Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Be it her career as a US politician that always needed to parade herself in public, or her beautiful figure and appearance, Trish had long been accustomed to becoming the limelight of attention. Zhang Lisheng, on the other hand, who was worshipped by tens of thousands of indigenous people in the Wizard Li would care even less at the attention other people had on him.
The two of them ignored the surroundings and walked up to the elevator. It was only until they heard somebody shouting, “Lisheng, Zhang Lisheng…” that they finally stopped walking in puzzlement.
After stopping, Zhang Lisheng turned and looked in the direction of the sound. When he saw a beautiful and gentle Asian girl walking towards himself in a hurried manner, he was stunned first before widening his eyes to carefully look at this girl whose temperament had become completely different. Staring in stunned and speechless, he asked, “S-Senior Sister Caiying, w-why are you here?”
The girl who called out to Zhang Lisheng was Guo Caiying who had been studying with him at Stanford and was later saved by him in the Oasis World. When she heard the young man’s stunned question, she answered with sparkling eyes, “I’m now the Deputy Director of the Office of the New Energy Research Center of China Energy Company Limited and the Director for its Translation Department. I’ve come to Noah World together with my company delegates to study the issue of alternative energy development.”
Zhang Lisheng was only 16 years old when he left China and he grew up in a mountain village so he did not know that if a ‘red child’ like Guo Caiying who was born in a family holding high office in generation actually wanted to have a great future in politics, she would naturally have a shortcut and one of the fastest shortcuts was to become a cadre for the state-owned enterprises funded by the Chinese government.
Due to the different nature of enterprises and administrative agencies, it was difficult to attract attention even if they were promoted quickly. Even if they were unlucky enough to get noticed, they could just use an excuse saying that this was a method of ‘corporate behavior’ of attracting talents and this would be enough to render other people speechless.
After being promoted to a certain position, the important positions of large state-owned enterprises in China would be able to convert their ranks to the administrative agencies. Some of the general managers and chairmen of some monopoly enterprises could even directly be transferred to the post of any provincial officials or ministries. even though the posts would usually be only ‘deputy’, they would still be able to save about ten years time.
Since the young man did not know any of this, it was natural that he did not understand a thing at all. Surprised, he asked, “Senior Sister, I thought you’re planning to become a graduate student in natural sciences? How did you end up becoming a translator for an energy company? Besides, the translating device jointly produced by the Atlanteans and the big Earth companies have already been available on the market so there’s no longer any need for such profession as translator anymore, isn’t it?”
“Strictly speaking, there’s no longer any need for translator now but our department has not had time to change our brand yet. In short, you won’t understand the operation mode of state-owned enterprises in China and even if I don’t do any translation, I won’t lose my job either.” After Guo Caiying cracked a joke, she suddenly sighed and continued to say with a wry smile in a tone that seemed to be more mature than before. “Lisheng, the encounter in Oasis World last time has shattered my dreams. Sun Wukong who has ruined the entire military camp has appeared now so isn’t it silly now to study this natural sciences or whatever anymore? Besides, my parents didn’t allow me to go back to the US to study as a postgraduate student, so I became too bored staying in the house for more than ten days. In the end, I decided to accept my dad’s arrangement and accepted the job he arranged.”
“This sounds not bad either…” Zhang Lisheng nodded and felt that he had nothing to say. After a moment of silence, he said: “I came here to attend the dinner, so…”
“I’ll bring you there. The dinner you’re going to attend is held to welcome our ‘visit group’. Oh that’s right, even though your girlfriend has changed a lot compared to when I last saw her in the cafe at Stanford campus last time, I still recognized her at a glance when we met. We have been bickering with each other a lot, did she tell you that?”
“Oh, she only said that she’s playing host to Chinese guest merchants and that she has a surprise for me during dinner…” Zhang Lisheng shook his head and said.
“Is that so?” Guo Caiying took off her glasses and put it in her jacket pocket. After she took off her jacket, her two-piece professional suit turned into an evening dress.
she untied her hair and let her ponytail drape on her shoulders. Retracting her gentle and polite manner, she demonstrated her lively and enchanting beauty before pointing to Trish by the side who had not spoken a word. “Lisheng, is this Miss Atlantean your friend?”
“Oh yeah, I forgot to introduce the two of you to each other. Trish Steg, my, erm, my best friend. She’s not an Atlantean. She just has her ancient Aryan bloodline activated.” The young man was stunned for a while before pointing to Trish as he introduced to Guo Caiying. Then, she turned to point at Guo Caiying and said to Trish, “This is Guo Caiying, my Senior Sister I came to know at Stanford. She has helped me a lot.”
