CH 43

The flight ticket back to China was for the next day. After Lin Zixi took a shower to wash off the cigarette smell from his body, he changed his clothes, put on a cap and sunglasses, and decided to go out for a walk and enjoy the local scenery.

Country L was adjacent to China. Their national land area was not large, but their situation was a bit complicated.

After all, this country’s special local product or their mainstay industry, so to speak, was narcotics in addition to nephrite.

Lin Zixi was still a bit distraught and was unwilling to bring his always-talkative, nagging assistant along, thinking that it was more prudent to stroll this city by himself.

He only went to the two most recommended tourist attractions on the travel guide and planned to return to the hotel, but he was recommended by the taxi driver, whose English was as bad as his, to the city's largest nephrite and jewels trading market.

Not to mention others, he had to buy some souvenirs for Sister Chen, Xiao Zhang, and President Xu at least….

With this mentality, Lin Zixi strolled around the trading market and bought a jade pendant costing around 100,000 for each of the three of them. Then he bought a ring for Gu Zecheng for 1.35 million.

In fact, Lin Zixi did not understand jade at all and had no good eye for jewels. He just saw an impressive and luxurious ‘town shop treasure’ that suited his dad very much, and then, driven by some mysterious force, he opened his mouth to ask the price, bargained, and paid money.

After swiping his card, he stuffed the certificate of the ring into his bag and put the ring box in the inner pocket of his coat. Suddenly remembering that stud earring, which his dad spent two million to win, gifted to him, and then took back, he could not help but lament that apart from the fact that love would lower one's IQ, it turned out that being prodigal, like Mercury retrograde, could also be hereditary.

Lin Zixi had put all his attention on buying the jade ring. Only when he was about to leave the trading market did he realize that a group of people had gathered around him at some point.

There were males and females, a total of eight people, all staring at him.

Lin Zixi was alarmed. He realized that he had revealed his wealth inadvertently and feared that he was about to invite disaster.

Given the level of chaos in country L, the trading market was probably very dangerous. Someone having evil thoughts at the sight of riches and wanting to rob him was a trivial matter. What if they kidnapped him and demanded ransom from his family?

Dangerous or not, Lin Zi felt like he was about to suffocate just imagining that moment when articles such as "A popular young actor suffered misfortune overseas, and the main culprit turned out to be..." and so on would flood Weibo and Moments to the extent that even Gu Zecheng would be able to see it.

He did his best to pretend to be calm and walked straight ahead in the direction of the two thinnest and weakest looking young girls in the group. With both hands in the pockets of his coat and his head held high, he passed between the two of them expressionlessly.

Fortunately, he actually wasn’t blocked by the other party.

Lin Zixi breathed a sigh of relief quietly. He continued to pretend that he had not noticed anything and walked towards the escalator calmly.

He was afraid of alerting the other party, so he did not dare to look back to see if the people behind him were following him. But at least he went all the way from the third floor to the first floor smoothly, and no one came to stop him.

The change occurred when he walked to the hall on the first floor.

The pair of young girls who had been silently following him suddenly shouted something in the local language. In an instant, almost everyone in the hall turned their heads to look at Lin Zixi.

Lin Zixi did not even think about it and immediately ran out of the building.

And behind him, more than 20 people had gathered and were chasing after him. On top of that, people constantly joined the chasing team, and several among them kept shouting some words repeatedly.

Seeing this situation, Lin Zixi almost believed that he had robbed someone’s town shop treasure instead of buying it.

He decided to risk life and limb and dashed out of the nephrite and jewels trading market with all his strength. When he reached the street, he looked around blankly. Seeing the people chasing him getting closer and closer, he gritted his teeth and was going to choose a random direction in this unfamiliar city to continue escaping.

At this moment, the back door of a black Alphard parked on the roadside suddenly opened. A burly man with tattoos all over his neck came out of the car, grabbed Lin Zixi, who was standing nearby, and pushed him into the car.

When the car started to drive after the back door was closed from the outside and then locked, Lin Zixi's heart froze.

While calculating whether he should give the kidnappers Chen Yunyun's phone number or his dad's to demand a ransom, he raised his eyes to size up the people who kidnapped him.

Contrary to what he had expected, only a smiling man, who was around thirty-year-old and dressed in a suit, sat in this spacious rear compartment with only one row of seats left after being refitted.

