Chapter 137 International Express

It took quite some time to send those two boxes of bottles and jars. First of all, many of the orders were international, which was a headache. Secondly, packing those glass bottles was also a problem. You wouldn't feel at ease when packing them without half a pound of foam inside, after all, they were fragile items. The girl at the express delivery counter was taken aback when she saw such a large group of people coming to send international express mail all over the Eurasian continent. If she had a higher level of ideological awareness, she might have called the anti-terrorism department—fortunately, Hao Ren was quick-witted and explained in time that his group was an art studio, specializing in making handicrafts, and these were all handicrafts for sale abroad. The people at the express delivery company finally didn't ask any more questions. It was just that the labels on a few of the bottles hadn't been torn off, and the words "Yellow Peach," "Strawberry," "Taro," and "Wang Zhihe" on them were a bit puzzling...

Fortunately, they finally managed to muddle through. These days, as long as you say it's for art, you can basically hold ninety-nine percent of the situation.

Then a group of people rushed to the commercial district in the city center by car.

Beatrice hadn't been quiet since she got on the bus. The moment the car started, Hao Ren noticed that this girl almost made a move to draw her sword—it seemed wise to have sealed her sword at home in the first place. Hao Ren asked curiously, and only then did he learn that Beatrice had sensed "a violent and uncontrollable force rising beneath her feet" the moment the car started. She thought the car was going to explode, so she was ready to break out of the window...

From this incident alone, you can see the cultural differences between the two worlds. Although the alchemical technology of the Dream Plane is somewhat similar to Earth's technology, their use of energy is more direct and forceful. They are accustomed to using the power of magic to completely control energy. Although this leads to the low power of most of their alchemical equipment, it has high controllability. And Earth is a world belonging to boom-booms. Humans are good at mixing all kinds of dangerous high-energy things together to explode, and then using various indirect devices to control them: controlling them at a delicate, barely safe balance point. Thus, Beatrice, who came from the Dream Plane, was terrified of technological products on Earth. As a magic swordsman who had dealt with traps and ruins for many years and was sensitive to energy, she immediately discovered that the cylinders of "cars" are, in essence, controllable bombs... Their cylinders are constantly cycling between "detonating" and "not exploding."

Hao Ren couldn't explain what Earth engineers' safety indicators and cylinder safety components were, so he could only emphasize to Beatrice again and again that this car was safe, stable, and would not explode easily, even though the aura emitted by its cylinders did feel like a row of bombs in Beatrice's feeling...

After getting over her initial shock, Beatrice finally calmed down. She was amazed by the inventions of Earthlings (especially the adventurous parts of these creations). In her opinion, an "alchemical vehicle" that was propelled by constant explosions was simply incredible. In the Dream Plane, only those crazy alchemists who didn't want to die would study it, but on Earth, it had developed to such a widespread and safe level. She leaned against the car window, staring wide-eyed, curiously studying every scene that flashed by outside, asking a question every half a minute like a humanoid "100,000 Whys," such as why Earthlings hang clotheslines so high (actually power lines), why the trees on the roadside don't look healthy enough, why Earthlings build roads so wide, and why they have to run so far to buy something: she clearly lacked sufficient understanding of the population density and city size on Earth.

Finally, Beatrice commented on the highway billboards flashing outside the car window: "Is the security not very good here?"

Lily was surprised: "Why do you say that?"

"There are wanted posters everywhere, and they're posted so big," Beatrice said seriously. "I saw that two-thirds of the signs are for the same person. What kind of crime did he commit to be printed on three-meter-wide banners and hung on the side of the road..."

Just as everyone was stunned, Beatrice's mercenary thoughts started to run wild: "So if I chop him down, will I get a lot of reward money? Do you have mercenaries here?"

Hao Ren quickly extinguished Beatrice's thoughts: "Definitely not! Those things are advertisements, they're movie stars on them—if you stab one, you'll be sentenced to at least twenty years."

Beatrice was very surprised: "Isn't that string of strange symbols below the bounty?"

"...That's the order phone number."

Beatrice sat back down in disappointment: "It's too difficult for mercenaries to get by in this place, they can't even find a job."

There weren't many people on the bus. Besides the driver, there were only two or three passengers. At this time, the driver heard Hao Ren's lively conversation and asked curiously: "Is this girl a foreigner? Is this her first time in China? She looks very excited, give her a good introduction to our things here. I heard that many foreigners are still uninformed. Some Americans still think we wear queues... It's all the fault of those half-baked directors in Hollywood."

