Chapter 2

: I am not a Salted Fish
Translator: 
Kelaude 
 Editor: 
Kelaude
As he sat in the luxurious Rolls-Royce Phantom, Yan Liqiang gazed at the passing scenery outside with a strange expression. Neither the driver nor the beautiful secretary beside him spoke.
It was to be expected of a luxurious car.
For most of the drive, the cars on either sides of the road would keep their distance in a meticulous manner after noticing this car. As such, the driver didn’t even have the need to sound his horn. At the traffic lights, no cars dared to cut in. They were afraid of scratching the car as that would be a tragedy.
Even those who seek compensation from deliberate car crashes were intimidated by this car, that could easily be accounted by several million yuan, let alone average car owners.
As he reminisced about the times when he had been honked crazily by cars whilst on his electric scooter, Yan Liqiang reaffirmed one fact—being wealthy in this world was great!
Within twenty minutes, the Rolls-Royce had already left the lane a hundred feet behind and was about to enter the city’s highway…
Yan Liqiang was still waiting. He knew that woman would definitely call him.
As he sat within the silent vehicle, the singing voice of the Phoenix Legend abruptly surfaced within his head.

The boundless horizon is my yearning. Flowers blossom at the foot of the green mountain. What kind of rhythm is the most touching? What kind of singing is the most pleasant…?

As Yan Liqiang took out his Huawei phone, a blinking screen with an incoming phone call from ‘Wifey’ could be seen.
This ‘Wifey’ was naturally Lu Jiaying. Yan Liqiang had yet to even edit the contact details saved in his directory…
This call was completely within Yan Liqiang’s expectations.
He took a deep breath before handing his phone to the beautiful secretary beside him.
The beautiful secretary nodded as she accepted the phone that Yan Liqiang passed to her and pressed the hands-free button.
Lu Jiaying’s sobbing voice could be heard through the phone.
Liqiang, why did you deceive me? We’ve been together for the past few years. Am I not good enough for you? It’s my fault, I’m just an ordinary little woman….

The beautiful secretary glanced at Yan Liqiang. Yan Liqiang nodded his head and the female secretary began to speak in English.
Lu Jiaying was a graduate from a foreign language college and had been working in a small foreign trading company in the city over the past few years so understanding a little bit of English was not a problem to her.

How do you do, Miss Lu Jiaying? I am young master’s personal assistant, Claudia. I’m in charge of young master’s trivial matters. How may I help you…?

The sobbing on the other end of line immediately stopped. It seemed as though Lu Jiaying didn’t expect that the call would be picked up by this woman named Claudia.

Uhm… where’s Liqiang? I would like to speak to him…

Lu Jiaying stammered in English.
The beautiful female secretary answered in a deadpan voice.
You’ve wasted too much of young master’s time and he was extremely disappointed. He initially thought he had found his true love upon returning to his home country. However, it seemed like you weren’t the right one for him. So Miss Lu, please do not waste any more of our young master’s time. His time is very precious and shouldn’t be wasted by doing anything worthless. Should you feel that you’ve been hurt and require compensation, you may take this to the court. Our international lawyers will be more than happy to handle it at any time.


Please let me speak to Liqiang. It’s my fault… I…

When Claudia saw that Yan Liqiang had nodded, she hung up the call and returned the phone to him.
Yan Liqiang accepted the phone and immediately deleted Lu Jiaying’s contact details before turning his phone off. In the end, he leaned back in the seat weakly as his chest rose and fell with the most painful exhilaration.
The Rolls-Royce left the highway and directly headed into a street not far from the high-speed railway station before pulling over.
The high-speed railway station in the suburbs of New City had just been fixed the previous year. Other than being slightly more congested at the station, the surroundings were fairly quiet.

Please remember to look for me should you require this type of service in the future. Thank you, boss…
The blonde beauty beamed happily as she spoke in Chinese. Prior to leaving the car, she spontaneously leaned over and gave Yan Liqiang a peck on the cheek before taking off her glasses. She let down the hair that was styled in an up-do and let it drape over her shoulders. She opened the car door and retrieved a leather suitcase from the boot of the car. After putting on her jacket, she made her way towards the high-speed railway station.
The driver glanced at Yan Liqiang through the rearview mirror before starting the car again and rejoining the flow of traffic.

