Chapter 32: Drinking

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Chapter 32: Drinking

“Young man, I have all the liquor you want here, but what about the girls to drink with you?”

The old cowboy relaxed his guard, took another glass, and filled it. He poured half a glass for himself as well, raised it toward Zhou Zhihan, and drained it in one gulp.

Holding his bath towel with one hand to keep it from falling, Zhou Zhihan picked up the drink the old cowboy had poured with the other and downed it in one gulp. Then he took fifty dollars from his jacket pocket, placed it on the table, and casually set his empty glass on top of the money.

The old cowboy whistled. Then, lying sideways in his deck chair, he stretched out an arm and knocked on the door behind him.

The door opened.

On the sofas and beds inside, seven or eight women were lying, sitting, or sprawled about. Some were smoking, others were eating sunflower seeds, and all were gathered around a small black-and-white television. Among them was the girl whom Zhou Zhihan had frightened away.

“Ladies, someone wants to buy you drinks!” the old cowboy called back into the room.

The moment they heard that someone was buying, seven or eight pairs of eyes turned toward Zhou Zhihan in unison.

“Damn it!”

The words burst out of Zhou Zhihan in Mandarin. “That old bastard’s screwing me over again.”

The woman of twenty-seven or twenty-eight with the striking figure who had tidied Zhou Zhihan’s room was named Sarah Palin.

The other girl, the one he had frightened away, was named Gandy Dafu.

One woman and one girl returned to Zhou Zhihan’s room with him, carrying plenty of whisky, red wine, and beer. Zhou Zhihan was still clutching his bath towel.

They had agreed beforehand: the three of them would only drink and chat, behaving properly and keeping their distance.

Otherwise, they would not have come.

Who would come with you when you kept scratching and taking medicine, no matter how much money you offered?

The three of them had many ways of drinking. Some were Chinese, some American. It was all merely an excuse to drink.

Although this handsome man from the East was very attractive, neither Gandy Dafu nor Sarah Palin dared entertain the slightest thought about him.

He was sick.

And seriously so.

Zhou Zhihan only wanted to drink!

So he drank when he lost, and drank along with them when he won.

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At last, Gandy Dafu could not hold back any longer. “You’re already like that down there, and you’ve taken so much medicine. How dare you drink this much? Aren’t you afraid that—”

Zhou Zhihan drained another glass, his gaze growing unfocused. “I’m… like what?”

Gandy Dafu’s face, flushed from the alcohol, looked even more alluring. “There.” As she spoke, she extended her index finger and pointed toward his abdomen.

The two women giggled.

Although he knew they were drinking with him only for the money, drinking with women simply felt different.

The room swayed slightly before Zhou Zhihan’s eyes. He was determined to get drunk; this was entirely different from his contest with Ryunosuke Sakamoto.

He put on an expression of sudden realization. “Oh… that. The other day, I asked a beautiful tattoo artist to give me a tattoo!”

Zhou Zhihan spun out a complete lie. “I bled a little at the time. The wound has mostly healed over the past couple of days, but it’s a little itchy. Since this is a military installation, I’ve been taking anti-inflammatory medicine every day to prevent infection!”

Both women grew curious, waiting to hear what he had tattooed there.

But Zhou Zhihan’s eyelids had grown heavy. He drank the glass in front of him, gave each woman ten dollars, then took out another five dollars and handed it to Sarah Palin.

He told her to take the underwear and trousers from his bathroom, wash them clean, dry them beside the heater, and bring them back at seven the next morning. He needed to wear them.

After half dragging and half pushing the two women out, Zhou Zhihan shut the door and collapsed onto the bed, falling into a thunderous sleep.

The next morning,

Zhou Zhihan got up at 6:50, brushed his teeth, and washed his face.

A knock came from outside the door.

It was Sarah Palin, bringing the clean underwear and trousers.

Zhou Zhihan opened the door a crack.

Sarah Palin handed the clothes through and said, “There’s nothing on them.”

“There wasn’t anything on them to begin with! What else could there be?”

Zhou Zhihan took the clothes and closed the door.

