The handsome Chi Rui was drooling with little hearts in his eyes as he watched his sister explain how things would work to the princess.
"Close your mouth." Chi Wei whispered to him.
Truth be told, they were all stunned at her presence. This was the closest they had ever come to royalty. To think that they would be working hard alongside her!!!. It was both thrilling and nerve wrecking.
"She is so beautiful and feisty, the type of woman I like." Chi Rui said dreamily.
"She is a princess with a nasty temper, I would hold back on the fantasies if I were you." Chi Wei reminded him.
It was a well-known fact in the empire that the princes Long Rize was noble, beautiful, sharp-tongued and hot tempered.
"I don't care; I am going to shoot my shot the first chance I get."
Chi Wei slapped him on the shoulder and looked at him pitifully, "Good luck."
Chi Lian was talking to the princess about what role she would occupy in the company and it was driving her crazy because Rize would not listen.
"I am going to be an anchor."
"But the anchor positions are all occupied; perhaps you can start out as a reporter."
"No." she said redundantly.
"Listen,Princess_"
"I came with my personal camera man and a secretary, where is my office?" the princess interrupted her with a question.
The camera man and secretary in question made their entrance as well.
Chi Lian longed to punch something immediately.
Her mother who noticed that she was about to explode in anger came by laughing nervously and introduced herself to the princess.
She pulled her two sons forward and introduced them as well. Chi Rui who was waiting to make a grand introduction which would make him memorable to the princess stumbled and fell.
Thus ended the confidence of the handsome man!
"Just let her have her way, it will be easier if you just let her win." Mama Chi whispered to Chi Lian.
Chi Lian took a deep breath and said, "I have another program in mind for you, being an anchor is your choice so I will let you have your way as long as you do the program I choose for you as well."
"What program?"
"A talk show, we will call it 'Tea with the princess.'"
"Hmm…..I am not sure I like the sound of that_" the princess frowned in displeasure.
"If you don't like it, you can go. This company is a business, I am running it to make money and if I am going to spend all my time locking horns with you then I would rather not have you around."
As she laid her foot down, Chi Lian also crossed her arms across her chest and wiped every look of indulgence from her face. Business was business; there was no room for games to be involved.
"Fine." The princess rolled her eyes and accepted reluctantly.
Chi Lian added, "Please understand that while you may be a princess of this empire, in this company you will be treated just like any other employee. I will not stand for any form of bullying, harassment or tardiness."
"Whatever, when do I start work?"
"Tomorrow, please be in the office as early as eight because you will need to have your picture taken for the company identification card and your fingerprints will be entered into the system." Chi Lian informed her.
"You are very thorough for a small company." The princess was shocked at the level of preparedness in the small startup company.
"Small does not mean inadequate, small things can be mighty too."
"I want an office, I can compromise on everything else but I refuse to give up my privacy."
Chi Lian could not believe the guts of this princess. She was treating this company like it was her personal space.
Before she could complain, Mama Chi squeezed her arm and shook her head pleadingly.
"Fine, I will give you an office."
"Show me, I will settle in immediately."
Chi Lian asked her brother to show the princess to his former office because he was not going to be using it anymore anyway.
"I am going to my office; I have a lot of things to do today. Mother, you and brother should go to your floor and arrange the affairs of the entertainment company immediately. There is a manager waiting upstairs to assist you. From now on, you will have to recruit actors, actresses, singers, a PR manager. Basically, you have a lot to do."
"We will get right on it." Mama Chi and Chi Rui got into the elevator and went to their offices.
"Oh," Chi Lian stopped the elevator and mentioned, "you should poach from Arise entertainment, Ji Haolin should not keep the people I worked hard to find for the company. I am sure very many are unhappy with him, especially now that he is using majority of the resources to promote his little girlfriend."
"Okay, we will make a list and start poaching immediately." Chi Rui said so determined to wreck vengeance on Haolin.
"What about us?" Papa Chi rubbed his hands. He was anxious and ready to start.
"Wait for me down here, I am coming."
She went up to her office and locked herself in her office.
"T4, where are those toys I asked you for?"
On the virtual screen, six toys were visible, a mini sized panda, a tiger, a swan, a dragon, a lion and a snake."
"Those are the options you have been given. Should you choose to accept them, tap each square and they will be sent to you virtual storage box."
After accepting them, she gathered them in a bag and took them downstairs to her father.
"These are the toys you need to recreate. My friend T4 can provide most of the software but we need to find cheaper and more accessible materials. Once you achieve that, you have to find a factory from where we can manufacture them."
