Chapter 3689: Andy and His Sister

When Robert and Rachel Getty drove together to the restaurant, Ye Chen and Lin Wan'er also went to the Bay Area with Steve.

On the way, Ye Chen casually gave himself and Lin Wan'er two fake names; he called himself Andy Chen, and Lin Wan'er called herself Anna Chen, both fairly typical names for Chinese Americans, using English given names while retaining the pinyin of their Chinese surnames.

And Chen is a major surname among Chinese people; if one wanted to check for name duplicates, there would likely be tens of thousands or even more, making concealment even stronger.

Since the restaurant is a privately owned property of the Rothschild family, the screening of its clientele is extremely strict, fully adopting a membership-based consumption model, and all membership applications must be reviewed by the Rothschild family.

In other words, it's not that having money allows one to dine here, nor does having money allow one to obtain a membership here; rather, only those whom the Rothschild family favors can become members here.

The greatest benefit of this is the high controllability of the clientele, and it also allows leveraging the Rothschild family's influence and resources to gather a group of high-net-worth upper-class individuals together, enabling the sharing of networks and resources, which can allow guests here to achieve resource interoperability and spark more collaboration.

Besides this, there is another major advantage here: high privacy. What guests say and do here carries no risk of being leaked by the restaurant, and there is almost no risk of being leaked by fellow patrons; if someone says something inappropriate or does something inappropriate while dining at another restaurant with friends, they might be deliberately exposed by those friends, but here it is absolutely impossible, because if someone did that, it would be equivalent to trampling the Rothschild family's dignity underfoot.

After Robert and Rachel Getty arrived at the restaurant, they were immediately ushered by the restaurant manager to a private dining room on the top floor, which is not open to the outside and is the Rothschild family's private retreat; tonight, Steve is entertaining his grandson Robert here.

Robert is not unfamiliar with this place, but Rachel Getty is visiting for the first time; she finds everything intriguing, with a hidden sense of excitement and agitation.

In fact, even the Getty family finds it difficult to obtain membership in the Rothschild family's restaurant; the entire Getty family has only two members with membership: one is the family's patriarch, and the other is the family's designated heir; while Rachel Getty's father, in the Getty family, is not considered core, merely a relatively peripheral member, otherwise he would not have been permitted to marry a non-white wife.

However, recently, Rachel Getty's father has seen his status in the family rise significantly, mainly due to his daughter's accomplishments; although Robert has not yet formally introduced Rachel Getty to his parents, their relationship has already been made public at Stanford, and Rachel Getty's father has thus risen in status through his daughter's merit, becoming the family's current favorite; if Rachel Getty can become engaged or even marry Robert, her father's status will unquestionably rise to third in the family; if Robert's family is willing to provide the Getty family with certain resources, Rachel's father might even replace his brother and become the new family heir.

Heirs of noble and aristocratic families are like crown princes in feudal times; before the day they finally inherit the great mandate, everything remains subject to change.

The reason Rachel Getty became a scrivener is mainly because her mother and her maternal grandmother are both scriveners, which differs from most scrivener families, where both parents are typically scriveners by birth; this is done to ensure complete control of the scrivener household, eliminating the risk of internal leaks.

Although this approach is prudent, it also has a major drawback: it makes ethnic integration very difficult.

Like Ye Chen's maternal aunt and uncle, although they are also scriveners and have borne offspring for the An family, their purpose in integrating into the An family was not ethnic integration, but to plant spies and bombs within the An family; thus, they never risked passing on their scrivener identity to their own descendants; Ye Chen's cousins, although one parent is a scrivener and the other is a scrivener, remain unaware of all this.

Rachel Getty's maternal family, however, is different.

Their purpose in approaching Western white nobility is ethnic integration, so their children are all raised as the next generation of scriveners; Rachel Getty has been instilled with the scrivener identity by her mother since childhood, and her body also contains a special poison from the Breaking Qing Society; Rachel Getty grew up in the more open Western society and instinctively resists this constraint, but her mother has also told her that this is all a helpless measure, and even resistance would be meaningless; on the contrary, it might very well cause the elders of both parents' families to begin, for once identity is exposed, given the Breaking Qing Society's modus operandi, they would eradicate this lineage starting from her grandmother's generation, and to maximally protect their own secrets, the Getty family would also suffer annihilation.

Rachel Getty also knows her mother is not joking with her; although she hates the Breaking Qing Society and hates her scrivener fate, she also clearly understands in her heart that this is precisely the reason for her own birth; without the scrivener project, her parents could not have united, and she herself could not have been born.

