The Great Worm Lich

Along the hallway leading up to the hall, Zhang Lisheng came across two maids holding a large bouquet of bright wildflowers with water droplets on them. He inhaled the flowers’ fragrance deeply and chuckled soundlessly. As the maid greeted him, “Good afternoon, Sir,” he walked towards the sofa by the window and sat down. Casually, he picked up the tablet computer on the coffee table and turned it on, before tapping on the map icon on the screen.

The map unfolded and showed a satellite image of Shrimp World No. 2.

This map accounted for one-third of the area of Shrimp World No. 2, with the total area of the ocean plus the land of about 170 million square kilometers of which the land area accounted for 20% or 3,450 square kilometers.

As for the land area, other than a large irregular elliptical continents that occupied 70% of the area, the remaining 10 million square kilometers were composed of several hundreds of islands scattered in the ocean, in which Shrimp B1 Island was also one of them.

After staring at the full satellite map for a while, Zhang Lisheng tapped on Shrimp B1 Island located at the corner of the island archipelagoes. After enlarging the island’s image, he swiped his finger on the screen and drew a red line connecting Shrimp B1 Island and an island that was only about 10,000 square kilometers wide closest to it.

Immediately, the computer automatically identified the length of the red line

“The direct distance with the nearest island is about 3,000 kilometers away. The Shrimp B1 Island is located at the edge of the island chain of the Hellfire civilization. If we go by ship, it would take about several dozens, heck even hundreds, of days to reach there. Or maybe I can just catch a few fast-moving sea spiritual monsters for them to pull the wooden ships. Or maybe I can wait for Aruba to imitate and produce a large number of steel steamships first? Otherwise, going for a far expedition would be nothing but a joke…” The sun that was softened by the special anti-UV glass on the French casement window shone gently on Zhang Lisheng’s face. Absentmindedly, the young man mumbled and sat there unknowingly for two hours. Only when his phone rang did he finally snap back to reality.

“Junior Brother, are you ready? This is the only and last rehearsal of Stanford University’s Chinese Overseas Students Fellowship. We have even invited guests from Hong Kong and Taiwan to join this party for the first time so I want everything to be perfect!” After he picked up the call, a girl suddenly shouted loudly with no warning.

“Don’t worry, Senior Sister. With Torres here, you’ll be satisfied with the arrangement,” Zhang Lisheng replied with a smile.

“Is that so? Right now, Chuhe and I and a few more committee members from the student councils are already waiting outside your villa door. Open the door and let me see how satisfied I can be.”

“Oh, you’ve arrived?” Zhang Lisheng closed the map and looked at the time on the tablet peculiarly. “Hey it’s already two o’clock in the afternoon. The hell? I’ll open the door for you right away.”

The young man hung up and hurriedly stood up from the sofa to walk towards the villa’s big door. Before he left the living room, the two maids had already brought six to seven young Asian men and women to see him.

Zhang Lisheng waved at the guests and when he was about to greet them politely, a tall, fit, and beautiful short-haired girl had already beaten him to it and said with a sullen expression, “Junior Brother, your complexion is really getting uglier! You look like a drug addict! Even if you’re an overachiever, you need to learn to control yourself! You can’t just put aside your sleep and exhaust yourself completely!”

“Senior Sister, I’m not an overachiever! I lead quite a good work-life balance as well. Didn’t I have to go for viva voce recently? It’s because of this that I’ve exhausted myself a little…” Zhang Lisheng burst into a chuckle and casually answered.

“Viva voce? You’ve already done your viva voce for your Ph.D.? Why haven’t you told me before? is it necessary to carry out your viva voce so ahead than planned?” The girl was stunned and asked with her mouth gaping with astonishment.

“Well, there’s nothing much to tell about this right?” Zhang Lisheng shrugged. “In fact, part of the reason I carried out the viva voce earlier is because of you. Didn’t you help me contact Sichuan University and arrange for me to become a visiting scholar? I think having a doctoral degree would justify the visit more.”

“How did it go then? So does this mean that we can call you Dr. Zhang now?” a long-haired girl with an oval face and delicate facial features asked with a smile.

“Of course you can if you want, Senior Sister Chuhe,” Zhang Lisheng said with a shrug.

“Then it means you must have really obtained your Ph.D. already! Congratulations, Junior Brother Lisheng!” Ai Chuhe’s eyes turned wide right away. “You’ve graduated from your Ph.D. but I’m still in the senior year. Now, I kinda feel awkward calling you Junior Brother.”

Zhang Lisheng smiled noncommittally and turned his eyes back to the short-haired girl. ” Senior Sister Caiying, can you introduce the committee members from the student council to me?”

“Song Ziwu, Han Sheng… You’ve met them already right? So why do you have to pretend for me to introduce them?” Guo Caiying pointed her finger to the few young men behind and suddenly, her eyes brightened. “Junior Brother, I also plan to study biology as a graduate student after graduating from the university next year. After that, when you’ve gotten rid of the word ‘temporary’ and really, whichever biological laboratory for real, can you open up your back door and let me do my internship there?”

“You want to study biology as a graduate student?” Zhang Lisheng studied Guo Caiying from up to down and curled his lips. “Well of course I can, as long as you can endure hardship.”

