Tokyo Wingman King

The Ritz Hotel is located at the northwest corner of Place Vendome in Paris.

This five-story Baroque hotel with a history of more than 120 years has a row of blue round signs with Ritz gold letters on the black and gold railings on the second floor. The blue on the round signs is the famous Ritz blue, which is not as special as Tiffany blue, but is close to the navy blue of the old French flag.

Although the French flag hanging at the entrance of the hotel is a lighter cobalt blue, Asama heard that the current President Macron is already preparing to change the flag to the old blue version.

After all, there is such a saying——[Litz is Paris.]
There is a constant stream of people coming to the inconspicuous revolving door of the Ritz Hotel to check in and take photos.

Many people also focused their cameras on the young people who got out of the luxury car. Their arrival caused the hotel manager of the Ritz Hotel to bring a whole team of waiters to greet them, which made the onlookers curious about the identities of the young people.

Being driven to the hotel entrance by the Phoenix family's motorcade, Asama felt a sense of betrayal. He had never felt this uncomfortable riding in the Maybach of the Migyoin family before. The problem could be solved by two cars, but six Bugattis were used. The maids and butlers behind also got into several DS commercial vehicles and followed behind. If there were no flowers on the front of the car, Asama would have thought it was a wedding car fleet of some rich second-generation.

Although he has no control over how others spend their money, if the Phoenix Courtyard's itinerary is arranged according to this reception standard.
Is Hououin Haruka showing him her current strength of "subduing the strong and supporting the weak"? Or is this a sugar-coated bullet made by the newcomer to quickly integrate into the team?

Anyway, before leaving the group, Asama wanted to know what Fuzugawa's attitude was. If Hououin didn't know how to use the money, he wouldn't mind teaching her a lesson.

He didn't need to carry the girls' luggage as the service staff had already delivered it to the room. They didn't even have to go through the check-in procedure and were taken directly to the room.

Hououin booked three rooms, one for Asama, one for Futami, Majima, and Pochi, and one for Hououin and Fuzuigawa.

Room 302 is said to be the two-bedroom suite where Coco Chanel lived for 37 years.

Asama moved into a room filled with travel souvenirs, books and a portrait of Fitzgerald.

As soon as he entered the room, the waiter pestered him and kindly introduced to him the historical anecdotes of this literary room and the more than 100 privileges of staying for two days - such as the Chanel spa room without appointment, free drinks at the Hemingway Bar, and the Proust Salon to enjoy the great writer's theme afternoon tea.

The celebrities who stayed at the Ritz also became stories and became part of the Ritz Hotel. This is exactly the same as the premium method of those restaurants called Zhuangyuanlou in China.

Asana listened to all the introductions patiently. He did not ask the two waiters dressed as maids to help hang and iron clothes, nor did he raise any objections to the layout of the room. At the same time, he also asked Mr. Akiba, the butler of Phoenix Court, to cancel the personal service. After a long time, he finally sent them away with a strong sense of responsibility.

Asana sat down on the black pear wood desk covered with thick glass to rest - although he was resting all the way, this kind of life of a rich man was indeed tiring.

I picked up the English-French bilingual version of "The Great Gatsby" on the desk, and the second paragraph of the opening, which is also the most famous sentence in the book, caught my eye.

[“Whenever you feel like criticizing someone,” he told me, “remember that not everyone in this world has the luxury of being so critical.]

The French version has some more things than the English version, which is probably the translator's personal preference, and this behavior is not welcome. This is also the reason why so many fans of Haruki Murakami don't like Lin Shaohua.

Asama flipped through the pages quickly, looking for something of value to savor. After a while, he came across the page about Gatsby's self-disciplined schedule as a child, and his personal resolution.