Not bad, little fella. You have a ruthless personality. You’ll definitely achieve great things in the future…
The driver dressed in the Armani suit who had been silent throughout the entire journey finally spoke for the first time, and he had even complimented him.
Yan Liqiang forced a smile, but didn’t speak.
…
After half an hour, the Rolls-Royce pulled over at an intersection of the Old City District. The roadsides in this area were filled with willows and the national highway was just up ahead. As he stood here, he was able to see the distant lights of the nearby university campuses.
The road here was very secluded; cars rarely passed by and this area wasn’t being monitored.
Yan Liqiang exited the car.
The driver dressed in the Armani suit exited along with him and replaced the front and back car plates on the Rolls-Royce with extraordinary speed before returning to the car. Within a blink of an eye, he was already at the national highway and had disappeared from Yan Liqiang’s line of sight.
Yan Liqiang’s lonely figure stood in a forlorn manner under the lights of the lamp post by the road, it was as though he was a petrified sculpture. He stood blankly for more than five minutes before fishing out a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his shirt and lit it up.
Under the dim light, a desolate figure emanating an aura of ruthlessness could be seen shrouded in smoke. A number of cyclists passing by were daunted by this scene. In fear of being robbed, they pedaled their bicycles as fast as possible.
The cigarette butts on the ground piled up one after another.
The event that had occurred on this day seemed as though it was a scene from a movie. That’s right. Everything was directed by Yan Liqiang himself.
He had already guessed that the reason why Lu Jiaying wanted to meet with him on this day was in order to break up with him. For the last two months, it had become increasingly difficult for him to reach Lu Jiaying on the phone. Even if he did, they would hang up after exchanging a few brief lines. Towards the end, Lu Jiaying had even came up with various excuses in order to avoid his calls and the couple barely met anymore. During that time, he already had a feeling that Lu Jiaying was hiding something. It was only until a few days ago when he was out to meet his client that he witnessed the sight of Lu Jiaying clinging onto the BMW man as they came out from the Hilton Hotel. It was only then that everything became clear to him.
After asking a friend who worked at the same company with Lu Jiaying, Yan Liqiang uncovered the truth. That BMW man was some bullsht director who had just joined Lu Jiaying’s company. He came from an impressive family and seemed to be worth a few millions dollars. As he drove his BMW on his first day to work, he noticed Lu Jiaying’s beauty and began to pursue her. However, Lu Jiaying quickly sunk into the man’s pursuit. The two of them hit it off and got together in a short period of time.
During a time where love was fickle, a person’s betrayal was sometimes as simple as this.
In the past, Yan Liqiang had never thought that Lu Jiaying was this kind of person. However, only after this had happened did he realize how young and how naive he was after all.
Yan Liqiang had already predicted what Lu Jiaying wanted to discuss with him during their meetup today.
Claudia, the foreign beauty who dressed up like the female secretary of Iron Man, was a foreign student that he had hired from Shanghai.
Claudia was British and was preparing to return to her country. She was only earning a mere few hundred yuan per day from working nightly in a bar. Thus. Yan Liqiang had paid her 4,000 yuan, which was more than what she would earn in a single week. After knowing the role that she had to play, Claudia happily accepted his offer.
The Rolls-Royce had been rented from Shanghai and the cross city service costed 15,000 yuan per day.
The car plate of the rented Rolls-Royce would expose him, hence Yan Liqiang personally gave the driver another 6,000 yuan and requested that he temporarily change the car plate.
There weren’t many Rolls-Royce in this city. Furthermore, their operation was carried out during the night. Replacing car plates would, at most, take a few hours. Under the temptation of Yan Liqiang’s money, the driver agreed to it.
He didn’t have that many lines either and had practiced them beforehand; these lines were short and had no flaws. The Armani suit he wore was his normal uniform.
After spending 20,000 yuan, Yan Liqiang finally sought revenge against his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend on this night, giving them an unforgettable memory which would last a lifetime.
20,000 yuan wasn’t a small amount to Yan Liqiang; it was equivalent to a few months of his wage in his current job.
Was it worth it?
To some, perhaps it wasn’t worth it. But to Yan Liqiang, it was very much worth it.
In ‘Shaolin Soccer’, Stephen Chow had once said,
If a man has no dreams, how different is he to a salted fish [1]?

After watching ‘Shaolin Soccer’, this quote revolved incessantly within his mind. In Yan Liqiang’s opinion, things such as dreams were too meaningless, indistinct and philosophical to an ordinary person like him. Bullshtting was an extremely practical thing and was greatly appreciated and approved by everyone.
Henceforth, the life motto which motivated him to strive in life was,
If a man doesn’t bullsht, how different is he to a salted fish?

Only when bullshtting is able to be performed in style and bring out a person’s manners and standards will the state and meaning of life surface.. It was similar to how Mr. Wang had talked about setting a small goal of a hundred million yuan in life first [2], or how Mr. Ma had said that he had never touched money, [3] and so on. It could be said that the history of human society’s development was a history of ever-changing patterns in bullshtting.
The lowest tier of bullshtting was showing off vulgarity, whereas the highest tier of bullshtting was a sacred rite. These were the levels of bullshtting.
The events that had occurred on this day were executed perfectly.
If Yan Liqiang hadn’t put on this facade today, the outcome would have been completely different. He would be no different than a salted fish. However, he wasn’t a salted fish, and thus put on facade. Based on the impact of this act, he gave it a score of 95.
After the ninth cigarette butt fell to the ground, Yan Liqiang crumpled the empty cigarette pack into a ball and fiercely hurled it onto the floor.

Fck…

His voice was deep and hoarse as he cursed. It sounded similar to the roar of an injured, wild wolf. With this single word, Yan Liqiang expelled all the resentment and emotions bottled up within his heart.
He let out another long sigh and felt the stifling emotions in his heart grow lighter. Yan Liqiang laughed wildly when he thought back to his staged act and his sweet revenge. It started off as a small smile, then escalated into a series of wild laughs. He laughed in solitary until his body convulsed under the streetlights. In the end, he teared up, just like a nutcase.