The Great Worm Lich

“Hi, good morning Lisheng.”

“Oh, good morning Tina. Why… why are you here?”

“Of course I’m here for you and you happened to come out. Send me your bank account number now, I’ll transfer the 110,000 dollars I obtained to your account. After that, we’ll head straight to Kaiserland Town to talk business. We should be able to sign a contract today if everything goes smoothly.”

“Sign… sign contract…”

“What? Did you forget that you gave me a credit card with 700,000 yuan in it to launder’ so that you could purchase a slaughterhouse?” Tina said softly.

“Of course I remember that but… but wasn’t it just four days ago?”

“It’s been four days, Lisheng. Of course, I’ve already chosen the seller. Do you know that my dad told me this before? It’s best to take less than three days to deal with a business from the initiation, to the closing of a deal. Otherwise, a business would most probably fail due to those unnecessary concerns. I’ve been taking too long to book the meeting four days later…”

When Tina was speaking, the door behind Zhang Lisheng opened all of a sudden. Lili was surprised to see Zhang Lisheng and Tina when he walked out of the house casually, “Ahh, baby, why aren’t you at work yet? Who is this lady?”

“Hi madam, I’m Lisheng’s friend. My name’s Tina Douglin, you can call me Tina,” Tina took the initiative to greet Lili while waving.

“Oh, Tina, I’m Lili. I’m Lisheng’s mother,” Lili said while smiling.

“Mom, I’m going out with Tina today. I won’t be working with at Dan Souza Butcher Shop today, I might get home later…”

“That’s great baby, I don’t agree with you working so hard in the first place. Go have fun with your friend. Goodbye Tina, it’s nice meeting a lady like you,” As she hugged Zhang Lisheng to say goodbye, she shoved 200 dollars into his pocket and smiled at Tina. She then walked to the garage.

Seeing Lili walking to the garage, Tina looked at Zhang Lisheng in an odd way. She teased him softly, “So Lisheng, you’re your mommy’s, little baby.”

“My mom keeps calling me that because she feels guilty on abandoning me since I was young. Let’s go, let’s go to the bank,” Zhang Lisheng said and left his bicycle then walked towards the SUV Tina drove here.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that. But you’re so annoying in explaining something so interesting, into a sad story,” Tina pouted and said while following behind Zhang Lisheng. As they have went into the car, Zhang Lisheng rolled down the window a little for air. He asked Tina after applying for sick leave from Dan Souza Butcher Shop’s owner Rocky, “How come you got me 110,000 dollars on my card?”

Tina replied while driving, “The PR company followed the official price, whereby they exchanged 700,000 yuan to 110,000 dollars so that they would obtain my birthday party business. They wouldn’t lose too much even if they do that. It’s just hundreds of thousands of dollars, it could be simply ‘digested’ since it’s such an experienced PR company.”

Zhang Lisheng nodded and looked at the exuberant Tina as he spoke, “You know what Tina? Although we’ve only known each other for a short time, I think you’re very different from how you usually behave when you talk business. Oh ya, I forgot to tell you this. I don’t have a bank account.”

“You don’t have a bank account? Are you an alien? Then how does the butcher shop boss pay your wage?”

“He pays cash. The butcher shop only takes cash, so there’s no cheque.”

“That’s great, it seems like we’re getting you a bank account at some bank. Hmm, let’s go to Wells Fargo Bank, I’m their VVIP there,” Tina then turned on GPS and said the destination. She took a hard turn following the GPS navigation and drove to the Wells Fargo Bank in Lowbige community.

As Brooklyn area, a traditionally decent community where New York middle-class gathered, Lowbige’s Wells Fargo Bank’s branch seemed pretty presentable. It was located in an old business building of nine floors with a vast, majestic entrance. The floor was paved with bright maroon solid wooden flooring.

In the few counters on the left against the wall were business executives, providing one-on-one service to their clients in all smiles. On the right was the guest waiting area with comfortable couches providing newspaper of the day, complimentary coffee and drinks. Although the bank clients usually did not have to wait, they pursued perfection for everything here.

Although the provided service at the lobby was very attentive, as the VVIP guest of Wells Fargo Bank, Tina had an even higher standard for the bank service. After walking into the Lowbige branch, she walked straight to the middle-aged man with silver hair who wore neat, gray suit walking around the lobby, “Sir, my name’s Tina Douglin. I brought a friend here to open an account with Wells Fargo Bank.”

