Chapter 85: Two butterflies stirring the monsoon
After their plane landed, they left the arrivals hall amid people of various races, most of them white, and spotted an elderly Chinese man holding an AFS sign-the name of the program. He examined the cards hanging on their chests, smiled, and said in English, "Welcome to the United States."
They followed the program team to a church, where exchange students from different countries gathered, then boarded a bus together for Exeter, about eighty kilometers from the airport.
On the bus, the teacher leading them introduced the area in English. "Here in New England's Granite State, Exeter is a mysterious town. There are secret clubs belonging to Ivy League universities, local Freemasonry Clubhouses established by America's founding fathers, and secret passages left by early governments scattered everywhere. Local elites form all sorts of private clubs and secret societies, behaving eccentrically and shrouding themselves in mystery. This has become a long-standing tradition in New England. There were even news reports recently calling for the local government to strictly regulate these secret societies because they've become so widespread. Once you reach the academy, you'll learn which activities the school doesn't want you participating in." Su Can felt as though he and Tang Wu had come on an overseas vacation where no one could tell them what to do.
Fortunately, despite the considerable differences in the accents of the people from various countries talking around him, his earlier efforts practicing spoken English with original English recordings had not gone to waste. After all, he had lived two lives. In his previous life, he had barely passed his university's internal Level Four English exam; with his learning from this life added to that, overcoming the spoken-language barrier was no problem.
Tang Wu, meanwhile, listened intently to their