Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Vaguely feeling that Guo Caiying’s tone sounded a bit different from usual when she spoke her last sentence, Zhang Lisheng grinned and put away his mobile phone.
When he started his car and was about to turn around, he suddenly saw Maddie, whose hair was being caressed by the chilly wind in the early spring, walking out of the office building with a cheerful smile before waving at him.
An incomprehensible feeling rose in his heart. The young man was stunned for a few minutes before starting to reverse his car. He turned his car afterwards and headed for the factory gate.
Once he was out of the slaughterhouse, he drove for a while along the long line of trucks before driving as he turned straight into the spacious road heading to New York City.
Repressing his troubled thoughts, Zhang Lisheng began to figure out that the first thing he would do after returning to Western Sichuan was to go back to Guawo Village to take a good look at the ancient Chinese books in his ancestral home. It would be best if he could transport them all to the US or to the foreign world’s island so that it would be convenient for his future research.
“Chinese characters are different from alphabets, particularly those ancient books that are mostly equipped with pictures. If I carefully study it, I might have new gains from time to time. However, speaking about it, those books are considered as cultural relics already so if I want to take it out of the country, I’m afraid ordinary channels will be…” As he muttered to himself, his attraction was distracted by a sudden flash of red light by his side.
Unconsciously, he looked at the soft red light through the window, and was dumbstruck to see a red wall of light that was flashing lightly and intensely from time to time that seemed to stretch upward till the end of the sky, towering into the clouds, towards the distant ocean as far as his eyes could see.
Within a few seconds after the appearance of the light wall, the traffic on the highway became completely still. However, from time to time, sudden loud noises of brake screeching sounds or car collisions would still resonate from the distance.
Zhang Lisheng stepped on the brakes as hard as he could, stopping the car in the middle of the road. Then, he walked out of the car together with the US citizens who were all on the road and stared at the red light wall slowly fading over time at the distant sea.
At the same time, he heard a voice asking, “Mom, w-what is that strange thing…”
“Is this caused by aliens? It must be aliens. First, it’s the foreign world and now it’s aliens! Earthling has really ‘lucked out’ now…”
Then, there were some curses as well as mutters of ‘God bless us please…”
“God, please forgive human arrogance and greed…” Such praying sounds could also be heard and gradually, a layer of frost appeared on Zhang Lisheng’s face.
An image of a dark-skinned yet polite old man who seemed to have wide amounts of knowledge once again appeared in his mind. An ominous thought that was getting more and more intense appeared in his heart, forcing him to stride back to the car and turn the steering wheel maniacally. Stepping on the accelerator, he rushed out of the highway and sped like a crazy person towards the coast. Finally, he managed to reach the beach before the light wall disappeared.
Pushing the door open in haste, he stepped on the sand and rushed towards the beach, before looking at the direction of the new New York harbor without any obstructions in his sight. Zhang Lisheng could clearly see that in the sea of the new New York port, a slanting crevice exposed in the blue sky which already showed some cracks on the edge gradually appeared above the endless red light wall. That direction was in line with the door leading to the Shrimp World No. 2.
Without blinking, Zhang Lisheng watched at the distant sea and allowed the waves to wash over his pants with a dumbstruck expression. He smoothed out his sparse hair from front to back and turned around to enter the car. Turning on the radio, he turned around with a blank expression and continued driving towards JFK airport.
On the way, he stared at the panicking group of people, who had gathered together to talk, through his front windshield. With a cold gaze, he muttered, “Looks like the pages on the book is being spread open now. The collapse of the space door that makes the world split up and divided till it is all broken up. This is your ultimate goal right, Dr. Tubalin?”
No reply came from the car that was vacant except for the young driver. The voices that filled his ears were the various conjectures made by the broadcasters and the audience amidst the face of the sudden appearance of the red light wall that was said to have linked up the entire coast of the ocean.
These conjectures were ridiculous, ranging from the old-fashioned saying that the light wall was a special astronomical phenomenon, to the most bizarre but also the closest to the fact that the red light wall was a barrier that separated the two ‘worlds’.
After arriving at the airport, on the large-screen TVs in the waiting hall for passengers to while their time away, more colorful contents of weird pictures and texts that accompanied the weird ‘you ask, I answer’ game.
“This world has gone crazy! To think that they can use everything as entertainment.” Walking on the neat and bright walkway of the JFK Airport, Zhang Lisheng, who had calmed down, commented when he raised his head to glance at the huge TV that he passed by, before heading straight to the VIP lounge
The staff in the Kennedy Airport’s VIP lounge were already accustomed to seeing this young, pale Asian face. Even when the tall and sturdy guard wearing uniform saw him, he automatically retreated to the side to take the initiative to greet Zhang Lisheng. “Good afternoon, welcome to JFK International Airport, Mr. Zhang.”
“Thank you.” Zhang Lisheng nodded and walked into the airport lounge, before sitting down directly on the brown leather sofa next to the glass wall that could overlook the taking off of the planes. He asked the beautiful ground staff who sent iced Coke to him right away, “Excuse me, miss. May I ask you what is the shortest time for me to book a private flight to Boston?”
