The dawn light pierced the darkness, and the land woke. A magpie landed on the branch of a flowering magnolia tree by the window. It soothed its feathers, then faced the window and chirped, chirped, chirped.

“That damned magpie again! Does it have some sort of grudge against people who are sleeping in?” Silvia was on a large bed in the room. She grabbed whatever came to hand and flung it at the window.

Smack! A slap landed on Silvia’s buttocks.

Silvia opened her eyes and saw Annina glaring at her. She paused, then said in surprise, “What did you hit me for? Does that damned magpie concern you?”

Annina pointed at the bra under the window with a look of innocence on her face. “Well, you hit it if you want but use your own bra. Why did you tear mine off to throw at it?”

Silvia looked at the bra under the window, and at Annina’s exposed snowy peaks, and abruptly understood that the thing she had grabbed and thrown was Annina’s bra.

Only one person on this Earth could pull Annina’s bra off and not be slapped on the buttocks for it — Xia Lei.

Chirp, chirp chirp! Tweet… tweet…

The magpie cried more vigorously; it seemed that this bird had come to cause trouble.

Annina jumped out of bed in frustration and pushed the window open. Golden sunlight flooded over her, and her full, snowy peaks were like Mount Everest One and Mount Everest Two.

“Shoo! You damn bird! Dumb bird!” Annina shouted at the magpie in the magnolia tree.

The magpie flapped its wings and flew off. It seemed like its true motive had been to use its cries to lure the golden-haired beauty out, see her breasts, then fly away.

Annina shut the window, picked up the bra on the floor and angrily covered her snowy mountains with it.

Silvia got out of bed too. “Damn it. I drank too much last night and my head still hurts. Geeze, Xia Lei, why did he give us so much to drink?”

“You idiot. Couldn’t you tell? Those three women all like Xia Lei, especially that one surnamed Tang. She wants to be Mrs. Xia Lei. Xia Lei was with those three women, and us two too. Won’t he seduce those three too since he didn’t seduce us?”

“You’re the idiot. What is that logic? Those three women like him, so he came to seduce us? What does he gain from that? You think those three will sleep with him?” Silvia’s logic wasn’t all there either.

“Eastern women are too shy, and a majority of them regard themselves as saints so those three probably wouldn’t bed Xia Lei together. But they will, one by one.”

“Enough. What nonsense are we discussing? Are we going to waste our time on these silly things? We have to get to work. The accessory parts have arrived and the parts which should have been processed have been processed. We’ve got to assemble one of them and test the overall performance.” Silvia scrambled to find her trousers and clothing.

“Hey! That’s my underwear!”

“So whose are you wearing now? Oh my gawd, when did you put my underwear on?”

Only their god knew what was going on, and only their god knew how chaotic the lives of these two German women were.

Half an hour later, the two German women came to the armoured vehicles workshop. The workers had not got to work yet, but the two women heard some clinking from inside.

“Who’s in there?” asked Silvia in surprise.

“How would I know?” Annina shrugged.

A male voice came from the doorway of the workshop. “What are the two of you still standing there for? Come in and help.”

The two German women exchanged glances and smiled. This was Xia Lei’s voice.

They walked into the workshop and saw a big pile of high-precision parts, and a tank called Rising Thunder, one-third assembled.

Rising Thunder was the tank slash armoured vehicle they had designed with Xia Lei. One part of the parts were imported from Russia and Ukraine, and some parts were provided by domestic manufacturers. The core parts, though, were made by the Thunder Horse Group themselves, and processed by them too.

Once Rising Thunder was complete, the Thunder Horse Group would have its core for tanks and armoured vehicles. But that would still take them some time.

“Didn’t you sleep last night, Lei?” asked Annina in concern.

“Why didn’t you call us if you were going to work overnight? You’ll tire yourself out this way,” said Silvia.

“I’ll tire myself out if I did call you two,” said Xia Lei.

Annina was puzzled.

Silvia was puzzled.

Xia Lei laughed. “Okay, you two. Come help. I’ve processed all the parts which should be processed. You can test it out once it’s been assembled.”

“Aren’t you going to test it too?” asked Silvia.

“You aren’t going out to do something again, are you?” asked Annina.

“Yeah. I need to make a trip to the western province,” said Xia Lei.

“Where is the western province?”

“In the west of China, of course! That is a plateau area with lots of cattle.”

“Do they have steak?”

“They have bullwhips.”

“Haha, Xia Lei, you naughty man. Are you not satisfied with your size?”

“Is this some hint to us that you want intimacy?”

Xia Lei had made a joke which earned him a rebuttal from the two German women. He, on the other hand, was getting overwhelmed.

