A Bordeaux-red Cadillac DTS stopped at the rear entrance of the opera house, with a Japanese flag attached to its side. The Islamic girl headed straight for the car and sped away.
“Wait! Miss, please wait!” The auctioneer’s assistant rushed out of the opera house, only to see the tail of the DTS disappearing into the distance.
“Why didn’t you stop her? Didn’t I call you?” The assistant turned to the standing doorman, fuming.
“It’s an embassy car. According to diplomatic protocol, embassy cars only fly their national flag when an ambassador or consul is onboard, or during official business,” the doorman said quietly. “She has a very powerful background; it’s not wise to interfere.”
The assistant paused, nodding slightly. “She’s a new face. Have you found out who her sponsor is?”
“She’s sponsored by the Mint Club. Beyond that, we couldn’t get any more information.”
“More and more new faces, and they’re playing more and more extravagantly,” the assistant murmured. “It’s a bit unsettling…”
The partition separated the front and back seats of the DTS, black privacy glass keeping outside views out. On the plush rear seat, the Islamic girl curled into a ball like a rabbit, wriggling out of her robe. Her body seemed boneless, flexible like a universal joint. Only a trained yogi, a contortionist, or… a Japanese ninja could manage such a feat. She stretched out her body, an enviable figure, feeling a bit frustrated that she had to hide such beauty beneath an Arab robe.
Her favorite clothes were ready for her: black leather pants, a wine-red short jacket, and three-inch red strapped high-heeled sandals. The trendy outfit would take even a helper several minutes to put on, but for a ninja, it was as easy as a hermit crab slipping into a shell. Sakatoku Mai removed the golden veil, revealing a breathtakingly beautiful face, the bright blush tinged with a slight fierceness.
A woman with a purse that always carried two ninja blades—no matter how she dressed, she could never look harmless, and her figure was even more striking than her face. Hence, she had to wrap herself from head to toe in that robe.
“Just like you said, a hundred million.” She leaned back in the seat, crossed her long legs, and connected the car phone.
“Well done. I can see the account is already credited with one hundred million dollars. After deducting recovery costs, that’s a net profit of ninety-eight million six hundred thousand dollars. Cassell College really has money, transferring such a large sum in just a few seconds.” On the other end of the line, someone was munching on potato chips.
“The ones with even more money are their School Board members. Those guys control trusts and syndicates, so a billion is nothing to them. Aren’t you worried about gaining weight, eating so many potato chips all the time?”
“I’m not as fit as you, so I don’t ask too much of myself. As long as I can go to Levi’s and they don’t recommend me the loose-fit ones, I’m fine.” Chips always had this carefree attitude.
“A woman worth as much as you still wears Levi’s… Trying to act like the girl next door?” Mai muttered. She was a regular customer of luxury boutiques, living joyfully outside of work between shopping, partying, and ninja training, where she hung herself from the ceiling using just two fingers.
“Miss, without me working my butt off, how would you guys live so lavishly?”
“Hey, don’t you think selling the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ for just a hundred million was too cheap? That was a rare piece forged by the King of Bronze and Fire himself—a weapon lethal enough to kill other dragon kings. There won’t be a second one like it in the world.”
“No choice. The strongest weapon requires the strongest user, and it’s no use to us. Would you risk being corroded by it? When its ‘Sin and Punishment’ domain expands to the extreme, our kind of bloodline can’t even touch the hilt, can we? Actually, as long as it could return to Lu Mingfei, I’d even be willing to cover that $1.4 million retrieval cost—I’d give it away for free! But giving it away for free would make Anjou suspicious, so we charged him a hundred million dollars, just to cover some household expenses… The economy’s not great lately…” Chips began to ramble.
“You sound like an accountant! No, more like a maid who keeps the accounts.”
“What do you think I am? I am the maid accountant!” Chips complained bitterly. “Besides me, who else can you rely on? Managing such a huge operation is really not easy—feeding thousands of mouths! You and that cold-faced girl don’t understand the meaning of ‘saving’ at all. Every time you guys take action, it’s like a rampage, leaving destruction behind. The compensation bills afterward are terrifying…”
“Shut up, shut up!” Mai couldn’t stand this lecture. “Have you heard from the boss recently?”
“Once.”
“What was it about?” Mai became serious.
Her boss was an elusive guy, usually leaving all the organizational matters to the woman who never let go of her potato chips. Only very important issues would be handled by the boss himself, and whenever he did, it was a powerful move—brutal and unstoppable.
“Do you know a company called Blizzard?”
“A game company? Although I don’t play games, I still know about Blizzard.”
“They recently released a new entry of Overwatch, and opinions are mixed. One player passionately posted on the official forum, saying that the updated Overwatch completely fails to attract him anymore. The heart of the game developers has already fallen, so there’s no need for me to continue holding onto my $85 million in Blizzard stocks. I’ve decided to sell. Just when everyone thought this was a joke, the stock price instantly dropped by 0.15%,” Chips said lazily.
“Hey, hey, you’re getting too far off track. I’m asking about the boss.”
“The post was made by the boss. Fifteen seconds later, I sold off all his Blizzard stocks, totaling $85 million, in one go.” The other party hung up the phone.
Mai silently looked at the busy tone on the receiver. Although it sounded like a tall tale, it truly was her boss’s style—the immensely powerful and violent… gaming nerd.