Dai Li was one hundred percent sure that Ayres had met a scammer.
Someone took the results of my work to deceive people? This is not okay, thought Dai Li, suppressing the anger in him.
He then said, “Mr. Ayres, for these kinds of cases, I still suggest that you look more into it, to see whether the person who helped Helheim recover was an Indian or not. Motorsport champion Helheim is a celebrity after all, and it is not difficult to get in contact with him or his agent. Not to mention the fact that you have coached over a dozen boxing champions in the past, so maybe some of them know Helheim.”
By the tone of his voice, this coach Li seems to know something, Ayres thought. Ayres was a wise man, and he noticed that there were some hidden meanings within Dai Li’s words. However, this was the first time they had met, and their relationship was only slightly better than that of two strangers. Ayres couldn’t count on Dai Li to say what was truly on his mind, and Dai Li couldn’t speak without reservation to Ayres. Although people are capable of becoming friends the first time they meet, it is impossible for them to share everything that is on their minds with each other at the first meeting.
Dai Li and Taylor left the villa and got into the car. Taylor then asked, “Coach Li, from what I’ve heard just now, it seems like you know who Lithium Day is. Do you think he is a liar?”
“If I said that the person who helped motorsport champion Helheim recover was not Lithium Day, would you believe me?” Dai Li asked.
“Yes! Of course, I would believe you.” Taylor nodded seriously. “Coach Li, do you know the full story? You know the man who cured Helheim, don’t you? He really isn’t the one called Lithium Day?”
“Of course I know that physical therapist. We’ve been living and sleeping together for several decades! What he likes to eat, what he likes to drink, what kind of girl he likes, I even know where all his body hairs are! There isn’t anyone in this world who knows him better than I do.” Dai Li shrugged.
“That’s great, we should go back now and tell Ayres about this. Maybe he will change his mind and reconsider my offer,” Taylor said with excitement.
Dai Li, however, did not speak. He was silent.
“What’s wrong?” Taylor glanced at Li. He suddenly recalled the words that Dai Li just said.
“Sleeping, living, and eating together for decades? Coach Li, is he your family? Your father? Or your brother?” Taylor asked immediately.
Dai Li shook his head. He was slightly amused at how long it took Taylor to catch on.
After pondering for a while, Taylor asked, slowly, “Coach Li, that physical therapist, he’s not you, is he?”
“You’ve finally caught on! The person who helped Helheim recover was me. I am that physical therapist,” Dai Li said while nodding his head.
“My God!” Taylor’s body jolted back, his expression showed complete disbelief.
After more than half a minute, Taylor finally recovered and asked, “Li, why didn’t you tell Ayres just now?”
“Tell him? What do I say? That Lithium-Day is a liar, and that it was me who helped Helheim recover? Do you think that in that sort of situation, it would be appropriate to say that? What would Ayres think? Would he believe me? Even if he believed me, wouldn’t he think that we were simply trying to get him to join us?” Dai Li asked.
“That…” Taylor thought about it carefully and didn’t reply.
“Kevin, this is the first time Ayres and I have met. We don’t know each other. To put it more accurately, we don’t trust each other. Would you believe every word a person said if you just met them? It is as if you were just walking down the street, and a businessman handed you his business card and then introduced himself. You would think that he was a salesman, and you would not believe a word he said!” Dai Li said.
“Okay. I admit that what you say makes sense.” Taylor nodded and asked, “Are you actually able to help someone who is paralyzed recover?”
“Rehabilitation is my specialty,” Dai Li said boasted.
“So, are you going to help Ayres?” Taylor asked.
“If he asks me, I will consider it.” Dai Li thought for a while, then said, “But it is quite troublesome, what I mean is that the recovery process is troublesome. It takes a long time for someone who is paralyzed to recover. It could take months or even a couple of years. I don’t have that kind of time right now. I am a sports coach after all, not a physical therapist. If I wanted to become a physical therapist, I would’ve just stayed in Europe two years ago, not come to America to set up a physical fitness training center.
