"So this is the subway they mentioned in the news?" After stepping off her plane, the Nancy Empress went down beneath the airport.
Here she saw the subway of the stories.
"Yes. This is the airport express line, connecting the city center and the airport directly. People getting off planes can take the subway straight from here to the city center. Compared with taking the bus as before, it takes a quarter of the time. And it greatly eases the congestion on the roads above as well," the ambassador from the Nancy Empire's embassy said beside her, leading the Nancy Empress the way.
They walked into the subway's VIP car.
There were a few people here.
Seeing the Nancy Empress's party appear, they all looked over without thinking.
But only for a few glances.
For those who could ride in the VIP compartment were either rich or noble.
The price of the VIP compartment was thirty times that of a standard car.
So ordinary people would never buy a VIP ticket specially for these ten-odd minutes.
And in this period there were many members of royal houses and leaders of every country in the Fierce Dragon Kingdom.
Even if you went for a walk on the streets of the Fierce Dragon capital, you might run into several people surrounded by bodyguards;
such a person would be a member of the royal house of some continent.
Riding the subway,
feeling the subway run smoothly,
the Nancy Empress sat in the comfortable car.
"Can I go and look at a standard car?" the Nancy Empress suddenly spoke up.
"This…" The ambassador said with some difficulty, "On the airport express line there aren't many people in the standard cars just now. But once we enter the city, there'll be a lot of people. And it's just noon now; by then a crowd may pour into the cars."
Plainly the ambassador did not want to take this risk.
"Didn't you all say the Fierce Dragon Kingdom is very safe? Since it's so safe, there's no need for so many people to come with me. How about this. Have three bodyguards come with me to the standard car, along with you. And don't wear all that black; change into something more ordinary." The Nancy Empress looked at these bodyguards' all-black suits.
What she herself wore might look rather splendid and high-end at first glance, but in a crowd it would draw at most a second look.
In fact she was about the same as the other women sitting in the VIP compartment.
It was these men instead, in black sunglasses and all-black suits, with those expressions on their faces besides,
who could not possibly avoid drawing attention.
"That's settled." The Nancy Empress stood up and walked toward the passage connecting the VIP car and the standard car.
The bodyguard captain at once picked two of his most reliable subordinates, a man and a woman.
"Change!"
Besides the outfits on their backs, they naturally carried plain clothes too; every bodyguard kept them ready.
In under a minute, the three had changed out of their black suits
and put on plain clothes.
"Keep your weapons hidden. Don't let them show," the bodyguard captain reminded them.
On entering the Fierce Dragon Kingdom, they had all received firearms permits.
But they had also signed pledges.
Each person's sidearm was registered to that person; if anything happened, whether or not it was their own intent, it would be a great deal of trouble.
"Mm." The two bodyguards nodded.
The ambassador clutched his head in resignation.
But thinking of the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's public order, he could only follow along helplessly.
At the same time, he borrowed an ordinary outfit from the bodyguards and changed out of the suit he had specially prepared before setting out,
folding it carefully.
"Put this away safely for me. This suit is very expensive. It's a Fan Xilong,[1] mind!" The ambassador handed his suit to one of the bodyguards staying behind, with a special word of instruction.
As for this suit, he had pestered his wife for several days before she agreed to let him buy it and bring it home.
It had cost him half a month's salary.
The five walked to the passage between the VIP car and the standard car.
"Hello. We'd like to go into the standard car."
At the passage, staff in subway uniforms could be seen standing.
"Very well. If you want to come back later, you'll need to show your tickets," the subway staff member reminded them.
"Mm-hm."
The power door opened.
Opposite was a small compartment, with hidden lockers on both sides; walking on and turning a corner, the standard car could be seen.
A layout like this lessened people's curiosity about those coming from the VIP car.
There were still not many people in the standard car now.
Two-thirds of the seats were still empty.
The Nancy Empress swept her eyes around.
The floor was clean, the seats tidy, and the air carried a faint scent of flowers.
She found a seat in a corner and sat down.
The female bodyguard and the ambassador sat on either side of the Nancy Empress.