"1. Don't waste your time going to the Shafters or (another surname, illegible)

2. Stop smoking or chewing tobacco

3. Take a shower every other day

4. Read a useful book or magazine every week

5. Save five dollars a week (← erased) three dollars

6. Be more considerate to your parents

These resolutions are nothing remarkable. Asama has never smoked in his life, takes a bath every day, reads at least 3-7 books a week, earns a quarter of a bitcoin steadily every week, and is definitely more considerate to his parents than Gatsby.

However, Fitzgerald did not need to create characters like Pavel Korchagin or Sun Shaoping. In the American Jazz Age, a self-disciplined person who could make up his mind and put it into practice was worthy of the evaluation of "destined to succeed".

According to what the waiter just said, half of the reason why the decadence and debauchery in The Great Gatsby is so fascinating is that Fitzgerald was inspired by the Ritz Hotel, where celebrities frequented.

After finishing the whole book in 5 minutes, Asama then flipped through Fitzgerald's works on the desk and bookshelf one by one - "This Side of Paradise", "The Beautiful Unfortunate", "Tales from the Jazz Age", "Tales of All the Sad Young Men", and "Tender Is the Night", which made Fitzgerald devastated.

On the title page of this book, he saw a passage from "Ode to a Nightingale".

Fitzgerald was really a fan of Keats. According to this tone, he and Hemingway would never be friends. In fact, some of Hemingway's works are scathingly mocking Fitzgerald's lack of masculinity. In "The Snows of Kilimanjaro", he also wrote a failed writer based on Fitzgerald, satirizing Fitzgerald who was confused by money and ran to write boring scripts and magazine essays. In Asama's opinion, Hemingway, who changed his wife for each novel he wrote, was not qualified to say that Fitzgerald, who earned medical expenses for his mentally ill wife, lacked masculinity.

The reason why Fitzgerald and Hemingway, two young men with very different personalities, met and became friends in a hotel in Paris was probably because of the wine collection of the Ritz Hotel.

Hemingway once drank heavily at the Ritz Hotel all day, and sighed, "When I imagine my life in heaven after death, the scene is always the Ritz Hotel in Paris." He also drove a tank to liberate (occupy) (conquer) the Ritz Hotel, which was already empty of German troops, in advance when the Allied forces marched into Paris, for the hundreds of thousands of bottles of fine wine in the hotel's basement, or the 1.5L Perrier-Jouët champagne he had always dreamed of.

In front of Asama, there were two bottles of wine lying in a blue gift box. One was a green bottle of champagne with the Rothschild family logo printed on it, and the other was Perrier-Jouët champagne that Hemingway had tasted many times, from the year 2000.

The high-end packaging immediately made ANA's blue gift box look inferior, and the value of this gift far exceeded the room rate.

Asama was wondering how much money Phoenix Court had spent. After all, a business like the Ritz Hotel would not do business at a loss. At the same time, he was a little worried that Pochi and the others had already started drinking heavily.

I checked my phone and saw that Fenghuangyuan had sent me the dinner time and place.

We set off at 8 o'clock and went to Loulou Restaurant Paris in the Tuileries Garden. After dinner, we took a night cruise on the Seine River.

Having dinner after 8 o'clock is indeed very French. But why choose an Italian restaurant for your first dinner in France? Although the terrace garden of this restaurant is indeed well designed
Loulou means dear little smart guy in French (especially for boys), but most of the customers who eat there are women. Feminism in the old revolutionary district is not extreme enough. Logically speaking, the name alone should be enough to shut down the restaurant.

Fuzugawa was the first to reply "Got it~"

You are in the same room, is it necessary to send [receive]?
Asama copied Uzui's reply and changed the [~] to a period. After sending it, he realized that typing it directly was actually faster.

Fenghuangyuan quickly replied, "Master, should we drive or walk? It's about 800 meters away."

"Let's go over there."

It is now 7:20, and there is still more than half an hour before departure. Asama walks out of the hotel and strolls in the square.

It was not yet night in Paris, and thanks to the lack of particularly tall buildings in the city, the setting sun in the south was clearly visible in the sky.

