November 1980. New Jersey, USA.
A cold late-autumn rain hammered against the windows, accompanied by the low, sullen rumble of thunder.
Inside the study, Victor Corleone sat alone behind a massive mahogany desk. The funeral for his father had just ended, and the air still lingered with the cloying scent of lilies mixed with the damp, musty smell of old rain.
Three things lay before him: a final foreclosure notice from the bank, a well-maintained Colt Python revolver, and a handwritten suicide note left by his father.
"Victor, forgive me. I tried to be a good man... but good men cannot survive in this man-eating world."
"A good man?"
Victor's lips curled into a cynical sneer. If the man from his past life—the "King of Cons" who had risen from the Kowloon Walled City to control half of Asia's underground finance—were here, he would have treated this note as a bad joke.
But now, he was Victor Corleone. The heir to a pharmaceutical factory, burdened with three million dollars in debt and facing bankruptcy by tomorrow morning.
"In this country, Father, kindness isn't a virtue. It's a terminal illness."
He picked up the note and fed it directly into the shredder by his hand.
Zzzzz—
With the grinding sound, the last dignity of that "good man" was reduced to a pile of white confetti.
As a reincarnated soul, he had no time for grief. In his mind, the history of the next forty years was a weapon far more lethal than any gun.
But before he could wield these weapons, he had to survive the night.
"Young Master!" The voice of Old Jack, the butler, shattered the silence of the study. "Mr. DiNozzo is here... he brought two men, and they've forced their way in!"
"Let him in."
Victor opened the drawer, casually swept the revolver into it, and then lifted a brown glass bottle with no label from a box at his feet, placing it in the center of the desk.
"Jack, get two glasses. We have a guest to entertain."
Two minutes later, the study door was roughly shoved open.
Fat Tony, dripping with rain and flanked by two vicious-looking enforcers, barged in. The Capo of the Gambino family's New Jersey branch didn't stand on ceremony; he sat down and propped his mud-caked leather shoes right onto Victor's desk.
"My condolences, Victor." Fat Tony tossed a crumpled IOU onto the desk. "Your father borrowed money from me. Three million total. The factory is going up for auction tomorrow. Where's my money?"
"I don't have three million in cash."
Victor's expression was calm as he unscrewed the cap of the brown glass bottle.
"But I have a proposal. One that can turn your three million in bad debt into an annual cash flow of thirty million."
Fat Tony scoffed, pulling out an M1911 and slamming it onto the desk, the muzzle pointed straight at Victor. "I want cash! Green! Cash!"
"This is cash."
Victor poured the thick, brown liquid into a glass. "This is five tons of cough syrup stockpiled in the Walter Pharmaceuticals warehouse. To the bank, it's industrial waste. In my hands, it's liquid gold."
"Cough syrup?" Tony looked at him like he was an idiot. "You want me to hustle cough medicine on the street?"
"Taste it."
Tony took a suspicious sip, then immediately spat it out. "Pah! Tastes like shit! Bitter and astringent!"
"Exactly. Right now, it's just nasty medicine."
Victor stood up, looking down at the mob boss, his eyes sharp as knives.
"But what if I told you that with one special process, I can turn this cup of bitter medicine into 'Happy Water' that will make every young person in America go crazy?"
"A kind of gold that is legal, untouchable by the police, and gets you higher than the sky."
Tony's finger caressed the trigger.
"How?"
Victor adjusted his collar and made a welcoming gesture.
"Come. Let me take you to the 'Kitchen', Tony. Let's show you the future I've prepared for you."
...
Walter Pharmaceuticals, Lab No. 4.
"This is your gold mine?"
Tony stood at the door, looking around with disdain. "A pile of scrap metal and hundreds of barrels of sugar water nobody wants."
"This is Lab No. 4, but I prefer to call it the 'Kitchen'."
Victor turned, took off his suit jacket, folded it neatly on a clean chair, and rolled up his shirt sleeves to reveal his forearms.
He walked to the storage area and pointed to the rows of unsold "Walter's Extra Strength Cough Syrup".
"Tony, do you know why junkies don't like drinking this stuff?"
Victor picked up a bottle and glanced at the ingredients label.
"The codeine phosphate content is too low, only 10mg/5ml. To prevent abuse, the FDA mandates the addition of Guaifenesin—an expectorant. If you try to get high on this, your stomach will revolt before your brain feels a thing. You'll vomit like a dying dog."
"So it's garbage." Tony flicked his cigar ash impatiently. "You want me to sell this? I'd rather sell expired milk."
"No."
Victor picked up a beaker, his eyes focusing with intense precision.
"We just need to remove the Guaifenesin, purify the codeine, and add a magical ingredient."
He put on safety goggles and turned on the rotary evaporator that had been prepped earlier.
The low hum of the machine echoed in the empty lab.
"Bring those two barrels over." Victor directed the two enforcers.
The thugs looked at Tony. Tony nodded, and they reluctantly hauled the raw materials to the workbench.
Victor began to operate.
His movements were fluid, almost artistic.
Dissolution, filtration, crystallization.
The turbid brown liquid flowed through glass tubes, passing through layers of Buchner funnels. The impurities were separated, leaving behind a clear base liquid.
Tony didn't understand chemistry, but he could feel an inexplicable professionalism.