The two German women were taking off their clothes chatting with him. They treated him like air, and changed into their work clothes right in front of him, completely comfortable with him seeing their shameful parts.

But even as they joked around, the two German women seemed to change into different people as they entered their work mode. Their professional attitude and work ethics bore the brand of German efficiency.

Xia Lei was absorbed in his work too. He rarely did things personally these days and work like this brought back memories for him. His past experiences seemed distant to his current self, and these were precious memories.

It was now time to work. The workers of the workshops came in. A person who was not one of the workshop staff also came in — Tang Yuyan.

Tang Yuyan’s face was full of concern. “I went to look for you at your place but your father said you went to the company. You really are a busy man. We’re going to the western province soon and you still came to the workshop to work overtime. What if you tire yourself out? You think those women will care for you? No, there is only one woman who will care for you and show you concern…”

Before Tang Yuyan could finish, Annina, who had got to a certain level of listening comprehension, interrupted her. “Miss Tang, can’t you just say that you care about our Director Xia? You need to express that you love him more boldly.”

Tang Yuyan froze.

SIlvia continued and said in broken Chinese, “You need to be loud. Say that you want to fuck him.”

Tang Yuyan was at a loss for words.

Xia Lei chuckled awkwardly. “Uh, let’s go.” He pulled her away before she could speak.

Tang Yuyan looked back at the two women. “Work hard, then. Work overtime and I’ll get Xia Lei to give you a bonus later.”

The young lady of the Tang Sect was no pushover. She got hit twice by their comments, so she was sure to hit back, and harder.

“Who does she think she is? Xia Lei’s wife?”

“She’s a little biatch! She pissed me off. I’m going to give birth to Xia Lei’s golden-haired baby.”

“If the baby’s going to be mixed blood, then it’s not for certain that it would be blonde. It could also be black-haired,” said Silvia.

Annina looked at her close friend, and didn’t say anything for at least 30 seconds.

Tang Yuyan could not hear the two German women’s conversation, and it was a good thing too, otherwise a big fight would probably have broken out.

“Wait for me. I’ll go back and pack something,” said Xia Lei to Tang Yuyan when they got to the carpark.

“You don’t have to. I brought everything,” said Tang Yuyan with a smile.

“You brought mine too?”

Tang Yuyan pointed at a car parked in the car park.

Xia Lei looked where she pointed and had a bad feeling right away.

It was an imported Ford RV, and the top-of-the-line E450. One could save the money that would have gone to hotels when driving this to the western province, because this vehicle could solve this problem for them. There was no need to worry about its off-road capabilities, whether over grassland or the Gobi desert, it would be able to do the job.

But these concerns about the vehicle were not the real concern. The real concern was why they were using this. Were they going on a honeymoon in this vehicle, or on a mission?

“Come have a look with me.” Tang Yuyan pulled Xia Lei’s hand, and walked towards the Ford RV.

Xia Lei followed her into the RV and got a bad feeling again. This was a custom-made vehicle and it was extremely luxurious inside. It had a bedroom, living room, toilet, kitchen, and even a bathroom.

An RV like this would cost more than millions, but this was just crumbs to the Tang family.

“I’ll drive. You can go take a shower, then rest.” Tang Yuyan’s smile was warm, and caring.

Xia Lei was not moved by her smile. “I still have to take some sets of clothing with me, right?”

Tang Yuyan opened a closet disguised as a wall with a flourish. Inside hung several sets of men’s clothing — black suit, tan outdoor jacket and hiking pants, casual clothes for lounging around. He could wear anything he liked. Other than men's clothing, there were women’s clothing in the closet too. Formal clothing, outdoor clothing, casual clothing and several other styles. There were also bras and underwear and so on. He spotted an unopened lingerie box in the corner of the closet last, and the picture on the box was of a black G-string.

Tang Yuyan seemed to have sensed that Xia Lei had spotted something, and she closed the door of the closet. She said in embarrassment, “Do what you like. I’m going to drive. I’ll call for you to take over if I get tired.”

Xia Lei nodded. “Sure.” After a pause, he suddenly thought of something and asked, “Oh right, who is in charge of this mission? Are you going to be following my commands, or am I going to follow yours?”

Tang Yuyan rolled her eyes at Xia Lei and spoke quickly, “You follow my commands, of course. I’m chief and you’re just a consultant. Is this chief going to follow your commands?”

Xia Lei was speechless.

The most important question for this mission was ‘what type of terrorist were they going to go up against’, but he couldn’t be bothered to ask anymore.

Just let them go on and do their terrorist things.

This was probably just a trip that was decided on impulse.