"Brother, where are you from?" The skinny man, who had just suffered a silent loss, naturally brushed off the embarrassment and started to get chummy with Brian Brooks.

Brian Brooks casually mentioned a small village tucked away at the foot of a mountain.

Regardless of this man's character, during their ensuing conversation, Brian Brooks was struck by his breadth of knowledge. For example, he talked about how Hummers are toys for American soldiers, how wealthy city folks now play with recurve or compound bows at clubs, and how a wild boar weighing around 500 jin could easily fetch 4,000 yuan at a hunting ground. All of this left Brian Brooks amazed—this guy didn't just ramble on about mysterious feng shui or tomb raiding, he actually knew a thing or two about hunting, like how you shouldn't hunt black bears when the wind is at your back. It really made Brian Brooks see him in a new light. The man said he was from a village by the Heilongjiang River, and his name was David Warren. Hearing the word "tiger" in his name and looking at his physique, Brian Brooks couldn't help but want to laugh. Along the way, it was basically David Warren chattering on endlessly, while Brian Brooks just listened, occasionally chiming in to keep him going, letting him bask in his sense of accomplishment as he rambled on. From Harbin to Shanghai, David Warren pretty much spilled everything he had in his belly to Brian Brooks.

When they arrived in Shanghai and set foot on this land for the first time, Brian Brooks looked at the bustling train station crowd. He didn't feel any ambition to stand atop the city or conquer it. He simply told himself quietly: live well, work hard to make money, find a wife for Fugui, and bring his mother to live in this richest city in China.

David Warren shamelessly asked Brian Brooks for his address, then disappeared into the sea of people. Someone like him, in a massive city of nearly 30 million, was no different from a speck of dust—alive, no one noticed; dead, no one cared. Brian Brooks watched that particularly skinny figure, made even more so by malnutrition, and sighed with emotion.

Leaving the station meant squeezing onto a bus. The fellow countryman, moving nimbly and weaving through the crowd, was clearly experienced—he quickly managed to wedge half his body into the packed vehicle. Seeing Brian Brooks, who was taking the bus for the first time, standing below clutching his cloth bag and hesitating, he couldn't help but curse in a thick Northeastern accent: "You little punk, all that book learning's gone to your head. Shanghai's such a big place—if you get lost, you'll have to beg your way back home."

Brian Brooks gritted his teeth and forced his way into the crowd, finally managing to get on the bus. After paying, he stood on tiptoe in the crowd, clutching his cloth bag, and noticed that several nearby passengers were either baring their teeth at him or glaring coldly. At least Brian Brooks had twelve years of schooling—he was the most educated person in Zhangjia Village—so he knew that dressed as he was, pressed up against others, he couldn't expect any friendly faces. He tried to act nonchalant and look out the window at the scenery, but squeezed in the middle aisle, he couldn't see any of Shanghai's splendor. So he had to pull his gaze back and discreetly observe the other passengers. Aside from his fellow countryman, most were migrant workers like Brian Brooks himself. But right next to him were a few people dressed very much like city folks. On the bus, David Warren had said that in the eyes of Shanghainese, all outsiders were country bumpkins. At first, Brian Brooks, who had only ever spent three years at a shabby high school in a small town, couldn't really grasp what that meant. But hearing the sarcastic remarks and feeling the disdainful looks from these passengers, Brian Brooks started to get angry. He was, after all, a bit of a rascal—when facing a woman who treated him as an equal, like the one who drove the Beijing Jeep 212, he could be reserved, shy as a virgin, and carry a bit of a farmer's inferiority. But when confronted by people putting on airs, Brian Brooks's rebellious side would inevitably come out. So, whether it was the kids who called him a bastard when he was young, the whole Zhangjia Village trying to take advantage of his family, or the classmates who gave him a hard time in high school, Brian Brooks never cared if he got hurt in the process.

Just like now, Brian Brooks pulled out a big chunk of smoked meat from his cloth bag and started gnawing on it without a care in the world—no trace of gentlemanly manners, looking every bit like a wild man straight out of Shennongjia. Not just city folks—even true Northeasterners would marvel at how this guy dared to treat a public place like his own kang at home. Brian Brooks even deliberately shifted his body, as if trying to carve out a comfortable space for himself, which inevitably led to some physical contact with the surrounding passengers. Coincidentally, right behind him was a rather pretty girl. Her outfit wasn't exactly fashionable, but to everyone on the bus, she was a real stunner. Her face, while only moderately attractive by Shanghai's trendy standards, was more than made up for by her curvy figure. Most men over forty care far more about a woman's hips and chest than her face, so ever since she got on, even the bus driver kept sneaking glances at her, wishing he could plant his eyeballs right in her cleavage.