained were the hard pits, each encasing a Sour Jujube Seed.

The third and most critical step was "cracking the pits to extract the seeds."

The numerous pits were fed into a specially designed cracking machine.

Inside the machine were two massive, grooved stone grinders spinning at high speed in opposite directions.

Under the grinders’ immense pressure and shearing force, the hard outer shells of the pits were instantly shattered.

Finally, this mixture of shattered shells and seeds was passed through a winnowing machine.

The machine used a current of air to blow away the lighter shell fragments, leaving the heavier and far more valuable Sour Jujube Seeds to be separated and collected.

Xu Bingguo scooped up a handful of the freshly processed Sour Jujube Seeds and examined them closely in his palm.

The seeds in his hand showed two distinctly different colors and forms.

One type was plump, with a slightly oily, purplish-red surface and a relatively soft texture.

These were the high-quality Sour Jujube Seeds, processed from fully mature red sour jujubes.

The other type of seed was smaller, with a smooth, pale-yellow or light-brown surface and a much harder texture.

These were the inferior Sour Jujube Seeds, processed from the prematurely harvested green ones.

When separated, the difference between the two types of Sour Jujube Seeds was quite obvious.

But when mixed together, it was difficult for an untrained eye to tell them apart.

And this was precisely what gave Xu Bingguo and his company the confidence to buy unripe sour jujubes in bulk.

...

Jingrui Pharmaceutical was a well-known domestic manufacturer of traditional Chinese patent medicines.

One of their flagship products was an oral liquid called "Sour Jujube Seeds Calming Soup."

The head of Jingrui Pharmaceutical’s purchasing department was well aware that the shipment of Sour Jujube Seeds from the Northern Divine Wood Company was adulterated with a large quantity of inferior seeds from unripe jujubes, which would greatly diminish the product’s medicinal efficacy.

But their hands were tied.

For one thing, this year’s ripe red sour jujubes were incredibly difficult to procure, and their price was outrageously high.

If they were to use only high-quality seeds from red jujubes, their production costs would instantly double, leaving their product with no competitive price advantage in the market.

For another, consumers wouldn’t be able to tell the difference with the inferior seeds mixed in anyway.

’As long as it doesn’t kill anyone,’ they reasoned, ’who’s going to investigate if the efficacy is a little weaker?’

Thus, driven by the pressures of cost and profit, a gray market supply chain—stretching from the farmers who harvested prematurely, to the opportunistic processing factories, and finally to the complicit pharmaceutical companies—began to operate out in the open.

...

「Meanwhile, in Feng City, at Ding’s Pharmaceutical Factory.」

Thanks to Ding Kaifang’s swift and decisive coordination, the first batch of "Dragon Bone Calming Pills" was produced in less than half a month.

The Calming Pills were dark brown, about the size of a small pea, and emitted a unique aroma that was a mixture of Dragon Bone and other herbs.

Ding Kaifang assigned his people to two separate tasks.

First, he sent some samples to the provincial drug testing institute for the most rigorous and comprehensive quality and safety inspection.

This was a mandatory step before any drug could be brought to market.

Second, he followed standard procedure to recruit volunteers for a small-scale clinical trial to test its efficacy in humans.

This process was expected to take a considerable amount of time.

However, Ding Kaifang was already growing impatient.

He had also been suffering from insomnia lately.

But his insomnia wasn’t caused by exhaustion or anxiety. On the contrary, it was because... he was just too excited!

...

P.S. Thanks to ’Regidrago,’ ’lion1211,’ and ’Flying Fox in the Starry Sky’ for each tipping 100 coins.