The man motioned him to sit on the seat next to him, and when he started talking, it was actually in standard Chinese, "Going out without a bodyguard and without disguising yourself…. You’re really courageous enough and not afraid of danger." 

This man’s words were a bit casual and amiable, but Lin Zixi was sure that they did not know each other—although there was something among this man’s appearance that made him feel familiar with, this handsome face was completely unfamiliar to him. 

Lin Zixi did not correct the other party by saying that he was wearing sunglasses and a cap but hesitantly asked instead, "Do you know me?"

The man smiled even happier, "Love in Midsummer that you starred in was a hit when it was aired on Channel 7 half a year ago. And now the theme song you sang can sometimes be heard on the street…. Is it strange that I recognize you as a popular star?"

Hearing the man's words, Lin Zixi finally remembered that Chen Yunyun seemed to have mentioned that the copyright of this idol drama was sold to country L. But he did not take it seriously because, firstly, the distribution of this drama had nothing to do with their company, and secondly, Stars Entertainment had no plan to open up the market in country L.

Putting it that way…. 

Lin Zixi, in disbelief, confirmed the conclusion he had just deduced with the man beside him, "How do you say my name in L Mandarin?"

The other party immediately said that one word frequently repeated by people who had chased him just now.

So, this was actually a sad story of foreign fans being too enthusiastic and scaring the hell out of a drama queen idol?

Except for breathing a sigh of relief, Lin Zixi did not know what he should say.

However, the intention of the man who brought him out of his fan mob was unclear, and Lin Zixi instinctively sensed a hint of blood and danger from the other party's seemingly gentle appearance, so he did not dare to completely relax.

After expressing his thanks politely, he said that the other party could drop him anywhere, and he would just take a taxi back to the hotel.

The man still smiled very amiably and replied in a teasing tone, "And then let you be chased again by our L country fans until you have to beat a hasty retreat?"

After he finished speaking, he paused and added, "Besides, we’ve arrived at our destination." 

Lin Zixi looked out of the car window pasted with one-way window film and was stunned to find that the car was parked outside the hotel where he was staying.

But he had not told the man beside him where he lived.

A big brawny man got down from the front passenger seat, opened the car door for him, and made a ‘please’ gesture.

Lin Zixi got out of the car suspiciously. Before the brawny man closed the car door, the man in the back seat, who was now making Lin Zixi's inner alarm sound frantically, said goodbye to him cheerfully, "Lin Zixi, I wish you a pleasant journey tomorrow. Until we meet again next time." 

To tell the truth, it would be better if the man did not express his good wishes.

This man’s good wishes made Lin Zixi not want to come to country L again in this life—the water was too deep, and he would drown if he was not careful.

Fortunately, nothing alarming happened until Lin Zixi and his assistant Xiao Zhang took the flight back to China the next day and landed in B City.

Lin Zixi finally breathed a sigh of relief as he walked across the covered bridge. He raised the scarf covering half of his face up again before pushing his carry-on suitcase and going through the immigration with Xiao Zhang.

However, young actor Lin, who was walking through the VIP channel, was stuck at customs.

After the customs staff member compared the photo on his passport with his real face, he did not let him pass but instead whispered a few words through a walkie-talkie.

Two customs officers soon came over. After saluting Lin Zixi, one said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Lin, please cooperate with our work and accept individual inspections and inquiries."

Lin Zixi was confused at first but suddenly remembered. He had been a little preoccupied because of his return to China, and he seemed to have forgotten to declare the few jade articles he bought to customs. Maybe it was because of this that the customs had been alerted.

He asked Assistant Zhang to go out first, while he himself was taken into a small room at the back.

He did not know if it was because he was a star, but the officers' attitude was unexpectedly very polite, and they prepared a bottle of mineral water for him before leaving.

Lin Zixi sat alone in the small gloomy room for nearly ten minutes before the door of this room was finally opened.

And the person who came in to ‘inspect and inquire’ him was none other than Gu Zecheng, the gold master daddy who was really provoked by his action of running away while he fell asleep.

TL’s note:

玉石 (yù shí) = precious stones, jade and stone, nephrite/nephrite jade 

玉 (yù) = jade/jadeite

You can read the difference between nephrite and jade here.

镇店之宝 (zhèn diàn zhī bǎo) = town shop treasure, means the most glorious item of a shop