Chapter 69: The Undervalued Dragon's Blood Drink
On Saturday afternoon, Lois finally woke up looking absolutely exhausted and drained.
Even though she maintained a decent fitness routine and had a solid physical foundation, several hours of continuously slaughtering hundreds of body-snatching cultists had still left her feeling completely fatigued.
She'd ended up sleeping until nearly 4 PM—practically unheard of for someone as regimented as Lois.
Even Peter was still passed out in bed, snoring loudly, exhausted from all the driving he'd done during their frantic escape.
Only Chris, with his supernatural physique and enhanced abilities, was able to maintain vigorous energy after just forty-five minutes of sleep.
He'd woken up at dawn to prepare breakfast, but after realizing absolutely no one else was awake—not even Stewie, who usually rose early to work on his schemes—Chris had eaten several full portions of breakfast by himself. Then he'd cracked open a bottle of Debuff Dragon's Blood energy drink to replenish his body's depleted reserves.
When Lois groggily stumbled downstairs still wearing her blood-stained pajamas, Chris immediately noticed her exhausted appearance and handed her an ice-cold bottle of the dragon's blood beverage from the fridge.
"What's this?" Lois asked, looking at the distinctive orange-red drink in her hand. She squinted at the label in confusion. "Debuff? Wait... isn't this that energy drink I keep hearing about on the radio?"
Lois suddenly remembered that this was the beverage company her son had somehow founded—and it was apparently the hottest new functional drink on the East Coast recently.
Unfortunately, due to it being perpetually sold out everywhere, Lois could never get her hands on a bottle and had never actually had the chance to taste it herself.
Seeing Lois's confused expression, Chris asked with growing suspicion, "Wait—didn't Brian ever bring home any free samples from the factory? I specifically told him to stock the fridge with them for the family."
Lois twisted open the cap and took a cautious sip. She instantly felt a surge of energy course through her body, her exhaustion evaporating like morning fog. Her eyes widened with surprise as she enthusiastically chugged the entire bottle, suddenly full of vigor.
"Holy crap, that's amazing!" Lois exclaimed. "And no—I don't even know what job Brian's actually doing at your company right now! He never talks about work."
"Fuck! That goddamn dog probably took the free samples and resold them on the side for extra cash," Chris muttered, immediately getting a bad feeling about the situation.
He'd even made sure to supply dragon's blood beverage to his crew of younger gang members in South Providence, so how could he possibly neglect his own family?
But now it seemed painfully obvious that whatever bottles Stewie brought home had been consumed entirely by the baby himself, while the cases Brian was supposed to distribute had never once appeared in the Griffin family's refrigerator.
Based on Chris's growing understanding of that freeloading mutt's character, Brian had definitely been reselling those drinks for profit.
Hearing Chris's accurate speculation, Lois stretched her body luxuriously. She genuinely had never felt this energized and clear-headed in years—not even after her morning yoga classes.
"That does sound exactly like something Brian would do," Lois admitted with a sigh. "But honestly, don't be too hard on him. He's under tremendous financial pressure right now—car payments, credit card debt, that Prius lease. He's probably desperate for extra income."
Chris obediently responded to Lois's diplomatic persuasion, "Alright, Mom. I'll just subtly remind him about company policy regarding employee theft."
However, Chris absolutely wasn't prepared to let that dog's blatantly opportunistic behavior slide so easily.
I'm thinking maybe I'll dock his pay until he's repaid the street value of every bottle he stole, Chris thought vindictively. With interest.
Just as Chris was mentally calculating how to punish Brian most effectively, he heard Peter thundering down from the second floor, shouting desperately, "Lois! Is there anything to eat? I'm starving! My stomach is literally staging a protest!"
Peter, who'd been bellowing loudly, turned the corner of the staircase and instantly noticed that Chris was also downstairs. His voice immediately dropped about forty decibels to a much more respectful tone.
