Westbrook continued, "Besides, everyone's afraid of something. I'm afraid of heights, but I'm not afraid of snakes. So if I put a snake in front of you right now, what would you do?"
Wang Yi gave a bitter smile.
He wasn't afraid of mice, cockroaches, or even dogs. But he was afraid of snakes.
Even a little snake barely half a foot long could make him feel momentarily dazed.
Even if he knew it was nonvenomous and its fangs had been removed, so it couldn't hurt him, just seeing it made his scalp prickle.
The reason was that when Wang Yi was a mischievous boy, he once tried to reach into a bird's nest.
He'd used an iron hook to fish around, but instead of a bird, he hooked a snake, which nearly fell on him.
Ever since then, whenever Wang Yi saw a snake, he would feel dazed for a moment, get goosebumps, and feel his scalp prickle.
It was also then that he learned the saying "Once bitten by a snake, one fears a rope for ten years" was absolutely true.
That night, Wang Yi and his teammates slept at the hotel all day.
In the afternoon, Mitchell came to help Wang Yi wash his face, brush his teeth, and rinse his mouth. Then he cautiously asked, "Boss, several executives from major companies and a few local officials want to meet you. They'd like to have dinner with you tonight. What do you think? Should we go?"
Wang Yi rejected the idea outright. "No."
China's drinking-table culture had been prevalent for thousands of years. If you were anybody, you had countless social engagements to attend.
You sat at a banquet table with people you'd never met and exchanged pleasantries.
You knew what they wanted, and they knew what