“So even if Ayres asks for your help, you may not agree to help him?” Taylor asked.
“Kevin, you need to understand, everyone needs to do what is needed of them according to the situation. Look at the bosses of large technology companies such as Microsoft and Facebook. Their founders are excellent programmers, but are they still sitting by their computers writing code? Of course not! They are the CEOs of their companies. My main job now is to run my training center instead of working as a part-time physical therapist.” Dai Li patted Taylor on his shoulder. “Of course, if time permits, I don’t mind helping those who need help.”
…
Ayres sat on the sofa with a solemn look on his face. As Dai Li left, he kept asking Ayres to check whether the Indian physical therapist was a liar, which caused doubt to appear in Ayres’ mind.
As the saying goes, repeat a lie often enough, and it becomes the truth. Ayres was very confident in Lithium Day’s ability to heal his wife, but after the reminders given by Dai Li, he couldn’t help but start to feel suspicious.
There shouldn’t be any problems, right? Ayres pulled out his phone and looked at his contact list. He was feeling hesitant about calling his Swedish friend to ask again.
He is helping me, after all. If I call him to ask again, wouldn’t it seem like I don’t trust him? We are, after all, friends. Doing this seems inappropriate, Ayres thought.
At that moment, Ayres’ phone started to ring. The caller ID showed that it was his friend from Sweden that was calling.
“Turns out he is the one to call me,” Ayres said to himself. He then answered the phone.
“Hello old friend, I am calling to say sorry. I made a mistake. The information I gave you on the physical therapist was wrong!” the Swedish said.
There were problems with that Lithium Day guy after all? Ayres thought nervously. He had a premonition, so he quickly asked, “Is the Indian fellow a liar? Or does this person have issues?”
The Swedish replied, “No no, the physical therapist does indeed exist, and he did help Helheim recover, but I got one detail wrong. The physical therapist is indeed from Asia, but he is not an Indian, he is an ethnic Chinese. I only just found this out, so I immediately called you.”
“Chinese and Indians are both Asians, they only have different skin tones. What’s the difference?” Ayres asked in a puzzled tone.
“Chinese people have a different way of writing their names. They put their family names first, then their given names. In other words, ‘Day’ isn’t his family name, it is his given name,” the Swedish said.
“Okay, you found another difference,” Ayres said, his voice showing his agitation. He didn’t expect his Swedish friend to be so meticulous.
“Ayres, listen to me, the reason I’m saying this is because of the order of the name. It led me to make a mistake. The name of this physical therapist is ‘L-I.”Li.’ This is a very common name in the East. It isn’t Lithium. So I got his surname wrong,” the Swedish man said.
“So that’s how it is. I did wonder why someone had such a strange name,” Ayres said. “But there is quite a difference between the name ‘Li’ and Lithium, right?”
“Yes, there is. I made a dumb mistake. You know me, I loved chemistry ever since I was a young boy. I could recite the periodic table when I was only twelve years old. That’s why, when I saw the word ‘Li,’ I just thought that it was the element Lithium…” the Swedish man explained very cautiously.
“Ugh, I see…” Ayres was speechless. He could not understand how someone could make such a mistake.
“Lithium” is an element, and in chemistry, it is usually shortened to “Li.” It has the same spelling as the Eastern family name “Li,” but Westerners would never sound out the word “Li” for lithium, they would simply say “lithium.” For example, the battery used in mobile phones is called a “lithium-battery,” not a “Li-battery.”
The Swedish man then continued, “I got the name of the physical therapist wrong. This definitely would have given you some trouble in your search. I am very sorry, so I wanted to call you and correct my mistake. The physical therapist’s name isn’t Lithium-Day, but Li-day!”
“Li-day?” Ayres repeated the name. He suddenly realized that the name sounded very familiar, almost as if he had just heard the name.
“No, that isn’t right. I definitely just heard this name. The Chinese coach that was here just now. This is his name! It can’t be that that physical therapist is him, right?” Ayres’ face changed drastically. He recalled Dai Li’s expression when they were talking.