“What kind of expression is that? Let me tell you, don’t look down on other people, okay, ‘Dr. Zhang’!” As Guo Caiying was speaking, she reached out her hand to pinch — well, it was more like a caress instead — Zhang Lisheng’s face.

After that, the girl seemed to have been surprised by her own sudden and automatic behavior. Immediately, she took back her hand and mumbled unreasonably, with her face turning completely red. “Why do you want to care what I’ll be studying anyway? Alright, alright! We’ve finally awakened your big capitalist’s ‘national soul’ to promise to bear the heavy responsibility of linking the young academic elites from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China so hurry up and bring us see how’s your preparations coming up now!”

“OK.” Zhang Lisheng smiled uncomfortably, pretending to turn to look at the other side as if nothing had happened. Sure enough, his butler was already standing upright beside him. “Torres, have you prepared lunch, ah hell, it’s already late now. I guess I mean tea time, already?”

“Yes, Doctor. Miss Guo, Miss Ai, and all the distinguished guests, please follow me.” The butler managed to change his way of addressing Zhang Lisheng in time and politely answered, before guiding everyone through the living room to the large balcony.

Even though it was the hottest time of the day now, by relying on the cool shade brought by the grape vines, along with the gentle caress of the uninterrupted mountain breeze and the cooling water vapor rising from the lake under the balcony, it felt very cooling, comfortable and relaxing on the balcony.

“It’s so beautiful here.” The environment was pleasant and the scenery was beautiful. The instant they went up to the balcony, a lively girl immediately ran to the wooden fence to look out into the distant mountains, before inhaling a deep breath and letting out a shout pleasantly, “I came to Stanford more than two years ago but I never knew that there’s actually such a beautiful mountain nearby. Wow, is that a lake under our feet? The water is so clear! And look, there’s even a wooden boat! It’s so pleasant living here…”

“Did you hear that, Junior Brother? Even our most discerning friend, Yishan, feels that it’s a pleasure living here in this beautiful villa. From now on, just relax yourself a little at least. You’re already Dr. Zhang now so what else do you want? Don’t work so hard!” Guo Caiying seized this opportunity to tease Zhang Lisheng with some slight truth in her words. “However, it’s really nice over here. Let me just compliment you once verbally.”

“I’m glad you’re satisfied,” Zhang Lisheng replied with a smile. “I recently plan to slow down the pace of my life to relax myself. I’ve already booked a plane ticket and will return to Western Sichuan two days later.

“But it’s going to be summer holiday soon.”

“That’s why I said I’m going to relax myself! After I’ve settled the procedures in Sichuan University, I can finally relax myself for a month or two.”

“Then what about that US girlfriend of yours? Don’t you have to accompany her during the holiday?” Guo Caiying became silent for a moment before asking with curled lips.

“She has her own life, and she plans to travel to the polar regions with her two good friends during the summer vacation.” The trip to China is full of uncertainty so Zhang Lisheng would certainly not bring Tina with him.

“Travel to the polar regions?” Guo Caiying’s eyes turned wide. “She looks like a Barbie so I didn’t expect her to actually dare to… Wait a minute, you said that you’re going back to Western Sichuan in two days? Then what about my student fellowship party?

“Of course it’ll be carried out as usual. I’ve told Torres and on that day, he’ll duplicate the set up according to today’s standards. Take a look at the dishes, wines, drinks and the environment, and see what else should be improved. You can talk to him right away.” Zhang Lisheng pointed at the butler not far away.

“You’re really unreliable! To think that you’re actually going away at the critical moment! I originally wanted to introduce you to those Taiwanese so I can show off a little about us Chinese!” Guo Caiying complained while she diligently looked at the environment around her, before walking one circle around the balcony. “Beautiful mountain scenery that is adjacent to a lake, moist fresh air, beautiful mountain flowers; classic range of Chateau Margaux wines, top ‘blueberry fruit’ champagne, Alaskan king crab, Australian lobster, and beef… Hmm everything is perfect. Well, except the food is too expensive! Our student union’s fund would never be able to afford this.”

“Can’t afford this?” Zhang Lisheng was stunned. “I didn’t say I want you guys to pay.”

“It’s still acceptable if we borrow your villa to throw a party without paying rent but we can’t just eat the food that you bought without paying!” Guo Caiying replied with an awkward expression.

Zhang Lisheng thought for a while before saying with a smile, “Just take it as me volunteering to contribute to the good networking between China, Hong Kong and Taiwan’s young academic elites. Can’t you do that?”

“I know that you don’t care about the money, but I can’t take you for granted just like that. I-I…” Guo Caiying stuttered. Suddenly, with a heroic spirit, she said, “This party is the first event that is held after I took on the chairman post of the Chinese Overseas Students Fellowship. If it’s expensive, so be it then! I’ll pay you in installments.”

“Ah, whatever, just do as you like,” Zhang Lisheng said helplessly.

“I don’t have any money right now so I’ll pay you the first payment when I go home during summer vacation. Remember, when you go back to Western Sichuan, don’t keep your line busy as you always do here in the US, did you hear me?”

“I can’t promise that, Senior Sister! The place in Western Sichuan that I want to go back may not necessarily receive any phone signal.” Zhang Lisheng was stunned for a while before flashing a peculiar smile on his face as he answered quietly.