America: A Prodigy of Stereotypes

"It's like being in a car accident and waking up to find the whole world has changed. That's how I felt back then," Li Qun said.

“Miss Gwen, you don’t need to worry about these things. Even if it were a modern person, I could handle it perfectly well,” Bernard said with a smile.

“Kyle, prepare afternoon tea for us at three o’clock. Gwen can’t stay for dinner, but afternoon tea is fine, right?” Harry said, turning to look at Gwen, who nodded to him.

……

At three o'clock in the afternoon, Kyle pushed the food cart to the guest room. A sleeping man was asleep on the large bed in the guest room, and the butler Bernard was holding a book of poems and quietly reading poems to the four children.

“Afternoon tea time.” Bernard gathered the poems together and helped Kyle set out the afternoon tea pastries and tea on the table.

"Scones and black tea," Kyle said briefly before pushing the food cart out of the guest room.

The freshly baked scones smell amazing, are about the same size as xiaolongbao (soup dumplings), and can be eaten in one bite.

"Watch me do it." Harry smiled, picked up a scones, cut them in half, and spread butter and jam in the middle.

On the large bed in the guest room, the mysterious man turned over, then sat up with a loud shout.

The man's first glance was at the somewhat familiar room decor, and his second glance revealed four large children sitting in a circle in the corner of the room, having afternoon tea.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Leopold,” Li Qun asked tentatively.

"Good afternoon... Hello, who are you? Why are you in my house?"

"Do you remember what happened before?" Li Qun asked.

"What happened before?" Leopold covered his head and began to recall.

Last night, a banquet was being held at his house, and he needed to choose a woman of his own age to be his bride at the banquet, or he would lose everything he had.

He spotted a stranger at the party and chased after him from his home, all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge, which was under construction. But he lost his footing and couldn't remember anything after that.

"Did you find me and send me back home?" asked Leopold III, Duke of Albany.

"Excuse me, sir, what is your name?" Harry asked.

“My name is Leopold Alex, Elijah Walker, Thomas Garnett, and Montebutton…”

"Stop, stop, that's enough, we understand. Let's call him Leo then."

“Leopold is too formal, Leo is shorter and sounds better,” Harry said with a smile.

"Okay, I don't mind if you call me Leo."

Leo carefully examined the people in the room. He didn't find Bernard's attire strange, but Harry, Peter, Lillian, and Gwen's clothing was completely unfamiliar to him.

“Mr. Leo, do you know where you are right now?” Peter asked.

“In my home,” Leo replied.

“Actually, it’s in my house,” Harry said.

"Really?"

Leo checked himself; his clothes were intact, and his coat was hanging on the hanger next to the bed.

He didn't remember having such a guest room in his house, and the furniture in the room looked like it had been replaced.

He put on his riding boots by the bed, got up and opened the guest room door, with Harry following him with a scones.

Leo frowned as he paced around the Osborne mansion, looking out the window at the scene that was no longer what he used to see.

"I must be dead," Leo whispered.

“You’re not dead, you’re alive and well, it’s just that it’s the year 2000 now,” Harry said, standing next to Leo.

“Sir, you are from 1876, right?” Bernard asked from the side.

“It was 1876,” Leo replied hesitantly.

"Did my home become like this in 2000?"

Leo strode quickly toward his room on the fifth floor, the room Harry was currently staying in.

“That’s my bedroom!” Harry shouted after the Duke.

“It’s also my bedroom,” Leo replied.

Leo stopped in front of Harry's bedroom and reached out to grip the gap in a wooden relief decoration on the wall.

“Mr. Leopold, what are you doing?” Li Qun asked, standing next to Leo.

Leo didn't answer. He forcefully pried open the wooden relief, revealing a drawer containing a small box covered in dust and cobwebs.

“Nothing has changed here,” Leo said with a smile.

"What is this?" Harry leaned closer, staring at Leo in shock.

“My secret space. I’ve hidden things here, things I like and things I don’t like,” Leo said, turning to Harry.

"How many more secret spaces like this are there in the house?" Harry asked Leo.

"Let me think about it..."

"How did you know me?" Leo's gaze swept across the faces of the group, finally settling on the older butler, Bernard.

“The answer is in this house,” Bernard said.

"When Harry's ancestors bought this mansion, they also preserved the items in the house, and your portrait still hangs in the hallway."

“Your handsome appearance has always been appreciated by others,” Bernard said with a smile.

Now, it's time to show a house owner from over a hundred years ago his mansion a century later.

