Pickled long beans

Chapter 430 - 430 424 Dazzling for 27 Years


430: Chapter 424: Dazzling for 27 Years 430: Chapter 424: Dazzling for 27 Years “Young man, from your accent, it seems you’re from Xiangnan, right?”


“How come you’re all alone, showing up here in Hokkaido, Japan?”


“Did you come here on a group tour and get separated?


Or is there some other reason you’ve ended up hitching a ride with us?”


Many people’s gazes fell upon Chen Hai.


Sitting behind him, a couple who were obviously husband and wife—the woman, in particular, leaned in with a face full of curiosity and began to inquire with a smile.


“Indeed, I’m from Xiangnan province.


You can recognize my accent, so are you also from there?”


Chen Hai replied with a smile and a slight nod.


Then, he quickly made up an excuse, brushing it off, “I originally came here to Hokkaido to study!”


“Who knew?


After giving a lot of money to the study-abroad agency, the university they recommended for me was far away from the city, deep in the mountains here.”


“At the university, there were hardly any students, and they implemented some kind of closed-campus policy.”


“After a few months at that school, I couldn’t stand it anymore and sneaked out!”


It wasn’t that he had any issue with these older men and women; it was just that the real reason he was in this place was something that ordinary people could not know.


“Some study-abroad agencies back home just love to scam people.”


“You’re just unlucky, young man.


How could you trust them, believe their flattery?”


“Attending a university in our country is actually quite good; there’s really no need to run abroad.”


“Nowadays, there are many opportunities to make money back home.


Our boy, for instance, attended a vocational college.”


“When he first went to Shanghai to make his fortune, he really didn’t do very well.


But not long ago, he caught a break and sold vegetables for a few months…”


“Now he insists that his dad and I leave our empty plot of land at home to enjoy the good life with him.”


“We had hardly spent a few days in Shanghai when he saw us idling around in panic.


He spent tens of thousands to send us abroad to see the world!”



The auntie seemed quite talkative, and she rambled on for a good fifteen or twenty minutes.


Particularly when speaking of her own child, she was brimming with pride.


About some of the things she mentioned, Chen Hai actually had some trouble understanding.


“How long have I been in closed cultivation?


In this day and age, can selling vegetables really be so lucrative?”


Assailed with doubts, he could only hold them back for the time being.


The Yanbei Village, where his cousin Sun Jinzhong lived, mainly grew vegetables.


As far as Chen Hai understood, those vegetable farmers, when they carted out a load of produce and the market was bad, could only sell it for a few yuan.


Occasionally, if they couldn’t sell their vegetables, they would just dump them into the river on the way there.


But now, listening to this auntie speak of her son who made a fortune selling vegetables…


In Chen Hai’s heart, a strange feeling uncontrollably arose, as if by merely going into closed cultivation briefly, he had been abandoned by the era.


Without meaning to, his thoughts drifted to his parents and then to his girlfriend.


“I wonder, are they doing well?


What are things like now?” He sighed, and a surge of indescribable melancholy welled up inside him.


The auntie seemed to have tired of talking and finally stopped the conversation.


“May I ask, what year is it now?” After a moment of silence, Chen Hai finally spoke tentatively, asking the question.


Sealed inside the Dog Cave by the Dragon-breaking Stone, he first had to deal with the black qi, then devoured the gray qi, and after that, he made a concerted effort to attempt transcendence and Ascension to a Sage, consolidating an Undying Body…


Immersed in the world of cultivation, he had completely lost the concept of time.


At a rough guess, he only knew that he had been in closed cultivation for quite some time—this time, it seemed particularly long!


Perhaps, in his carelessness, ten or even twenty years had passed by.


It was for this reason, in front of this auntie, that he asked what year it was now!


“What year?


Young man, are you joking with me?”


“Here, take a look for yourself.


What’s today’s date?”


Rolling her eyes at him, the auntie took out her phone, opened the calendar app, and showed it to Chen Hai.


June 22, 2022…


Seeing the date displayed clearly on the phone, Chen Hai was stunned and fell silent!


When he had pursued Murakami Taro to the Great Snow Mountain in Hokkaido, it was only 1995.


But now, this period of closed cultivation had spanned a full twenty-seven years.


Since he had been left back a few times in elementary school, he should have been about twenty-three years old in 1995.


