Infinite Ebullience
Chapter 570 - 41: Showcasing Acting Skills

Chapter 570: Chapter 41: Showcasing Acting Skills

There was no waiting room. After getting through the crowded small iron fence of the ticket inspection entrance, one stepped directly onto the platform. After a few steps, Muslims, both men and women, donned in robes and turbans, rushing for the train were visible everywhere. An agitated, hurried atmosphere hit them face on. Then, when the gray, dusty train steamed into the station, it nearly stunned the entire group.

"This is just a disheveled vagrant!" Lu Fan was dumbfounded. This train reminded her of the rusty green Canned Boxes that lay on the railway tracks in the nostalgic shows from the seventies and eighties.

"What else can you expect in a developing country?" As a flight attendant, Pang Meiqin didn’t care much about the condition of the transportation.

"Is this supposed to be a star-rated sleeper?" After following the conductor to their narrow two-person compartment, Lu Fan rose on her tiptoes, grabbed Tang Zheng’s clothes, and took a look. Her face immediately crumpled. However, when she saw Manli tip the conductor a hundred Egyptian pounds, even the normally satisfied Little Lolita mentally crossed out the service as satisfactory.

"Egypt is a tipping country." Qin Yan explained casually. You have no choice but to follow the local customs, or else you’ll be looked down upon. Everyone would get used to it eventually.

Victoria and George had already gone back to London, but Jasons wasn’t alone. A phone call later, and ten black-clad bodyguards were waiting outside the hotel the next morning.

Tang Zheng’s team was now down to eighteen, and would surely shrink even further.

It was a long journey. After the initial excitement wore off, everyone started to feel drowsy. The clicking noise of the wheels on the tracks became grating and began to irritate their nerves.

Through the train window, all they could see was the monotonous color of the desert. Staring at it long enough made their eyes dry and uncomfortable.

At lunch, Lu Fan tried some of the Egyptian delicacies sold on the train and ended up with an upset stomach. Within a short period, she had already rushed to the restroom three times.

"I can’t take it anymore, uncle. I think I might die before we get off." Exhausted, Little Lolita staggered back from the aisle and collapsed into Tang Zheng’s arms, pressing her cheek against him as if it would make her feel better.

"Why don’t you take a nap?" Tang Zheng stroked Lu Fan’s hair and sighed. At an age meant for carefree innocence, Little Lolita was trapped amidst life and death struggles, fighting desperately to survive. "Trojan is indeed a scumbag."

"Ugh, not again." Lu Fan jumped up and rushed to the restroom once more. Seeing that Tang Zheng was ready to follow, she quickly waved him off. There were things Little Lolita did not want her uncle to hear, as it would be too embarrassing.

"I’ll go with her." Hearing the commotion, Yu Manli appeared at the compartment door. After saying this, she rushed after Lu Fan.

Qin Yan, who had stood up, sat back down.

The train now stopped at Semalute Train Station. During the short three-minute stop, the scene was once again thrown into a disorganized hurry. A few Egyptian peddlers in robes and turbans walked past the train windows, trying to sell goods and souvenirs to the passengers.

"You guys stay here. I’m going to do a routine check." After the train started again, Tang Zheng waited for five minutes for the passengers to settle down. He then got up and prepared to patrol the train, ensuring that there were no safety hazards.

"Jia Rong, Ruxiong, come with me." As he passed the newbies’ berth, Tang Zheng called out to them. They had no complaints and got up to put on their shoes as quickly as they could.

The train had eighteen carriages in total, most of which were occupied by tourists. However, as it wasn’t peak travel season, it wasn’t too crowded. Some seats were empty. Upon reaching the end of the last carriage, Ruxiong stopped Tang Zheng.

"Have a cigarette and take a break." Ruxiong offered a cigarette. Chen Jiarong accepted it, put it in his mouth, and lit it. After inhaling deeply, he began to choke and cough.

"Easy there." Ruxiong showed a friendly smile, pointing towards a woman from Eastern Europe in the carriage using his chin. "That buxom beauty there, she’s got quite a figure."

Ruxiong knew that this kind of topic was the best for bonding between men. Getting a chance to be alone with Tang Zheng, away from the women, he naturally wanted to take this opportunity to elevate their relationship and subtly bring up the matter of the Seed.

"Her breasts are too big, unnatural. I bet you’d get a mouthful of silicone if you bit into them." Chen Jiarong glanced at her, revealing his true nature through an offhand comment.

"A touch would be enough for me. Hey, she’s looking at me. What’s she up to?" Ruxiong saw the buxom woman approaching them, immediately snuffed out his cigarette and quickly straightened his outfit.

"Gentlemen, there is no smoking allowed in the carriage." The buxom woman glared at Chen Jiarong and reprimanded them. The university student was embarrassed and quickly dumped the cigarette in the trash bin.

Tang Zheng frowned, glancing over at the buxom woman’s seat where two male companions were sitting. He didn’t notice anything unusual. Could she just be a nosy person?

Lu Fan tried to display the charm and demeanor honed over his years as a reporter, attempting to attract the interest of the foreign woman. Despite the woman’s plain appearance, Lu Fan wouldn’t mind joining her in the restroom for a friendly bout of battle.

