A figure suddenly pushed open the glass door of Jingxin Zhai and burst in like a whirlwind.
“Jimmy! Finally found you!” The newcomer was Wang Tiancheng.
A young man two years older than Lin Wansheng.
Unlike Lin Wansheng, he had only come to America with his parents at fourteen.
He’d had a hard time fitting in.
Later, because he couldn’t keep up with his classes at all, he dropped out early and had been drifting around Chinatown ever since.
At the moment, he was wearing a leather jacket completely unsuited to the season, his hair dyed in a chaotic mess of colors, his face full of anxiety.
“I just went to your family’s shop. Your dad said you’d come next door.”
Wang Tiancheng rushed up to Lin Wansheng in three quick strides and grabbed his arm.
“Quick, come with me! There’s a big money-making job!”
Lin Wansheng was startled by his manner and instinctively pulled his hand back, joking, “What? I’m not doing anything illegal.”
“Listen to you, Straight-A student!” Wang Tiancheng waved his hands frantically.
“You think I’d dare drag you into something like that? Your dad wouldn’t even have to do anything—Brother Yu would skin me alive first!”
The “Brother Yu” he spoke of was Li Mingyu, the current leader of Chinatown’s Hunan Gang.
Unlike those old-school Fujian or Guangdong gangs,
this Brother Yu’s way of doing things could be called a breath of fresh air.
He placed extreme importance on every student in Chinatown with good grades and offered them protection.
Of course, this kind of “care” also meant that if he discovered some good student had gone astray, Brother Yu would let them experience a dose of “fatherly education” from China right here in America.
In his view, if Chinese people wanted to raise their status, fists and gangs had no future. They had to rely on their brains.
Wang Tiancheng caught his breath and explained at top speed, “Brother Yu’s been keeping up with the trends lately. He took over a venue to do stand-up comedy, you know?
But the headliner tonight suddenly stood us up and can’t make it!
Our English is no good, so after thinking it over, the only thing we could do was grab you to fill in!”
“What?” Lin Wansheng thought he’d misheard.
“I don’t know how to do stand-up. Besides, I’m not the only person in Chinatown who can speak English.”
“Aiya, my brother, isn’t this because there’s no other way?” Wang Tiancheng pointed miserably at Lin Wansheng’s build.
“The posters have already gone out, and almost all the guests coming are foreigners.
Only you are like the original performer—one meter eighty-five, and you look strong.
Even if we Chinese might all look the same to foreigners, at least the body type has to match if we’re going to fool them, right?”
Seeing that Lin Wansheng was still hesitating, Wang Tiancheng hurriedly gave him advice. “Stand-up is really simple! Just go up there and talk about our Chinese stereotypes.
Then insult the audience a little, and the time will pass in no time!”
Just then, Li Shuyao, who had been quietly standing to the side, suddenly spoke.
In a soft voice, she said, “Brother Cheng is so anxious he’s even started speaking English. Looks like he really has no other choice.
Wansheng, help him out.
Tonight… I’ll go cheer you on too.”
Lin Wansheng turned his head and met Li Shuyao’s clear, bright eyes. There was a trace of encouragement and expectation in them.
Looking at those eyes that seemed able to speak, he could no longer say the words of refusal. In the end, he could only nod helplessly.
“Great!” Wang Tiancheng looked as though he’d been granted a reprieve.
Without another word, he grabbed Lin Wansheng’s arm again and dragged him outside like a sack of grain.
“Come on, come on! The show starts at seven. You still have to get makeup done!”
—
In the backstage dressing room, Lin Wansheng looked at himself in the mirror, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
“Your skin is really nice. There’s not much to do.” The makeup artist was a girl wearing smoky eye makeup.
She shrugged. “Too bad you’re too good-looking. You don’t look like a comedian.”
At that moment, the television in the dressing room was playing the news, the president’s voice impassioned.
…
…
Just as Lin Wansheng was getting a headache over what exactly he should say tonight, the dressing room door was suddenly pushed open.
He looked through the mirror and saw a man in a black shirt with a steady air walk in. It was none other than the Brother Yu Wang Tiancheng had mentioned.
Li Mingyu smiled at Lin Wansheng in the mirror and walked forward.
He gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t be nervous. It’s just going through the motions. Even if you go up there and don’t say a single word, we’ll still have a way to smooth things over.”
He paused, a trace of expectation in his tone.
“Of course, if you can do well, that would be even better.
That kid disappeared, and in his panic, Xiaocheng brought up your name.
But I trust his judgment.”
Li Mingyu patted his shoulder.
“All right, Xiaocheng will take care of you. I just came by to have a look. Don’t be nervous, don’t be nervous.”
Seeing that Brother Yu was about to leave, Lin Wansheng instinctively tried to stand up to see him off, only for Li Mingyu to firmly press him back into the chair.
“No need to be so polite.” There was a little more approval in Li Mingyu’s smile.
“I know you. Straight-A student.”
“Very good.”
After he left, Wang Tiancheng immediately sprang out from behind the door and looked at Lin Wansheng with tears of gratitude. “Brother, thank goodness you were willing to come up. You saved your big brother’s life!”
He lowered his voice and mysteriously passed on his experience.
“It’s fine, really. You don’t even have to say a word. When the time comes, we’ll make up a traditional Chinese holiday called the ‘Dragon Boat Dumpling Lychee Festival.’
We’ll say you have to go onstage and observe a moment of silence. Those white people won’t understand!”
Seeing Lin Wansheng’s expression of “Are you insane?”
Wang Tiancheng patted his chest and guaranteed, “Trust me, I’ve used this trick before!
Once, when I didn’t want to go to class, I told the teacher that it was China’s Harvest Day.
I even told him that my grandfather’s grandfather had heroically sacrificed himself for that holiday, so my family had to observe a full day of silence at home.
After he heard that, he didn’t dare say a damn thing.
He just kept apologizing to me! No idea what it had to do with him.”
…
…
…
Five minutes before he was due onstage, just as Lin Wansheng was still digesting Wang Tiancheng’s absurd excuse,
the system’s voice rang out in his mind without the slightest warning.
[Upon inspection, the Executor has already encountered the leader of the Chinese in this place.]
[The main thread of Heavenly Mandate is now revealed.]
[Four months from now, the Chinese laborers of Shiquan Town will suffer a calamity of annihilation due to a strike dispute. The Executor must resolve this disaster in order to preserve his compatriots.]
[Primary task: Today, there is an opportunity to take the stage. You must astonish everyone with a single feat and gather reputation.]
[The Heavenly Dao shall assist you and enhance your bearing. Temporarily granting five points of Presence, as well as a temporary effect of Verbal Inspiration.]
[The effect of Verbal Inspiration will aid you in resolving the calamity of the strike. It will disappear only after the matter is concluded.]
[For this appearance onstage, if your words can move others and make listeners feel as though they have experienced it themselves, the granted Presence may become permanent.]
[Remember: the welfare of the entire town rests upon the Executor alone. However, Heaven’s secrets must not be revealed. Matters of the future must never be spoken of directly.]
“Wait a minute!” This time, Lin Wansheng truly couldn’t hold back.
He voiced his doubts in his mind.
“What do you mean the lives and deaths of all the Chinese workers in town are on me?”
“Boss, you’re not seriously asking me to solve that strike incident from 1885, are you? Where am I supposed to start with that?”
In the few seconds that Lin Wansheng’s brain crashed because of the system’s words,
Wang Tiancheng had already pushed open the dressing room door and shoved him outside.
The noisy voices from below the stage came through clearly.
Immediately afterward, the host’s excited voice rang out from behind the curtain.
“Let’s welcome Jimmy!”