Calculating his real age, he was now over fifty, roughly on the same level as the older men and women on the bus.


This harsh reality was laid bare before Chen Hai.


For a while, he really didn’t know what to say!


The only thought on his mind now was an eagerness to get back home as soon as possible.


Time flies; in the blink of an eye, nearly thirty years had passed.


Times change, people come and go; the only thing he couldn’t let go of was his parents.


After all, according to the timeline, his father, Chen Zhonghua, was now over eighty, and even his mother, Jiang Meixian, was well into her seventies.


He fished out a few copper coins used for divination.


He had thought about using divination to check on the situation of his parents.


But after hesitating for a moment, he finally put the copper coins away.


The reason was simple: fear had crept into his heart.


In two or three decades, too much could happen, far too much.


He was afraid that divination would reveal some unpleasant news that he might find hard to accept at the moment.


Avoidance was not a solution to certain things.


Eventually, he would have to face what needed to be confronted.


Chen Hai was very aware of this, but he preferred to quickly return to his home country and face whatever awaited him directly rather than use divination to find out!


“Excuse me, may I sit here?”


The tour bus, which could seat over fifty people, had only about thirty passengers, so there were several vacant seats.


The old men and women on the bus conscientiously chose other seats after noticing the young man, Chen Hai, leaving the seat next to him empty.


After counting the tourists and calming the group, Kobashi Miku finally found a moment to herself.


As she walked past Chen Hai, she paused and stopped.


Pointing to the empty seat beside Chen Hai, she tentatively asked.


“I’m just hitching a ride; you are the guests on this bus, you have the freedom to sit wherever you like!”


Chen Hai nodded lightly in response.


The young lady in front of him had her eyes light up when she first saw him.


Now that she was actively moving closer to him, Chen Hai could guess what she was thinking!


Within every woman lies a natural adoration for the strong.


Chen Hai knew the extent of his own strength all too well.


If this young lady wanted to get close to him, it was just her nature, lusting after his body!


Was he that kind of casual person?


And did he have any interest in this kind of thing right now?


“My name is Kobashi Miku, may I have the honor of knowing your name?” she started up a conversation with Chen Hai as soon as she sat down.


“My last name is Chen, first name Hai,” considering it would be impolite to directly refuse someone in public, he hesitated for a moment before finally giving his name.


“Can I call you Brother Hai?


You mentioned earlier that you’re a student from Yanhuang Country?”


“There are several reputable universities here in Hokkaido, but there are even more illegitimate ones.”


“Those types of universities are just scams.


No one in Japan would attend them, so they have to work with various agencies to attract students from other countries.”


“Studying at one of those universities is just a waste of time.


It’s good that you left.”


“What’s next?


Are you planning to return to your country or looking for work here?”


Kobashi Miku was full of enthusiasm, and a sincere smile constantly graced her face as she spoke to Chen Hai.


The so-called search for work here was just a euphemism.


To put it bluntly, working here without legal documentation is essentially the same as working illegally.


Yanhuang Country is indeed the world’s second-largest economy now,


but for most people, working in Japan could yield much higher salaries than working at home.


The number of Yanhuang people who came to Japan as students and then stayed to work illegally was not small!


It was for this reason that Kobashi Miku had asked the question.


“Japan is just so and so to me.”


“After leaving, I will certainly return to my own country!”


Chen Hai responded without hesitation.


Upon hearing his reply, Kobashi Miku seemed noticeably disappointed.


After some idle conversation between the two of them,


the bus eventually arrived at the front of a hotel in Shimizu Town and came to a stop.


The travel group’s accommodation was at this hotel.


“Miss Kobashi, I have lost my documents.”


“Could you help me by booking a room under your travel agency’s name?”


“Of course, I will definitely pay for it myself!”


Chen Hai, just off the bus, suddenly remembered something and approached Kobashi Miku to ask for help.


His documents had always been kept in his storage pouch.


However, he knew without thinking that his passport from twenty or thirty years ago was definitely invalid by now.


Moreover, on his documents, his age was over fifty,


while now he looked like a young man in his early twenties.


Under these circumstances, renewing or even requesting a new passport and other documents would be a significant issue.


Chen Hai felt helpless about the situation.


If he hadn’t run out of options, he wouldn’t have asked Kobashi Miku for help.