However, the F-continent friends’ eyes lit up with surprise—
“Wow! You can speak our language!”
Jiang Fuyue greeted everyone first, then politely reminded them to lower their voices.
Soon, the bus quieted down.
Huo Fanjin turned her head and stared blankly at Jiang Fuyue, “What… what were you saying?”
Lin Shumo: “Arabic.”
Although he couldn’t speak or understand it, he could recognize it.
Ling Xuan shook his head, “Not just Arabic. Besides Arabic, there should be one or two other languages from the Afro-Asiatic language family.”
Jiang Fuyue raised an eyebrow, somewhat surprised to see him recognize this.
Huo Fanjin looked confused, “What do you mean by the Afro-Asiatic language family?”
Ling Xuan: “Semito-Hamitic languages, fully called Semitic-Hamitic languages, also known as the Afro-Asiatic language family, is a major language family distributed in West Asia and North Africa. It includes 375 languages, such as Arabic, Hebrew, Hausa, and Amharic, with nearly 200 million speakers.”
Huo Fanjin smacked her lips: “Sorry, I’ve never heard of it.”
“So, what languages did our captain just speak?”
Ling Xuan spread his hands: “I could only recognize Arabic.”
“And Hebrew, Aramaic, Maltese, and Amharic,” Qin Libin adjusted his glasses, finally ending his phone call.
Fang Canyang: “Teacher Qin, do you speak these languages?”
Qin Libin coughed: “…No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“I’ve never eaten pork, but I’ve seen pigs run. These are Semitic languages, which retain strong ejective consonants like ‘q’. I researched them for a while before.”
So, even something that Qin Libin, recognized as the most linguistically gifted physicist at Q University, couldn’t speak, Jiang Fuyue could speak effortlessly?
At this moment, Fang Canyang had only a word in his heart: Impressive.
Huo Fanjin swallowed: “Captain, are there any languages you don’t know?”
Jiang Fuyue’s mouth twitched: “There are over 5,600 languages in the world, and there are many I don’t know.”
“Then the ones you just spoke…”
“Are just a few insignificant ones in Africa’s vast language system.”
“Huh? Africa has other language systems?”
“Of course, Africa has four language families. The Afro-Asiatic language family is just one of them. The others are the Khoisan language family, the Niger-Congo language family, and the Nilo-Saharan language family…”
The rest of the journey was spent listening to Jiang Fuyue’s informative talk.
“We’ve arrived!”
After getting off the bus, a few African friends warmly gave Jiang Fuyue big hugs.
Huo Fanjin tugged at Fang Canyang’s sleeve, “What are they saying?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ask Lin Shumo, you dummy.”
Fang Canyang mumbled an “Oh,” turned, and asked Lin Shumo.
Lin Shumo asked Qin Libin.
After a moment’s hesitation, Qin Libin said, “They seem to be expressing gratitude…”
Huo Fanjin: “Gratitude for what?” Did Jiang Fuyue help them somehow?
Qin Libin: “Thanking her for respecting African culture and inviting her to visit Africa.”
“Did our captain agree?”
“She said she’ll go if she has the time.”
“Oh.” Huo Fanjin nodded, looking enviously in that direction.
If only she could speak so many languages, too. She then began to wonder how Jiang Fuyue’s brain worked.
How could there be someone so smart in this world?
Did she eat a magic pill?
Knock!
At three o’clock in the afternoon, teams from various countries gathered, divided into ten groups with ten routes for the tour, each group having about 20 national teams, roughly a hundred people in total.
At first glance, it was a grand scene.
“Hey, friend, we meet again!” It was the African friends from earlier.
They were assigned to the same group again.
Huo Fanjin squeezed to the front, looking disappointed after seeing the grouping results.
Fang Canyang: “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing… why aren’t we grouped with the D-country team?”
“D-country is the host, and the groupings are arranged by them. They naturally prefer to interact with European and American teams. Look, our group mostly consists of Asian and African countries, with only one F-country team included.”
At three-thirty, the tour officially began.
Fang Canyang turned into a photo fanatic, holding up his phone the entire time, trying to capture every corner.
Lin Shumo and Ling Xuan weren’t very interested, having been here before, nothing seemed new to them.
Huo Fanjin was looking around, clearly not focused on the scenery but on finding someone.
