Chapter 307

"How much?"

"A hundred thousand dollars!"

"Holy shit, that's a lot of money."

"Thought I'd have to pay up, but turns out I can get paid instead. That's way too generous."

"Damn, this is crazy, crazy, hurry up and sign up, sign up."

"666, Mr. Qin is mighty and generous."

"Mr. Qin only just finished his livestream yesterday, didn't expect today he'd already be drawing names for the next one, hahaha."

"I've already submitted my entry, please pick me."

"Why are there only two slots for domestic viewers? Way too few."

"It's all those overseas fans of Mr. Qin who started a petition. I went and looked—tens of millions of people, damn."

"……"

After Qin Yun posted this message in both Chinese and English on the internal and external networks, the entire internet went into an uproar.

"OMG, thanks Qin, you even gave three slots to foreigners."

"Unbelievable, so generous. The winners even get a hundred thousand dollars."

"Hope I get picked. Lord, you know I'm your faithful follower."

"No, I'm Qin's follower, so Qin you have to pick me. I'm willing to let you pick me!"

Not long after Qin Yun posted the message, he entered Garissa County. Security along the road began to increase, and people gradually started to appear in greater numbers.

According to the data, Garissa County has nearly one million people in total, and the urban area, namely Garissa Town, has roughly two hundred thousand.

Through the car window, one could see the small town had no high-rises, only low, squat bungalows. There were quite a few cars in town, but no luxury vehicles—eighty or ninety percent were all Japanese cars. Domestic cars existed too, but not many. Occasionally a few Great Wall or BYD models could be spotted.

Driving to the Tana Garden Hotel, Qin Yun checked in.

After giving the young man a small tip, the other party answered almost every question Qin Yun asked.

"Mr. Qin, you can head over anytime, just take one of our hotel's vehicles. If you go on your own, there's an additional charge of fifty dollars per person."

"Thanks, please arrange it for me. I plan to head over to Bour-Algy tomorrow morning at nine to look around."

"You got it, Mr. Qin. Tomorrow morning at nine, the car will be waiting at the entrance right on time."

Qin Yun thanked him again and went back to his room.

The hotel was much better than expected—cream-colored walls, dark wood furniture, tile floors, very clean.

The room was only about twenty square meters. Apart from the facilities looking a bit dated, everything else was quite decent.

This Tana Garden Hotel was roughly five kilometers from the reserve he wanted to visit. After all, the location mentioned in that SOS comment was in Bour-Algy, so he definitely had to go check it out.

Actually, the so-called reserve wasn't like those big parks back home.

This reserve was more of a relatively pristine environment. The main species inside was the endangered reticulated giraffe, along with gerenuk, zebras, wildebeest, crocodiles, and some waterbirds. The terrain was pretty much the same as what he'd seen along the way, and the trees were mostly acacia.

Opening his phone and tapping into the app, Qin Yun typed that English username into the search bar. After hitting search, no results came up.

Obviously, the owner of that account either hadn't seen it or didn't plan to sign up.

"Guess I'll just have to keep waiting." Qin Yun shook his head and gave Su Huan a call.

"Hello, did you land?" Su Huan said, then immediately took it back: "You haven't even boarded yet?"

Qin Yun was also a bit puzzled: "Yeah, I'm still in Kenya. Something came up and delayed me, I'll be back in a few days. Didn't you check my Weibo?"

"No, I just finished a team-building event. Haven't really touched my phone all day."

As she spoke, Su Huan opened Weibo, and was immediately shocked by the trending topic.

"A hundred thousand dollars, five slots. You've already got the next livestream planned that fast?"

Qin Yun laughed: "No, just locking in the people first so it's easier to arrange things later."

"Alright, handle it however you see fit. You'll be back in a few days?"

Qin Yun thought for a moment. He wasn't sure of the exact time himself, so he gave a vague answer: "About a week. I'll try to be back in Hangzhou before the end of the month."

"What's keeping you that long?" Su Huan was a little curious.

"Just a small thing. I'll tell you when I get back."

Su Huan didn't press further. The two exchanged a few sweet nothings and hung up.

The moment the call ended, Su Huan's expression turned serious. Based on her understanding of Qin Yun, whatever was keeping him stuck in Kenya—and that he didn't want to reveal the real reason for just yet—was probably no simple matter. It might even be fraught with danger.