The highway from New York to Boston was more than 600 kilometers away. If one spent 15 dollars and got on the hop-on hop-off US tour bus, it would only take four hours to get there. However, if one were to use a private plane, there was no doubt that the cost would undoubtedly increase at least 10,000 times and even if there was a flight that could be used right away, after deducting the time needed for mechanical inspection, boarding, and disembark, the time consumption would not be less than that of a bus as well.
However, spending the most money and using the most cumbersome but comfortable way to complete a very simple thing was the lifestyle of a super rich person. Without being taken by surprise, the ground staff exclusively for the Kennedy Airport VIP lounge smiled and flashed her teeth as she answered, “Please wait for a bit, Mr. Zhang, I’ll check it for you.”
“Thank you.”
“Mr. Zhang, I’m very sorry, due to the sudden abnormality in the sky, the route from New York to Boston is not allowed to be applied within this 48 hours.”
“48 hours? Oh, that’s okay then! Help me book a first-class ticket for the closest flight to Boston then!” The reason the young man planned to fly by plane instead of flying on the cloud directly to Boston was because he felt that after having disappeared for two months for no reason, he would have to have some obvious activities for a period of time, so for this reason, he did not become too persistent in wanting to have a personal charter plane.
“It’s rare for such a short-haul flight to have first-class seats. If it’s business class instead, you can fly directly to Boston on America Airline AR098 after 45 minutes,” the ground staff lady who had long been prepared said while maintaining her smile that revealed her teeth.
“Business class it is then! I’m not so picky.” Zhang Lisheng casually took out a credit card from his pocket, and a few minutes later, he immediately got his boarding pass. After two hours later, he sat on a vacant America Airline plane and flew straight to Boston smoothly all the way.
Boston, the capital of Massachusetts and the largest city in the United States, was located on the east and west coasts of the Atlantic Ocean. More than two hundred years ago, the people here created riots over the harsh ‘tea tax’ issued by the British King. They threw off the tea on the British merchant ships and set off the prelude to the US Independence War. Because of this, Boston City was once considered as a symbol of ‘freedom’ and ‘resistance’ of the US country.
Right now, this cosmopolitan city had evolved into becoming the center of higher education in the US country. There were more than 100 universities in the entire metropolitan area and a large number nearing hundreds of thousands of students, marking this place to be hailed as ‘the center of the universe’ and the ‘Athens of America.’ It sounded as if the air that one breathed in as one walked through the streets was filled with knowledge as well.
However, to Zhang Lisheng, the air here was no different from other cities. After exiting the Logan International Airport, he took a taxi to the Boston area. The streets were already brightly lit at this time.
He handed the driver a hundred-dollar bill and said, “Keep the change, thank you.” Then, he opened the door and walked out of the car, looking around. When he saw the skyscrapers that were almost the same as the streets of New York, he grinned and blurted out in an eccentric tone, “So this is Boston…”
“Tsk tsk…” After a long horn sounded, a middle-aged black man with a big head stretched out of the taxi. “Hey, young man, thanks for the tips! Because of your generosity, I’ll give you a suggestion. Walk down along this road and head to the west to go to the Charles River. That is where the real Boston lies. Even though the temperature is still a bit cold, the weather is good these days. The young people should have started their activities already. Maintain your good habit of spending money, and have more fun!”
“Oh thank you!” Zhang Lisheng hesitated for a moment and waved at the driver. He watched the taxi drive away before pulling out his phone from his pocket. After a moment of hesitation, he put the phone back in his pocket, and murmured, “I think it’s better to let Tina sleep a bit more since I’ve already said that I’ll only go see her tomorrow.”
Then, he walked along the street and headed west.
After walking through two streets, the young man could clearly sense that the air was getting more and more humid, as he began to hear a mixture of music and human voices faintly.
Speeding up the pace, he walked for another seven to eight minutes and finally, a wide river appeared in front of him.
Looking down at the gorgeous river channel being illuminated brightly by the street lamps along the coast, he saw a huge open-air performance stage surrounded by green lawns and zonal riverside parks in the distance.
At this time, there were more than ten young people who were dressed casually playing music, playing melodies for the two male and three female singers on the stage. Zhang Lisheng, who did not have many artistic cells, could not tell how good they were but judging from the dense crowds of audience either lying or sitting on the lawn below the stage, their standard should be pretty good.
“Enjoying the cold wind by the river lying down while listening to live music. Now this is the feeling of the ‘Athens of America’.” Watching the sight before his eyes, Zhang Lisheng smiled in surprise and followed the crowd to walk close to the performance stage.
All of a sudden, he heard a serious voice with a slightly familiar accent resonating from the river side. “This is a true genuine ruby bracelet but you just want to pay 15 dollars for it? Oh young lady, I can only say that your young age makes you not know how to appreciate beautiful jewelry.”