"I'm, uh... really hungry though," Peter said meekly. "Is there anything to eat in the house? Maybe some leftovers?"
Lois looked at Peter, who pointed pathetically at his violently trembling stomach—which was genuinely shaking and rippling like it contained angry ferrets trying to escape.
Chris also noticed this cartoonishly absurd scene and found himself genuinely amazed at whatever physics-defying material Peter's body was apparently made of. His belly was literally undulating in waves of hunger.
Seeing Peter's desperate, pleading expression, Lois glanced meaningfully at Chris... and then at the remaining bottles of dragon's blood beverage sitting on the counter beside him.
Peter was so ravenously hungry that cooking a proper meal now would clearly take too long. It would be much faster to just let him drink one of these concentrated energy drinks to replenish his depleted reserves.
Chris noticed Lois's pointed gaze and—being reasonably perceptive when it came to family dynamics—grabbed a bottle and tossed it to Peter in a gentle arc.
"What is this? Some kind of energy drink?" Peter asked curiously, catching it clumsily. He immediately opened the cap and chugged the entire contents in one continuous gulp, not even pausing to breathe.
Then Chris watched in absolute astonishment as Peter's previously deflated, shriveled body instantly filled out to its normal rotund proportions. More surprisingly, Peter's eyes suddenly blazed with energy and vitality—he looked more alert and vigorous than Chris had ever seen him.
Peter hardly resembled his usual lethargic self at all.
"Oh, Lois!" Peter said with sudden, intense passion, his voice dropping to a suggestive tone.
"Oh, Peter!" Lois responded immediately, instantly understanding his implication.
Seeing Peter's enthusiastic reaction, Lois knew exactly what he had in mind and responded with enthusiastic agreement.
Then Chris watched in horrified fascination as Lois gracefully—almost gymnastically—leaped into the air, tumbled mid-flight, and landed perfectly in Peter's waiting embrace. Peter caught her with his thick arms, hoisted her up like she weighed nothing, and immediately turned to sprint back upstairs.
"We'll be busy for a while! Don't bother us!" Peter called over his shoulder as they disappeared down the hallway.
Seeing how desperately eager those two were—and hearing their bedroom door slam shut moments later—Chris was startled to realize that the dragon's blood beverage apparently had some significant additional effects beyond just energy restoration.
Holy shit, Chris thought with dawning capitalist glee. It's basically pharmaceutical-grade Viagra mixed with pre-workout supplements. I'm selling this WAY too cheap!
Chris felt that his current pricing strategy was practically charity work. It was an insult to his identity as Carter Pewterschmidt's grandson and future business empire. This simply wouldn't do at all!
After realizing that the dragon's blood beverage had other extremely marketable effects—effects that certain demographics would pay premium prices for—Chris immediately rushed to Stewie's room and directly woke up the still-sleeping baby.
Then, before Stewie could throw his usual tantrum about being disturbed, Chris casually grabbed one of Stewie's leftover bottles of dragon's blood beverage and poured it directly into his mouth, essentially forcing an immediate system reboot.
The abundant energy flooding Stewie's body interrupted his initial grogginess and irritation upon waking, making him ask with resigned helplessness, "What's so urgently important that you have to disturb my beautiful dream? I was just about to launch orbital death lasers at Cleveland's house."
"Our drink is criminally underpriced," Chris said immediately. "Do you have a way to further dilute the active dragon's blood ingredient while maintaining some beneficial effects?"
Since he'd realized the previous pricing was economically irrational, Chris naturally wanted to raise profit margins significantly.
The current drink was priced at five dollars per bottle, and Chris felt that at least ten times that price would be entirely reasonable for what it actually delivered.
But if it were suddenly priced at fifty dollars a bottle, not only would the number of casual buyers decrease dramatically, but it would also directly trigger consumer backlash and accusations of price gouging.
