The North American Gourmet Demon Handbook

Those few short seconds just now seemed longer than the past few decades of his life. The shadow of death was so real, so real that he could even smell his own fear.

Now, all his cunning and calculations disappeared, leaving only an almost instinctive desire to survive. He knew that the young man in front of him was not joking and he would really pull the trigger.

"Very good, we are off to a good start, Mr. Romano." Li Shanze's voice was still calm, but to Romano, it sounded like a death knell.

He didn't dare hesitate or play any tricks anymore. He knew he had no way out.

Author's words: Thanks to Qianxiao Anran for the recommendation vote

336 Inventing Diseases

For a man like Romano, death threats were direct and effective.

Although Romano seemed to have shown some sense of conviction just now, Li Shanze only found it funny.

Li Shanze believes that there does exist in this world a spirit of being ready to die for some noble cause.

That kind of belief can make people face dangers without flinching, can make people sacrifice their lives for their ideals, and can even make them remain calm and resolute in the face of death.

He had seen such people in history books, understood that power, and had sincere respect for them.

That is a pure and powerful spirit, worthy of admiration.

However, returning to Romano, whether he was a dog for the Drummond family or had some strange ambitions, it was by no means a beautiful or noble thing.

In Li Shanze's view, the Drummond family represents nothing more than power, wealth and absolute control over the Pharmaceutical Valley.

Their "career" is built on interests and is full of conspiracy, exploitation and unscrupulous expansion.

People like Romano were just a cog in their huge machine, a vassal who fawned on them for his own survival and petty gains.

His so-called "seeing clearly" and "following" are nothing but self-deception intertwined with fear and greed, a lame excuse for his own betrayal and depravity.

A hint of contempt flashed in Li Shanze's eyes.

He knew that for people like Romano, what they valued most deep down was always their own life and pleasure.

Such people are unscrupulous and despicable. They have no real beliefs and no ideals worth dying for.

Therefore, the "loyalty" of such people is like a piece of thin paper, which can be easily torn with just a little pressure.

So, when Romano tried to delay time with those high-sounding rhetoric and even tried to show a false belief, Li Shanze chose the most direct and primitive means without hesitation - death threat.

He wanted to use the most naked fear to break Romano's thin disguise.

He wanted to let this fat and shameful traitor who conspired to murder his teacher understand that any hypocritical performance was futile in front of him.

When the trigger is slowly pulled, when the shadow of death truly looms, all the lies about belief and following will instantly collapse, leaving only the most primitive instinct for survival.

Facts have proved that Li Shanze's judgment was correct.

The cold touch of the gun muzzle and the subtle click of the trigger successfully broke down Romano's psychological defenses.

Romano's fat body seemed to have been stripped of its bones, and all his cunning and self-righteousness turned into the purest fear.

Romano began to confess incoherently, pouring out information he had originally intended to keep secret like beans.

"I said it! I said it! Don't kill me, don't kill me! I'm helping Drummond deal with public opinion incidents! I know a lot of their inside stories!"

"Those victims who wanted to sue Drummond have seen their lawsuits fail, such as the Miller family in Thunderstone, whose daughter suffered liver failure from long-term use of 'Miacell'."

"The lawsuit has been going on for seven years and they're on the verge of bankruptcy. Drummond's legal team is just trying to wear them out!"

Since Romano thought that Li Shanze was deliberately trying to harm Drummond, all he talked about was the bad things about the pharmaceutical company.

"James Drummond made all the reporters who were investigating the pharmaceutical industry disappear, like Sarah Simon!"

"She was investigating the addictive side effects of the sedative 'Quiet Light,' particularly its role in causing sudden death in young people. Her accident was a murder orchestrated by them! They used your favorite FBI truck!

Li Shanze curled his lips.

It’s not that Li Shanze has any objection to the phrase “FBI’s favorite truck” - Li Shanze doesn’t have any sense of belonging to the FBI.

But since handling public opinion has always been Romano's job, Li Shanze doesn't think Romano can escape responsibility for murdering the reporter.

In Li Shanze's opinion, Romano was trying to clear himself of the charges while making false statements.

However, seeing that Romano was still panicked and even a little incoherent, Li Shanze felt that it would be better not to interrupt him at this time. He might tell more truth in fear than after he calmed down.

"Human experiments were being conducted in secret laboratories! The homeless and poor were injected with all sorts of experimental drugs. Many of them died or developed strange autoimmune diseases in those secret clinics in Mexico or Mumbai!"

"Just like that old lunatic Theodore Lancaster, he wasn't treating illnesses at all. He was inventing new mental illnesses based on the properties of drugs! For example, he invented countless types of anhedonia syndrome!"

"And then use his drug 'Euphoria-X' to treat it! His stuff is complete bullshit! I'm the psychiatrist! But he can sell more drugs, so he's right at the pharmaceutical company!"

Romano becomes grouchy when he talks about his profession.

Li Shanze raised his eyebrows: "Inventing mental illness?"

"Mental illness itself is very similar to witchcraft! No, it's even more unreliable than witchcraft! Mental illness is often a matter of belief and existence, and not belief and existence!"

