Insufficient balance

  Faithful butler Schultz of England began to worry about the situation of his young master, from that dark night onwards, beautiful Miss Sleur had never left the guest room on the yacht, even the simplest serving of tea and water required her personal attention, all for the sake of that mysterious Asian man who was inexplicably injured by the yacht.

  Miss Schiller, who had just obtained her yacht driving license, had a bad omen for her night tour of Dunkirk Port: first, she collided with the yacht parked in the adjacent berth when leaving the port, then the propeller was entangled by a strange broken fishing net, and finally a shark suddenly jumped onto the front deck of the yacht from the dark sea. Miss Schiller, who was standing at the helm, was so frightened that she fell to the ground. Schultz, who had experienced World War II, pulled out his old Ruger pistol from under his arm without saying a word and fired wildly until the shark stopped moving. Only then did he discover that there was a nearly naked person next to the shark, holding a strange military knife stuck in the shark's back.

  The ship's doctor immediately examined Miss Selur and the strange man, and found that Miss Selur was only frightened and had no major problems. However, the nearly naked man had three broken ribs, his entire body was scratched all over by shark skin like a filet knife, and he also suffered from severe dehydration and malnutrition, almost indistinguishable from a dead person!

  According to Schultz's idea, this man should be handed over to the port police immediately. But the capricious Miss Sleur didn't know what was wrong and insisted on keeping this strange man by her side, serving him every day. Schultz shook his head and sighed secretly: damn French romantic plot!

  The lingering consciousness seemed to remind him that he was still wrestling with the shark, and as he slowly came to from the pain and exhaustion, the man's first thought was to counterattack with a knife, only to feel something hard and unyielding. Then there was more darkness. In his haze, it felt like someone was feeding him something, a strange taste that sometimes seemed like the jasmine tea from his hometown, its faint fragrance soothing his heart.

  More often, it was a pair of gentle hands stroking my sore back, and there was always a strange song echoing in my ears, not the Wu dialect I was used to, nor the teasing tones of my brothers from all over the country, was it English? Or French? It seemed to be mixed with some German in between, what song was it? What was it?

  There are also those lifelong careerists who are similar to themselves, some of whom have passed their 40s and others who are younger than themselves, but they no longer exist!

  The lifelong tenure system for military officers was abolished, Major General Zhu Xiang, who was in charge of the plan, was arrested, several other high-ranking officers were sentenced to life imprisonment, and all lifelong tenure holders were purged!

  The sky was filled with the shadows of blood and the gleam of knives, the rapid firing of machine guns, and the deafening explosions of hand grenades. One by one, colleagues who were unarmed fell to the ground. And then there were those eyes, the last thing he saw in front of him - despite being masked, he knew they had deliberately spared his life!

  Lying in a dirty little inn to recover from injuries, the arduous journey of sneaking across, the last jump from the dazzling searchlight on the ship, and sharks! ...... Sharks!!...... Sharks!!!

  The man who suddenly sat up made Miss Schurz pale again, and Schultz even pulled out the Ruger pistol that had been with him for a moment. It was like watching an oriental movie, Schurz looked at this almost dead man with incredible speed, pressed Schultz to the ground, quickly snatched the gun from Schultz's hand, and put it on the back of Schultz's head. Schurz shouted in horror: "No! Don't hurt Mr. Schultz!"

  After carefully observing the surroundings, the battered man slowly released Schultz, and the Ruger pistol that Schultz regarded as his life was crushed into pieces in his hand. Schultz rubbed his neck and stood up: "Chinese?"

  The man slowly sat down, the intense activity just now made his not yet fully healed ribcage ache like a drill. He picked up a bottle of fine brandy from the table and carefully poured half a cup: "How did you know?"

  Schultz smiled wryly and said, "Only Chinese kung fu can make me helpless like this. My instructor was the British Chief Inspector of the Shanghai Concession, who specially trained us after the war began. Many of our interrogation methods were learned from him in China. To be honest, some of them are not very decent, but they're quite effective! The pendant on your necklace looks like it's the Chinese goddess Guanyin, right?"

  The man raised the wine glass in his hand and drank it all at once: "So what about you? The surname is a standard German surname, the pistol is also a German Luger pistol, which should have some years but is well maintained. If I'm not mistaken, that British guy in Shanghai trained MI5 people back then? This is France, are you a spy?"

  "Should say it's a retired spy, retired after the war, now just a butler and bodyguard, a lousy bodyguard who gets pushed around by his master!"

  Miss Sorel, who had been trying to get a word in edgewise, was getting increasingly irritated at the man's disregard for her presence. After all, she was always the center of attention and the life of the party in Dunkirk's social circles. But this Chinese man seemed to be completely ignoring her. Had she perhaps made a fool of herself earlier? Sorel tried to maintain her poise: "Sir, might I ask your name? If there's anything we can help you with, we'd be happy to assist."

  The man raised his eyes and looked at Xun Le with a vague expression, saying: "I... I am called Gui Long!"