“When I mentioned Helheim’s case, Dai Li’s expression was bizarre. And he also kept reminding me to further investigate the case. That’s it! He is the physical therapist!” Ayres instantly slapped himself in regret.
“Oh no! What did I just miss!” Ayres screamed.
…
A day later, Taylor saw the “White Devil” Ayres again, only this time, it wasn’t at his villa, but at Dai Li’s fitness training center.
“So it was your Swedish friend who misspelled my name?” Dai Li couldn’t help but laugh after finding out the truth.
Sweden is one of the most studious countries in the world, and Swedish people are also some of the most knowledgeable people on earth.
Sweden is located close to the north pole, and when winter arrives, there isn’t much daylight, not to mention the fact that it is freezing outside. So after it gets dark, most Swedish people choose to stay at home and keep warm by the fire.
During the Viking period, Sweden became an affluent country by raiding and plundering throughout Europe. From that, they were able to build up their industrial system during the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Two hundred years of capitalism developed Sweden into the welfare state that it is today. Its people are able to live very good lives, even though they have very short working hours. So, even if the Swedes have short working hours, Sweden is still a highly developed country.
After it gets dark, there isn’t much to do at home. Back when the entertainment industry wasn’t as developed, there were no televisions, computers, or phones. No television dramas, variety shows, or games. The only thing Swedish people could do to not feel bored was to read. Thus, the Swedish have cultivated a reading culture.
The more someone reads, the more they know, and the broader their knowledge. But sometimes, being too educated might not be a good thing. When you are educated, you tend to overthink, as was the case for Ayres’ Swedish friend. When he saw the word “Li,” he thought of the element lithium. If he were instead someone who did not know that much about chemistry, someone who didn’t even know the periodic table, he wouldn’t have made that mistake.
When foreigners read Chinese, their pronunciation usually isn’t accurate. Dai Li realized this long ago. Americans tend to pronounce his “Dai” as “Day.” On the other hand, they didn’t mispronounce his family name “Li.” That was because there was an American family name, “Lee,” that shares the same pronunciation, so it was harder to get it wrong. Dai Li was already used to Americans calling him “Li-day.”
This Swedish fellow actually made this sort of a mistake. It seems like sometimes when you are too educated, you might actually cause harm to others! Dai Li sighed. He turned his head to Ayres. “Mr. Ayres, Helheim did, in fact, get better under my care. Besides him, there were also others who suffered from different levels of paralysis. They were all able to recover under my guidance.”
Ayres’ face was full of joy, and he looked at Dai Li eagerly.
However, Dai Li changed his tone and said, “But Mr. Ayres, I’m afraid I am not able to help in your wife’s recovery.”
“I will pay you! How much do you want?” Ayres said quickly.
“This isn’t a question of money, but a matter of time. I simply do not have that much time.” Dai Li shook his head and continued, “As you can see, I’m running such a large fitness center, I have many things to do. In addition to that, I have to personally take care of Kevin Taylor’s training. Kevin is our star client. I am counting on Kevin to bring more attention here.”
Ayres wasn’t so dumb that he didn’t understand what Dai Li meant. Dai Li was in the process of bargaining. His objective was to get Ayres to coach Taylor.
Dai Li had barely set the bait, but Ayres was already willingly putting his mouth on the hook.
Without hesitation, Ayres said, “Let me handle Kevin Taylor’s training. This will save you a lot of time.”
“But you have already promised to train Hopkins. Wouldn’t that be a problem?” Dai Li asked.
“No problem at all. I can still reject him,” Ayres replied immediately.
“Taylor can’t pay you your salary in advance, he doesn’t have that much money.” Dai Li laughed, then said, “But you can use it to offset the cost of the physical therapy.”
“Coach Li, did you just agree? Have you agreed to help my wife recover?” Ayres was able to understand what Dai Li was implying in the conversation, and he couldn’t help but let his excitement show in his voice.
Dai Li smiled and nodded. He opened up his arms in a gesture of embrace, and said, “Coach Ayres, welcome to my fitness training center!”