Chapter 10
New Beginnings
"In early March there will be a royal banquet in London, nominally for the British royal family to celebrate the birthday of the little princess Emma. But seeing as they have invited the world"s richest businessmen and leading dignitaries to partic.i.p.ate, presumably there will be a few small economic and trade meetings during the banquet to help boost the British economy.”
"Five prominent figures from China have accepted the invitation, including Xing Yuan." Zheng Xingguo said: "Recently because of the strict surveillance of the SWAT team, the number of attacks has reduced greatly, besides a few small ones that are not worth mentioning. But this time for Xing Yuan"s trip to London, since it"s to a foreign territory, his bodyguards are bound to be limited everywhere. Our SWAT team also cannot openly follow along to a foreign country. This trip is the prime opportunity for the Flying Wolf to strike, but it is also your chance.”
Ye Wenxuan: "Since the danger of this banquet is so high, why is he still going?" After all, it"s related to his personal safety.
Zheng Xingguo laughed: "If the Xing group"s person in power hid at home for fear of injury, then he would not be worthy of being the boss of the Xing family.”
Ye Wenxuan thought about it and thought this was quite true: "Then this time what ident.i.ty am I using to approach him?”
"We have some connections in the Xing group, so we are generally aware of their internal personnel changes.”
Zheng Xingguo took out a few sheets of paper from a drawer at the side, and then also brought out a DSLR camera: "This time before going to the banquet in London, the Xing group will announce Xing Yuan"s travel situation on their official website, in order to help promote the Xing group"s several industries. Of course, this is also because Xing Yuan has a very good appearance, and the dual selling points of "billionaire" and the "Highest Quality Handsome Man" are even better for attracting attention to the Xing group and the Xing family"s industries.”
Ye Wenxuan thought of that face of Xing Yuan"s, as well as his perfect figure ratios, and could only nod: "He really has great potential to be a superstar, I hear he"s still a "national husband" candidate.”
Zheng Xingguo tapped on the doc.u.ments placed on the table: "The previous photographer responsible for taking pictures of him resigned for some reason, and we put in a bit of effort to get this job.”
"Photographer?" Ye Wenxuan walked a few steps forward and picked up those papers. He found that it was a resume.
The photo on the resume was one of himself, his personal introduction and work experience were also completely the same as the truth. They only hid his ident.i.ty of joining the Special Affairs Department and becoming a counterterrorism officer.
Zheng Xingguo: "The interview time has been set, the 15th of this month. One of the a.s.sistants by Xing Yuan will contact you to see Xing Yuan. If Xing Yuan nods to agree, your work could be considered as settled.”
Ye Wenxuan looked up: "Well, what if he doesn"t nod?”
Zheng Xingguo looked at him seriously: "Make him nod.”
Ye Wenxuan raised an eyebrow, and replied with understanding: "Yes.”
Then he didn"t keep saying nonsense, he took the resume on the table and held the DSLR in his hand. He said goodbye to Zheng Xingguo and then turned to leave the office.
For Spring Festival this year, Ye Wenxuan stayed in B city to celebrate the new year with his Special Affairs Department colleagues. He had only known these people for less than half a year, but got along much more comfortably with them in comparison to with those SFLS designers in S city.
It was probably because they worked in a government agency, so everyone"s ideological awareness was extremely high. Or because these people have gone through too many tasks, the brothers around them were basically together through life and death, so there was no interest in fighting or arguments, it was really like a big family.
Ye Wenxuan could be considered the latest member to join, but he could still appreciate the sincere feelings in the group.
Every day he would look through Xing Yuan"s information, exercise his photography skills, sometimes go be on duty at the office, or follow Zhong Lei and the others out on some field work. In this way, he spent a meaningful new year.
February 15th, snowflakes were swirling in the air.
Ye Wenxuan looked at himself in the mirror. He was wearing a dark gray slimming windbreaker, inside he had a matching sweater and black trousers, on his feet he wore a pair of brown Doc Martens.
Even though it was all darker-colored attire, he also wore an eye-catching silver pendant necklace around his neck, and outside that he wrapped a rice gray colored scarf. Ye Wenxuan looked at himself from the right and left side, and then picked up a silver-gray watch with a metallic sheen, carefully wearing it on his left wrist.
