The richest man started taking advantage of loopholes after joining Alibaba.

When the plane landed, it was raining outside the window.

Lin Che unbuckled his seatbelt. The air conditioning in the cabin was still on, but a wave of humid heat had already seeped in through a crack.

The heat there was different from that in China; it was sticky, humid, and clung to the skin for ages.

The cabin announcement was first made in English, then switched to a language he didn't understand.

The syllables of that language were fast and rounded, as if they had been swirling in the mouth before rolling out.

He Wei sat next to him, putting her laptop into her bag, zipping it up smoothly in one go.

Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

She said in a low voice, "It's 4:20 pm local time, which is five hours behind China time. Remember to adjust your watch."

Lin Che hummed in response but didn't reply. He reached out and turned the watch on his wrist back.

He looked out the porthole; the rain had washed the tarmac until it shone, and the ground was covered with a layer of water.

The distant terminal building was shrouded in a hazy, gray mist, its outline appearing soft.

The covered bridge was slowly put back together after a long while.

As soon as the hatch opened, a wave of heat and the fishy smell of rain rushed in, even stronger than before.

The smell hit my face like a warm, damp cloth.

People of all skin colors were among the crowd queuing to disembark.

Someone was carrying a bulging woven bag, the opening of which was tied with several layers of hemp rope.

Some people were dressed in suits and carrying gleaming briefcases.

The voices rose and fell, but he couldn't understand a single word they uttered.

Lin Che adjusted his backpack onto his shoulder and moved forward with the group.

He Wei followed half a step behind him, her high heels clicking a few times on the metal seams of the boarding bridge.

She hadn't walked more than a few steps when she suddenly stopped, took out a pair of flat shoes from her bag, and put them on while holding onto the handrail.

She put the high heels she had taken off into a cloth shoe bag and stuffed them back into her purse.

"The road surface here may not be smooth."

She bent down to tie her shoelaces and casually explained, "I checked before I left home, and there are several sections of road under construction between the airport and the city."

Lin Che glanced at her but didn't say anything.

The arrival hall was crowded, and the air conditioning wasn't working properly.

Several large ceiling fans overhead spun slowly, unable to dispel the oppressive heat, but instead they seemed to permeate the body odor.

The queue twisted and turned several times, and the passageway blocked by ropes was crowded with people.

In front of them was a local couple with a child.

The child fell asleep on his mother's shoulder, his little hand clutching her collar tightly until it turned white.

The queue was moving very slowly; something was blocking the front of the line.

Some people craned their necks to look ahead, glanced at it, and then withdrew.

Taking advantage of the break, He Wei pulled out the authorization letter from the file bag and checked it again.

The red seal gleamed under the overhead light.

Lin Che stood still in the team, his gaze sweeping over the unfamiliar faces.

Some were wearing long robes, some wore small hats, and some had brightly colored cloths wrapped around their heads.

No matter how grand the scenes he had seen in China, he had never seen so many people he didn't recognize crammed together.

When it was Lin Che's turn, the staff behind the counter flipped through his passport and then looked up at him.

That gaze lingered on his face for a second.

"Business?"

The other person asked in English.

"Yes."

He Wei stepped forward and pushed the document over. "Mining exploration, authorization letter here, twelve months."

The staff member glanced down at the red stamp on the document, then looked back at the computer screen.

He tapped his fingers on the keyboard a few times, at a leisurely pace.

The sound of the stamp being put on the paper was muffled.

When the passport was handed back, Lin Che casually glanced at the entry stamp on that page.

The ink was a bit light, and the numbers in the date column were printed crookedly, diagonally pressing against the edge of the grid.

He didn't pay attention and put his passport into his inner pocket.

A crowd had gathered around the baggage carousel, the conveyor belt clattering as suitcases were ejected one by one from behind the curtain.

Lin Che's box didn't come out too late. He reached out and picked it up, and it landed with a dull thud.

He Wei had already dragged her small suitcase aside and was checking a message on her phone.

"The license plate number of the car picking me up has been sent."