"Whoa!" Chi Wei said when he saw the life like toys, "So beautiful."
"Did you hear what I said to dad?"
"Yes, we will begin the research immediately." Chi Wei grabbed the toys and they went off to begin their work.
In their offices, they had computers through which they could talk to T4 who Chi Lian said was her partner in the lab.
Alone in her office, she wondered what her next step would be.
"You wanted to write down the lyrics to songs and scripts for movies."
"Right, I did. But I don't remember some of them clearly."
"You can request for a memory enhancement pill from my owner. It can help you concentrate and accurately recall every detail of what you want to remember. One pill can work for twenty four hours."
Without wasting time, she pulled out ten packets of orange seeds and a manual on how to grow them and sent them over in exchange for ten memory enhancement pills.
After acquiring the pills, she took one and one energy pill and concentrated on writing down as much from the entertainment circle as she could remember. She was driven like a robot.
She concentrated so much on work that she missed lunch. However, her hard work paid off, she wrote down ten songs and two movies.
"Not bad for one day's work," she said when she was done. "Time to get something to eat, I wonder if Jun Muyang ate lunch. Did that woman take him food again?"
She pulled out her phone and called him.
"Hello,"
"Jun Muyang, it's me, Chi Lian."
"Oh, I know, Wenzhe saved your number in my phone."
Chi Lian wanted to jump up and down in celebration because he had saved her number. It meant some part of him desired to engage with her in conversation.
"I am just checking in on you. How are you?"
"I am busy."
"Oh….then I should not bother you so much." She softly replied.
"It's not a bother."
Smiling happily, she asked, "Did you have lunch today?"
"I ate a salad."
Heart pounding so fast, Chi Lian could not think of what else to ask. In silence, she listened to the quiet sound of his breathing.
"Have…uhm. Have you eaten?" he asked rather awkwardly.
"Not yet."
"Do you want to eat?"
"Yes." She nodded her head.
"I will tell Wenzhe to send you something." He hung up.
Chi Lian sat in her chair and spun around while laughing loudly. She re-arranged her hair and took a beautiful selfie. She sent the picture to Jun Muyang.
Your gift is the motivation for my creation. Give me more motivation!
True to his word, he sent her lunch from the royal kitchen. He didn't just send it to her; he sent lunch for her parents and brother as well.
She sent him a message.
["Thanks for lunch, my parents and brothers are thankful as well."]
["You are welcome."] He replied.
She munched on her food happily as she viewed footage from the cameras at home where they had left Mei-Mei in the care of the new nanny retired nurse Su Mei. The newly hired butler was trimming flowers in the garden and food was preparing by Nanny Zhu who Wenzhe had found for her.
Chi Zimo who stayed at home was watching over Mei-Mei as well while playing his video games.
"Where is my lunch?" the princess barged into her office.
"Lunch for employees will be provided starting from tomorrow which is your first official day at work." Chi Lian took another bite of her dumpling.
"You should have ordered food for me when you getting yours."
"Don't you have a secretary for that? Besides, this lunch was sent to me by someone special." She bragged. Yes, she longed to tell the whole world about it. In fact, she had taken a picture and uploaded it on the internet. She made it a point to mention that a special someone had sent her lunch.
"Who, Jun Muyang?" the princess widened her eyes and came close for gossip.
"Hey….keep a distance, from my food."
"Are you really dating the devil?" the princess asked.
"The devil!!!" the food in her mouth almost choked her. "Why are you calling him the devil?"
"Heh..." the princess grinned evilly, "You will find out soon enough."
"If you tell me I will share the rest of my food with you." Chi Lian offered a tempting bribe.
"No thank you, I would rather keep my sanity." The princess walked out of her office.
"T4 do you know everything about Jun Muyang? I don't want any unpleasant surprises later on."
"From all of my research, he is an excellent man. Perhaps his demeanor is the reason why she called him that. According to gossip, she had a crush on him when she was a teenager and he rejected her."
"Isn't he her cousin?"
"Perhaps the gossip is just false rumor. If they are cousins, then it would be incest."
"Yeesh..."Chi Lian shivered as such a scenario was disturbing.
After lunch, she handed over the finished songs and movies to her brother. In a way, she wanted to test his abilities. If he failed to find the right talents, she would hire someone to do the heavy lifting and he would be relegated to a minimal role.
With that finished, she arranged the programs which would be aired on their web TV. They had around ten million subscribers at the moment.
