Chapter 27 Being Manipulated
After listening, Donovan put down his work and thought about Riley leaving with that unknown man last night, his gaze slightly darkening, "Who is he?"
"That man's name is Deacon Stone, he is in charge of the Virus Research Institute. Previously, Mr. Benedict Sr. had him look at an illness," Paxton noticed the atmosphere in the office had dropped and spoke cautiously, "In addition, I also found out that Deacon is currently single. Ms. Monroe and him don't seem to have any special relationship. Speaking of which, Ms. Monroe also studied medicine in college. Perhaps they met in school, but it's not certain."
Upon hearing this possibility, Donovan's face eased slightly, "Besides this, have you found anything else?"
Paxton looked a bit hesitant, "Currently, this is all we have found. Regarding Ms. Monroe, we only know that she just returned to the country. As for her overseas affairs and whereabouts, we haven't been able to find much."
Donovan frowned, feeling slightly dissatisfied, but since he didn't find any information, further questioning would be useless. He then asked about Mr. Benedict Sr., "How is Grandpa Benedict doing now?"
Paxton was about to apologize, saying that he hadn't handled the matter well, but he heard Mr. Wilder change the topic, and immediately felt relieved. He said, "Mr. Benedict Sr.'s condition is not good over there. The Benedict family has sought renowned doctors from both domestically and internationally, but they haven't found a solution for his illness."
Donovan nodded slightly, "Decline all of my work tomorrow night. Tomorrow night, I'll go and see Grandpa Benedict."
"Yes."
Paxton agreed and waited for a moment. When he saw that Mr. Wilder had no further instructions, he turned around and left.
Riley and Deacon had just returned to the research institute and immediately started contacting pharmaceutical suppliers in H City.
Due to the shortage of medicinal herbs, many projects in the institute were currently on hold. If things continued like this, the losses would only grow.
The search for pharmaceutical suppliers to cooperate with couldn't be delayed any further.
Deacon had already contacted almost all of the pharmaceutical suppliers in H City before, but they had all rejected him. Now they had no other choice but to dial those numbers again.
"Virus Research Institute? Haven't we already talked about this before? The price you offered was too low, so we can't cooperate with you!"
As soon as Riley mentioned the name of the institute, she heard an immediate rejection from the other end of the phone.
After a few seconds of silence, Riley gritted her teeth and said, "We can increase the price by half a point from what we offered before. If we have a pleasant cooperation, we can discuss the price further."
The other end of the phone interrupted her, "That's too low. At least three points higher, otherwise there's no room for negotiation."
Hearing the exorbitant price from the other side, Riley hung up the phone directly.
On the other side, Deacon's face also looked bad.
"Sorry, Doctor Stone, but all of our medicinal herbs have already been booked. We don't have any extra to supply to your research institute."
Upon hearing this, they knew it was just an excuse to brush them off, a refusal to cooperate.
Deacon didn't force it either, "Alright, I understand."
After saying that, he hung up the phone.
They made call after call, but until the next afternoon, there was no good news.
The attitudes of the pharmaceutical suppliers varied from polite to impatient, but the overall result was the same - they had no intention of cooperating with them.
Even so, there was one company that directly told Riley that they couldn't cooperate with the Virus Research Institute for no reason.
Both of them knew they were being manipulated.
The person behind the scenes could also almost guess.
Except for Hollis, they couldn't think of a second possibility.