But no matter how she thought it over, she couldn't figure out what kind of matter or danger could keep Qin Yun delayed for so long.

"You have to be careful, I'm still waiting for you."

Qin Yun pulled open the curtains and looked outside. Beyond the hotel's interior courtyard garden was a dusty main road, with tuk-tuks and old pickup trucks everywhere. On both sides of the street were little shops selling everything—groceries, hardware, restaurants, even phone stores.

Overall it looked pretty shabby, a typical small African town.

Looking further into the distance, to the northwest stood a dome in white and pale blue. That must be the local landmark—the mosque.

And this was Garissa's urban area, so one could imagine how rundown the rest of Garissa County was.

One could only say that rich places flourish in a hundred different ways, while poor places all look the same.

The most obvious tell is the roads. Whether any place is rich or poor, you can tell just by looking at the roads. Good roads, and it won't be poor. Bad roads, and no matter how rich, it's only rich to a limited degree.

It was now half past four in the afternoon. He left the unimportant things in the room, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and left the hotel again, planning to find somewhere to have dinner.

……

"Hassan, what are you doing?" Abdi patted Hassan, who had his head lowered.

Hassan didn't even look up, continuing to type something on his screen: "Qin posted a lottery. I'm signing up. If I get picked, I get a hundred-thousand-dollar reward right away. Most importantly, I get to livestream with Qin."

Abdi was startled: "A hundred thousand dollars? That Chinese guy you keep watching? He gives a hundred thousand dollars if you get picked?"

Hassan looked at him and grinned: "What do you think? Interested in signing up too? But you have to follow him first—his accounts on all four livestream platforms."

Abdi was tempted, but recalling what Hassan had said before, he gave up on the idea.

"Forget it, you said it yourself — tens of millions of people, how could I possibly win? Besides, there must be something shady going on behind the scenes."

Hassan offered no opinion either way: "Just one click, it doesn't take any effort."

Abdi said: "We might as well just kidnap him. He's that rich — if we grabbed him, we'd never have to worry about food and drink for the rest of our lives."

Hassan immediately looked at him as if he'd seen a ghost: "If Qin showed up in front of me, I'd be the first one to drop to my knees and beg for mercy — I'd never even dare think about resisting."

Abdi was speechless: "Big brother, we're professionals. At most he's just an outdoor livestreamer — all of that is scripted."

"Hahahaha." Not far off, Karim walked in. "Abdi, you're actually wrong about that one. This Qin is seriously terrifying. A single man out in the wild facing seven or eight spotted hyenas, and he slaughtered every one of them without taking a scratch. Put you or me in his place and even with a gun in hand we couldn't pull it off."

Hassan gave a thumbs-up: "Now that's Karim for you — knows his stuff."

Abdi shrugged: "If he dares show up here, one gun and I'll take care of him."

Hassan typed in the last character, gave it a once-over to confirm it was correct, then clicked submit.

Seeing the "submission successful" message appear on the page, he nodded in satisfaction.

He clapped his hands and said to Abdi: "I bet you couldn't last three seconds even with a gun. I'm off — going to check on our little lambs."

Watching Hassan's back as he left, Abdi said to Karim: "How much ransom money have we got so far?"

"Not much, only three hundred thousand US dollars." Karim sighed. "What was Farah thinking? How did he come up with this rotten idea of kidnapping Chinese people? The Chinese have helped us plenty, after all. If this causes problems between China and Kenya, wouldn't that be bad?"

"What the boss is thinking, who knows." Abdi didn't want to think about it any further. "Whatever he says to do, that's what we do."

Meanwhile, Qin Yun was in a barbecue restaurant eating grilled meat.

The barbecue here was bursting with flavor — nothing like what you get back home.

Made mainly from goat meat — lean, firm, with a milky-sweet gaminess, charred on the outside and tender inside, plenty of juice, not greasy at all.

Put simply, eating it tasted wilder, simpler, very hard-edged.

One bite of grilled meat, then one bite of cold salad — it felt absolutely fantastic.

"Qin!"

Just then, a voice full of pleasant surprise suddenly came from the doorway. Hearing someone call his name in this foreign land, Qin Yun didn't even register it for a moment.

He looked up, and once he made out the appearance of the person entering through the door, a delighted expression crossed his face.

"Emily!"