Illusion
Early chapters are available on Patreon!
After napping for more than four hours in the plane, they finally landed at Narita International Airport in Tokyo.
After taking care of the entry procedures, Yang Chen brought the group of female colleagues to the exit of the airport.
Since it was a group travel, they naturally had a tour guide and a driver. Dressed in a pink sweater, a young lady with a good figure who was carrying a small handbag could be seen from afar. She was holding a banner with the words ‘Yu Lei International’.
As Yang Chen and the others approached her, the lady tour guide named Kawanako welcomed their arrival using rather acceptable Mandarin. She then led everyone to board a minibus before heading to the hotel, to allow the people to rest after the long flight.
Upon entering the minibus, Kawanako started introducing their schedule for the trip briefly and the current situation in Tokyo.
Actually, even if she didn’t tell them, this top-in-the-world international financial centre, the second largest city in the world, was enough to open the eyes of the fellow lady employees from the public relations department. These endless streams of crowds and vehicles together with the compact and dense skyscrapers all displayed the atmosphere of a metropolis.
There was a total of around ten days allotted for this trip. They would be heading from Nagoya to Tokyo, then to Kyoto and Osaka before finally flying back to Zhonghai.
The place that the ladies were most concerned about wasn’t somewhere to have fun at. The first thing they asked was where they could purchase cheap, branded handbags, or questions like where affordable, branded cosmetics could be found.
Including Liu Mingyu who appeared the most steady and mature, they held an expression of high expectations as their eyes shone with wild, aggressive gazes. This made Yang Chen feel rather helpless. Judging by the situation, shopping was the main factor that caused the ladies to pick Japan.
“Do you women want to buy all the nice handbags you see? Why can’t you resist the desire?” Yang Chen asked Liu Mingyu.
Liu Mingyu blushed, but still nodded at last. “Yeah, I have an experience of almost failing to pay my credit card overdraft once.”
Feeling gloomy, Yang Chen asked, “Don’t handbags get renewed every four seasons in the year? Even superstars or entrepreneurs wouldn’t be able to afford all of them, let alone you people who live on wages. This is nothing other than a depthless hole.”
“Although we can’t purchase all of them, we can certainly try our best!” Liu Mingyu answered.
Yang Chen rolled his eyes. It could be said that he was utterly impressed.
“Kawanako, will we be scammed when we’re buying branded stuff since we’re foreigners? What happens if we get knockoffs?” Zhang Cai asked as her eyes shone, agitated.
Kawanako smiled gently as she answered, “Don’t worry, there won’t be any inauthentic products as long as you’re buying from a legit business. In Japan, a business would be immediately reported if someone noticed they’re selling counterfeits. The punishment is very severe.”
The group of ladies cheered in joy. They immediately got close to the tour guide Kawanako, as if they were sworn sisters.
They quickly arrived in the building of a booked four-star hotel. Although the atmosphere didn’t scream luxury and the place wasn’t very big, the place was tidy and clean, making it give off a feeling of coziness.
Being the only man in the team, Yang Chen instantly realized that he was indeed rather offbeat. He didn’t think much before coming. Currently, everyone was sharing rooms in pairs of two, while he would be sleeping in a small room alone. He couldn’t help but to feel like a lost child as he got teased by the female colleagues.
Coming to the twenty-seventh floor, Yang Chen entered his own room and put down his simple luggage. He was ready to pull out his laptop to contact Makedon. Except asking for An Xin’s coordinates and situation, he still wanted to check if there were any movements from Yamata Sect. He came to their nest this time after all, he had to make sure to avoid something bad from happening. However, before he even switched his laptop on, someone knocked on his door.
Yang Chen wondered if it was Liu Mingyu who came to get intimate with him eagerly. He felt that this was really possible. As he secretly felt pleased, he walked to the door before opening it.
Expectedly, Liu Mingyu was standing behind the door. However, Zhang Cai, Zhao Hongyan and a few other colleagues were there as well, amounting to five or six people in total.
As the bunch of women stared upon him, Yang Chen felt really helpless, as if he was a antelope being targeted by a bunch of lionesses.
“What is it? Did anything happen?”
Liu Mingyu said, “We’re thinking of going to Akihabara to get cameras and stuff. I heard they’re affordable and high-quality there. None of us brought a camera here, so we want to get it now. This way, it’d be convenient for us when we visit the attractions tomorrow.”
Akihabara was a well-known commercial district in Tokyo specialized in electronics, so Yang Chen could comprehend them. However, Yang Chen’s eyes got opened when he heard the ladies wanted to immediately start shopping upon checking into their rooms.
I have never seen them this hardworking before in the office…
“Wouldn’t it be fine if you looked for the tour guide? Are you possibly looking for me to be your translator?” Yang Chen asked gloomily.
“But tour guides can’t be trusted, they get so much commission from stores!” Zhao Hongyan immediately said.
