Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The Chinese government had been recognized by the international community for 60 years, but when the Republic was first established, it was isolated by the Western society for a long time because of sensitive issues like ideology.
Adding to the fact that China had a weak national strength at that time, the keynote of their diplomacy was mostly based on forbearance and magnanimity. When there was a visit from the so-called ‘international friends,’ whether it was official or with a separate connection, the Chinese government would welcome and entertain them enthusiastically, with all expenses paid.
Later on, as the country’s strength gradually restored, and as China regained its dominant position in Asia, China slowly began to take stringent measures and uncompromising stand in diplomacy. When foreign guests visited, they started to entertain per international practice, an ‘economic inspection team’ where Zhang Lisheng had mingled should have long paid for their own expenses.
However, it was different this time.
After the ‘winter riots,’ under the pressure of ‘Atlantis,’ both countries with the strongest and only harmless foreign worlds, the United States of America and the Republic of China, quickly entered a ‘honeymoon period.’ As a result, when the Chinese economic and trade inspection team visited the US, the White House had unexpectedly and strangely paid all their necessities and food in the name of ‘national security spending.’
In this way, according to the Chinese habit of giving as good as the one obtained, the return visit expenses of the US entrepreneurs were naturally born by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This was only a trivial matter, but if one looked closely at the delicate position of the exchanges between these two major powers, along with the impact of the relationship between nations on Earth brought by the aliens, this gave much food for thought.
Of course, it was nice to have somebody pay for their own expenses. Still, in this way, it was impossible for Zhang Lisheng—who joined the delegation at the last moment, and had LS company under his name which was an unremarkable company among other well-known multinational companies such as Mobil Energy, Microsoft, and Google Network—to stay in the best presidential suite in the Beijing Hotel according to his usual habit. Not to mention, he came here all alone. Being able to stay in a 70-square-meter superior suite in Block A was already a deliberate consideration arranged by the personnel Ministry of Foreign Affairs for showing respect to Guo Caiying’s accompaniment.
It was already 2 in the morning when they received the room card for their accommodation. Now that they were back in China, of course it was impossible for Guo Caiying, who naturally feel restraint as a central ministry cadre in front of her colleagues, to accompany Zhang Lisheng back to the room at this time. She could only bid goodbye reluctantly with him in the hotel lobby and exhorted the young man, both deliberately and unintentionally, to learn Mandarin as soon as possible before she left.
Zhang Lisheng shrugged and agreed to it, before bringing his few items of luggage to his own room, under the enthusiastic guidance of the server. After having a hot bath, he sat cross-legged on the big bed, turned on the television, and switched the channel to CCTV news that was broadcasting the midnight news, before imitating the news anchor’s accent.
This was a straightforward trick. Seven to eight years ago, when the young man was still studying in middle school in Qu County Western Sichuan province, one of his female schoolmates, whose family had made a fortune by selling mountain goods, had entered a high school in the city by pulling some strings and had studied arts ever since had managed to turn her local dialect into a strange but fluent Sichuan Mandarin within a short period.
Compared to a mountain village girl, Zhang Lisheng, who was already talented in linguistic and was now only a half step away from becoming a true god, of course, had an ability and wisdom that were ten thousand times stronger, but even so, it was hard to alter his local dialect. After a whole night of hard work and switching different channels continuously, he stared at the news and parroted them for six to seven hours. Although he was starting to be fluent now, his accent was still very localized.
At this time, the weakness of the magical Eternal Comprehension Spell that could not alter a language or text that had already been mastered was fully exposed to him. However, as the saying would go, ‘beggars can’t be choosers.’ Such an accent was already enough for this conceited and confident young man.
“I actually managed to learn Mandarin in one night! Senior Sister will definitely be shocked when she sees me next time,” Zhang Lisheng turned off the television at dawn and opened the curtains to look at the misty city as he muttered to himself.
Unfortunately, in the next two days, he did not get a chance to show off at all. As Guo Caiying had already said, she did not have time to meet the young man at all. Instead, many senior Chinese officials came to see him, and of course, it was all together with all the returning entrepreneurs.
Although the highest-ranking officials he met had already reached the stage of Vice Premier State Council, who was even a member of the standing committee in the political bureau that had the highest power combination in China, Zhang Lisheng did not show any particular kind of goodwill in public.
On the contrary, this Vice Premier in charge of the economy was very interested in this young man who spoke in awkward Mandarin and who appeared to be extremely young in the delegation. He took the initiative to ask questions and talked with Zhang Lisheng many times instead.
Two days passed in a blink of an eye. After all welcome meetings had ended, Guo Caiying called Zhang Lisheng and told him that it would take another two days for her to meet him since she had too many unfinished works that piled up because of her business trip in New York. “I’ve been working overtime in the past two days until ten o’clock in the evening. My colleagues in the office have already complained because of this. I’m sure they’re gonna rebel now if I don’t get off work on time today. I really didn’t expect to have so many documents piling up, waiting for me to process in this less than two weeks trip. I usually find written reports and organizing tasks as very relaxing, but everything is in such havoc now that there are so many things to do. I’m sorry, Junior Brother, you need to go roam around in Beijing yourself for the next two days again.”