“Is that the voice telegraph invented by Bell? I saw it at last year’s exhibition!” Leo said, looking at the landline phone on the cabinet next to the stairs.

“Telephones are so outdated. We prefer to use smartphones now.” Harry pulled out his smartphone and showed it to Leo.

“It’s like a mirror.” Leo carefully examined the phone Harry handed him.

“Aren’t we related? As far as I know, I have a bunch of relatives who are eyeing my family’s wealth. If anyone gets my house, it can only be them.” Leo carefully examined the equally handsome and charming Harry Osborne.

“I think our chins look a bit alike. I’ll ask my dad,” Harry said to Duke Leo, who had a face resembling Hugh Jackman.

“Peter, Lyon, do you think my dad can accept that our family suddenly has a living ancestor?” Harry asked the two behind him in a low voice.

“I think we should arrange for him to get a few vaccinations now. The modern microbial environment is somewhat dangerous for people in the 19th century,” Li Qun suggested.

"No way?"

“It could also unleash a plague in New York with a nineteenth-century virus,” Gwen said grimly from the side.

Chapter 28 This man comes from the past

"I don't quite understand what you mean. What do those words mean?"

"What could possibly threaten my life, or would I endanger yours?"

After waking up from his coma, Leo remained very calm. Even after learning that he had arrived in a world more than a hundred years in the future, he maintained his noble demeanor and did not panic due to the time-space distortion.

In 1876, New York hosted the grand "Centennial Exposition" to celebrate the centennial of the founding of the United States. As the largest and most modern city in the United States, New York was at the intersection of industrialization, urbanization, and the nascent stage of technology.

"virus," in the modern sense, is a Latin word to Leo, meaning "venom" or "toxin," referring to a vague substance that causes illness.

"There are many tiny insects in the microscopic world that are invisible to the naked eye. These tiny insects can make people sick. That's what I was just talking about."

“Mr. Leo, after more than a hundred years of changes, the insects in New York City today are different from those in your time. You also carry insects from a hundred years ago on you. You may get sick, and those of us who come into contact with you may also get sick,” Li Qun explained to Leo.

"So it's invisible insects spreading disease? In my time, we thought it was miasma that spread disease." Leo immediately accepted the new theory.

"Gwen, you'd better not go home."

“We need to isolate ourselves in Harry’s house for a day, in case it really causes a plague?” Liqun asked Gwen.

“Gwen, Liqun is right.” Peter nodded.

“What reason can I give to stay? My dad won’t allow it,” Gwen said, looking troubled.

“We’ll have to call Uncle George over; he’ll understand,” Li Qun said.

"Is this a serious problem?" Harry asked, puzzled.

“That’s right. It’s like when the Old World colonists arrived in the Americas in the 16th century, they brought smallpox, measles, typhoid, and influenza, which destroyed the health of the Native Americans,” Li Qun said.

My God.

Harry gasped softly, and the others realized the gravity of the situation.

“Wait a minute, right now I’m basically a Native American,” Leo said.

“Over the past hundred years, some infectious diseases have been eradicated, kept away from the public, and exist only in laboratories. Mr. Leo, your arrival may bring back these eradicated infectious diseases,” Li Qun said.

"It seems that time travel is indeed a dangerous thing," Leo said with a smile.

“Before I realized this problem, I was thinking of taking Mr. Leo out for a stroll and letting him see what New York is like now,” Harry said.

"Aren't we going to take any further measures? Like disinfection or something?" Peter asked.

Gwen stood by the window and called her father, George, telling him that she was in some trouble and needed him to come to Harry's house after get off work.

George looked extremely serious when he received the call; it was the first time he had heard Gwen tell him that she was in trouble.

“A bath, preferably a shower,” Li Qun replied to Peter.

“Anytime is fine,” Bernard said.

“Let’s go take a bath,” Harry said with a smile.

Gwen hung up the phone, feeling that this weekend was absolutely terrible.

……

As soon as she got off work, George Stacy drove straight to her Osborne mansion in Manhattan.

As George parked the car in front of the Osborne house, he glanced at the old house and felt a chill run down his spine; all sorts of extreme thoughts flooded his mind.

George rang the doorbell, and the butler, Bernard, opened the door. George was stunned by Bernard's appearance; Bernard was wearing a gas mask.

“Mr. George, do you need to wear protective clothing?” Bernard asked George.

“What happened in this house?” George asked nervously, feeling he needed to call the New York Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The children will explain it to you,” Bernard said.

"Is the owner home? I mean, Mr. Norman Osborne, the owner of the house."