Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Upon hearing the car driver’s praise that came out of the blue, Zhang Lisheng could not help but ask, “Thank you for your compliment, Mr. Driver, but don’t you think you have been acting very weird ever since I got into the car?”
The driver was shocked but merely chuckled and said nothing.
The clever Tao Lulu beside him had lived in Beijing for several years, so she was familiar with the mindset of the civilians in the capital city of China and had already understood the cause of the matter. Right away, she chimed in, “Lisheng, this Mr. Driver also knows the US rule. He drove past and saw you sticking out three fingers to call for the taxi, so he thought that you’re a silly foreigner who wanted to pay a high pay. Wanting to make more money, he was willing to sacrifice his lunch break and u-turned to pick you up. In the end, I got onto the car too. Now that a girl who was born and raised in China got on to the car, he thought he could no longer earn a triple fare. Of course he was unhappy about it and showed his temper. However, when you said that you’d still be willing to pay a triple fare, he immediately felt happy, and of course, he’s treating you with a good attitude again. Am I right, Mr. Driver?”
“Well, isn’t the reason for working hard in such sunny noon to make more money. When I saw the way this little brother acted just now from afar, I could tell that he’s a foreign national of Chinese descendant from the vicious Western capitalist society on top of that in only a glance. It’s because of this that I stopped my car. However, as a result, when I heard your accents, I thought ‘damn it, I’ve been fooled,’ so of course, I got infuriated right away. Speaking of it, if it wasn’t for that group of… Ahh forget it. Forget it. I’m the one with the wrong attitude anyway. It’s my bad. It’s my bad,” The taxi driver scratched his head in shame.
Westerners were willing to pay for priority services, while Orientals believed that the same service must have the same price, with the order determined by ‘first come, first served.’ These two mindsets were neither wrong nor correct but were merely a difference caused by way of thinking and social rules. Of course, Zhang Lisheng understood this, so he only smiled pleasantly and no longer said anything more.
The car sped for a long time on the spacious road. After passing by buildings with uneven heights and streets filled with streams of people, the vehicle finally stopped in front of a narrow alley.
“There you go. It’s not convenient for me to drive into the alley, so you can just walk, and you’ll reach the Friendship Hotel in the junction 100 meters away,” The driver chuckled. “Enjoy your day!”
“Wow, Mr. Driver, you actually reached here without asking for direction. You really know the road well,” Tao Lulu watched Zhang Lisheng passed several hundred dollar bills to the driver as she spoke with a smile, “You don’t have to continue working anymore today after this trip.”
“It’s all thanks to you two, thank you! Thank you! Goodbye!” After happily putting the money into his pocket, the taxi driver watched the two passengers in the back seat got off the car and waved his hand as he drove away.
“This is what I called life, a very easily satisfied but real life…” Zhang Lisheng watched the taxi leaving and muttered despondently. Suddenly, he felt that becoming a god to conquer a world and using this as the foundation to fight Atlantis’ light civilization had become a very illusory thing.
“What’s wrong with you, Lisheng?” Tao Lulu who was next to him saw his abnormal look so she asked in puzzlement.
“It’s nothing, just a muse of emotions. Now that I’ve finally come to this city that I have been longing for since young, I can’t help but become a bit sentimental. Let’s go and eat,” Zhang Lisheng snapped back to reality and walked into the alley together with the girl.
There were not many passageways in the 3rd Ring of Beijing City now. The alleys in this Xujialou area were famous for their food and snacks. Rubbing shoulders walking in the lane, he could smell aromatic smell everywhere.
After walking about 100 to 200 meters ahead, Tao Lulu led the young man to turn right, and immediately, a restaurant that appeared to be quite large in this alley entered their sight.
“I’m only a student, so the place where I spend for a meal cannot be compared with the five-star restaurants that you big entrepreneur eats in New York, but the food here is quite tasty. Please do me the honor of trying it, alright?” Pointing to the greasy, wooden signboard written with two words’ Friendship Forever’ hanging on a cement house, the girl stopped and deliberately said jokingly with a tart tone.
“Only a hotel has a five-star rating. Restaurants usually use the most universal ‘Michelin rating’ that only has three stars at most,” The young man also joked as he corrected her when he pushed open the red door of the hotel.
“How many pax, sir?” The person sitting behind the counter in charge of calculating bills and selling both alcohol and tobacco asked in a loud, ear-jarring voice when he saw that somebody had entered through the door.
“We’ve already booked a private room, the Hongfu Hall,” Tao Lulu raised her voice and replied in the noisy environment, Tao Lulu raised his voice and responded.
“Hongfu Hall, 213 on the second floor. Turn left in front, and you’ll see the stairs. Watch out though, the floor is slippery,” The man told them the room’s number, and the girl nodded before leading the young man to the second floor. After finding their room in the hallway, she pushed open the door and entered.
Compared to the dining room on the first floor, the second-floor was obviously much cleaner. The decoration was not luxurious, but the space was spacious, and the floor was clean. There was also an LCD TV that was at least 40 inches wide on the wall. When both of them walked into the room, there were seven to eight young men and women sitting around a large dining table, chatting with one another while looking at the side at US sitcoms.
When they heard the sound, these people immediately shifted their eyes in unison to the door.