While this seemed like an impressive number, in an empire with a population of billions, it was nothing but a drop in the ocean. The more impressive programs they had, the higher the number of viewers.
In order to be unique, she needed to go the extra mile.
At the end of the day, the Chi siblings left the office at the same time. The princess followed them and squeezed herself right next to Chi Lian.
"Shouldn't you be heading in the direction of your home?" she asked.
"I moved into your community so we are all heading in the same direction."
Confused, Chi Lian remembered that she had been told only two houses were left in the neighborhood and she had acquired them both.
"I was told all the houses are occupied." She informed the princess.
"Oh please! The houses are limited but available if you have a sizeable account." The princess answered as if this was common knowledge.
"So they prefer people that are buying over those that want to rent."
"Exactly."
"Help thief." A woman screamed and Chi Lian turned her attention across the street from Phoenix building.
She could see a man running away and a screaming woman. The people gathered around were calling the police but nobody was running after the thief.
Instinctively, Chi Lian jumped up and run after the thief.
"Follow her," the princess said to her camera man. They went running after Chi Lian.
"He is getting away," Chi Wei shouted.
Chi Lian pulled out the Taser that she had received for protection and hit the thief perfectly. Perhaps the Taser had too much power because the man jumped up in the air and his body shook like ten thousand volts of lightning were coursing through his body and he fell back down on the ground.
"What the hell!" someone said.
"Did she kill him?" someone else asked.
The crowd, Chi Lian, the princess and the camera man who was recording surrounded the thief.
"Step aside, I am a doctor." A man from the crowd checked on the thief's pulse.
"He is alive." He declared. However his face showed a shocked expression because the way the body shook like a ragdoll, nobody expected him to live.
Chi Lian reached into the thief's pocket and handed the snatched wallet back to the owner.
While she was searching his pocket, something else fell out. It was a pink hair bow with two black beetles on it.
"Where have I seen this?" Chi Lian wondered. "T4 search for common images of this hair bow."
It didn't even take a minute for T4 to find the answer.
"This is the same hair bow worn by a missing thirteen year old girl that has been on the news for the past one month."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, one of the beetles is missing a leg. It's the exact bow. The girl Su Moli was wearing it in her hair when she went missing."
Chi Lian checked the thief's wallet and got his address.
"T4, find all the information on this man immediately."
The thief chose that moment to wake up. His eyes darted back and forth like a trapped animal. He tried to run but Chi Lian stepped on him.
"You are not going anywhere." She said.
"Chi-Chi." Her brother whispered and tried to tug her away. People were staring and some were recording with their phones.
Two police officers came by and when they saw Chi Lian, they smiled and spoke to her politely.
"Lady Chi, we would like to take the criminal away right now." The younger police man said.
"Not yet, I have a question for him."
The young police officer was confused.
Chi Lian looked at the thief, "Mr. Deng, this bow belongs to the missing Su Moli, and don't even bother denying because I have already confirmed it. Where is the girl?"
The police officers ears peaked in interest. They stared at the criminal with hostility.
"Are you sure about this Lady Chi?" the older officer asked.
"One hundred percent, this man knows where the missing girl is." She replied confidently.
"Then we will question him from the police station."
The police officers bagged the bow and put handcuffs on the criminal. They whisked him away speedily for questioning.
"What do we do now?" the excited princess asked. She was right to come to Phoenix. Following Chi Lian around was like following around a news hound.
"He has an elderly mother in hospice. My senses say if he has the girl, he is keeping her at his mother'shouse, so we should check it out."
The group got into their cars and followed Chi Lian to the address.
They arrived at a group of similar looking apartments in Beishu town of city B.
Chi Lian sent her drones ahead to check the apartment. And what she saw made her want to cry.
In the apartment, three girls were tied up with chains and looking lifeless; on their bodies was evidence of fresh and half healed wounds.
"Call the police." She told her brother.
As eager as she was to go in and rescue the girls, it was illegal to enter without permission so they waited impatiently.
When the police arrived, Chi Lian told T4 to connect the camera footage to the web TV and begin the live news show. T4 spread the news around on different websites under different accounts as usual.
"You be the reporter." She said to the princess.
"Professionally, the princess narrated the story of the thief turned kidnapper. She explained as the police went in and rescued the three girls including Su Moli. Chi Lian assisted the police to provide water and blankets to the frightened girls and they were taken to a hospital immediately."
Thank you to all the readers enjoying and supporting the book. I appeciate your support.
Creation is hard, cheer me up!
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