So if he couldn't directly raise the price without negative publicity, reducing production costs while creating a tiered product line was another way to increase overall profit margins, wasn't it?
After explaining his capitalistic reasoning to Stewie, Chris eagerly awaited the scientific answer he needed.
However, Stewie pondered thoughtfully for a long moment, his fingers steepled like a supervillain, before slowly beginning his analysis.
"Yes, I can certainly continue reducing the proportion of dragon blood compound in the formula," Stewie explained carefully. "However, once the dragon's blood concentration falls below one ten-thousandth, the active pharmacological effects will decrease exponentially, eventually approaching near-zero efficacy.
For example, a bottle of our current dragon's blood beverage can keep an ordinary adult human energetic and focused for approximately twelve to fourteen hours. But if we reduce the dragon's blood component again to, say, one twenty-thousandth concentration, the effective duration drops to barely six hours—maybe less.
If we dilute it further to one hundred-thousandth concentration, then a single bottle would ultimately only keep an ordinary person energized for approximately ten to fifteen minutes. At that point, it's essentially just a supercharged caffeine shot—basically Five-Hour Energy on steroids."
Stewie listed the consequences of reducing the dragon's blood concentration methodically, waiting patiently for Chris to make an informed business decision.
After all, the dragon's blood beverage was absolutely crucial to Chris's grand strategic plan of establishing his criminal enterprise and legitimate business empire. He couldn't make rash decisions that might undermine the foundation.
However, after listening carefully to the scientific breakdown, Chris became intensely focused on the manufacturing economics.
"What's the production cost for the one hundred-thousandth dilution version?" Chris asked. "Like ten cents per bottle?"
"Even lower than that," Stewie said with a slight smirk. "With fully industrialized production at scale, we can reduce unit cost to approximately three cents per bottle. Maybe even two cents if we negotiate better bulk pricing on bottles and labels."
"Holy shit," Chris breathed.
Hearing the absurdly low cost Stewie mentioned, Chris immediately made his decision with absolute certainty.
"Change the formula ratio right now. Make the standard consumer version one hundred-thousandth concentration dragon's blood."
Chris's eyes gleamed with ruthless business calculation. "However, to prevent widespread consumer backlash and accusations of false advertising, we'll price this new standard version at three dollars per bottle—still affordable for casual buyers.
Meanwhile, the current one ten-thousandth concentration version will be rebranded as the 'Debuff Dragon's Blood Performance Edition' and repriced at thirty dollars per bottle. We'll market it to serious athletes, gym rats, corporate executives—people who'll pay premium prices for genuine performance enhancement.
And hell, maybe we'll even create an ultra-premium version at the original concentration for fifty or seventy-five dollars. Call it the 'Elite Formula' or some marketing bullshit like that."
Chris continued enthusiastically, "Anyway, this drink has only been on the market for like three weeks, so we'll just announce that the previous five-dollar price was a limited-time promotional launch offer, which is why it was so cheap. Now we're transitioning to standard retail pricing with multiple product tiers."
After hearing Chris's surprisingly sophisticated business strategy, Stewie did some quick mental calculations and then smirked with genuine impressed approval.
"Wow! You really are channeling your inner ruthless capitalist robber-baron. Carter Pewterschmidt would be proud," Stewie said admiringly. "This is actually brilliant market segmentation. The casuals get their cheap buzz, the serious users pay premium prices, and we absolutely maximize profit across all demographics."
Chris grinned and responded, "Then quit complimenting me and get to work reformulating the production line!"
"Fuck you! I'm a genius inventor, not your corporate chemist!" Stewie shot back.
"You're a genius inventor who owns forty percent equity in this company," Chris countered. "So get your ass in the lab and start diluting dragon blood, you tiny capitalist."
Stewie sighed dramatically but was already climbing out of bed and heading toward his secret laboratory.
"Fine! But I'm expensing a new electron microscope to the company account!"
Chris just smiled. Business was about to get very profitable indeed.
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