"So you're saying, 'LV' is a travel agency selling self-guided tour packages?" TinJau asked.
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"In terms of their function, it is quite similar," she said, "LV does provide members with the opportunity for a single trip."
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"Enough, enough, I admit you're a top salesperson. And you were able to tricked me to get in this taxi. But didn't I explain it clearly to you earlier? I really can't…." TinJau said impatiently.
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"Listen to me first, okay?" SiuPui interrupted.
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"Alright! Alright!"
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"You can say 'LV' is a travel agency, but we believe the nature of this organization is more like a 'Co-op'". SiuPui keep on saying "To put it simple, 'LV' is a nonprofit organization that helps members who are lack of ability or under insufficient conditions are able to leave behind the constraints of reality, and to fulfill their dream of travel around with backpack." SiuPui explained.
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"What? I... I don't get it." TinJau said.
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"Let’s say, if you truly desire to travel around with backpack but you are lack of funds, 'LV' can provide interest-free loans or even full sponsorships, it all depends on your financial status or pride, it's up to you to decide," SiuPui elaborated.
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"An organization that pays for others to travel around? I don't believe it," TinJau said. "There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, right?"
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"Of course, members who have received services from 'LV' need to pay a certain price. But that price is not money. Let me say it again, 'LV' is a nonprofit organization, and is not even responsible for its own profits and losses. The organization's operations now mainly rely on sponsors' donations," SiuPui clarified.
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"So... what is the 'price' you mentioned earlier?" TinJau asked.
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"The staff at the branch will explain it to you later. In short, the price will not exceed your ability."
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TinJau immediately thought of things like cults or transnational smuggling groups. Will it be like the doctor in "Faust," who has to sell his soul to the devil as the price?
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Damn! Am I still in the real world?
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"Now I have told you that, 'LV' is not a free lunch. Are you willing to believe in the existence of this organization?"
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"What if I do believe it? It is not because I’m short of money that make me not able to bum around. You’re barking up the wrong tree."
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"Then let me ask you, hypothetically, if you going to pick up your backpack and hit the road in three days, what difficulties would you need to overcome?"
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"The first thing need to consider is my work. What I need is an unpaid leave that lasts for half year, no, one year. Of course, it would be ideal to take a paid leave in the name of ‘Further education abroad’."
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SiuPui immediately took out her notebook and started jotting down notes. "I just visited your company. It seems to be quite large, right? Is it a listed company? That makes it easier. Can you give me the website of your company?"
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"Why are you writing it down?"
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"Because I can't remember that much." She dodged the question and asked, "Why else do you want or need?"
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"It would be better if this vacation can be kept off the record in the personnel file, or even better if I can really use in the guise of 'further education abroad,' so that this vacation can bring some benefits to my future. But I don't expect it to go that far."
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"Hmm. So... besides work?"
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"I never listen to my father's words anyway. Since moving out to live alone a few years ago, he could no longer control me anymore. But I do have a responsiility to support the family, and I'm willing to give a year's worth of household expenses from my savings for my mom. But things with girlfriends are more difficult to deal with. Not only about prepay a year's worth of household expenses from my saving for my mom, even if I don’t need to use my savings at all, simply stopping savings for a year will delay the timetable for getting married. In addition, I have invested some stocks, and need to update my trading instructions online every day. Because it is somewhat speculative, I can't go without my computer for a day. The phone is not convenient enough for me to grasp and analyze the market comprehensively.
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"It's not like you can't live without a computer for a day. It's that you can't afford to lose any money."
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"Isn't it the same thing?"
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"Tell me about your investment return rate over the last five years. Just give me the approximate data……Well, in the end, you seems didn’t made any money at all?"
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"If it wasn't for the stock market crash two years ago, I wouldn't have lost everything I had earned from the stocks over the past few years!"
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"Have you ever thought about leaving your money to professionals to invest for you?"
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"I think choosing funds is more difficult than choosing stocks."
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"Why not choose those internationally renowned ones?"
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"They wouldn't care about my little money. I heard that the minimum subscription amount for funds managed by people like Buffett or Soros is several hundred thousand dollars. How can I have so much money?
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"Buffett... that name seems familiar. If it were Buffett, would you have the confidence in handing over your money to him for investment?"
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"Of course! He is the 'God of Stocks'! If he will do investment for me, I even willing to use my intestines as collateral and give him all the borrowed money.
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"Well..." SiuPui suddenly looked up, staring at TinJau with great interest, "Why didn't you mention anything about feelings at all?"
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"Didn't I just say that?"
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"Have you ever noticed that when you mention your girlfriend, all you talk about is how to make money?"
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TinJau feel shook again."Because... because we have the same goal, which is to get married. And getting married requires a lot of money, we also need money for our future new home, and having children requires even more money."
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"Do you love her?"
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"I'm already planning to marry her, do I need to say more?"
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"Wouldn’t love be an obstacle for you to bumming around?"
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"If I had to choose between the two, I would definitely give up travel."
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"No one is asking you to choose between the two. Don't bind yourself consciously first.” SiuPui thought for a while and then asked, “If everything is ready, do you have the courage to ask your girlfriend to wait for a year?"
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"For traveling around aimlessly?"