The other two male bodyguards held on to the handrails and stood in the aisle.
The Nancy Empress frowned at the two.
"With so many seats, you're just going to stand like that?"
The bodyguard captain said with a smile, "I just like standing."
Seeing this, the Nancy Empress said nothing more.
The Nancy Empress could now look carefully at everyone in the car.
Because it had set out from the airport,
most people here had bags of luggage large and small.
Listening to their talk,
the great majority were either technicians who had been posted abroad and were coming back, or technicians sent from factories elsewhere to learn.
The difference could be seen in the expressions on their faces.
The former looked relaxed and happy.
The latter looked somewhat nervous; their manner was rather awkward, they sat very upright, and every so often they checked their makeup and clothes,
as if terrified of embarrassing themselves here.
After the subway had passed several stations,
the car at last began gradually filling up, and the seats were all taken.
People began standing in the aisle.
That made the two standing bodyguards less conspicuous too.
The three bodyguards looked like ordinary passengers, but at this moment their nerves were all strung tight.
At this point, with the announcement of some school's station,
a crowd of primary-school pupils came in from both sides of the car.
These pupils wore the same school uniform; some held books, some held toys.
Laughter at once filled the whole car, much noisier than before.
But there was no shouting and brawling, and no running about in play either.
If anyone got a little too loud,
a pupil wearing a red armband on his sleeve would glare over, and the little rascal glared at would quiet down at once.
At this point the Nancy Empress noticed
that though most seats in the car were taken, some pink seats were still empty.
Only some of the elderly, or pregnant women and people with special needs, would sit in these seats.
On those pink seats was written: priority seating for the elderly, the infirm, women and children.
She had heard of this system before; on the buses of her Nancy Empire a trial of this system had been run too.
But she had heard it did not work very well.
But now it looked as if in the Fierce Dragon Kingdom, in the capital at least, this system was working very well indeed.
From this alone could be seen the unbelievable civility of the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's people.
Just then a pregnant woman came in; she saw the pink seat beside the female bodyguard and came over.
The three bodyguards frowned and moved, as if about to stop her.
But the Nancy Empress stopped them in time with a look.
The pregnant woman held the handrail beside her and sat down.
She happened to meet the Nancy Empress's eyes.
The pregnant woman smiled and nodded.
The Nancy Empress nodded back with a smile.
Two stops later,
the pregnant woman took a water bottle from her backpack and tried to twist it open, but perhaps for lack of strength she kept failing to open it.
Seeing this, the Nancy Empress stood up and took a step.
"Let me open it for you." The Nancy Empress held out her hand before the pregnant woman.
"Thanks, then." The pregnant woman did not stand on ceremony either, and handed the water bottle to the Nancy Empress.
This move made the hearts of all three bodyguards around her skip a beat.
Fortunately, everything afterward was quite normal.
Once the bottle was open, it was handed back to the pregnant woman.
It was no explosive of any kind.
It was only an ordinary water bottle; what was in it was not plain water, but had a medicinal smell, probably some kind of tonic.
The Nancy Empress glanced at the female bodyguard.
The female bodyguard had been with the Nancy Empress for over ten years, and understood the Empress's meaning at a glance.
She moved over one place and sat in the Nancy Empress's seat.
The Nancy Empress sat down beside the pregnant woman.
"How many months?"
"Eight months."
"Eight months, and still out on your own? Nobody from your family with you?"
"What's there to be with me for? It's not as if I'm missing an arm or a leg. Besides, my man has to work too; every day he takes off is a day's pay less."
The pregnant woman and the Nancy Empress fell to chatting.
From the chat she also learned that the pregnant woman had gone to the hospital by herself for a checkup and was about to go home.
"You're not from the Fierce Dragon Kingdom, are you?" The pregnant woman looked at the Nancy Empress with a cheerful grin.
The three bodyguards were on guard again.
"How could you tell?" the Nancy Empress asked with some curiosity.
"The air about you. You must be someone from the upper class of some other country. People like you naturally carry a kind of… air of being above others. Those few must be your subordinates or your bodyguards." The pregnant woman looked at the bodyguards.