After washing his face and getting dressed, he left the room. When he went to return the key, the old bastard was still there, as though he never needed to sleep.

After asking where the Overseas Chinese Association was, Zhou Zhihan stepped out of the inn. Behind him, the old cowboy called, “The ladies want to know what the hell you had tattooed there!”

“A plane!”

“Fuc…ks, why would you get a plane tattooed?”

“Because I’m a pilot, of course!”

Zhou Zhihan rode away, leaving the old cowboy standing there with a completely bewildered expression.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. In a place like this, there was no need to take anything too seriously.

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“F…uck!”

Only after a long while did the old cowboy come back to himself. He laughed and cursed.

That day, Zhou Zhihan first needed to find the Overseas Chinese Association and deliver the gold when the opportunity arose. But before that, he had to make a trip around the neighborhood near Miko Xiangshan’s home.

Miko Xiangshan’s body would soon be discovered. The leaking gas in the house would draw the attention of the neighbors on either side. It was also possible that they had discovered her body late the previous night. There was simply too much uncertainty, and he had no way to control it.

A little over ten minutes later, Zhou Zhihan cycled to Robinson Street.

Sure enough, even from a distance he could see a crowd gathered in front of the villa at Number 21 Robinson Street. Several police cars and ambulances flashed their warning lights, while police had cordoned off the area around the villa. Officers and medical personnel hurried in and out.

It was obvious that one of Miko Xiangshan’s neighbors had smelled the gas, gone to knock on the door, and discovered that she was dead.

Zhou Zhihan entered a coffee shop not far from Number 21. He ordered a cup of coffee and, while tipping the server, asked with a smile why there were so many police officers and people gathered nearby.

The server told him that the beautiful woman who lived in the villa at Number 21 had died of gas poisoning. An hour or two earlier, someone had smelled a strong odor of gas coming from the house and knocked on the door. When no one answered, they called the police. By the time the police and ambulance arrived, the woman inside had already been dead for quite some time. Apparently, her body had even stiffened.

After the server left, Zhou Zhihan leafed through that morning’s newspaper. Only when several medical workers in white coats carried a body covered by a white sheet out of Number 21, placed it in an ambulance, and drove away did he finish his coffee in a few quick gulps and leave the shop.

Zhou Zhihan cycled north along the roads toward the city center. There were not many cars on the streets of New York at that hour, and he rode his bicycle swiftly. After asking several more people for directions along the way, he finally reached Chinatown, in Lower Manhattan at the southern tip of New York City.

When he saw Chinatown in the distance, Zhou Zhihan felt a little excited. Before his journey through time, he had often seen Chinatown in newspapers and on television and had never thought much of it.

But now he was in a foreign country. Suddenly seeing so many Chinese faces and so many Chinese elements lining both sides of the street gave him, in an instant, the feeling of a wanderer returning home.

“Boss, one bowl of soy milk, two fried dough sticks, two baskets of soup dumplings—one filled with vegetables and one with meat.”

Zhou Zhihan stopped outside a soy-milk and steamed-bun shop and sat at a small table by the entrance. He spoke to the owner, who was busy greeting customers inside and out.

“Coming right up, young man! Soy milk and fried dough sticks, and one basket of vegetable buns and one of meat buns. The pickled vegetables are over there. Take whatever you like!”

The owner’s authentic Tianjin accent made Zhou Zhihan beam with delight.

It was the real thing!

After finishing breakfast, Zhou Zhihan called the owner over again and ordered two baskets of soup dumplings to take away. Then he rode forward along the street. In the distance, he saw a two-story Chinese-style building standing at a three-way intersection in Chinatown. Four large characters were written above the entrance: Overseas Chinese Association.

Zhou Zhihan stood quietly at a distance and watched. He did not need to go inside. It was enough simply to know where the association was. That night, he could slip the gold inside, leave a note saying it was a donation, and be done with it.

With his abilities, he could accomplish it without making a sound. If he delivered the gold openly, it would certainly arouse suspicion. After all, where would an overseas student have twenty pounds of gold?

Just as Zhou Zhihan was about to turn and leave, two familiar faces suddenly entered his line of sight.

End of Chapter