"Many people aren't sick at all. They're just using the term 'crazy' to vent their frustrations and follow the trend! They read about the symptoms of this disease in newspapers and books, and then they take the initiative to get it!"

Li Shanze was surprised that these words came out of Romano's mouth. He frowned and said, "You said you are an expert in mental illness?"

"I'm a genuine PhD in psychology! A psychiatrist! Otherwise, Johnson & Johnson wouldn't have let me lead the research and development of psychiatric drugs for a period of time!"

When talking about his profession, Romano seemed confident and righteous, and his speech began to become more organized.

"I am an expert in publicity and also an expert in somatic psychosomatic symptoms! I know better than anyone how profound an impact a famous doctor or expert's public statements can have on the public's subconscious!"

"Take anorexia, for example. Anorexia nervosa wasn't officially recognized until 1873."

"Dr. Lassegger, who was gaining fame at the time, named the condition and described it as follows: Patients are often young women between 15 and 20 years old who, traumatized by emotional fluctuations, begin to refuse to eat and continue this behavior indefinitely."

"Before the condition was officially named, medical theories about anorexia were conflicting and confusing, and patients presented with varying symptoms."

"But after this concept became popular, the incidence of this disease increased dramatically and even became a trend!"

"Around 1850, self-starvation was a rare condition, but by the end of the 19th century, medical literature was littered with cases of full-blown anorexia! In 1888, London doctors were stating that 'there is no hysteria more common than anorexia'."

"In the mid-19th century, anorexia was rare, but it wasn't because doctors didn't notice it. When I was researching anorexia, I looked up every case I could find from that period! I think the lack of cases was simply because society at the time didn't consider anorexia a symptom of hysteria."

"Only when anorexia was added to the symptom pool did more people start to have anorexia."

“Patients are trying to express their own vague or difficult-to-express mental distress through culturally accepted symptoms or behaviors of ‘suffering’.”

"In other words, at least 80% of patients are unconsciously trying to create symptoms to fit the current diagnosis!"

"By the middle of the 20th century, around 1940, anorexia had once again become extremely rare, almost unknown."

"I looked at all the psychiatric records in hospitals in New York and Philadelphia in the mid-20th century, and on average, each hospital reported less than one case of anorexia per year."

"And those patients didn't know what their illnesses had names for, or that there were other people suffering from the same thing, so their symptoms became more diverse and less uniform than they had been in the late 19th century."

"However, the disease became popular again after the pop star Karen Carpenter died suddenly of heart failure due to anorexia on February 4, 1983."

"I'm not saying these people are faking illness. These poor patients do have some kind of mental illness, but they choose to express their symptoms in a way that is most easily understood and accepted by society!"

"That's how culture shapes us in subtle ways, and we follow a lot of cultural cues without even realizing it."

"Inventing a mental illness and spreading the word is probably the best way to discover it! It's a lot like witchcraft, isn't it?"

"And that bastard Theodore Lancaster actually realized this earlier than an expert like me—No, that's not right. He didn't realize it. He simply found a loophole to exploit because of the inherent moral deficiencies of the English."

"Maybe we shouldn't call it a pharmaceutical factory, we should call it a disease-manufacturing factory! Hahahaha, hahahahahahaha!"

Romano laughed sarcastically.

337 The right medicine for the right disease

Perhaps realizing he had strayed from the topic, or perhaps to clear his name, Romano began to redirect the conversation.

"I was still very naive at the time and thought this matter required rationality and restraint, and that we needed medical ethics."

"It wasn't until the Drummonds kicked me out of my position as head of pharmaceuticals and put an arrogant and foolish fellow like Theodore Lancaster in the top job that I realized what the Drummonds really cared about was profit!"

Li Shanze originally wanted to correct Romano when he heard him go off topic into the history of medicine, but since Romano brought the topic back himself, he continued to listen patiently.

"I used to be an idealist, at least in my professional field. I studied psychology and human cognition, and I was a wizard of the Delusional Society—my teacher Barnum knew this a long time ago, but he didn't mind."

When Li Shanze thought that it was the man under his feet who personally delivered the medicine and killed Barnum, he found the man's tone of deep regret for his teacher disgusting.

"Under my teacher's guidance, I thought the knowledge I had acquired was for the purpose of helping people and healing those who were truly suffering."

"Even when I was in the pharmaceutical industry, I tried to promote the development of some truly beneficial drugs, those that can provide precise treatments and have fewer side effects."

"I foolishly mentioned 'long-term benefits' and 'corporate social responsibility' to James. It was a joke!"

"He just brushed me off, saying, 'Romano, your professional ability is unquestionable, but the market has its own rules.' I thought he was just reminding me to take care of business as well and to strike a balance."

"But when he promoted Theodore Lancaster, that lunatic who only knew how to create sensational 'new diseases', to my position and sent me, a genuine doctor of psychology and spiritual wizard, to the Propaganda Department, I finally woke up!"

"He doesn't care about medical ethics or patient welfare at all! He only cares about who can bring him the biggest profit!"

