Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The woman who spoke had a pair of slender eyes and a tall, straight nose. She was wearing a dark green suit, which made her looked refined and beautiful. Unfortunately, the few shallow lines on the corner of her eye had revealed that she’s probably already middle-aged.
When she was speaking to Guo Caiying, she did not use any official title, so one could tell that both of them had an excellent personal relationship. The girl immediately turned her head around and smiled as she brushed off, “Sister Xu, Lisheng is my Junior Brother at Stanford. We’re talking about the interesting things we did in college.”
“College? Sigh, the college lives that you young people talk about are not far behind, but to me, college seems to be something half a lifetime away…” The slender-eyed woman lamented the rapid flow of time and cleverly joined in the conversation between Zhang Lisheng and Guo Caiying, without incurring a wave of irritation from them.
The three people led the crowd and walked to the restaurant at the corner of the street that had a simple layout with an old signboard written in three gold traditional Chinese words’ Taste of Sichuan’ in black background.
When they pushed open the wooden door and entered, Zhang Lisheng immediately felt a gush of fragrant, spicy smell filling his nostrils, causing him to almost sneeze.
Before the young man embarked on the path of god, he had been hardening his will and concentrating on cultivating. Although he had a net worth of hundreds of millions of dollars, he had a deficient demand for material desire. Not only that, but he had a kind of exceptionally nonchalance when he dealt with any affair. If one carefully paid attention to his life, be it his admirer or an enemy, one would definitely think that he was a person with legendary colors.
However, when Zhang Lisheng stepped out of that crucial step and rose above the ordinary, be it his senses or his personality, they had become more and more ‘humanized’ instead.
If an ordinary practitioner saw this, then they would think that he might have fallen into an evil path, and it was no longer possible for his cultivation to progress; heck, it might even be difficult for him to maintain his original condition. However, in the eyes of an almighty person who really understood the ancient gods, they would grow vigilant and envious instead.
Gods were born to become extraordinary and had an unbridled personality, with a natural desire that was a hundred times higher than a mortal being. For this reason, Zeus, the chief god in the ancient Northern Europe Olympic pantheon, would always transform into a mortal and copulate with the beautiful creatures on earth, spawning countless strange legends. His daughter, Athena, the goddess of war, on the other hand, was a kind god, guarding the human being, but because of her envy towards Medusa’s beauty, she turned her into a monster, so that the heroes among humanity would try to slaughter her. From here, one could see that Athena’s behavior was somewhat eccentric and unreasonable too.
The mythical stories of the ancient Chinese gods who destroyed the lands and skies because of personal enmity and the Westernmost dominant religion, God the Father, who scrawled blood on the door out of rage to kill off an entire family, were even more common among the public. The young man inherited the power of the Goddess Nuwa and the Hellfire’s god before successfully dating his bloodline back. Having rich emotions and a rising desire was the characteristics prompted by god’s nature.
In the desolated Hellfire Archipelago, the resurrection of such ‘person’ was not apparent, but it would gradually be evident in a bustling city. Not knowing that he had been subtly changing, Zhang Lisheng smelled the spicy fragrance of Sichuan dishes and put on a reminiscing expression.
Guo Caiying, who was beside him, saw the change in the young man’s face and asked smugly, “How is it, Junior Brother? The aroma is quite authentic, right?”
“It smells pretty good. I wonder how it would taste in my mouth,” The young man shrugged and said with a smile.
The restaurant was small, and there were only six to seven tables in total. When one of the short Asian old man who was eating spicy bean fish and fried vegetable cured meat while drinking wine heard Zhang Lisheng’s authentic New York’s accent, he said disdainfully in a Sichuan accent, “Damn you! My dishes smell good and is even more delicious in the mouth! You gweilo should be more worried if you can stomach this spiciness or not…”
“Uncle, you shouldn’t say that. I’m a lad who grew up in a village in Western Sichuan, so there’s no spiciness that I can’t handle yet,” Zhang Lisheng looked at the old man and curled his lips before replying in a native Sichuan accent. The contrast of this was so big and so shockingly weird that it struck those Chinese diplomats, who had just stepped into the restaurant. They had thought that he was born in the US; thus, they remained dumbstruck until they were flabbergasted.
That short old man, on the other hand, became interested and asked instead, “Oh, you lad who grew up in a village in Western Sichuan, what’s your surname?”
“There are multiple surnames in the village like Wu, Long, Zhao, Ou, and Zhang. My surname is Zhang.”
“Oh, you’re a fellow countryman! So you’re from Hengze or Daze?”
“Guawo Village in Qu Country, Hengze City. My family status is not quite small there.”
“You’re from the village, and yet you want to talk about family status?” The old man said disdainfully. “The highest of your family can be is just a stockade chief.”
“Not a chief. Our family has passed down 36 generations of Father.”
“36 generations of Father?” The old man’s expression changed at once. No longer exploiting his seniority, he stood up from the wooden chair and was dumbstruck for a while before cupping his hands together in front of his chest to say with a smile, “Forgive me, I’m old already, so I can be a little pedantic. Please forgive me, Father!”
“No, blame attaches to the unconscious doer of wrong,” Zhang Lisheng’s tone changed again as he said in a genteel manner.
When the short old man saw that the young man did not seem to be enraged, he quietly breathed a sigh of relief. As though he just saw Consul Guo who was standing at the door, he enthusiastically greeted incongruously, “Comrade Guo, you’re here! Welcome, welcome! You must be here with Father Zhang! Tsk tsk… The nation united front’s work in China is getting more intense now. To think that they even unify the Fathers in the village and even used public funds to send you guys to travel. This is good! This is good!”
