Short, Light, Free Chapter 48: Field of Vision I

My name is Luqiao and I am a fresh graduate.

I majored in landscape architecture. I was used to being around plants until I took over my father's small and half-dead company.

My mom gave birth to me at a pretty late age and my father was already sixty-three years old. He had long reached retirement age and had been eagerly awaiting my graduation.

I refused his offer many times, insisting that I was just a gardener.

He was adamant, however, that his business must be inherited by family.

His tiny company wasn't appealing to me at all.

Father's business involved medical research and distribution.

This was, by right, a profitable industry, but not for our family. Sometimes, I questioned how I was able to survive through university.

Since middle school, I had been applying for student grants, but because of this, my classmates looked down on me and my family. "Why's your family so poor?"

It was because other than sales, my father was doing research on a new medicine - Anoinfloxacin.

It was used to cure blindness, either from injury or genetics.

The medicine was, at that point, completely new and no other companies were selling it.

Naturally, it was a losing business since there were few suitable candidates. 

Anoinfloxaxin was a medicine meant to be injected into the eyes and not all patients would be eligible.

Their eyeballs must still be able to sense light in order for this medicine to work.

The medicine would be injected into the eyes' lenses in order to alter the way they perceive colors and light sensations and hence cure blindness.

It must also be noted that the success rate was under eighty percent and that further eyesight corrections must be done even after the injection.

But it would eventually allow the blind to see the world clearly.

A milliliter of Anoinfloxacin cost a thousand dollars.

Because of this, many would opt for the latest electrical eyeball technology instead.

In fact, Anoinfloxacin was twice as expensive. 

Let's talk about the electrical eyeball technology that was developed five years back.

Even the completely blind would be able to see again although they would only experience a slight improvement.

The good thing about this technology was that the blind did not have to possess working eyeballs as long as their nerves were intact and functioning. This was because their eyeballs would be replaced by electrical ones.

The electrical eyeballs would capture waves and stimulate the nerves through electrical currents and form blurry and abstract images in the brain.

These images would vary from person to person.

Some described them to be floating stars in the sky while others said it was as if somebody was waving a chalk in front of a blackboard.

While these images weren't what normal individuals would see, the patients could train themselves to capture movements of objects so as to avoid danger in their daily lives.

The electrical eyeballs cost anything from sixty to five hundred dollars each and the differences lie in the quality of the images.

Usually, the doctor would immediately diagnose if a patient was suitable for the electrical eyeball surgery.

He would never mention anything about Anoinfloxacin unless the patient asked.

Even though it seemed at that point that Anoinfloxacin was rubbish, Father had high hopes for it.

After some thought, I figured that it probably had something to do with his past.

Father used to drive for a factory when he was younger.

Once, he got into an accident, swerved to the side of the road and collided with a tree in order to prevent his head from slamming onto the steering wheel.

When he woke up half a month later, his right eye could barely see anything except for a dim ray of light.

At that time, there wasn't any electrical eyeball surgery and his partial blindness affected his mood greatly.

The doctor gave him two choices: To remove his eyeball or to inject Anoinfloxacin into it.

The hospital was still experimenting with that chemical so they offered a free treatment on the condition that they would not be responsible for the outcome.

After a long time, Father accepted the hospital's offer.

The treatment went well. With the company's compensation payments and some loans, Father founded his company.

The company was doing increasingly well but he invested most of his profits into studying Anoinfloxacin.

While he did manage to reduce the side effects and raise the success rate to ninety percent, these were all futile in the medical world. Anoinfloxacin had inadequate usability and a high cost.

Mother supported Father's decision all the way. It must be true love.

I even asked Father about his obsession with Anoinfloxacin once.

He smiled at me, pointing at his right eye. "You'll only know how wonderful it is if you experience it for yourself."

I had the thought of halting all research on Anoinfloxacin upon taking over the company but realized, after meeting the board of directors, that this segment was the company's main focus.

In the company's manual, even before its content page, there was a line that said: Anoinfloxacin's study and development must never stop.

I was at a loss, especially since I also discovered that other than me, all directors were patients who had been treated with Anoinfloxacin.

After the meeting, I did some research, half-suspecting that my company was an evil cult.

There was no information about it online except for a short testimonial that I couldn't quite comprehend.

It wrote briefly about how the mountains became greener, the ocean became bluer, how the flowers became fresher, and the sceneries became more vibrant.

At that, I stopped reading. Something felt amiss.

I scrolled to the bottom of the webpage and, lo and behold, this news originated from my company's forum.

Thumbing through the manual, I also came across many unbelievable guidelines.

For example, interviewees who had done the treatment would score the highest and those with proper qualifications would be accepted, against convention, into the company.

The company would also pay regular visits to ex-patients and even offer a job to the those who were unemployed.

Employees who lose their eyesight from injury would receive free treatment even if the accident did not occur during office hours.

I took a look at the list of employees and cold sweat started pouring out.

Sixty percent of them had been through the treatment, and eighty percent of the total number of patients were working for the company.

Also, some of the directors were millionaires.

I called the accountant over and finally, after a long time, understood why the company hadn't shut down.

There had been rich men driving the company with regular funds after being treated with Anoinfloxacin. Some were investors while others simply wanted to donate.

The funds were actually sufficient to keep the company running for such a long time, a fact that I couldn't relate to since I did not understand the magic of Anoinfloxacin.

There were only two thoughts running through my mind.

The medicine was either that magical or users of it had been poisoned and brainwashed.

I quickly made a trip to the research and development laboratory, hoping to find out what exactly was going on in there.

Chapter end