After Dean entered, he realized that the underground facility was much larger than he had imagined.
It was divided into six areas: the ingredient transport area, the finished product export area, the aseptic production workshop, the living area, and the accommodation area. Each area had its own dedicated water and electricity supply, sewage channels, and was equipped with the most advanced pollution purification equipment.
The large door Dean had used was the only entrance and exit.
No wonder the mercenaries before couldn’t manage to poison the people here. This was because all resource pipelines were subterranean. Unless they had X-ray vision, it was indeed difficult to target this place.
It was a vast area, yet few people lived there: a butler specifically assigned by the Carmen Family, eight fully armed elite guards, and over fifty... children.
Yes, all the machinery here was automated. The workers were children between ten and thirteen years old.
The butler explained, "Beneath the Carmen Family, multiple welfare organizations similar to foster facilities are controlled. And there are quite a few children in the United States who are abandoned for various reasons or run away from home each year.
"This age group is easy to control and brainwash. Ultimately, they can be trained at low cost to become subordinates and prostitutes, then directly integrated into the Dagger Gang."
Hearing this, Dean couldn’t help but shake his head. It seems capitalists are the same in every world; no matter how wealthy, they’re unwilling to forgo any potential profit, he thought. Perhaps, in their view, not earning the maximum profit equated to losing money.
Dean was powerless to change this. To avoid stirring up his own unpleasant memories, he focused his inquiries on Intoxication.
A profit of a billion US dollars a year! This was a sum that could bury a person alive!
Even if Dean had no use for it, getting his hands on the formula might one day be his trump card for turning his life around and staying alive. If there was an opportunity and the risk wasn’t high, he’d try. If not, he would pass it on to Monet to exchange for more resources and opportunities for growth.
According to the butler’s introduction, Intoxication was a synthetic chemical drug.
Typical chemical drugs, like methamphetamine, not only have low synthesis costs and are convenient to transport but also have stronger effects than traditional drugs. However, their lethality and serious side effects were high. This led to strong crackdowns from anti-drug forces and rapid deaths among addicts, undermining their sustainability.
Intoxication, on the other hand, was different. It was magical. It boasted low raw material costs, imperceptible addictiveness, and minimal harm to the body. Crucially, it was easy to transport, readily concealed in various drinks, cigarettes, and even food. Currently, there were no countermeasures against it, and its sales profit was shockingly high.
Dean, who had seen much of humanity’s dark side, felt a chill run down his spine. If this stuff were marketed as a drug, you might refuse to touch it. But if it were packaged as high-end cigarettes, a magical high-end food ingredient, or an exquisite high-end alcoholic beverage... even if you abstained, you couldn’t guarantee that the upscale restaurants you visited or your family and friends wouldn’t indulge.
When a very close friend offered you a cigarette or a drink, you’d smoke it or drink it, and then you’d want more. A normal person, due to the hidden addictiveness, would just think the taste suited them. By the time they realized it could be a drug, it would already be too late.
The thought of it was terrifying.
After making his rounds, Dean’s attention was caught by a record analysis chart on a whiteboard on the wall. Thankfully, Sheila’s old man is a farmer, so everything we eat and drink is completely natural, and Lawrence and those bastards are dirt poor. I’ve probably never touched this stuff, he mused.
It was probably some kind of production task list. One of the consumables, marked with a stick figure, caught Dean’s attention.
"What is this consumable?" Dean pointed to the stick figure and asked, puzzled.
The butler, perhaps thinking Dean would soon be a colleague, explained dutifully, "This consumable is people. The finished product of Intoxication is very covert in its harmfulness, but one of the chemical materials, before being processed by machines, is highly toxic to some people’s bodies. Most people can only last three years at most, which is why you won’t see any children older than thirteen here."
The butler smiled. "Every drop of Intoxication is human blood."
Dean opened his mouth, his voice growing heavier. "But you said earlier that the children here are sent elsewhere for training after they turn thirteen."
"That’s not a conflict. After all, not every process here is safe; some are fatal, some cause disability, and still others have been ruined by those bastards you have with you," the butler said nonchalantly.
Life in the underground facility was exceedingly dull. Sometimes, these guards would take the girls and boys to "play games." If their actions were a bit rough, a child of around ten would be ruined.
The butler pointed to the aseptic production workshop ahead and continued, "That’s the production workshop. It’s fully automated. We just need to dump the raw materials in, and the machines will automatically produce the proper Intoxication. The only trouble is if the machines break down; someone has to remotely modify the parameters, which really affects our production efficiency."
Inside the workshop, one small figure after another, dressed in white protective suits, was busily and methodically pouring substances from glass tubes into the entrances of various machines.
Dean’s voice grew even more somber. "So, you don’t have the formula for Intoxication?"
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