Liu Shanmin said the expert was named Daman. He was thirty-three, right in his prime.
Li Long sighed. They were about the same age, yet the man was already an expert with a doctorate, while he was still just a farmer's son.
Liu Shanmin joked, "Doctorate or not, won't he end up working for you? Won't you be the one making money selling the machines he develops? Stop acting modest when you're getting such a good deal."
Li Long said, "If you're sure he's capable, I'll take him. Oh, does he speak Chinese?"
Liu Shanmin said, "No, but I've already thought that through. I've arranged for a young Russian woman, a university graduate named Kolpova, to go with him. She just graduated this year. She speaks Chinese and really yearns to go to our motherland. I'll sort out the paperwork for both of them and send them over as a package."
Li Long immediately asked, "Are you trying to make a couple out of them?"
Liu Shanmin denied it. "No, no, it's strictly a working relationship. Kolpova probably wouldn't be interested in Daman anyway. You probably wouldn't imagine it, but this girl is a genuine China enthusiast. She loves everything about our country and dreams of settling here."
"She isn't a spy, is she?" Li Long was a little on edge.
"Don't worry about that." Liu Shanmin laughed. "Think about what I do for a living. If there were any suspicion of that, I certainly wouldn't recommend her.
"Besides, she'll only be Daman's translator. Daman will just be researching agricultural machinery at your place. What secrets could he possibly leak?
"He's different from Ajinbek. Ajinbek is a top-level petrochemical expert. If someone got things from him, that would count as leaking secrets. Having him go teach the petrochemical enterprises over