"Group Leader, you guys go ahead. This lady wants to know about China’s Terracotta Warriors. I happen to know a bit." Lu Fan’s English skills came in handy for once, and he seemed rather eager. Encounters like this were a rarity, and he could see the flirtatious spark in the woman’s eyes.

"Be careful." Tang Zheng scanned the carriage one last time and didn’t notice anything suspicious, so he and Chen Jiarong left.

"Why didn’t you stop him?" Chen Jiarong seemed sullen. Glancing back, he saw the foreign woman about to enter the restroom, her rear end swaying seductively. Lu Fan did a little jig of excitement before rushing in and closing the door behind them.

"Ha, Lu Fan must be aroused already. If I tried to stop him, I would have only upset him. Besides, we’re all grownups, who are we to control each other’s actions? Giving a word of caution is already more than enough." Tang Zheng glanced back, whatever anyone else did was none of his business. If the foreign woman was simply interested in an Asian man to alleviate her loneliness during the trip, that was one thing. But if she harbored a nefarious motive, then let Lu Fan figure that out first.

"Lu Fan must have stumbled into some good luck for that foreign woman to take interest in him." Chen Jiarong turned green with envy at the thought of the woman’s voluptuous chest, maliciously speculating, "She must be a..." Chen Jiarong was still craning his neck to peep when he collided with Tang Zheng’s back.

"What are you standing here for?" Chen Jiarong was confused.

Tang Zheng canted his upper body sideways to look at another carriage, then scanned the one they were in.

"Stop being paranoid, if these people are going to turn into dried corpses, there’s nothing you can do to stop it." Chen Jiarong felt that Tang Zheng was making a mountain out of a molehill.

"I’m overreacting, let’s go." Tang Zheng shrugged, then put on a lascivious expression, brazenly studying every woman in the carriage—an attitude that was sure to irritate anyone watching.

"So he really is a lecher, and here I’d thought he was a gentleman." Chen Jiarong looked sullen, whispering slanders against Tang Zheng in his heart. He wanted to stare at women’s chests too but didn’t have the thick skin or the courage required, scared of being punched.

"Wait, something’s not right." Tang Zheng was only using his interest in the women as a cover while examining the passengers in the carriage. If he stared too long, people would notice.

Tang Zheng hadn’t noticed it before, but something about the foreign woman’s behavior put him on alert. On reconsidering, he realized that there were two Muslims in black headscarves revealing only their eyes in every carriage. What piqued Tang Zheng’s interest was their constantly changing seats, which was unusual.

"Oh no, I lost my phone. Wait for me, I’ll go back and look for it." Tang Zheng patted his pockets, putting on a face that was the perfect image of someone who lost something. It was a performance worthy of an Oscar, but Tang Zheng didn’t feel proud and instead his heart sunk.

"Humph, he’s probably just jealous and wants an excuse to go back to the foreign woman." Chen Jiarong watched Tang Zheng leave, grumbling to himself, following that up with a curse on Lu Fan for premature ejaculation.

Indeed, each carriage had men clad in black headscarves, and Tang Zheng noticed another odd point. These passengers seemed engrossed in their current activities, showing no interest in their surroundings.

Tang Zheng knew that judging women would have solicited at least a few scornful glances if not an outright rebuke. However, he received none.

"This will cause trouble." Tang Zheng glanced towards the restroom that Lu Fan had entered, giving up on the idea of retrieving him. It might cause unnecessary panic. It’s better to inform Qin Yan and the others first.

"Let’s go." After leaving the sixth carriage, Tang Zheng saw a brunette woman absorbed in her phone while her male companion sitting next to her was an ideal test subject.

As he walked past the woman, Tang Zheng feigned a stumble, falling towards the woman. He acted as if struggling to regain his balance but ended up failing. In front of the wide-eyed Chen Jiarong, in a bid to steady his body,

"Damn, he got away with that?" Chen Jiarong looked stupefied, his envy was palpable. Then he turned to look at the woman’s male companion.

"Tang Zheng is definitely going to get punched this time." But Chen Jiarong was surprised again. The man showed no reaction, and the woman merely shot Tang Zheng an irate look before ignoring him, making Chen Jiarong consider staging his own fall.

"I’m sorry." Tang Zheng let go of her, apologized, and left.

"Tang Zheng, you did that on purpose, didn’t you, you definitely did." A sour Chen Jiarong finished speaking, glanced back at the woman and said, "You must have graduated from the school of acting, that fake tumble would easily earn a penalty kick and a red card."

Tang Zheng paid no attention to Chen Jiarong’s nonsense. Holding back his dread, his face was already as dark as stormclouds. He had deliberately caused the tumble, and normally anyone would have blown their top, but she and her friend showed no reaction. So Tang Zheng was sure that something had gone wrong in the entire train. As for Lu Fan, not to mention scoring points, he was probably dismembered and flushed down the toilet.

Indeed, Lu Fan was dead, and he hadn’t even gotten a chance to touch the foreign woman.