Super Zoo

When Su Lijun drove up in the big truck loaded with animals, he was all smiles. To an old hand like him, with years of social experience, his judgement was incredibly sharp, and he handled things with steady assurance. After setting his sights on the town mayor position in Sun Town, the first thing he did was get a clear grasp of the current situation in Sun Town: dealing with Sun Town would be tricky, but if he could win over just one person, then he would inevitably secure Sun Town. That person was Suming. He had spent most of the past few years abroad and at the borders, and hadn't heard much about Suming. After all, there were countless major news stories around the world each day, and the stories about Suming mostly amounted to tabloid fodder; even the most sensational ones only circulated for a few days at most. So it wasn't like what he told Suming, "I have often heard about you these past few years." Once he had decided to win over Suming, he immediately started to gather information about him. The excuse he gave that day about having a few friends from the city coming over for drinks and not being able to congratulate the Su Family on acquiring an impressive daughter-in-law was just an excuse. Friends from the city, that part was true. But they were his backers, the powerful people behind him. After reporting back, the Italian Mr. Antonio and several of his subordinates came straight to Maoxi County. They spent the entire afternoon studying Suming. The results of their scrutiny led Antonio and Su Lijun to a unanimous conclusion: they had to take a soft approach with Suming, to win him over. If necessary, they even had to bend the knee, and could not afford to be forceful. While Suming's business dealings were not small, in Antonio's eyes, it was nothing more than a small-time Eastern tycoon's fortune, certainly not comparable to the corporate group he belonged to. His corporate group was a transnational corporation with a long history, an old family business in Italy that originated from Sicily. It had subsidiaries in several European countries and a broad range of business operations. Just the Italian pharmaceutical branch where Antonio worked was worth far more than several billion Huaxia currency. But as large as Antonio's company was, its influence was limited to Europe, and its capabilities within the heartland of Huaxia were very weak, which is why they needed to cultivate agents like Su Lijun to represent them. A simple online search would reveal all kinds of news about Suming. Although these reports barely scratched the surface and probably didn't touch on the stuff behind the curtains, with their experienced eyes, Antonio and Su Lijun could readily deduce from the rapid rise of Suming and from each and every one of his dealings that this young man either had a shockingly strong background, formidable capabilities, or an astonishing streak of luck. There was also the possibility that this young man had it all: background, capabilities, and luck. Moreover, just those public titles he held were enough to crush people. These titles might not bring substantial benefits, but they guaranteed Suming's positive and proactive public image. Anyone wishing to deal with Suming had to do so openly. If they tried to play dirty and something happened to Suming, it would cause a significant stir, whether from the officials or the public. The most troublesome of all was the banner of 'Comrades of the Russian Army'. The group owned a football club in the Serie A, and in a home game last week, a group of football hooligans from Russia unexpectedly broke out into a fight at the stadium. The association couldn't punish the fans, but they could sanction the club, putting them in a very passive position. Russian football hooligans are like a swarm of locusts, wreaking havoc wherever they go. They even claimed that they wanted to stay in Italy for a year or so to discuss life and ideals with the Italian girls and if the Italian men objected, they could be made to taste the defeat of World War II again. At this point, if news were to emerge of an Italian businessman clashing with 'Comrades of the Russian Army', it was easy to imagine how those troublemakers would take advantage, who knows what kind of chaos they might stir up. When it came to Russian football hooligans, Antonio was exasperated. That bunch of Big White Bears were complete lunatics, with no respect for tradition, rude and brainless in their conduct, truly a disgrace and a blight on society! There was no helping it, considering that over half of the organization's members were retired soldiers. So in Huaxia, Suming was the real power on the ground! If it really came down to it and the situation got confrontational, Suming might just well find out all of Antonio's cards. Antonio had seen plenty of religious zealots, and he did not believe for a second that those thousands of Lure People who had gone to Russia would simply renounce their Divine Envoy because of the distance. If anything untoward should happen to Suming, even just a suggestive glance, each corporate office would face one human bomb after another! The thought made Mr. Antonio feel as if he'd swallowed a fly, utterly disgusted! What had happened? A time-honored enterprise, a multinational corporation, now seemed to be a disadvantaged group, like a flock of pitiful lambs, not daring to offend anyone... Mr. Antonio's instruction to Su Lijun was to try his best to please Suming, to flatter him, even at a high cost, having exercised his authority to divert a batch of "ornamental pets" originally slated for the family's Sicilian stronghold from Huaxia, all to curry favor with Suming. On the way to Sun Town, both Su Lijun and Mr. Antonio were very confident. First, the number of animals was small but the quality was extremely high, very rare in zoos around the world; in terms of value, they might even surpass pandas. For a protector of animals who started out with a zoo, this was like a starving gourmand seeing a delicious meal after ten and a half days of hunger; Moreover, these animals exploited a legal loophole, not under Huaxia's protected species, meaning to say, they were private property being gifted to Suming. To Suming, Sun Town wasn't of much significance, providing nothing more than some mountain goods and wild boar meat... stuff that could be purchased anywhere. To be frank, it was Suming who was selflessly helping Sun Town, and the young laborers from the town wouldn't be affected in the slightest by moving away when working for Suming. This was a clear-cut deal, abandoning Sun Town to gain a powerful ally's friendship and a host of valuable rare animals. So, from any perspective, Suming had no reason to refuse. The only thing that made Su Lijun somewhat nervous was that he had indeed drunk some alcohol before visiting Suming's home that day, and his gaze towards Suming's future wife was a bit improper at first glance. Su Lijun had a weakness, he was lecherous. For a man, being lecherous wasn't a problem, but Su Lijun didn't fancy women of the night; he had a predilection for cultured and sophisticated white-collar women. Coming from a poor background, he was scarcely educated and inherently a bit insecure. Having made a name for himself and earned some money over the years, and even picking up fluent Italian, he began to get ahead of himself, attempting to fill the void in his heart. Every time he had a woman from a major city—a university graduate with education and culture—underneath him, Su Lijun felt a vindictive pleasure. See? I may be uneducated, but I can still have my way with you cultured types! The higher a woman's background and education, the more thrilling it was for him. The first time he saw Nangong Yan, Su Lijun behaved slightly inappropriately due to being awestruck; she was the epitome of perfection in his eyes. He wondered if that minor slip had been caught by Suming. From their later conversation, Suming seemed not to mind. Therefore, he went there full of confidence. He had a life on his hands. Mixing in Huaxia was too dangerous. Once this deal was done, Mr. Antonio had promised to help him immigrate and officially join the Italian company. Unexpectedly, upon seeing the animals, Suming made a move that left him speechless.