Chapter Forty-Five: The Dining Hall

  As the ma?tre d' led them through the crowded restaurant with obsequious bows, Guo Guoyong immediately noticed that all diners' heads fell on Linda's slender and charming figure.

  The stylish aspect of the restaurant is reflected in those wide crescent-shaped windows, like a large ship docked above the garden.

  Kuo Kuo-yung walked into this large dining hall and sat down at a table near the mirrored closet.

  These closets still retain the elegant style of the 17th century and are also very quiet. The walls are decorated with white and gold, making people feel extremely happy, and there is a red luxurious dining table, Roman Empire-style wall lamps, which make this place unique.

  They sat down and just as they picked up the elegantly printed menu in purple font, the waiter immediately stood by their side.

  Guo Guoyong turned to his companion, "What would you like to drink?"

  "I'd like a vodka." She knew Guo Guoyong liked vodka, so she ordered that and then carefully looked at the menu again.

  "A small bottle of vodka, chilled." Guo Guoyong instructed the waiter, then turned to Linda and lit a cigarette.

  "I don't know your name, how can I toast to your health?"

  "Venus," she said, "Venus-Linda."

  Kuo Kuo-yung looked at her inquiringly. "My name has nothing to do with the goddess of beauty. According to my parents, I was born in the evening when Venus shone brightly. You know, Venus is also called the gold star. Apparently they named me after that moment."

  She smiled. "Some people like this name, some don't. I'm just used to it."

  "I think this is a nice-sounding name," Guo Guoyong said, an idea suddenly sprouting in his mind.

  "May I borrow that name?" He explained the special Martini cocktail he had invented and was having trouble naming.

  "Venus," he said."It sounds so beautiful, this cocktail of mine will surely knock the whole world flat, may I use this name?"

  "As long as I can be the first to taste this wine," she replied. "It's an honor for it to be named after me."

  "When all this is over, win or lose, I'll have a drink with you," said Guo Guoyong. "Have you thought about what to eat for dinner? Order something expensive," he added when he saw her hesitant expression: "Otherwise it won't match that beautiful dress of yours."

  She smiled happily. "Well, it's also a pleasure to show off the style of a billionaire here, but it might cost you a lot. I want caviar, fried beef waist, apple pie. And some European strawberry with cream. It's really embarrassing to order so many things." She looked at him with a questioning smile.

  "It's only natural for the host to order dishes for his guests. Besides, what you ordered isn't exactly delicious cuisine, just nutritious and affordable, so there's no need to be too polite."

  "He turned to the ma?tre d' of the dining room. 'Bring us a few more slices of bread.'"

  "There's plenty of caviar," he explained to Venus, "but the bread they serve with it is usually not enough, so ask for more."

  "Good," his eyes returned to the menu, and he ordered the waiter: "I'll have caviar with the lady; but after the caviar I want a very small filet mignon, done rare, with a slice of ma?tre d'h?tel butter on it. And then a West Indian pear for dessert, with French dressing. You have all these things?"

  The restaurant manager bowed and nodded repeatedly.

  "Thank you for your patronage, sir and madam." He turned to the waiter who was pouring wine and repeated the names of the dishes they had just ordered.

  "Please order food with wine," said the sommelier, handing over a leather-bound wine list.

  "If you'd like," Bond said, "I'd be delighted to join you in a glass of champagne tonight. It's pleasant and it's fitting."

  "Good, I like champagne," she said.

  Kuo Kuo-yung pointed to the wine list with his finger and said to the bartender, "Is this Ting-erh wine?" "Yes, it's a high-quality red wine, sir." The bartender replied. "However, sir will find..." He pointed to the wine list with his pencil and said

  "The brand of Blank wine is unbeatable." Guo Guoyong smiled. "Then let's drink this kind of wine," he said.

  "This wine may not be a famous brand," he explained to his companion, "but it is indeed a superior champagne, and can be considered a rare treasure among wines." Suddenly, he found his own boastfulness extremely amusing. "Please forgive me,"

  He said, "I have a strange and wonderful excitement about eating and drinking today. This excitement is partly because I am a bachelor, but the main reason is that I like to be picky, like an old maid, nitpicking."

  "Whenever I carry out a mission, I usually dine alone. If I've put someone in trouble, then I eat with even more gusto."

  Venus smiled at him. "I appreciate your approach," she said. "I myself like to do things perfectly, in an orderly fashion. I think that's just my way of life. Am I sounding too bookish?" she added apologetically.

  A small bottle of vodka was placed in a bowl filled with crushed ice and brought to the table, Guo Guoyong poured the vodka into two cups.

  "Nowhere," he said, "I quite agree with your view. Well, here's to happiness tonight, Venus."