The supple black hair was combed neatly and loosely bundled behind his head in a ponytail.
His figure was on par with that of a model, his face was also very good. Even if he was wearing a pair of old-fashioned gla.s.ses, it still did not decrease his own personal unique charm.
Carrying properly the black backpack filled with his photography equipment, and then picking up a satchel with all sorts of small camera parts, Ye Wenxuan took a final glance in the mirror at himself. He affixed two fingers of his right hand to his lips, and then blew himself a kiss.
"I"ve done all my preparations, let"s go.”
Last night a man named Xu Yan had given him a call, this person was said to be one of Xing Yuan"s a.s.sistants, normally he would work with the other a.s.sistants to help Xing Yuan deal with some business. Sometimes he would also be responsible for hiring new employees, but because Zheng Xingguo spoke pretty vaguely, Ye Wenxuan was not sure whether or not this person had some sort of relationship with the Special Affairs Department.
He silently reviewed his own resume in his mind, and then took out his cell phone to look again at the address that Xu Yan had sent over yesterday. The taxi driver sitting next to him kept on trying to chat with him, Ye Wenxuan casually responded a few sentences back to him and then no longer replied.
The deriver saw that he didn"t want to talk, so he could only open the car"s communicator and start to chat and gossip with his fellow drivers.
But who knows whether it was because the weather today wasn"t great, the communicator kept on crackling. The driver attempted to debug it a few times but it was still the same, so he couldn"t help getting a little irritated.
Outside the car snowflakes were falling, Ye Wenxuan raised his head to look through the window at the scenery. In his ears he heard the driver muttering while patting the communicator, and he wisely kept silent.
The meeting location was in the headquarters of the Xing group in the capital. The Xing group headquarters were located in the suburbs of B city, it was said that the Xing clan bought an entire piece of land over there and used it to create a commercial park belonging solely to the Xing clan.
When he arrived at the place, Ye Wenxuan finally knew why the headquarters were based in the suburbs.
The Xing group headquarters were really too big.
In front of his eyes was a magnificent building complex, in Ye Wenxuan"s field of vision, from the closest main building all the way to several hundred meters away, there were at least 8 buildings each at least 30 stories tall. In addition, there were countless other innovatively designed buildings both short and tall, he just didn"t know what they were all used for.
After all, the Xing group is involved in all kinds of industries, and without a clear logo, it was really not easy to determine the purpose of each building here.
He registered his ident.i.ty with the doorman and then gave Xu Yan a call. Xu Yan told him to wait in the main building hall for a moment, after which a receptionist would come over to lead him upstairs.
He had never received this kind of reception when he was at SFLS.
Ye Wenxuan walked through the wind and snow while looking around. Because the meeting time was set at 8 in the morning, on the way he saw many white-collar workers coming in to work.
These people walked quickly, but their faces were relaxed. If they met an acquaintance, they would raise their hands and greet each other, and then leave in different directions.
Everything seemed to be neat and tidy.
Ye Wenxuan patted off the snowflakes from his body in front of the door and then walked into the main building hall.
As soon as he showed his ident.i.ty at the reception desk, a uniformed little sister invited him to enter a promenade on the right side. Ye Wenxuan also didn"t say too much, he thanked her and then followed along, properly walking along until they reached the elevator room.
On the walk they came across some working employees. When they saw his attire they were all shocked, and then they secretly looked at him a few more times, trying to guess the ident.i.ty of this handsome brother.
"Ding! 37th floor." The cold electronic female voice reminded.
The uniformed little sister reached out her hand: "Sir, this way please.”
Ye Wenxuan: "Thank you.”
His vision was filled with stylish minimalist European decor and design, with gray and blue as the main tones. Under their feet was a soft fluffy carpet, above their head glowed some soft lighting.
A variety of oil paintings were hung on the walls on both sides. Ye Wenxuan casually took a look and faintly recognized a few of them, they actually came from the European Renaissance period, made by some of the top three early Renaissance and late Renaissance painters.
Don"t know if they"re all authentic.
Then, if they are really authentic, would they really not be stolen if they were just hung here?
He thought chaotically while following the little sister down the corridor. A few steps later, they stopped in front of the closed door at the end of the corridor.
The uniformed little sister reached out and gently rang the doorbell. The sound of the doorbell had barely fallen when the communicator connected and a man"s voice came through: "Who is it.”