Yang Chen couldn’t hold himself back from laughing. “Didn’t you all behave really closely with the lady Kawanako earlier?”
“Have you forgotten what we’re working as? We all deal with public relations. Getting close to and truthfully treating someone are two completely different things. Your eyes are so unobservant, she looked like a conwoman at first glance. We certainly won’t get tricked!” Zhang Cai said proudly. Not long ago, she was still happily chatting with Kawanako.
Yang Chen felt a bit dizzy up his head. He almost couldn’t deal with these women anymore.
He had no choice. He couldn’t just tell these beautiful faces that he was tired as a man. As a result, he followed them as their translator and servant.
After getting two old Toyota cabs outside the hotel, they went to Akihabara together. Actually, they could totally go with a train, but none of them was familiar with Tokyo. Getting a cab was still more convenient.
As they arrived at Akihabara, the countless, dazzling shops blurred the ladies’ eyes. After making their way inside, the different kinds of well-designed cameras in addition to new smartphones all became the their targets.
Japanese service attitude was famous in the entire world. The servers would all bow to welcome you inside as long as you passed by or walked into their shops.
Even if you decided to not purchase, they’d still be thankful for your visit as you walked out of their stores.
Using such a service attitude, their immensely polite behavior would make customers feel comfortable. If I’m not buying anything at all, will I be sorry to their ninety-degree bows?
Thus, the ladies managed to buy something they wanted after entering merely a few shops.
Yang Chen saw that his female colleagues looked elated as they held their newly bought electronics. Helplessly, he asked, “Are you satisfied? Let’s go back if there’s nothing else.”
The ladies looked at each other before shaking their heads together.
“I haven’t shopped enough. I’ll walk a little longer, it’s not like it’s dinner time yet,” Zhao Hongyan replied.
Yang Chen felt really helpless, but he really couldn’t stand shopping with the group anymore. As a result, he sat on a bench by the walkway in a thick-skinned manner and said to the ladies, “You guys may continue shopping. I’ll sit here to wait for you all. Come look for me here when you’re done, since the entrance of the mall is just here.”
The ladies disdained Yang Chen’s lazy act. Making stupid faces, they went their own ways as they shopped away without forcing Yang Chen to come along.
In Japan, communication had a really magical and tricky situation, even global phones couldn’t be used. One had to get local Japanese SIM cards before they could make a phone call. So Yang Chen asked them to walk around together to avoid failing to locate each other later on.
After the ladies left, The corner of Yang Chen’s eyes suddenly caught a beautiful figure…
It was a woman dressed in an elegant blue dress which had no embellishments at all. It was just a plain cotton dress, appealing fresh and natural. Her white and slim arms were exposed in the air together with her lotus-root-like legs. She wore a pair of flat white shoes. Although it was winter, she was still dressed up loosely as if it was summer.
The woman’s hair extended all the way to her hips. She was tall and graceful.
To ordinary people, this woman looked elegant and was dressed inappropriately in the weather. Although her back view was considered attractive, there was nothing else unique about her.
However, in Yang Chen’s eyes, her long hair that stretched to her hips naturally and her simple but stylish dressed in addition to her strangely matched white shoes, her figure brought a hint of sadness…
Suddenly, Yang Chen’s brain almost stopped working. Just like getting an electric shock, his body turned stiff and numb. He even forgot to breathe!
Yang Chen’s ears couldn’t listen to any noise from the outside world while his eyes didn’t blink for even once. All he could feel was his heart which was beating madly!
An explosion-like scream echoed from the bottom of his heart!
It’s her! It’s her?! Why is it her?!
Yang Chen violently stood up. He completely forgot that he was at a crowded market. His movement speed was so quick that most people’s eyes blurred. Astonished, they stared at Yang Chen and doubted if they had seen an illusion.
At that moment, Yang Chen moved from his original position to a corner more than twenty meters away.
The figure disappeared from exactly this corner.
However, when Yang Chen came to the corner, there was no trace of her anymore.
Yang Chen gulped as he widened his eyes. Nervously, he looked at his surroundings in an attempt to look for her figure, which was nowhere to be found…
“Was it an illusion… I haven’t felt this way in a while. Why is it back again…” Yang Chen murmured as he painfully shut his eyes. Sighing bitterly, he said in a mournful manner, “Yeah, how is it possible that she’s still in this world.”
Yang Chen slowly walked back to the place he came from. He looked just like a deflated ball, appearing particularly soft. Without any energy, his eyes silently waited absently.
Regarding the few people who witnessed Yang Chen’s movement speed earlier, none of them dared to come over to talk to him when they saw his sorrowful look. Most of them concluded that they saw it wrongly, since this kind of speed wasn’t something a human being should have been capable of.
In the large market, Yang Chen shut his eyes as he sat on the bench alone without moving at all. He looked just like a decaying sculpture, hidden away in the dark...