“It’s not like that, Mr. Yu. Zhang is an international student here and is a classmate of my colleague,” Consul Guo, who had been through many critical foreign affairs occasions, had long relaxed and flashed a decent smile as he explained. In truth, he was not so bashful in the usual, but he paid special attention in maintaining his professionalism when Guo Caiying was around.
(TL Note: This must have been an author’s mistake. Should be Consul Hong instead)
“Oh, international students? Good good! Those who study abroad are good! You can learn more knowledge and serve the country! I’ll go to the kitchen to cook several dishes for all of you personally!” The old man was stunned for a while before speaking incoherently. Turning around, he muttered in a voice that he thought was low enough, “Holy cow, I can’t believe that I can actually live long enough to even see a Father studying abroad…”
As he said so, he proceeded to walk to the kitchen.
“Old Man Yu must have taken the wrong medicine. He usually would just ignore us when we come, but this time, he’s so polite instead,” Looking at the disappearing back of the short old man, a pretty, second-class secretary of the New York Consulate said in bewilderment.
“Little Wu, Old Man Yu is not polite to us,” That Sister Xu smiled and shook her head before turning her beautiful, slender eyes to look at Zhang Lisheng with a curious look, “Little Zhang, from your accent, I really can’t believe that you’re actually a Chinese international! What do you mean when you said that you’re a ‘Father’? Why would that gruff, blunt, and stubborn Old Man Yu, who usually wouldn’t even raise his eyes to look at the customers suddenly become so polite when he heard this?”
When everyone else heard Sister Xu’s question, they also looked at Zhang Lisheng curiously. The young man explained with a smile. “Actually, the Father in the village is also the ‘God’ in the Han tribe. The Western Sichuan is far from the Central Plains. In ancient times, it was just a barren land and there were many strange legends about gods. Judging Mr. Yu, he’s probably from Sichuan as well, and adding on to his old age, it’s just natural that he would stay at a respectful distance from me.”
Zhang Lisheng’s explanation was reasonable but unremarkable, causing those seeking for the novelty of it to be slightly disappointed. One of the tall and strong young men whose face was still covered with some acne scars even whispered in disappointment, “And I was thinking just how amazing he would be. It turned out that he’s just a ‘medium,’ handed down from generations to generations to be possessed by spirits.”
If it was Zhang Lisheng’s previous temperament, such a sentence would have been enough to incur a murderous intent within him, but now, he only found this young man, who first had an unchanged expression but was obviously jealous and who slandered him in annoyance, to be pitiful and sad.
Adding on to the fact that he had gradually formed other plans after encountering Guo Caiying by chance, he did not reveal his wild side. Not only that, but he did not even show his dissatisfaction and merely joined two tables together to prepare for their lunch.
Zhang Lisheng’s approach was very magnanimous. Guo Caiying, on the other hand, who saw his violent and murderous situation, naturally did not feel that the young man was weak. Instead, she thought that he had concealed his anger because of her. She could not help but feel touched because of this. The smile plastered on her face disappeared as she began to help in a blank expression.
As the superior of the young man who had made the remark just now, Consul Hong frowned when he saw this scene. After sending a glare at his impolite subordinate who had embarrassed him, he began to adjust the wooden chairs as well.
When the two personages who had the highest background and essential position in the field started to make their moves, the rest of the Chinese officials seemed to have their buttons activated right away as they also hastily began to get busy.
However, moving two tables was not something that needed more than ten people to help. Upon seeing that there was nothing for them to do, some of the clever young people went up to wipe the tables and chairs that were already very clean and only stopped when Guo Caiying and Consul Hong stopped.
After a session of busying around, Zhang Lisheng sat on the wooden chair that seemed to have its gloss on the lacquer surface wiped off and responded with amazement, “Wow, Senior Sister, I’ve read some news that we Chinese people have a different habit of living from Westerners and that we’re not concerned about the manner in public. It looks like it’s not like this, after all! At the very least, the hygiene habits of your colleagues are much better than most of the people here.”
One could say that the young man was an eminent big names in the business circles and the respect he received from his workers far outweighed the respects the government cabinet members or the president acquired, but even so, it was not to the point where he could rally multitudes at his one call just like what he did earlier either.
He did not understand the official culture of the Chinese state. He thought that the actions of the crowds were prompted from their education and manner; thus, he voiced out his praise. However, he did not know that his words made everyone else feel awkward when they heard it. Only Guo Caiying was taken aback for a while before blurting out a chuckle with her head lowered.
The young woman was educated when it came to the cultures of Chinese and Western people since childhood. She had even studied at a prestigious university in the US before. Guo Caiying was a very independent and opinionated girl, and after graduating from university, she couldn’t dissuade her parents and could only enter the workplace. After several years of hard work, from the central enterprise to a relevant government department, despite the same level of status, she had actually completed a splendid turn, and it was just a matter of time for her to rise to the top.
By right, a person like her would not lament over the saying ‘having one’s edges polished by society.’ Still, as she fell into mountains of papers, numerous meetings, welcoming visitors, seeing them off, getting herself busy every day, and not actually knowing what she was doing when she really paused before thinking over her life, she would naturally change.
At this time, since Zhang Lisheng’s words reminded her to look at her life in recent years, she could no longer suppress the chortle in her heart.