  "Good," the girl replied softly, raising her small wine cup and gazing straight into his eyes with a curious expression. "I hope everything goes smoothly tonight."

  Guo Guoyong seemed to feel that she was speaking with her shoulders rapidly shrugging. Then, she emotionally leaned towards herself.

  "There's something I need to tell you, it was brought up by Jin Qiang, he wanted to tell you in person but couldn't get away, so I'm passing it on for him. It's about that bomb incident, and it's really strange."

  Guo Guoyong glanced down at them four times, their conversation couldn't be overheard by anyone else, besides the caviar was still in the kitchen waiting to be heated up.

  "Tell me." His eyes showed an urgent expression.

  They caught the third Balkan on his way to Paris, who was driving a car and had taken two free riders as his own protection umbrella. When the car arrived at the roadblock, this guy was very disappointed to find that they were going to check his ID.

  He then pulled out a gun and shot one of the policemen on the motorcycle, but the roadblock personnel grabbed him. I don't know the details, but I do know that the police have taken him into custody and prevented his attempt to take his own life. They took him to the liaison point, dug out his words, I think using the usual old-fashioned interrogation method to get him to talk."

  "It's clear that they are members of a French syndicate, specializing in sabotage and murder. Our people have managed to extract other information from them: if they kill you, they will receive a $10,000 bounty; the leader who ordered this operation told them that if they carry out his orders without fail, they will never be caught."

  She took a sip of vodka and said, "The two camera boxes you see are very conspicuous in color so that they can be seen more clearly when used. The head told them that the blue box contains a powerful smoke bomb, while the red box contains a bomb. When one person throws out the red box, another person will press the button on the blue box to release the smoke screen, and then they can escape under the cover of the smoke screen. But in fact, the smoke bomb that allowed them to escape was fake, and both boxes contained very powerful explosives. The blue box and the red box were identical. They wanted to kill you and the two bomb-throwers without leaving any trace. For the third Balkan soldier, they had another way of silencing him.

  "Go on," Guo Guoyong seemed interested in the enemy's two-faced approach.

  "It was clear that these two Balkans thought this idea was quite good, but they decided not to take any risks out of caution. They thought it would be best to first press the smoke bomb switch and then throw the bomb at you under the cover of the smoke screen. What you saw was the assistant who threw the bomb pressing the fake smoke bomb button. Of course, both of them were blown up together."

  The third Balkan was waiting behind the restaurant to pick up his two companions, and when he saw what had happened, guessing that things had gone wrong, he tried to escape but was also caught.

  The police showed him the fragments of the unexploded red bomb and explained to him the plot of their mastermind, only then did he know that his two friends were killed in the blast, so he confessed some facts, I think he is still confessing now.

  But all this seems to have nothing directly to do with Lefevre; it was his bodyguard who assigned them the task and gave the order to act.

  She had just finished speaking, and the waiter came over with caviar, a large stack of bread, and several small dishes. The dishes contained finely chopped onions, scrambled eggs that were cooked until they were very dry, one dish containing white food, and another dish containing yellow food.

  They poured caviar onto their plates and ate in silence for a while.

  Guo Guoyong said after a while, "This is like lifting a stone to hit one's own foot for the enemy. Marquis must be very satisfied with that day's work, his five opponents all lost their effectiveness within 24 hours."

  He told her how the Mancinis had been duped.

  "By the way," he asked, "how did you get involved in this case? Which department are you from?"

  "I am one of Director Yao Shuiguang's personal secretaries," said Venus. "Because this plan was drafted by him, and considering your identity, he wanted to assign me to assist in this operation, but he said you don't like having a female as your assistant."

  She paused for a moment, seeing that Guo Guoyong was not reacting, and continued: "I accepted the task, met Jin Qiang in the number one city under heaven, and then came here with him. In Suolong, Jin Qiang found me several sets of decent clothes, saying it was your mother's idea."

  "This black velvet evening gown and that morning's shirt are all hers, otherwise how could I be on a par with these people."

  She waved her hand towards the cafeteria. "Although people in the office don't know what I do, they're all envious of me. All they know is that I'll be executing missions with agents holding black gold badges, and of course you're our hero, I'm honored."

  Guo Guoyong furrowed his brow, "My mother is really something else. Also, my special aspect is that I have the power to decide when to strike on my own. Of course, as an intelligence officer, following orders is my duty. Hey, how's the taste of caviar scrambled eggs with onions?"

  "These two things together are really delicious," she said, "I love today's dinner very much. I'm a bit embarrassed..." She stopped talking when she saw the indifference in his eyes.

  Kuo Kuo-yung saw that she was a bit embarrassed and helped her out by saying, "If it weren't for work, we wouldn't have come here to try these dishes either."