He had never seen this in street thugs. Those guys only knew how to cook heroin on a spoon or mix amphetamines in a dirty bathtub.
But Victor was different.
You knew he was doing an experiment, but you had no idea what exactly he was doing. It was intimidatingly impressive.
"What's that stuff called?" Tony couldn't help but ask.
"Promethazine."
Victor picked up a bottle of white powder he had extracted from another batch of expired anti-allergy medication.
"A first-generation antihistamine. Doctors prescribe it for hay fever or motion sickness."
He weighed the white powder precisely and slowly poured it into the stirring beaker.
"But it has a side effect—potent sedation."
Victor stared at the liquid swirling in the vortex, his voice low.
"When it meets codeine in your liver, a miracle happens. This is called synergy. One plus one no longer equals two; it equals ten."
"It amplifies the opioid euphoria while providing a deep, heavy sedative effect. You'll feel your body become incredibly heavy, while your soul floats away."
The stirrer stopped spinning.
The liquid in the beaker was now transparent, as pure as water.
"Now, the final step."
Victor opened a drawer and took out two items.
A bottle of purple food coloring.
A bottle of concentrated grape flavoring.
"Why add that?" Tony frowned. "It'll look like a kid's drink."
"Because we are selling to young people."
Victor dripped the coloring into the beaker.
One drop, two drops.
The brilliant purple exploded in the clear liquid, blooming like purple smoke, rolling and diffusing, finally dyeing the entire beaker a psychedelic, neon purple.
"In this era, appearance is everything."
"Nobody likes bitter medicine. But what if it's sweet, purple, grape-flavored 'Happy Water'?"
He picked up a bottle of Sprite he had prepared, unscrewed the cap, poured out a little, and then slowly poured the purple syrup from the beaker into it.
Fizzzz—
Bubbles rushed up frantically.
The purple syrup didn't dissolve immediately. Instead, like some kind of living mollusk, it slowly sank through the clear soda, dragging out enchanting purple ribbons.
A visual spectacle.
Even a brute like Tony had to admit, there was a strange beauty to it.
"Taste it."
Victor handed the "Dirty Sprite" to one of Tony's enforcers. The man, Paulie, was a heavy smoker with puffy eyes—a loyal fan of American tobacco.
Paulie glanced at Tony.
"Drink it," Tony spat out.
Paulie took the bottle and chugged a large mouthful.
"Cough..."
The carbonation was a bit strong, but he quickly smacked his lips.
"Sweet. Grape flavor." Paulie looked at the bottle in confusion. "Like... sugar water?"
"Patience." Victor leaned against the lab bench, taking off his goggles to reveal calm eyes. "Let the bullet fly for a while."
Five minutes.
Paulie, who had been standing straight, began to sway slightly.
His focus started to scatter, pupils dilating.
The facial muscles that were usually tense relaxed, and the corners of his mouth uncontrollably curled into a dopey grin.
He felt the floor turn soft, like stepping on cotton. The ceiling was spinning, and the hum of electricity in his ears turned into a low, rhythmic thrum.
"How's it feel, Paulie?" Tony kicked him.
"Heh... heh heh..."
Paulie giggled, his body leaning back, almost falling over, but he didn't seem to care. He just tried to maintain balance, swaying like a tumbler toy.
"Boss... I feel... I feel like I'm flying... no, floating..."
His speech was slurred, like he had a hot potato in his mouth.
"So comfortable... no pain... don't wanna do nothin'..."
Tony watched his subordinate's reaction, and his eyes lit up.
This was "good stuff".
And it was strong.
"What's this stuff called?" Tony turned to Victor, the contempt in his eyes gone, replaced by greed.
Victor adjusted his cuffs and put his suit jacket back on.
"Street thugs call it 'Mud' or 'Oil'. But I've given it a new name."
Victor pointed to the bubbling purple liquid in Paulie's hand.
"Texas Tea. Or... Lean."
"Lean?"
"Because when you drink it, you lean back. You can't stand straight." Victor explained indifferently. "It's a cool name. The kids will love it."
Tony licked his lips.
"But it's still drugs. If the cops find out..."
"No, Tony. Let me say it again. According to the United States Pharmacopeia..."
"This is a prescription drug. Promethazine with Codeine Syrup. FDA approved, doctor recommended, legal and compliant."
He walked up to Tony, looking straight into those beady eyes filled with avarice.
"As long as I have a pharmaceutical license, this is legal medicine. You can sell it to rich kids who don't want trouble, to cowards who want to get high but are afraid of needles."
"The police can't catch you."
"The DEA can't touch you."
"Because until you pour it into that Sprite, it's just a bottle of cough syrup."
"And you, Tony, you are not a drug dealer."
Victor paused, a hint of irony in his voice.
"You are a 'Community Pharmacist'."
Tony froze.
A few seconds later, he burst into laughter, shaking the dust from the ceiling.
"Community Pharmacist... Hahahaha! Damn, I love that title!"
Tony threw his arm around Victor's shoulder. "Victor, you're a genius! A goddamn evil genius!"
Victor let him, his expression remaining calm.
He looked out the window at the pitch-black night.
The rain had stopped.
But this was just the calm before the storm.
Starting tonight, this purple flood would flow from here and drown every street in New Jersey.
And he was the one opening Pandora's Box.
"Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Pharmacist," Victor said softly.
"Pleasure, Dr. Corleone."