Yan Zhenfeng and Qin Libin seemed more like real tourists, listening carefully to the explanations and taking turns taking photos of each other.
As for Jiang Fuyue…
Initially, she was dealing with a few urgent emails from Liu Jinzhong. Midway, her little brother called via video—
“Sis! So it’s really daytime there?” Her little brother looked surprised.
He was lying in bed with a bedside lamp on, casting a faint light, but it was still dark outside the window.
“Playing on your phone secretly in the middle of the night?” Jiang Fuyue raised an eyebrow.
“No! I got up to go to the bathroom and couldn’t fall back asleep.”
“Then… shall I give you an online tour of D-country’s sky garden and open-air museum?”
“Yes, yes!” Her little brother’s eyes sparkled with excitement, his cheeks flushed.
Jiang Fuyue then switched to the rear camera, put on her earphones, and started explaining as she walked.
“This is called a cornflower, the national flower of D-country, symbolizing the excellent qualities of the Germanic people. According to legend, Queen Louise of Prussia, the mother of Emperor Wilhelm I, had to leave Berlin during a civil war. While waiting on the roadside after their carriage broke down, she and her two children found blue cornflowers blooming by the roadside…”
Her voice was clear and calm, yet pleasantly captivating, like a summer breeze or autumn dew, refreshing and soothing.
Her little brother listened intently, occasionally smacking his lips with satisfaction.
Suddenly, the camera shook, the screen tumbled, and there was a clatter as it hit the ground.
“Sis?” Her little brother immediately became anxious, “What happened to you?”
Five seconds later, Jiang Fuyue’s voice came through: “It’s fine.”
She picked up the phone, “Today’s tour ends here, you should go to sleep.”
“Okay…” Although her little brother was disappointed, he obediently ended the call, “Come back soon, I miss you.”
Jiang Fuyue put away her phone and turned around to face a tall, blond boy with a burly build, her expression emotionless.
Edmond awkwardly rubbed his hands together. Um…
He just wanted to pat her on the shoulder to get her attention, but he ended up scaring her so much she dropped her phone.
“Sorry, I didn’t know you were on a call.” He shrugged, but the smile at the corner of his mouth didn’t look apologetic at all.
Jiang Fuyue moved to walk past him.
“Hey—wait a minute—” he chased after her, blocking her path.
Jiang Fuyue looked up, her gaze cold and dark.
Edmond felt as if he had been plunged into icy water, his limbs growing cold.
He thought, so she’s an ice-cold beauty.
“Why won’t you speak?”
Jiang Fuyue gave him a look that said, “You’re not worthy.”
Edmond rubbed his chin, smiled, then spoke in strangely accented Chinese: “Afraid I’ll recognize you’re Chinese?”
He had already found out that this girl was from the Chinese team and was said to be very strong.
Jiang Fuyue: “Move.” She spoke in Chinese.
Every word was clear and precise.
“Oh, you finally speak! Your pronunciation is so beautiful, your voice so clear. You are like the moon at night, cold but also beautiful…” The young man started what he thought was a handsome serenade.
It was as if he were reciting an English poem, his actions exaggerated and emotions overflowing.
Jiang Fuyue’s mouth twitched, “Do you need something?”
“Oh, beautiful princess, you interrupted my confession…”
“What do you want?” Her patience ran out, word by word.
Edmond stopped smiling and ended his so-called “confessional chant.”
“That day in the restaurant, did you do it on purpose?” he asked, “Saying random things to avoid talking to me.”
Jiang Fuyue: “What if I did? What if I didn’t?”
“If you did, then you were very rude; if you didn’t, give me an explanation.”
“Rude?” Jiang Fuyue smirked, “We have an old saying in China: ‘Treat others as they treat you.'”
“One pen only? Exchange city god*?” Edmond repeated in a strange accent, “What does that mean?”
* misheard it
“Figure it out yourself.” With that, she walked away.
“Hey!” Edmond shouted at her back, “You’re not lying to me again, are you?!”
Jiang Fuyue didn’t look back.
The boy continued, “I heard you’re good at physics, but are you better than me?! I will definitely win the gold medal—”
What responded to him was the girl’s disappearing figure around the corner.
Edmond suddenly felt stifled, not knowing there was a saying in Chinese—
It’s like punching a cotton ball.
“One pen only? Exchange city god?” He took out his phone and opened a translation app…
