"Innocent, Boss! I'm innocent!" Li Zhan wailed, wiping the sweat from his brow. "I admit my personal lifestyle might be… questionable. But I really have been working hard."
"Hah!" Wang Yan's anger flared. After just sowing the seeds of hope on the Order Continent, here he was confronted with Li Zhan's decadent nonsense. The stark contrast left him seething. He let out a cold laugh, pulling out a collapsible baton. "Working hard? Are you blind?"
At that moment, several leaders from the Arthur Tribe, noticing Wang Yan's presence, rushed over to greet their god.
"I'll deal with you in a minute," Wang Yan snapped, glaring at Li Zhan and stashing the baton for the time being.
Li Zhan stood there drenched in cold sweat.
Though Li Zhan's arrival had brought the Arthur Tribe unprecedented entertainment, Wang Yan's show of force with the baton immediately subdued the entire group.
Moreover, in the Arthur Tribe's eyes, the abundance of goods they were enjoying now all came from Wang Yan himself.
After all, they had personally helped transport the supplies.
Within seconds, a large crowd knelt down in the cave.
Chief Arthur prostrated himself before Wang Yan with reverence, voicing the tribe's gratitude for the divine messenger Wang Yan had sent, and praising the god's virtue right in front of him.
Their psychic resonance contained unending praise:
In short, thanks to the envoy's arrival, their tribe was enjoying unprecedented happiness and prosperity. They thanked the envoy and thanked the god!
Eating, drinking, and carousing = a thriving tribe?
Wang Yan shot a chilling glare at Li Zhan, wishing he could toss the man straight into the ocean. He had such a promising tribe… and this bastard ruined it!
Wang Yan's murderous glare made Li Zhan panic. Furious, Li Zhan glowered at his primitive drinking buddies. He began raging and cursing, "You ungrateful scum! I give you booze, I give you meat, and you sell me out the moment my back is turned!"
"Oh, great envoy, your kindness is in our hearts," said Arthur, smiling politely at Li Zhan.
"You… you idiot! Still smiling at me like that? I'm going to kill you for ratting me out!" Li Zhan ground his teeth in frustration.
"Cheers!" Arthur responded, raising a makeshift cup in a toast. Then, in perfect English, he repeated, "Cheers!"
"Cheers my foot, you—!" Li Zhan looked as though his life was flashing before his eyes. From his perspective, this primitive man was utterly dooming him. Saying "cheers" in front of Wang Yan was only inviting more trouble.
Watching them talk like two people speaking entirely different languages, Wang Yan felt torn between anger and amusement. He suddenly found himself somewhat sympathetic toward Li Zhan.
Given the circumstances, it must have been very difficult to truly "enjoy" life in this tribe. Indeed, Arthur hadn't learned a single word of Chinese—but his English had developed a rather proper London accent. Hearing him say "cheers!" so fluently confirmed Li Zhan's story.
Wang Yan waved Arthur and the others away, then looked back at Li Zhan. "I'll give you a chance to explain. If I find your explanation convincing, I'll let this slide."
"Yes, Boss!" Li Zhan sighed in relief. "It's not that I didn't want to work, but I just couldn't! They can't understand me, and I can't understand them! At first, following your instructions, I tried to teach them Mandarin. After two whole days—two entire days—they still couldn't grasp even the simplest words like person, mouth, or hand!"
"That just means your teaching method was wrong," Wang Yan retorted. After all, I managed to teach the Caesar Tribe the word "chicken" in just a few minutes back when I had no psychic resonance.
"Boss, I swear it wasn't my method!" Li Zhan pleaded. "It's their tongues! On the second day, I got so frustrated I accidentally yelled 'f*ck.' But to my surprise, these… these 'black guys' repeated it perfectly on the first try! I— I couldn't believe it!"
F*ck!
For a moment, Wang Yan was at a loss for words. The Caesar Tribe's first Chinese word had been "chicken," while the Arthur Tribe's first English word was "f*ck." What kind of messed-up world is this?
Hearing Chief Arthur's polished "cheers!" convinced Wang Yan even more that Li Zhan was telling the truth. "And then?"
"Well…" Li Zhan scratched his head, embarrassed. "Boss, you know what my English is like; I only learned a bit in school ages ago. Aside from saying 'fck,' 'sht,' and 'b*tch,' I can't really speak anything else! Teaching them those words would just make me look even more ridiculous. So I got another idea—if they really want to learn English, I'd just hook up the generator and have them watch English-language movies."
"Watching movies to learn English," Wang Yan said coldly. "Why not show them Japanese films so they can learn how to say 'arigatou gozaimasu'? You could teach them that!"
"I did show them some," Li Zhan muttered under his breath. "They didn't pick up much of the language, but they sure learned a lot of… moves. Turned out they preferred Western stuff, though…"
Boom!
Wang Yan kicked him so hard he flew backward. He's actually been showing the tribe adult films?!
Unbelievable! How much worse can he get?
Li Zhan crawled back over, looking like a pig ready for slaughter. "Boss, I know you're mad, but I was desperate!"
"…" Wang Yan massaged his temples, feeling utterly drained.
"Boss, I did manage to accomplish something," Li Zhan said suddenly. He jumped up, ran to his tent, and returned moments later, panting. He carried a large cup brimming with dazzling diamonds. "Check this out, Boss! Every one is top-grade. There's a diamond mine near the tribe, and if we take these back to Earth, we'll be rich! With the money, we could hire real professionals—native English speakers, the works! Why suffer here trying to do it ourselves?"
Wang Yan let out another weary sigh. This guy is hopeless.
"Boss, just let me go back!" Li Zhan begged, eyes brimming with desperation. "Give me these diamonds so I can work some deals. Then we can live it up on Earth while real professionals teach the tribe. Why bother staying here in misery?"
"Don't get ahead of yourself," Wang Yan snapped. "You haven't even been here a single month, and you're already thinking of quitting. The world doesn't give you freebies like that. Besides, there are thousands of qualified people on Earth—why would I trust you to handle my business? On Earth, you're just another nobody in your forties or fifties, running a tiny shop and wasting away. Here, you've already ruined a perfectly good primitive tribe. Tell me, Li Zhan: what's your real value? Why on Earth should I hand over my company to you? Do you think that highly of yourself?"
Li Zhan's face turned bright red. He opened his mouth but couldn't find any words for a long moment. Finally, he managed to whisper, "I'm… loyal to you."
Wang Yan let out a bitter laugh. "Don't say I never gave you a chance. I'll give you one year. Show me how you can transform the Arthur Tribe. If I'm satisfied, maybe—maybe—I'll consider giving you another position."
"All right," Li Zhan agreed, his tone filled with resignation. He knew his own situation. He and Wang Yan had only met three times.
Plus, he'd actually tried to deceive Wang Yan the first time they met; it was hard to come back from that. True, he'd done his best to redeem himself since, but trust doesn't just spring up overnight.
So it was only logical for Wang Yan not to trust him yet.
At this point, his only option was to do well in the Arthur Tribe and hope that earned him Wang Yan's confidence.
"Boss, can you at least get me some English textbooks?" Li Zhan asked, throwing a sidelong glance at the tribespeople still engrossed in the film. "It's not… ideal to have them learn English just by watching random movies."
"So now you realize it's not ideal?" Wang Yan gave him a pointed look. Then he granted Li Zhan both the immortal body and psychic resonance, patted him on the shoulder, and said firmly, "Don't screw this up, Li Zhan. Don't let the Arthur Tribe go down in flames because of you."