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"To fulfill the little dream you had before saying goodbye to your youth, to remove a thorn that will be stuck in your heart forever."
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"...What if everything is ready?"
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"If everything is ready."
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"I don't know."
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"You still have time to consider. Here we are."
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The headquarters of 'LV' is an all-white three-story house. The house was located in the mid-level area and in the row of interconnected old buildings, with ordinary residences on both sides, as well as a convenience store and a trademark design company.
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In front of the convenience store was a bus stop, but the bus stop sign showed that only one bus would pass by here, and it also show that the final stop of the bus is in front of a certain university after another thirty-minute drive.
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The winding ramp is single lane only. The sound of the engine could still be heard long after the taxi left.
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TinJau noticed that the sign of the organization was just a palm-sized one hanging next to the porch. It was brown, wooden, deeply engraved with the letters 'LV'. The two letters were not overlapping or arranged with one higher and one lower. No one should be mistaken that this is the office of Louis Vuitton, right?
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He had never seen a travel agency so low-key. But after all, it is a 'travel agency' was just TinJau's guess.
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As soon as the heavy gate was pushed open, SiuPui shouted excitedly, her voice so loud that it made TinJau's ears slightly hurt. SiuPui dropped her backpack on the spot, jumped onto the reception counter which facing the door. She hugged and kissed the equally excited foreign girl who was standing at the reception and had already swept away all the things on the counter.
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"I never expected we would meet here! Why didn't you tell me that you were transferred?"
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"I had to be able to contact you first." The foreign girl spoke English with a heavy accent. "It's strange to see you here! Didn't you say you would never go back to your hometown?"
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"I had no choice. You know. Sigh... it's a long story..."
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They continued to ramble incessantly. TinJau was most afraid of this kind of pleasantries of the girls, his eardrums were unable to bear this kind of pressure. Besides, the English of SiuPui is extremely difficult to understand, her accent neither sounds like Chinese nor American.
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He turned around and found a sixty-inch widescreen plasma TV hanging on the white wall next to the door, which was very inconsistent with the simple and old atmosphere of the room.
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The screen displays a world map. It seemed to be a combination of satellite images. There were numerous flashing red dots on the map, each with a set or sets of four-digit numbers above them.
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The screen suddenly changed. A red dot located in South America suddenly disappeared, and a few seconds later, a red dot appeared in the city where TinJau was located.
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He suddenly takes it into his head to reach out and touch the red dot that suddenly appeared which marked with the number ‘0713’. It was indeed a touch screen, and the screen immediately zooms into the aerial view of the city.
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TinJau continued to click, tracking the exact location of '0713'. The magnifier reached its limit, and he saw the aerial view of this mid-level area on the screen. The house he was in is appearing as about the size of a fingertip and displayed in a glowing blue color. The '0713' red dot was inside the blue square of this house.
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TinJau rewinds the screen back to the original world map. He roughly counted and found more than a thousand red dots on the map. Could this be the distribution map of 'LV' offices around the world? Isn't this too exaggerated?
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With his head filled with questions, he turns around and was startled when he found SiuPui standing quietly behind him. "Dose 'LV' have a thousand branches worldwide?"
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"Not that many. The red dots represent members and membership card numbers. Don't get it wrong, this is not a global positioning system, it only a record of the location where the member last contacted with 'LV'. This records only for the safety of the members."
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"What about the '0713' red dot just now..."
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"That's my membership number. Bianca just checked me in." SiuPui handed the card in her hand to TinJau.
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The material and size of the card were no different from a regular credit card. The design is very minimalist. All white. Only two brown English letters, 'LV', were printed large on it.
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The card surface had embossed sets of numbers like a credit card, and the last four digits were '0713'. There was also a gold rectangular smart chip embedded on it.
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"Why does this card…look so familiar? I feel like I've seen it somewhere..."
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"It's not strange. There are a thousand cards issued globally, and they are not exclusive to the rich or privileged class, so it's very likely that you have friends who were card-carrying members at the time. Plus, although the official organization does not accept interviews, they do not prohibit the media reporting the rumors they obtained from other sources. You may have read reports about 'LV' in some leisure magazines and there even had travel novels based on 'LV' are sold in the market. However, most of them are written in Spanish or English, and a Chinese version may not be available yet."
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"This…… all of this turns out to be real?"
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"Very good. Keep your skepticism until all doubts are cleared," SiuPui said, "But let me state in advance that I am not an employee of 'LV', just an ordinary card-holder member. Even though there should be no problem with the membership transfer, I am not sure what 'LV' can actually do for you. I will hand over the personal information I just asked you to the administrative department of 'LV' and wait for them to complete the process. After that I will keep you inform the good news."
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TinJau was puzzled. Why didn’t he seem to understand the words of SiuPui at all? What process was she talking about? What exactly will 'LV' do for me? But he didn't feel any sense of crisis either. Because he had just told SiuPui some fantasy-like delusions, the actual information disclosed was only the company's official website, which was still public information.
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"Ok." He nodded with a silly smile.
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SiuPui took this as a clear approval. "Then I'm going over now. Let's have a good chat with Bianca. She just told me quietly that you are the most handsome Chinese man she has ever met."
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