Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
After expressing his shock and difficulty in understanding the US civilization, the Central Asian apologized to Zhang Lisheng. “I’m sorry, doctor. It looks like it’s my comrades who have gotten their information messed up. We have drunk too much that day and you know, alcohol makes people excited and confused. Perhaps we have mixed our real memories with the horror movies we have watched before together. I’ve studied psychology a little before. This is a very common memory confusion paradigm…”
“It’s alright, Mr. Lucas. I sometimes would get things mixed up too,” Zhang Lisheng chowed down on the pie and smiled faintly as he interjected Lucas’ jabbering, “Besides, you’ve let me know just how ‘optimistic’ the ordinary US citizens are about the constant emergence of foreign worlds on Earth. To be honest, I feel much assured now.”
When Lucas heard his words, as though he did not sense the irony in it, he continued to get on the topic instead. “I’m very honored to be able to help you, doctor. Speaking of it, the reason why I can maintain such an optimistic mood in this kind of critical moment is entirely that I am currently engaged in insurance sales. This job taught me that as long as I have a safeguard in my life, I can look at everything with a bigger heart. Oh yeah, have you thought about buying an insurance policy for your company?”
“Lucas, can you please not talk about insurance? We’re having dinner now,” Rachel reminded her boyfriend for the umpteenth time in this dinner.
The Central Asian man, on the other hand, replied to his girlfriend with deep thoughts, “I know that we’re having our dinner now, dear, but I know better just how rare this opportunity is for me to be able to have dinner with a legendary businessman who founded the most successful company in the 21st century in the US before reaching the age of 20, and an outstanding biologist who presides the world’s renowned Stanford University’s biological lab! To a new immigrant who has been continuously pursuing success for 31 years, now that I’m fortunate enough to have this opportunity, I’ll regret for the rest of my life if I do nothing.”
Lucas’ words rendered everybody speechless. The atmosphere on the dining table became silent and slightly awkward right away. At this time, Zhang Lisheng suddenly chuckled and asked, “Pardon me for asking this slightly impolite question, Mr. Lucas, but may I know how old you are?”
“31 years old, doctor.”
“Oh, I’ve met no one who has been pursuing success since birth!” Zhang Lisheng shrugged and looked at the Central Asian man. “Besides, you have a trait that can adjust accordingly and talk with ease and fluency in any circumstances. Frankly, if LS really needs safeguarding, I can just open an insurance company myself, so for this reason, I’ll never buy any insurance. However, I like your positive attitude and can give you a job with more potential.”
“Work? Oh, you want to give me a job?” Lucas suppressed the ecstasy in his heart and began to put on some air. “Doctor., I’m willing to serve you, but right now, I’m already a top account manager in the Kart Wilber Insurance Company. In fact, the company’s top management even has the intention to ask me to take over the position of account director…”
“Listen, Mr. Lucas,” Zhang Lisheng put down his knife and wiped his mouth with a napkin on the table. The confident, arrogant, yet introverted nature that the ‘carnivore’ possessed at the top of the food chain in New York Vanity Fair gradually exuded out of him. “I hate people bargaining with me the most, so please don’t change my impression of appreciation towards you to disgust. Tomorrow morning, change into a clean fitting suit and look for the LS Group’s general manager Charlie at the LS headquarters. Tell him the story of what happened on this dining table tonight, and I promise you that the success that you’re pursuing will immediately appear before your eyes. Is there any other question?”
Zhang Lisheng’s imposing manner shocked and intimidated Lucas. Right away, he answered, “No, doctor, I-I don’t have any other question…” before shutting his mouth up.
The instant the Central Asian man’s words left his mouth, Randy, who was sitting next to Zhang Lisheng, began to study the young man as though he had just gotten to know him. Without warning, he raised his thumb up and commented, half-seriously and half-jokingly, “Oh, Doctor Zhang. I just found out you’d be suitable to play the new sequel of The Godfather! Your intimidating tone just now was perfect and you have quite the ‘pose’! It’s very cool!”
“Thanks for the compliment, Mr. Randy. If one day I really have to stoop so low as to put on airs on the big screen, I’ll definitely invite you to become my director!” Zhang Lisheng smiled politely and then relaxed entirely, before starting to chow down his food without manner anymore.
Upon seeing the young man’s satisfied manner, with his mouth full of grease, Randy looked stunned for a while before shouting exaggeratedly, “Oh, no wonder many people say that every successful lawyer, financier, big business owner, and politician would have many ‘faces’. Looks like it’s indeed so!”
The atmosphere on the dining table relaxed again because of this joke.
“Randy, don’t make fun of your brother. Of course, his attitude at work would be completely different from that at home and when he wanted to manage a large company,” Lili told Randy with a smile before shifting her gaze onto Zhang Lisheng. “But you’re at home now, baby. You’ll get indigestion if you talk business on the dining table.”