Hao Ren forced a smile and perfunctorily said: "Um, a student from Gangbodu Lachaville, Europe..."

"What are you talking about? Does it have anything to do with me?" Beatrice looked curiously at Hao Ren and the driver talking. "I can't understand Earth language, but you guys know all languages. I'm so envious—can I also get that blessing from the goddess you mentioned?"

Hao Ren wiped the cold sweat from his forehead: "Please don't add to the trouble, it's a blessing you don't know Chinese!"

Beatrice had been speaking in the language of the Dream Plane along the way, so Hao Ren could safely let her ask "100,000 Whys" in public. What would happen if this girl learned Earth language? With her wild and imaginative questions, if enthusiastic people heard them, they would either be taken to a mental hospital on the spot, or Hao Ren and his group would be taken to the police station on suspicion of abducting foreign women, and Beatrice would also have to be taken to a mental hospital...

Everyone finally got off the bus at the largest shopping plaza in the city. This was also the place where he had taken Hilda yesterday. Hao Ren was surprised to find that the anime exhibition here had not yet ended. It seemed to be a large-scale formal exhibition. The group of young people who looked like a night parade of a hundred ghosts still occupied two-thirds of the plaza, in the exhibition area marked out with yellow tape. Hao Ren craned his neck and looked across the plaza, confirming that the exhibition's main camp should be the stadium opposite—it was a pity that he didn't even have a ticket, so he had no chance to lead the group of unusual creatures behind him to join in the fun.

Beatrice looked at the scene in the plaza in surprise. The young people in strange costumes were very inconsistent with the Earth scenery she had seen along the way, but some of them inexplicably felt a bit like her hometown. She craned her neck and looked around, and suddenly raised her hand excitedly and搓 (cuo, rub) out a small fireball: "Gold coins above! That female knight is worth a fight, I want to spar with her once..."

Hao Ren was frightened when he saw this scene. With a conditioned reflex, he patted Beatrice's fireball and head: "Fight your ass! Her armor is made of plastic! It'll catch fire if you light it!"

"What is this all about?" Beatrice looked around blankly. Fortunately, Hao Ren reacted quickly just now, and the small fireball she搓 (cuo, rub) out was not noticed by anyone. "Some of them look like combat professionals."

"This is just for fun, do you understand the occasion for fun," Hao Ren was having a headache, because he found that Lily's eyes were also starting to shine, and it seemed that an invisible tail was already swinging behind her like a propeller. "Let's talk about it when we get back, let's do business first, okay? Otherwise, with Lily's personality, she won't come back until the sun goes down if she gets into the arena!"

Hao Ren persuaded Beatrice and Lily, who were eager to try, to be dragged into the shopping plaza next door. As soon as they entered, he didn't have to worry about the mercenary girl rushing into the middle of those "warriors worth fighting" outside to release a blade storm, because obviously shopping plazas like this had a greater impact on Beatrice.

"This place..." Beatrice looked blankly at the giant commercial complex in front of her (this was only a small part of what she could see). "Is it just used to sell things?"

"It's pretty big, right?" Hao Ren felt that only at this time could he appreciate the sense of pride of being an Earthling: humans are weaker in physique, have lower resistance, have shorter lifespans, and don't know magic compared to the superhumans of the Dream Plane, but the only thing that seems to be particularly powerful is that social development is almost out of control...

As a result, Beatrice curled her lips: "I don't feel anything about being big, it's just that there are too many people, I've never seen so many people."

Hao Ren: "..."

He realized that he had made a mistake, thinking that only Earthlings would build those large-scale spectacular buildings, but forgot that the civilization level of the Dream Plane is actually not too low, and a feudal, centralized, and theocratic world is actually more likely to have large-scale buildings that waste people and money. In addition, they have a small population, so various giant buildings are more likely to appear shocking—the Great Wall during Golden Week and the usual Great Wall are definitely two different concepts. Therefore, Beatrice was not amazed by how grand this place was. What she had been marveling at since she went out was that the things on Earth were really strange.

Hao Ren then understood a suggestion in the work manual: don't think that aliens are all bumpkins—when they see things on your home planet, they are not in awe, most of the time they just think the locals are very interesting.

This sentence is used to dispel some of the inspectors' sense of superiority, and Hao Ren is now beginning to understand its true meaning.