The little sister sweetly said: "a.s.sistant Xu, Mr. Ye has arrived.”
"Good, please wait a moment.”
A few minutes later, the man inside opened the door.
A bespectacled man wearing a suit walked out from inside. When he saw him, his face obviously froze a bit. Ye Wenxuan conscientiously said: "I am Ye Wenxuan, I came today to report.”
The bespectacled man immediately opened the door a bit more and moved to the side to let him in: "h.e.l.lo, I am Xu Yan.”
Ye Wenxuan entered the room, the little sister who had led him in stood at the door and did not enter. Xu Yan closed the door again, leaving her outside.
"Mr. Ye, please follow me." Xu Yan walked up to him and leaned over slightly: "The boss is inside.”
Ye Wenxuan immediately said: "Good, thank you.”
The two people stood in an area that seemed like a vestibule, Xu Yan took out a shoe cover for him from a cabinet along the wall. Ye Wenxuan took them and placed them on his boots, and then followed behind Xu Yan, walking through the vestibule through another door.
To be honest, it really did not look like an office in here.
Xing Yuan"s office seemed to have opened up the majority of the rooms on the 37th floor. He raised his head, he actually could not see clearly how big this office really was, he could only feel that they were entering an unusually open s.p.a.ce.
The grayish blue carpet under their feet stretched in all four directions, on the right side there was an entire row of floor-to-ceiling windows. Right now half of them were covered by curtains, splitting the huge room into two different extremes of light and dark. And in the other half, you could see the snowflakes swirling outside, and could also overlook the entire Xing group commercial park.
Throughout the room, there were elegant works of art scattered around. Looking through them, every single piece was extremely valuable.
The left wall and the walls of the vestibule were all made of wood, but because it was too far away, he could not tell if there was any decor on the wall. But in terms of overall impression, this place seemed to be very aesthetically pleasing, presumably it had been arranged by some master designer.
Ye Wenxuan secretly looked around the incomparably lavish office. He raised his head as he walked and suddenly found that the ceiling had been fitted with large panels of electronic screens.
At the moment, the screens were showing immense images of the universe and galaxies.
The dazzling starlight and magnificent nebulas were displayed with exacting detail. This kind of experience was unprecedented, as if he were looking up at the real universe, rather than images synthesized by computers.
8k ultra HD resolution giant screen TV, Ye Wenxuan silently guessed the origin of the big guy on the ceiling.
His feet didn"t stop. Under the light of innumerable stars, he followed Xu Yan through countless priceless works of art, and headed for the window in the northeast corner of the room.
The lighting there was just right, there was a man sitting behind a huge desk. He leaned back on his boss chair, casually looking through a magazine.
On the desk was a steaming cup of coffee. Ye Wenxuan sniffed a bit, he could vaguely smell a bit of faint alcohol taste mixed in with the rich mellow coffee, it was a little like brandy.
## The following meeting scene can never happen ##
Ye Wenxuan affectionately shouted: "Daddy!”
Xing Yuan: "???”
Ye Wenxuan: "Daddy are you still lacking a son! The kind that knows how to jump and hop and generate electricity!”
Xing Yuan: "a.s.sistant Xu, the person who came to work today, what kind of job is he looking at?”
Xu Yan: "Boss, this is the new photographer.”
Ye Wenxuan jumped up and down: "Daddy~ Just take in your son!”
Xing Yuan: "Who let in this fool, dismiss him!”
Translator Notes:
[1] Emma – 爱玛, we"re good with this one, it"s definitely Emma
[2] neat and tidy – 井井有条, idiom, means everything is clear and orderly
[3] properly – 目不斜视, idiom, means not glancing around
[4] chaotically – 杂乱无章, idiom, means disordered and in a mess
[5] fool – 逗比, slang for a silly but amusing person
Random Notes:
Over 1.5 hours :4 pm – 5:40 pm, for 3.5k characters to 2.5k words. To be fair, I was quite distracted by something in the middle, for probably like 15-20 minutes, so it was much less than that. So pretty normal. This series is definitely a lot different from CFCS—since it"s not fast wear, and the series is also really long, each chapter definitely goes into much more detail about things. There is a lot of something like world-building or character-building. Each “arc” will definitely take quite a while.