To an international bank’s account manager in New York, the name Tina Douglin was as well-known as the American president’s name. The silver-haired middle-aged man bowed and spoke without hesitation, “Ms. Tina Douglin, I’m Will Smith, Wells Fargo Bank New York Lowbige branch’s account manager. I’m honored to serve you and your friend.”

“Mr. Smith, we’re in a rush. Please help my friend now,” Tina pointed at Zhang Lisheng, “Mr. Zhang Lisheng would like to open a bank account. Please help him transfer 100,000 dollars… No, 110.000 dollars to his account. He has just moved to New York from China, but he’s legally an American citizen now.”

Currently, unknown funds coming from China filled the entire New York financial market. Every bank tried their very best to serve the invisible, loaded Chinese clients. Such clients had two different characteristics, they were either low-key or extremely flashy. The same characteristic they shared was the massive amount of cash they had, which one could hardly imagine. Another characteristic was that many clients who wanted to open bank accounts were young people. Moreover, they would usually test the water first.

One would speculate his relationship with Tina since she was someone of high status. Smith thought about it and said courteously, “Sure, Ms. Tina. Since you and this sir are in a rush, I’ll try to simplify the procedure as much as I could, to speed up the process. Please allow me to bring you to the VIP room for a cup of coffee. Take 10 minutes rest and I promise it’s 10 minutes the most.”

“Thanks, Mr. Smith,” Tina grabbed Zhang Lisheng’s arm and followed Smith to the VIP room. As expected, Zhang Lisheng got his first American bank account eight to nine minutes later, after Smith asked for help from his New York senior account manager. He skipped being questioned for Anti-Money Laundering Law and received the 110,000 dollars in his account.

After Smith sent them off the bank lobby diligently, Zhang Lisheng got into the SUV and said while smacking his lips, “The lingering coffee in my mouth finally made me understand why Americans love coffee so much. It also made me understand why so many Americans said ‘money is your best friend’.”

“People connection too. Alright Lisheng, stop reflecting on life. You’ll definitely be rich in the future. I realized that you have a massive business opportunity when I was studying slaughtering business these few days. You’ll need a massive amount of meat to cultivate mutated centipedes, I’m thinking…”

“Tina, I know what you’re trying to say. The ‘massive amount’ that I told you earlier was actually much lesser than you imagined at the current stage. Digesting a small slaughterhouse’s waste is already the limit.”

“It’s okay, my dad told me that ‘we must look far ahead into the future in business’,” Tina said while starting the engine. The SUV headed west on 27th street, it soon entered the highway connecting to the suburbs. After driving for 40 minutes, they slowly left New York City in a narrow sense.

On working days, the millions of people outside of the New York metropolitan circle would flood into New York City for work, like ants going for honey. At night, they would be like ants that had finished the honey, returning to their nest. They would return to their homes to rest in the satellite town with fresh air and little people.

This village had no obvious difference with the cities, whereby they merged together. Watching the scattered houses outside the window, Zhang Lisheng rolled down the window a little and breathed in the chilly, fresh air, “I’ve never thought the journey from New York to the village’s so close.”

“That’s how you could take care of your slaughterhouse without affecting your study. I’ve thought about it for you. You could join the National Farmers Union in Kaiserland Town, after purchasing the small slaughterhouse. Get the farmers to use your slaughterhouse as they wish. The slaughterhouse nowadays is all fully automated, whereby everything can be done just by pressing a button. The common farmers know how to use the machines. You could charge 50 dollars for a pig, 150 dollars for a cow, 40 dollars for a lamb. Let them use your slaughterhouse to handle their livestock. They’ll take the meat while the organs, blood… In short, you’ll handle all of the waste. I think they’re more than willing to do that. Moreover, you could spare some time to look at your slaughterhouse occasionally and study your experiment there.”

Zhang Lisheng was stunned for a moment and said in an admirable tone, “Tina, god’s really unfair. He gave you the courage to explore into an ancient jungle, in the premise that you’ve no idea what a leopard is. He also gave you talent in business…”

“Shut up, Zhang Lisheng,” Telling jokes proved that Zhang Lisheng treated Tina as his friend. She seemed to have noticed that from her womanly instinct, they were laughing all the way during the drive. Both of them drove 20 minutes on the smooth highway on the weekend. Finally, they saw a border sign at the side of the road written ‘Kaiserland Town’ on it, at a ramp on the highway. They turned into the ramp and continued driving for 15 to 16 minutes. They arrived in a small town.