“Mom, I guarantee that I won’t…” Zhang Lisheng shrugged and made a zipping gesture on his mouth at his mother. Right at this moment, streaks of dazzling red light shone through the wooden window, rendering the entire room to be dyed bloody red.
Bathed in the red light, the young man’s heart gave a jolt. Agilely, he leaped up to several meters away like a monkey and silently landed by the window.
Looking in the direction of the red light, just as he had expected, he saw that there was a red light wall in the distance that stretched out as far as the eyes could see, with its height towering into the clouds.
Zhang Lisheng had encountered such a similar situation before, but the intensity of the red light this time was much stronger compared to before.
Because of his last experience, he knew that the red wall was a phenomenon that would only appear when the fence between two different ‘worlds’ was at the brink of collapsing. His heart gripped abruptly, and his expression turned grave.
At this moment, under the illumination of the red light, the trees that were covered in red looked like giant corpses that were skinned while standing in the Brooklyn middle-class community in the quiet night, giving off a strangely bloody scene.
Loud collisions of cars resonated from the distance from time to time. Once in a while, a bloodcurdling explosion or two could be heard as well.
“W-What is that?” Somehow, Michelle had already stood next to Zhang Lisheng. Staring at the light wall outside the window, she asked in a whisper.
“I’m not too sure, but I can give you a piece of advice, stay in New York!” Zhang Lisheng answered with a blank expression as he stared out of the window at the light wall until it slowly disappeared before finally returning to the dining table with his friends and families who were still suffering from the lingering shock.
At this time, nobody had the appetite to eat anymore. Ridden with worries and anxiety, they talked about the strange light just now and only the young man quickly regained his composure and began to chow down till dinner ended.
After the dinner, because of the emergence of this last-minute topic, while Lili and Rachel were cleaning up the tableware and Lavin was forced to smoke together with Lucas in the adult smoking lounge that they converted from a children’s playroom, the young people continued to discuss the topic just now in the living room.
After a series of random speculations and guessing, they gradually had nothing more to say, so they were slowly repeating themselves. At this time, Grace, Riley, and Michelle’s new best friend of whom they got to know each other when they were volunteering in the community, suddenly looked at Zhang Lisheng who had been quiet all this while and said, “Hi, Lisheng, when the red light appeared, I saw that you jumped several meters away in one leap like a monkey. That is even more amazing than the Olympic athletes. Did you practice gymnastics from an early age like me?”
“No, I don’t have the body to run around on the mat in a tight-fitting suit,” Zhang Lisheng, who was thinking about an important matter after seeing the increased crumbling speed of the fence between the ‘worlds’, looked stunned for a while before answering with a shrug. “I’m a boxing coach who has mastered the essence of the Chinese Shape-Will Fist. It’s a boxing technique that imitates animal attacks and defenses. Therefore, I can jump a few meters away like a monkey.”
The young man’s words were not entirely true, but not entirely false either. In truth, even though he was proficient in the Shape-Will Fist, he has never practiced any ‘monkey form’ before. The reason he could move as he likes and be as flexible as a monkey was entirely because he had absorbed the soul of the Oasis World’s monkey king.
This had the same principle with how his first evenly matched opponent in his life; Mountain Cat, would bend and shrink his body into a cat’s shape after absorbing a cat’s soul.
“A boxing technique that imitates animal attacks and defense? Oh, that is so amazing! I love monkeys the most because they’re so cute and clever! Is it powerful imitating them to fight?” Grace batted her eyelashes and asked with a charming smile.
“Of course, a large monkey is ferocious when it fights…” Upon hearing this question, Zhang Lisheng blurted out as he could dazedly remember the scene of how the Oasis World’s giant ape smashed the entire military base into ruins with a 1000-meter long stick in his hand.
“Wow, is that so? It’s hard for me to imagine that! I’m so curious!” Grace covered her mouth and looked at Zhang Lisheng with surprise. “My father has opened a large fitness center on 69th Street and has invited many fitness instructors with fighting experience…”
As she was speaking, the bird chirping sounds resonating from the phone in Zhang Lisheng’s pocket suddenly interrupted her.
The young man took out the phone, looked at the number, and then said, “I’m sorry, I’ll have to pick up this call,” before proceeding to walk upstairs.
Looking at his back disappearing at the stairway, Grace suddenly turned to look at Riley and asked directly, “Riley dear, does your brother have a girlfriend?”
“Of course, a very beautiful one too, and she’s born from a distinguished family. As a New Yorker, I’m sure you must have heard of the surname ‘Douglin’ before right, Grace?” Riley smiled.
“Oh, the boyfriend of Miss Douglin? It’s even more challenging now!” Grace raised her brows and shrugged. “I’ll ask you another question again, Riley dear. Do you like that Miss Douglin? If you don’t, can you help me ask your brother out for a date?”