This fate is much like those cases where older siblings contract leukemia, and parents, in order to save them, choose to give birth to younger siblings.

They hope the younger siblings' hematopoietic stem cells can save the older siblings' lives; this is the fate they have bestowed upon these younger siblings, and it is also the responsibility these younger siblings have borne since before birth.

Although it is indeed somewhat unfair to a certain extent, the vast majority of people can accept it.

Thus, Rachel Getty has gradually accepted this fate bound to her.

The current Rachel Getty, although she resents the Breaking Qing Society intensely, still hopes to fulfill the role of scrivener, as well as the family and the mission bestowed upon her by the Breaking Qing Society, for only in this way can she ensure the safety of her family and their future livelihood.

If she succeeds, it means sacrificing her own happiness to secure the safety of all her family members.

In the private room, Rachel Getty gazed at the luxurious surroundings with a dazed expression, while Robert beside her appeared somewhat anxious and tense, pacing back and forth in the room, still pondering Steve's true purpose in inviting him to dinner.

A few minutes later, the private room door was pushed open by a server, and Steve Rothschild, smiling, stepped in first, chuckling as he said to Robert: "Robert, the last time I saw you, you were still in middle school; now you've grown this tall."

Robert nervously and awkwardly replied: "Mr. Steve, you still look just as you did a few years ago."

Steve smiled and said: "Not bad, Robert; after attending university, you speak with more of an adult's demeanor."

Robert smiled slightly and cautiously asked: "By the way, Mr. Steve, why did you suddenly come to Stanford?"

Steve smiled and replied: "I came to see a friend, a young talent like yourself."

As he spoke, he turned to look toward the door, smiling and saying: "Andy, please come in; I'll introduce my great-grandson to you!"

Robert and Rachel were both greatly surprised as they looked toward the door; they hadn't expected Steve to bring a friend, and moreover, to intend to introduce his friend to Robert.

As they wondered who could possibly have such stature to warrant Steve's personal introduction, Ye Chen and Lin Wan'er entered the private room hand in hand.

Upon seeing Ye Chen, Robert stared in stunned silence, while Rachel, who usually conceals her emotions well, completely forgot to mask her astonishment.

It wasn't that the two recognized Ye Chen and Lin Wan'er, but rather that they never imagined someone whom Steve would personally introduce could be two pure East Asians.

If discussing ethnicity, East Asians in America naturally wield far less influence than the whites who dominate Western society, and Steve is nearly the pinnacle of Western white upper-class society, with even the actual influence of political figures falling far short of his; Robert and Rachel could not comprehend that even the richest man in Asia would be insignificant before Steve, and they wondered what background these two East Asians could possibly have.

At that moment, Steve looked at Ye Chen with respect and said: "Andy, this is my great-grandson Robert Rothschild, and his girlfriend."

Having said that, Steve turned to Rachel Getty, smiling and asking: "Miss, may I ask how you should be addressed?"

Rachel, somewhat nervous, replied: "Respected Mr. Rothschild, I am Rachel Getty, from Miami."

Steve raised his eyebrows in surprise, smiling and saying: "Getty? So you are from the Getty family?"

"Yes." Rachel lightly nodded, speaking with difficulty due to nervousness: "My father is David Getty, currently in charge of the Getty family's oil-related business."

Steve nodded with a smile and asked her: "What is Chris Getty to you?"

Rachel quickly replied: "He is my grandfather."

Steve said: "Ah, I see; over the past years, he has many times wanted to invite me to dinner, but always failed due to being busy; I never expected that today I would first dine with his granddaughter."

Steve spoke tactfully, but Rachel still understood his meaning: even her own grandfather, in his presence, carries no weight whatsoever, and she does not even have the qualification to dine with him; she truly is fortunate to be here today.

Thus, Rachel quickly smiled and said: "Mr. Rothschild, you are surely very busy in your daily life; being able to dine with you is my honor."

Steve smiled and said: "I actually rarely come to the West Coast; today I came only because of Andy."

Having said that, he turned to Robert and said: "Robert, Andy is my ageless friend; he wishes for his sister, namely this young and beautiful Anna, to study at Stanford, so I came to Stanford to meet your president, considering that Anna might possibly study at Stanford in the future, so I invited you and Miss Getty to dine together, to introduce you to each other, so that you may look after one another in the future."