Little birds circled in the sky above, eyeing the pesticide factory below with hesitation.
Yan Fei had casually voiced a question earlier, but he didn’t know what to do. It was the fact that people from his village were suffering - that some nearly lost everything due to rat poison that made him contemplate.
Besides the "Poisonous Mouse Strength" rat poison, several harmful pesticides had been banned for causing disaster in rural communities. Some had been poisoned by carelessly handling these substances, while others had ingested them during family quarrels. Avoidance seemed impossible.
The farmers who often applied pesticides knew which ones were potent. Still, without a cheaper and more effective alternative, they had no other options but to use them for crop cultivations.
Thus, Yan Fei was conflicted as he flew aimlessly above. As children, the distinction between right and wrong seems simple. However, as one grows, it becomes apparent that some matters are not so easily discerned.
Honestly, Yan Fei had never been so indecisive over something for such a long duration.
Just when he decided to leave, he gritted his teeth and descended.
Based on his prior observation, he flew directly to the storeroom.
After entering through a window, he found the rat poison and moved all the boxes into his dinosaur world.
On second thought, he felt his blunt approach could draw attention, so he improvised.
He opened all the boxes - each one small and containing six bottles. He opened the bottles one by one, poured the poison into some plastic jugs meant for wine, and filled them up with water. As he observed some of the medicine water residue remaining in the bottles, he decided to rinse the bottles in the river instead of the dinosaur world’s river.
The task was done quickly, as the rat poison was a minor part of the factory’s primary business. There were only about ten boxes of this small pharmaceutical factory’s crude packaging - plastic bottles with a simple plastic paper over them. The bottle caps, too, were not special: just an inner cap and an outer one. Everything was done very quickly.
The product was rudimentary. During the water-filling process, Yan Fei unknowingly removed the plastic paper from the bottle. He was too lazy to fix it and left it in the box.
Repackaged boxes revealed traces of tampering - but Yan Fei had opened them from the back! As long as they were placed with the proper side up, no one could tell the items inside had been tampered with.
After neatly storing the boxes in the warehouse, he even wore gloves to avoid fingerprints and footprints. He didn’t want to touch the poison bottle - he didn’t think anyone would notice that the rat poison had been replaced with clear water. Who would do such a thing?
Pesticides are necessary for farmers and must be cheap enough. The alternatives to harmful pesticides are too expensive for most to use. However, rat poison is not an essential product. If a highly effective rat poison is unavailable in the market, the farmers might just have to feed a few more cats...
With this thought comforting him, he boldly emptied their stock, then made his exit!
He didn’t feel much joy in doing this. What was he going to do with all this rat poison? This was what his primary school teacher referred to as ’hurting others without benefiting oneself,’ right?
What could he do with this? Poison dinosaurs? Would he still be able to eat the meat of the poisoned dinosaur? It was purely harmful. This wasn’t something that could simply be discarded anywhere - Poisonous Mouse Strength was too toxic; wherever it ended up would cause harm.
For now, he could only store it. Hopefully, he could find a desert in his dinosaur world to dump it in, avoiding harm to others. Earlier, he had aimed at exploring areas with many dinosaurs. Now he realized that he needed a desolate area to serve as a super waste disposal site.
As for the issue of potency degradation over time, he decided not to worry. The expiration date on the box stated ten years. Even after ten years, it might not actually become ineffective. If it were that easy to neutralize, it might not have been banned in the first place.
His teacher was right, one should not engage in actions that harm others and benefit no one. It was indeed annoying!
There should be some benefits, right? At least, the watered-down ’medicines’ will cause less harm when sold — it’s impossible to rinse the bottles completely, so some residue would always remain. Even if it had been mixed with water, at the very least, it still contained some elements of Poisonous Mouse Strength. That still makes it medicine, right?
Revitalized by this thought, he resolved to continue his actions. Every now and then, he would visit to see if they had produced new stock, in which case he would replace it with water. Eventually, when people realized that the rat poison was ineffective, they would stop purchasing from this factory, prompting them to cease production.
The unlucky factory deserved this for manufacturing harmful substances for minor profits. They couldn’t have anticipated this interference.
It was later rumored that a group from the village collectively sent a banner to the factory, which resulted in amusement all around.
The reason was a quarrel between a couple in the village. The wife attempted to drink rat poison in a fit of anger, and the husband, refusing to back down, also took a sip. The rest of the story amused everyone. The villagers panicked, attempting to rush the couple to the hospital despite their protests. In the end, the hospital found nothing wrong and chased the accusing villagers away...
Embarrassed by the false alarm, they bought several more bottles of poison to test. They realized that the poison was ineffective when feeding a dose intended to kill several humans to a chicken resulted in no effect. Observing the lively chicken, everyone present burst into laughter.
The quarreling couple also laughed, then made up. Having ’died’ once, they saw matters from a new perspective.
This incident became a hot topic among the locals. Some pranksters even sent a banner to the factory.
As for the factory’s agonizing over the issue, no one cared. Later, when someone revisited with the aim to replace the substances, he searched the entire warehouse without finding any rat poison...