But the Parisians have already entered the nightlife mode. People with drunken steps have appeared in the Place Vendôme, and several groups of people in the distance have also looked at Asama. Strangely, not only Lao Hei and Mohammed, but also a group of women are staring at him. When two people who look like bodyguards appear behind Asama, they honestly retract their gazes.

It seems that the fishing enforcement has failed.

The Place Vendôme, known as the "Jewelry Box of Paris", has a large flow of people and is surrounded by luxury stores. The cylindrical shape in the diamond-shaped logo of Van Cleef & Arpels is the Vendôme Column. Using the central landmark of the birthplace of jewelry and fashion as a logo graphic element is a symbolic technique that directly elevates the brand's self-positioning and has won praise from many people in the design world.

Asama looked at the statue of Napoleon on the Vendôme Column in the center of the square. This column is a monument to the Battle of Austerlitz, and the spiral relief is inspired by the panoramic relief of the frieze on the Trajan Column in Rome, which stood for 1900 and commemorated the conquest of Dacia by Emperor Trajan.

But unlike Trajan's Column, which is made of marble, Napoleon's Vendôme Column was made of more than 1200 cannons captured after the battle. At the same time, the Vendôme Column is one circle shorter than Trajan's Column. I wonder if it was because Napoleon was modest.

It is worth mentioning that this Vendome Column was rebuilt later, and the previous column was demolished once. The person who presided over the demolition of this column was none other than the people's artist Courbet, who created "The Desperate Man" and was introduced by Mr. Sasaki. He joined the Paris Commune and believed that the Vendome Column was a symbol of Nazi imperialism. After the failure of the Paris Commune, Courbet was ordered by the new government to pay a huge sum of 30 francs for the reconstruction of the Vendome Column, and he had to go into exile.

The statue of Napoleon on the pillar has also changed many versions. Now it is a more classical bronze statue without the crown, scepter, or tricorn hat and military coat. At present, the front of the statue faces southwest. It is said that the earliest direction was northeast, which not only led to the defeat of Tsarist Russia, but also to the famous Waterloo.

Life is too short. Even Napoleon couldn't make a comeback after a setback on his ideal path. Therefore, those who achieve great things must become the big Other, allowing their thoughts, will, and beliefs to parasitize on other people. This is the best way for those destined protagonists in human history to escape the punishment of time.

When a person becomes an abstraction, it is as if he is designing a stairway to God that others can continue to climb. It was only then that Asama realized that perhaps becoming [丨] was not due to the humility of wanting to be a supporting role, but rather due to the arrogance of wanting to become God. "Why don't you rest a little longer in the guest room?"

Jiandao's voice came from behind.

Asana looked back. Although he smelled nice, it could be judged that Jiandao had not taken a shower just now because he never changed his clothes.

"Aren't you too?"

"Only rich people like you can maintain a normal mind in such a luxurious place."

Jiandao crossed his arms, not in an arrogant defensive posture, but as if he was blown by a cold wind, and his face had an expression like the water lilies that withered prematurely in the pine forest near Cannes.

She felt uncomfortable with the two female bodyguards following her, and even more uneasy about the luxurious Ritz Hotel. She didn't love money as much as she had imagined, and at the same time, she felt uncomfortable with herself for passively spending a large sum of money from the Phoenix Courtyard.

“I am also critical of luxury.”

Hearing Asama's words, Jiandao shook his head, walked up to him and whispered,
"Jingshui, if I want to pay back Fenghuangyuan for the plane ticket, hotel, and subsequent meals, how many years will it take me to pay it back if I work normally?"

"Mai, if you're willing to be a big star, you can pay it back soon."

"I've already said that I don't like the entertainment industry. I'm talking about a serious job."

In fact, Jiandao was willing to form a band with Asama for life, but she thought it was too unfair to Asama. Everyone could see that it was impossible for Asama to be a drummer, even as a hobby.

