Although Huang Tian had become a chemistry professor at Wangdan University, academic dean Lin Jiting and science director Cai Jun had given him two days to settle in before starting his teaching and research work.
With money in hand, settling in was easy. Huang Tian took Liu Yuanying and the other five around the area near Wangdan University and soon rented a garden villa with a courtyard on New City Street.
The villa could house more than a dozen people and had every amenity, including flush toilets and piped gas. The monthly rent was fifty-one silver dollars, neither high nor low. In the concession, a garden villa like this could easily cost over a hundred.
Once they had rented the house, Huang Tian gave each of them some money and sent them out in groups of two or three to gather information on Shenghai's industries and on domestic and international affairs. He spent the time exploring Shenghai himself.
In the blink of an eye, two days passed.
The seven of them sat or stood in the villa's courtyard. The sun was setting, its soft orange glow draping the flowerbeds in a gauzy veil. A few streaks of deep purple appeared on the horizon. Night was near.
Du Xiaomai, the youngest, had brought out a little stool. She peeled an orange and ate it one small bite at a time. She had not been shy before becoming an emissary, but she was new to this world and barely knew her teammates, so she was naturally a little reserved. After swallowing a piece of orange, she said, "Sister Ou Ling, Sister Yuanying, and I visited several hospitals, clinics, textile factories, and girls' schools in Shenghai. We found that medicine here is terribly underdeveloped. They can't cure some diseases we consider commonplace. Well,