These bodyguards looked at one another; they were professionals, and yet they had been found out so easily.
"Doesn't your Fierce Dragon Kingdom have an upper class?" the Nancy Empress asked, puzzled.
The pregnant woman explained, "We do too. But their air isn't the same as yours. Some of them are very arrogant too, but not like you, down to the bone, as if you were born with it. How to put it… it's as if you carry this bearing in your very bones. While they carry it at most in their eyes and their expressions. And the great majority of them, after work, are just like us ordinary people. The manager where I work: after work I once saw him in a tank top and flip-flops eating pig offal. Who'd have guessed he was a manager, earning a good deal more than us ordinary people?"
The Nancy Empress seemed to understand.
"Besides, hasn't our Fierce Dragon Kingdom just called some Dragon Star Alliance joint congress? I guessed you'd come to attend that congress. Tell me, have I guessed right!" The pregnant woman looked at the Nancy Empress curiously.
The Nancy Empress smiled and nodded.
"Then are you a country's president? Its prime minister? Or a king or queen? Or an imperial princess? Or a minister or some such? But you look under thirty; could you be a relative or one of the ladies accompanying someone?" The pregnant woman seemed full of curiosity and kept asking question after question.
The Nancy Empress said with a faint smile, "I'm the daughter of one of our country's diplomats."
"Oh! I knew it. So you're a young lady of good family. Here, let me treat you to something tasty." The pregnant woman mysteriously took from her bag a little box the size of a fist; inside, when she opened it, was a bun.
"This is a soup dumpling from Sanshui Street; it's absolutely delicious! You can only buy ten per person a day. To thank you for opening my bottle just now, I'm treating you to this one," the pregnant woman said with a cheerful grin.
Food!
The three bodyguards were at once on the alert.
"But isn't eating not allowed on the subway?" On the handrail right across from the Nancy Empress were written all sorts of prohibitions.
Some of them were rather comical,
such as no kissing between men, no doing yoga here, and so on.
"Just shield it a little with your hand. So long as the smell isn't strong and you don't let the soup leak out, it's fine. Like this." The pregnant woman put her hand inside her bag, pinched the soup dumpling between two fingers, and covered it with a half-closed fist.
She glanced around, and quick as lightning popped the soup dumpling into her mouth,
then chewed slowly.
"It's fine, just keep your movements small. Besides, I've had these sitting a while; the inside isn't hot. My mother-in-law says my due date is close now, so she won't let me eat out. Can't do this, can't do that. So I took the chance of this checkup to sneak out and buy a few. I can't finish them by myself anyway. Help me eat one." The pregnant woman winked.
Seeing this, the Nancy Empress did not stand on ceremony either.
Copying the pregnant woman, she began "sneaking a bite."
Watching their own Empress sneak food on the subway,
the three bodyguards without thinking blocked the view of the people around for their Empress.
They themselves had probably never imagined
that one day they, these top bodyguards of a country, would be running cover for their boss while she ate.
The Nancy Empress quietly finished the soup dumpling in her mouth.
Her eyes could not help lighting up.
"It really is good!"
"Didn't I tell you! Anything else I might not know. But when it comes to what's good to eat in the Fierce Dragon capital, nobody knows more than me." The pregnant woman raised her head proudly.
Both her eyes were shining.
The Nancy Empress gazed somewhat absently at the smile on this pregnant woman's face.
She found it hard to imagine seeing such a smile on a pregnant woman.
Of the pregnant women she had seen before, almost every one had been full of weariness during her pregnancy.
One year was enough to make such a woman look ten years older.
But this pregnant woman before her, apart from her rather big belly, had nothing wrong with her at all.
She had no anxiety whatsoever.
As for why,
in their earlier chat,
the Nancy Empress had learned some things as well.
First of all, the whole process of childbirth was free, and under the Fierce Dragon Kingdom's rules, companies also had to give maternity leave, and there were subsidies and such.
At the same time, every cost of a child from birth to adulthood was borne by the state.
All this greatly eased the pressure of having children.