"Please help me write 20 love letters when the time comes. If I take a 30% commission, I should be able to pay it back, provided that we stop the Phoenix Court from spending more money later."

"That is to say, about 120 million yen. Perhaps for the students from the Phoenix Academy who travel with 5-6 housekeepers and maids and a dozen bodyguards, spending this amount of money is as common as us spending 120 yen on a bottle of water. What a terrible difference."

"In the current era of neoliberalism, a 1-fold gap between the rich and the poor is not surprising."

Asama's current wealth is about 8000 times that of the world's richest man, Arnault, the owner of LV. It is only about one-fifth of the wealth of Pharrell Williams, the new LV design director.

"Although it may be a bit ungrateful to say this, could you please persuade the students from Phoenix Academy to lower their standards a little?"

Mai Majima was the only girl on the plane who did not vote in favor. She had prepared 10 things to do to prevent thieves in the Paris subway and a guide to the most cost-effective restaurants in Paris. She had no intention of upgrading her travel class. For her, wherever Asama sat was first class.

Asama shrugged,

"Please learn to think from the perspective of others, Lord Mai, and appreciate the hardships of the lives of the rich. Asking her to spend less money may be the same as asking her to spend more money."

After Asana called the butler Akiba to explain the situation and repeatedly assured him that he would be responsible for his own and their safety, the four bodyguards disappeared and were replaced by butler Akiba himself.

Although he was wearing a striped vest, Butler Qiuye's temperament did not look like a butler at all. Instead, he looked a bit like Old Qian who was taking his children out to play.

"Mr. Akiba."

"You say, Master Asama."

"Fenghuangyuan's father, do you know that Fenghuangyuan and we came to Paris?"

"The head of the family is naturally aware of this. He supports the young lady's current actions, especially the matter of making friends with you, Lord Asama."

Is that really the case? On the plane, I had a feeling that this butler respected me too much. The empty title of the Five-Reflection Imperial Master had worked again.

Even though his current situation is very clownish, he will not become Khlestakov in Gogol's works, who will not use the halo on his head to show his low morals and low desires.

"If I want to pay for all the expenses of this trip, can Mr. Qiuye help me?"

Butler Qiuye smiled respectfully and said,

"Ms. Haruka has already prepaid all expenses for this trip to Paris. Please forgive me for not being able to help you."

"Can't we negotiate with these merchants and have someone else pay?"

"I'm sorry I can't help you."

"Can you help persuade Phoenix Court to spend less money?"

"I'm sorry I can't help you."

Asama felt that among all the butlers, Mr. Narita from the Gogyoin family, who was guilty of insubordination, was the most like a butler.

Jiandao smiled and whispered in Asama's ear,

"Do you think Butler Qiuye looks a lot like you?"

Asama looked at Jiandao with a look that said, "Are you sure?" The girl added,
"He is handsome, has a calm temperament, has gray hair, and is good at repeating grades."

"None of these four points match at all, right? I haven't repeated a grade in a long time."

"It's because once Jingshui gets serious, there won't be any difficult questions that need to be repeated, right?"

"Your misunderstanding of me is that no matter how hard you study, it won't help."

The two of them followed Napoleon's gaze and looked at the setting sun falling into the streets south of the Place Vendôme.

This is a beautiful view that looks like the sunrise over 54th Street in Manhattan, New York.

Unfortunately, the sun soon sank into the building and the sky darkened.

When Busei and the others came down, they just saw a little tail of sunlight passing through the street.

The sunlight clung to Busei's rainbow-colored hair lovingly, and she smiled at Asama.

"I have a feeling we will fall in love with Paris~"

Futami, Fuzugawa, and Houhouin were all wearing T-shirts with PARIS written on them.

Jiandao, who ran away, felt betrayed.

Pochi, with Adidas written on his body, still hasn't figured out the situation.

"A Shui, hurry up and leave. I'm starving. Eat some food~" (End of this chapter)