She looked up and said, "People should wait at the exit."

The two pushed their luggage out.

The glass doors at the exit opened and closed, and people outside craned their necks to look inside, searching for the people they were supposed to pick up.

Someone was holding up a sign with their name on it, but the rain had soaked it and the writing had blurred.

As I walked out of the lobby, the people who were there to pick me up were already waiting.

He was a local middle-aged man with dark skin, wearing a crisply ironed white shirt and a plastic name tag pinned to his chest.

He spotted the folder with the company logo in He Wei's hand at a glance, immediately went up to her, extended a hand, and put on a smile.

"Mr. Lin? Welcome, welcome. You must be tired from your journey."

His Chinese was accented, and he spoke each word slowly and forcefully.

The way he spoke each word, so deliberately and deliberately, was as if he had rehearsed it in his mind many times beforehand, afraid of making a mistake.

Lin Che shook hands with him.

The other person's palms were thick and gripped firmly, the kind of firmness that comes from years of holding things.

"My name is Odinga, you can just call me Old Odinga."

As he released his grip, he said, "Leave things here to me; I've arranged everything—food, lodging, and transportation."

As he spoke, he stepped aside to make way for them, leading them toward the exit.

"The car is outside, and it's raining. Please drive carefully."

The parking lot had no roof, so the rain fell straight down, hitting the entire roof of the cars.

The sounds were dense and chaotic, making one's scalp tingle.

Old Ao pulled out an umbrella from somewhere, opened it, and held it over Lin Che's head.

One of his shoulders was exposed to the rain, and his white shirt quickly became soaked with dark water.

Lin Che moved aside, intending to push the umbrella back a little.

Old Ao smiled and waved his hand, then handed the umbrella back to him.

"It's alright, it's alright, I'm used to the sun."

Once in the car, the old car started the engine and turned the windshield wipers on full blast.

The adhesive strip was sweeping back and forth across the glass, but it still couldn't keep up.

The world outside the windshield was stretched into blurry vertical lines by the rain, and red and green lights blurred in the water streaks.

"The drive will take about forty minutes. We'll take you to your hotel in the city first."

Old Ao gripped the steering wheel and glanced at the back seat in the rearview mirror. "But it's prone to traffic jams at this time of day. Nairobi's traffic jams are notorious."

He finished speaking and then chuckled, as if he were talking about something he was quite proud of.

"In your country, no matter how many cars are on the road, you can still squeeze forward."

He turned the steering wheel slightly. "We can't do that here. If there's a traffic jam, everyone just turns off the engine and waits. If we get impatient, we get out and chat for a bit. We leave when the rain stops. Nobody rushes anyone."

He Wei listened, jotted something down in her notebook, and remained silent.

Sure enough, the car slowed down after driving a short distance, with a long line of cars squeezed in front and behind, their red taillights forming a line.

Lin Che didn't speak, he just looked out the car window.

Over the years, wherever he went, he always carried a pre-drawn plan in his mind, knowing exactly where to go next.

Once we got here, the picture suddenly stopped working.

The streets outside the window were unlike any city he had ever seen.

The road was lined with low shops, their signs brightly colored, red and yellow, and he didn't recognize most of the letters on them.

Someone was jogging along the roadside with a plastic sheet over their head, splashing water everywhere.

Some people just stood under the eaves, watching the rain, unhurried and unperturbed.

The way they stood there seemed like they were waiting for something, yet also like they weren't waiting for anything at all.

A woman carrying a basket, covered with a soaking wet cloth, squeezed through the gap between two vehicles.

Old Ao honked the horn once, then released it, the movement so natural, as if he did it every day.

"Is this Mr. Lin's first time in Africa?"

He looked over again in the rearview mirror.

"first."

"Then you'll have to get used to it gradually."

Old Ao turned his gaze back to the road, turning the steering wheel half a circle in his hands. "Doing things here is a bit different from back home."

Lin Che did not respond to that sentence.

He looked out the car window at the rain, and in the rain, Narobi looked gray and steamy.

This city didn't match any of the ones he remembered.