“Junior Brother, it’s far less compared to the help that you’ve given me,” Guo Caiying looked at Zhang Lisheng and smiled with a deep meaning inlaid in her words. Dexterously, she kissed Trish cheeks amiably and said, “Good evening, Miss Trish. Nice to meet you.”
“Good evening, Miss Guo Caiying, it’s my pleasure meeting you too!” Trish put on her New York’s elitist’s elegant demeanour and also flashed a full smile. Without warning, she took Zhang Lisheng’s arm and said, “The banquet is starting soon. As the guests, it’s best for us not to be late…”
“You’re right. Let us go,” Guo Caiying took the other arm of the young man naturally and replied with a smile.
A man attending a banquet with two female companions might be conspicuous in the eyes of Asians but it was not uncommon in the Western social circles.
When Zhang Lisheng dealt with such business reception last time, he had also experienced such a scene before so he knew that he would only have to put his hands on suitably on the waist of the two girls and he would complete his task by walking into the banquet hall directly with a smile. However, somehow, he felt kind of awkward today.
It was fortunate the journey from the hotel lobby to the banquet hall at the top floor was not too far. After the young man entered the wooden door carved with a foreign world’s style, he looked around and found his girlfriend in the crowd. Quietly sighing in relief, he said, “Trish, Senior Sister, I’m going to see Tina first,” and quickly removed himself between the ‘sandwich’ from the two girls.
The banquet hall had a rectangular shape with an area of more than 3,000 square meters. There was a transparent tempered glass embedded in the middle of the roof to make the gleaming stars in the sky clearly visible.
All four walls that supported the ceilings were made from translucent materials except for the one facing the hotel corridor. This design made the flat stone slabs made from sand and gravel from the ground to give off an illusion of being suspended. It was said that the architect created this masterpiece with the inspiration of the lost ancient civilization ‘Babylon’ sky garden.
After passing by a few chattering guests and the dining table filled with food, wine and white tablecloths, Zhang Lisheng came to stand behind Tina, who was talking to an Asian young man appearing to be in his twenties, wearing a black suit, a white shirt and a black bow tie. After his girlfriend had finished talking, he suddenly whispered, “Tina, I’m here already.”
“Oh baby! I finally saw you! If it wasn’t for the fact that the businessmen who came today is too important, I’d have gone to pick you up just now…” Upon hearing the familiar voice in her ears, Tina, whose expression remained unchanged but in actual fact, was no longer able to contain herself like being scratched by a cat, turned around to throw her arms over her boyfriend’s neck. Passionately, they kissed each other.
After kissing each other passionately for a few seconds, the girl gradually recovered her reason. She reluctantly let go of Zhang Lisheng and whispered, “Baby, we’re in the middle of a banquet now so let us talk slowly at night.”
Then, she turned around and smiled apologetically at the Asian man, whom she was talking to just now. “I’m sorry, Mr. Lu. I haven’t seen my boyfriend for a long time so…”
“It’s alright, Miss Douglin. We’re all young people so I can understand,” The Asian man hook his head gently and turned his eyes from Tina to Zhang Lisheng. “But I didn’t expect your boyfriend to be an Asian with black hair and yellow skin like me.”
“Not only that Lisheng is an Asian, just like you, he also grew up in China before he turned sixteen years old. Speaking of it, he could be said as your compatriot.”
“Is that so?” Astonished, the Asian man held a hand to Zhang Lisheng and said humorously, “Hi compatriot, I’m Lu Shangyou.”
“Hi, Mr. Lu, I’m Zhang Lisheng.” China has a population of more than one billion people so on average, there would be one Chinese in every five people on Earth. Zhang Lisheng did not find it to be strange meeting his compatriot so he casually replied without much enthusiasm contained in his voice.
Lu Shangyou had always been a person who always smiled but was actually very proud and aloof in his heart. When he saw that the young man appeared to be absent-minded, a flare of anger appeared in his eyes and no longer took the initiative to talk to Zhang Lisheng. However, because he still had a favor to ask from the other party, he could not vent out his anger and could only say to Tina, “Miss Douglin, since your boyfriend is here, I won’t interrupt you then. Let’s talk about the issue of ‘dealership’ next time.”
Turning around, he strode to the champagnes placed in the shape of a pyramid not far away and continued to drink three to four glasses in succession before he could finally suppress his anger.
After drinking the champagne, Lu Shangyou lowered his head to lick his lips and looked around. He planned to look for another American to forge a friendship but inadvertently saw a constantly trembling figure at a corner of the semi-transparent wall of the banquet hall.