“It’s alright, Senior Sister. I just didn’t think that you’d be so serious in work, to the point where other people would actually oppose to you working overtime,” It was noontime. Zhang Lisheng, who was strolling around in the streets of Beijing, while spotting a rare blue sky and white clouds, said jokingly.
“Do you think that it’s still the ‘Red Revolution’ era in the 1960s and 1970s where one could randomly go pin labels on others based on their working attitude? Who doesn’t pay attention to individual right now, I ask you? Even old qualified investigators would not back down on this.”
Zhang Lisheng did not understand that the so-called ‘old qualified investigators’ actually referred to government officials who were close to retiring in the Chinese government and did not have any executive positions at the administrative level. Most of these people were in the central ministries, but they only had empty ranks despite working hard for their entire lifetime. In actual fact, they were still at the bottom of the organization with no future but was smooth and slick when it came to experience. Naturally, they gave no heed to other people’s authority over themselves.
However, the young man did not ask and merely said with a smile, “In that case, your work seems to be much harder than I imagined. I won’t bother you then, see you!”
“See you, Junior Brother. Oh yeah, you can go to Gui Street to have a look if you’re bored at night. It’s not far from the Beijing Hotel and is just in front of Dongzhimen. If you take a taxi, it’ll only take you… Ah, forget it, you don’t care about money anyway. Yeah, it’s impressive there, but remember the same old reminder: don’t get into a conflict with other people.”
“Senior Sister, am I a barbarian who has feathers on my head with my bottom half of body wrapped in leaves in your eyes?”
“Of course not. You’re much more sly, cruel, and aggressive than those people you speak of. See you on the day after tomorrow, Junior Brother,” The girl hung up after saying so.
“Sly, cruel, and aggressive… Well, I would have long become ashes if I weren’t so,” The young man was stunned before muttering and putting his phone away. At once, he fell into a daze and looked around him.
In front of him was both old and young city filled with blue brick buildings and skyscrapers, spacious roads, and narrow alleys.
The population of this cosmopolitan city like that of New York and was similarly open too. However, maybe because it was the fact that the redheaded white-skinned Atlanteans could still be seen everywhere on the streets; and that Zhang Lisheng had not encountered any single demonstrators despite strolling an entire afternoon yesterday, this city gave Zhang Lisheng a more orderly feeling. Such feeling inexplicably affected his mood to become slightly depressed.
“Young man, you’re looking for Tiananmen, right? You only have to turn left and walk till you reach a junction, then go to the bus stop to take a bus numbered 67. After three stops, get down from that bus and walk for several hundred meters straight, and you’ll arrive there,” An old man who was wearing a tender, green sportswear while carrying a sword on his back walked past the young man and stopped to say kindly when he saw the young man looking around.
“Sir, I’m not going to Tiananmen, but thank you,” Zhang Lisheng snapped back to reality and burst out into a chuckle before replying with gratitude.
Actually, he had nothing to do at this time, so his brain somehow wandered on the incident of how the Gate of Dao’s disciples wanting to acquire the Yingzhou paradise when they were on the way to Beijing. After pondering a while, he asked, “Do you know any well-known temple or Taoist abbey around here?”
“Well, the biggest and most famous temple in the entire Beijing City would be none other than the White Cloud Temple Gompa in the suburbs. The other small Four Olds has been changed into private houses already,” Something seemed to have reminded the old man, causing him to muse with slight emotions.
“Thank you,” After thanking him again, the young man strolled forward and came to the bus station. He waved to stop a taxi to aid him from going to the suburbs, so he could visit the temple for a stroll. He thought that he would just view it as a mere visit if he could not come across any Gate of Dao’s disciples.
However, it was lunchtime now, so no vehicle stopped for him despite waiting for over ten minutes.
“What the hell? I can’t even stop a taxi? Is this even an international metropolis…” Frustrated, Zhang Lisheng secretly groaned, but at this moment, a taxi suddenly flashed its signal and stopped beside him.
The young man breathed a relief happily. When he was about to walk into the back of the car by walking past the front door, a sturdy young man behind him rushed forward to open the door and jump in before stretching a neck out and said, “Hurry up! Hurry up! Follow that car! Xu Liang they all must have reached the hotel already! I’m starving, hurry up…”
“Sir, this is the taxi I stopped.” The young man was stunned. Patting the young man’s extended shoulder, he said.
“Watch where you’re touching! Why the hell are you touching me?” When the young man heard Zhang Lisheng’s characteristic Sichuan Mandarin, he glanced up at him and said with a curled lips, “You wanna say that it’s your taxi? Well, in that case, call it and see if it will answer you or not?!”
When Zhang Lisheng saw how unreasonable this young man was, he recalled the colored people in New York’s ghetto and just spoke with a smile, “Idiots are really everywhere…”
Without warning, he reached out a hand to grab the young man’s nape.
When his spine clenched, the young man immediately felt weak as he slumped down like all of his bones had melted. At the same time, he was in so much pain that he felt like he was going to die.
The next instant, he felt a considerable force pulling his neck out. Sensing that he would be thrown out of the window before being thrown on the ground till his head cracked open bloodily, fear, terror, and anger rose in his heart, but he could not even struggle.