Upon seeing Tao Lulu, one of the young man, who did not seem to be too happy and was wearing a slightly bulky-looking black suit in Beijing September’s after summer on the outside with a cashmere sweater, a white shirt and a meticulous tie on the inside, looking like a middle-aged person but was actually only in his twenties, had his eyes lit up as he went up to greet them.
“Lulu, why did you come so late? You must be starving. Wait, I’ll go ask the waiters to serve the dishes. I’ve already ordered the food, and it’s all your favorites,” he first greeted the girl amiably before extending a hand to Zhang Lisheng, “You must be Lulu’s junior high school classmate! Hello, my name is Li Linsheng, I’m a counselor in the Beijing Normal University and could be said as half Lulu’s colleague.”
“Oh, Mr. Li, why are you here too? Didn’t you say that you’re busy arranging the new students? You’re a counselor, a teacher, and I’m a student at school, so how can we be colleagues?” Tao Lulu chimed in calmly and politely as she took off her windbreaker to hang it up.
“Oh, Lulu, you’re a student that Dr. Lu is proud of, and it’s not a trivial matter to continue staying in school after graduating, so how are we not half a colleague?” Li Linsheng smiled shyly. “Oh yeah, I need to go tell the waiters to serve us. I need to go…”
Then, he ran out of the room.
As soon as he left the room, a very cute-looking young girl who had two faint dimples on her round cheeks when she smiled jumped up from her seat and ran up to Tao Lulu before speaking bluntly with a smile, “Oh, Master Student Tao, this lively scene can even appear on the television. Look at how you shut Li in front of your childhood friend! Oooh, you’re expressing your loyalty, huh?”
“Chu Xiaohong, shut up! Can’t you see that Li Yujuan is here too? Nobody would think that you’re mute if you don’t talk,” The pure, innocent girl had already disappeared. The girl, who used to love the young man a lot during her innocent youth but whose feelings were unknown now, blushed and whispered at her best friend.
“Oh, somebody is getting angry! Looks like Master Student Tao really has fallen in love. Alright, alright, I’ll drop it!” Chu Xiaohong grinned mischievously as she whispered.
When her words left her mouth, Li Linsheng pushed the door and entered the room again. When he heard the last few words of the sentence, he blurted out loudly, “Who? Who has fallen in love?”
This caused the room to be awkward right away. In the end, it was still Chu Xiaohong who resolved the awkwardness, “It’s me! I have fallen in love! Liusheng confessed to me in the school’s wood yesterday, and I’ve fallen in love. Oh c’mon, you’re a guy, so why do you wanna know all this thing for? You’re usually so slow, but why you’re so fast in ordering today? Are you trying to spy on my privacy?!”
Li Linsheng’s expression turned grave right away, but he did not burst out in rage. Instead, he explained in a low voice, “I just so happened to come across the waiter at the stairs, so I managed to save some time.”
Then, he proceeded to raise his voice, “The food is coming soon. Let us sit first. Lulu, your friend has come from afar, so he should sit here in the guest position. Even though Little Song is the one who called for this gathering, but since we’re here to celebrate my sister passing band-8 in Test for English Majors, I should be the one treating everybody. I’ll sit here at the host seat, while Little Song will sit beside the host. As for all of you, just sit according to your age.”
After saying so, he proceeded to sit at the primary host’s seat on the round table.
After that, everybody else also began to sit accordingly in a bustle. Only Zhang Lisheng, who knew little about Chinese table customs, stood by the side in a daze. It was only when Tao Lulu pointed to the empty space beside her that he finally sat.
“Lulu, your old classmate is too nerdy! He doesn’t even know the seat custom, so don’t tell me that he has never gone out to eat with other people before?” Chu Xiaohong, who had been paying attention to the young man with interest, chuckled.
“He went to live in New York before he finished his junior high school and has only recently returned to China, so of course he doesn’t know all this messy table custom,” The girl explained.
Although China’s national strength was rising day by day and could be called as a superpower that could stand side by side with the US, due to the severe political environment and the expanding population pressure in the country, many ordinary citizens still preferred the excellent living environment and high welfare of the Westerners. Therefore, when they heard that Zhang Lisheng, who spoke in a local accent, actually lived in the US, there was a subtle change in their attitude.
“Oh? A New Yorker who speaks Sichuan Mandarin?” Chu Xiaohong was taken aback before saying with a smile, “Oh, not bad, Lulu! You have taste! Stop hiding him, come introduce him to all of us.”
“Who is hiding? This is Zhang Lisheng, my junior high school classmate.” Tao Lulu stood up and pointed to Zhang Lisheng as she made a very simple introduction. Then, she proceeded to look at her university’s friends, “Chu Xiaohong, my roommate for my postgraduate studies. Counsellor Li Linsheng, he has introduced himself to you just now…”
While she was speaking, two waiters walked into the room with a few cold dishes. As they were arranging the meals, they asked Li Linsheng, who was sitting at the host seat, “Sir, what drink would you like to have?”
“Of course, we need to ask the guest then!” Li Linsheng turned to look at Zhang Lisheng and said, “Erm, Brother Zhang, would you like to drink rice wine or beer? Or perhaps red wine or whiskey?”
Zhang Lisheng never drank rice wine and beer before. When he thought of how it was impossible to set up an exceptional wine cellar in such a restaurant to store fine wine and whiskey, he pondered a while before replying, “Thank you, I don’t want to drink any alcohol. A can of Coke would be enough. ”