"That old bastard Theodore doesn't understand psychology at all. He's just a speculator, a charlatan who relies on 'inventing diseases' to sell medicine! Yet he became Drummond's guest of honor, while I, a truly talented person, was marginalized!"

"At that moment, all my innocence died! I understood that in this world, being right is not important, being useful is what matters!"

"Since they only care about profit, I will use my own methods to bring them the greatest profit! I want to prove that I, Romano, am the one who can make the most money! I am the one who can truly control people's hearts!"

Li Shanze resisted the urge to pull out his gun and blow Romano's head off. This kind of hypocritical self-whitewashing really disgusted him.

You have already enjoyed the benefits of doing evil. You are an executive of a pharmaceutical company, a high-level wizard, a guest of honor, and have generous material conditions.

And then you want to simply clean yourself up by apologizing and confessing?

There is nothing so good in the world.

Although Romano's fat eyes were blurred by fear and sweat, he still keenly caught the flash of disgust and murderous intent in Li Shanze's eyes.

His fat face, which originally had a hint of self-satisfaction, suddenly froze, and cold sweat began to drip down again.

He knew that his performance of his emotional journey not only failed to win sympathy, but instead angered the evil star in front of him.

Romano realized he had made a mistake. This act might work on TV to fool idle housewives and college girls, but it was undoubtedly the wrong way to express his feelings to an FBI agent who dealt with crime every day.

The instinct of survival made him immediately abandon all hypocritical confessions and return to the topic that he thought would most impress the other party, or in other words, the topic that would best prove his "value".

"So, I turned my attention to Japan. That country, as you know, has a deep-rooted cultural stigma against mental illness. They believe depression is a mental illness, a sign of weakness, and something to be ashamed of."

"With the exception of those with severe mental illnesses called utsubyo (diseased illness) who are so ill that they can no longer pretend to live a normal life and have to be hospitalized, the Japanese are indifferent to any mental discomfort."

"For antidepressants to become bestsellers in Japan, then the world's second-largest economy, it took more than just worrying about the disease."

"So, what we need to do is marketing, to influence Japan's understanding of depression at the most fundamental level. In other words, we need to market depression as a disease."

(Note: Historically, it was GlaxoSmithKline, not Johnson & Johnson, that marketed depression in Japan. The author simplified and blurred this in the novel.)

"I saw this as a good opportunity to make a comeback."

"My proposal convinced Mr. Drummond, and I spent a lot of time researching to determine that depression is completely different in different cultures."

"For example, Nigerian men may feel like they have a burning sensation in their brains; Korean men may feel like they have a 'fire disease' and feel a burning sensation in their abdomens; and Indian men may feel like they have lost semen for no apparent reason."

Hearing this, Li Shanze suspected that Romano was trying to discredit Indians - after all, his relationship with Vikram Chandrasekhar was really bad.

But after thinking about the magical country of India and looking at the confidence and assurance that Romano showed when he said this, Li Shanze felt that what Romano said must be true.

"In short, from a global perspective, it's actually Western depression—more precisely, American depression—that's the most unique. But who cares? Since we're a disease manufacturer, do we really need to prescribe the right medicine? What we need to do is treat the right symptoms with the right medicine!"

"Especially during the investigation, I realized Japan's culture of admiring the strong, and that's when I realized I had a breakthrough."

"So in the first few years of the Holy Spirit Era (note: the 1990s), we marketed a disease called neurasthenia in Japan."

"Unlike the popular perception of mental illness, we marketed neurasthenia as a disease that only successful people and the social elite can suffer from. My proudest achievement is a booklet called 'Neurasthenia: A Must-Read for Business Owners, Writers, Officials, and Students.'"

"So this disease spread freely in Japan, even becoming a trend, with countless people claiming to have neurasthenia. Neurasthenia even became a mental epidemic sweeping across the Japanese archipelago, more powerful than the flu!"

"From then on, mental illness was no longer a shameful topic in Japan. And how to market mental illness in a society that accepts mental illness is something that any American pharmaceutical marketer has no shortage of experience with."

"Taking advantage of the Plaza Accord, the Japanese experienced a lost decade, twenty, thirty, and even forty years. As long as they disguised their frustration as depression, the prevalence of this disease would no longer be an obstacle."

"If we make a few more Japanese TV dramas that advocate for caring for vulnerable groups, the cast and crew will gain a good reputation for humanistic care, the pharmaceutical companies will make profits, and the Japanese will learn about new diseases. This is a win-win-win situation!"

"In fact, 95% of so-called 'depression' is caused by lack of money. There is nothing in the world that can make people feel better than dollars!"

"In particular, in order to become a hit, we also conducted human experiments on the Japanese in Kaguya Town to confirm that this drug is also effective for the Japanese!"

Li Shanze frowned. "When you say it's useful, do you mean it can cure depression?"

"Don't be silly! How is that possible? The principle behind our drug inventions is that medication can alleviate symptoms but never cure them! The best medication is the one that can turn a disease into a chronic one! The worst medication is the one that can cure a disease!"

Romano blurted out "Don't be silly" only to realize that something was wrong. After all, his life was still in Li Shanze's hands.