85 Lowly Company
"Again with the Talia's!" Lina heard Anthony's exasperated sigh as he shook his head in dismay.
She looked at him in question and saw him mouth 'Later' which meant that he would explain later.
"Do we have to do everything that Talia's is doing?" Irene raised her brow and challenged Maxene Kang.
Maxene just smirked at her and stood up.
"The methods that Talia's uses are proof of their success. It's been used since forever so why change it?" Maxene flicked her burgundy hair and sat back down.
"Seriously? That is your defense?" Lina scoffed at her.
'Woah! That just slipped out of my mouth!' She looked around and saw that everyone was staring at her.
She peeked at Wade and saw him shrug his shoulders.
'You opened your big mouth, now you have to handle this.' Wade was waiting to see how Lina would deal with someone like Maxene.
"Umm… So wha-" Lina began making an effort to explain herself but she was rudely cut off.
"Stop mumbling and speak up if you have something to say!" Maxene snapped her fingers and commanded Lina to hurry up.
'Okay! That does it!' Lina was officially pissed now.
"First of all, we need to change with the times. It's true that those methods worked, WORKED as in past tense. Now we need to move with the times and find new ways to improve our sales and clientele." She spoke in one breath and raised her brow at Maxene.
"You being a research analyst, must help us realize the trends and help us in finding new ways to promote our business and not give us tips on how to blindly follow someone else's methods." Lina rolled her eyes when she said this and flicked her ponytail mimicking what Maxene had done earlier.
"Also, according to what I have heard, Talia's isn't doing all that great thanks to their oh-so-old methods." She felt Maxene glare at her but did not bother looking at her.
"But then again, it might have something to do with those awful designs that she creates." Lina shrugged as she pulled the chair and sat down.
She then turned to Wade and wiggled her brows at him.
'Like a boss bitch, aren't I?' She beamed and saw him trying to control his smile that was threatening to leak out.
Maxene was left dumbfounded after being told off by a woman she had never seen before.
"Director Bai, it would be better if you control your assistant. Who knows she might offend someone powerful with that vicious tongue of hers." Maxene glared at Lina and then spoke to Stuart Bai.
'Assistant?' Lina looked at Stuart and he just shook his head.
Maxene had mistaken Lina for an assistant.
Understandably so, because everyone in this room sat beside their assistants and as Lina was sitting beside Stuart, Maxene thought that Lina was his new assistant.
But Stuart had never hired an assistant before because he always borrowed anyone he found around him to run for his errands.
"Miss Kang, that is Lina Yang, our new marketing consultant. So please address her properly the next time you talk to her. Or about her." Ivan Zhou spoke up in Lina's defense and this made her heart thump loudly.
'A knight in shining armor?' She smiled at him gratefully then looked back at Maxene.
"Whatever!" Maxene mumbled and ignored Lina.
Wade had seen enough of this drama and decided to move on to the next topic.
"The guest list has been placed before you, so take a look and let me know if I might have missed someone." He instructed them and everyone got to work.
Lina only recognized Yang, Luo, and Zheng surnames from the list since she was new here and did not even know who the prominent families were in this city.
If she had known them, then she would have definitely recognized two other major families at the top of the list.
The Ming family followed by the Huo family. They were often tied on the top spot.
But earlier she had remembered where she had heard the name Talia's because it was the name of Obsidia's competition as well as the name of the Zheng family's eldest daughter.
"The Zheng's only have one invite?" She asked Wade and he nodded in agreement.
She discovered that most of the families received just one invite which meant that only two from the family could attend the auction.
But to compensate for the number of people attending, they would send another invite with that family's company name on it, provided that they were famous enough.
This way they get both a personal invite for their family's prestige and an official invite to show their company's standing in the market.
"Is Mrs. Zheng still alive?" She whispered to Stuart and he nodded though he was confused as to why this silly girl was asking such a weird question.
She widely smiled at Stuart and then faced Ivan with a sinister glint in her eyes.
"Ivan? I think you made a mistake on the list." She said loudly and attracted everyone's attention.
They looked at her curiously while Ivan scanned through the list to find what Lina was talking about.
He looked up again when he couldn't find any mistake in his list.
"You've forgotten to add a special guest's name here." She showed him the guest list with the names of different companies on it.
"Talia's Jewelry isn't here." She pouted adorably and this time Wade lost it and laughed out.
"This is a serious matter!" She glared at Wade and then looked back at Ivan.
"How can we ignore our "competition"? Especially when we need to learn a lot from them?" She spoke innocently as if she really meant those words.
"Oh! My bad, let me just add them right here." Ivan was happy to play along and he quickly wrote Talia's name on the list.
Maxene gritted her teeth when she saw how everyone was laughing when Lina asked for Talia's to also be on the guest list.
'Like she would come to an auction by such a lowly company!' She clenched the pencil in her hand so hard that she snapped it in two halves.
Leon looked at her when he heard that snap and saw her menacing expression as she placed the broken pencil on the table.
He slowly scooted his seat towards Anthony to be as far away from her as he could.
"Let's take a break," Wade announced and Maxene got ready to leave but paused when she heard his next words.
"We will resume when Mr. Hitoshi and his team will arrive with the designs." Wade then silently looked at Lina and walked out with his assistant Kirk.
Lina quickly shielded the box that was on the table behind her this entire time and hurriedly walked out.
Seeing her leaving with the box of cookies, Leon signaled Anthony and they both followed after her.
This made the others curious but they did not do anything. They sat discussing what to do next and completely ignored Maxene.
'If only she could be happy with what she has.' Stuart Bai looked sideways at Maxene and shook his head in dismay.
----
A few blocks away, inside a brightly lit office on the topmost floor.
"Boss… !" Assistant Mathew Kim barged into his boss' room unannounced.
"Do you want to lose your month-end bonus?" Reuben spoke without raising his head from the file that he was reading.
'Oh my dear Emperor, forget about my bonus. You would want to make people lose their necks when I tell you about this!' He clasped the tablet in his hand and deliberated on how to break the news to his boss.
"Do you want me to send you to elementary school to learn how to speak again?" Reuben finally looked up at his stupid assistant and frowned.
'Why is he here now? My mood is already fucked thanks to this stupid file!' Reuben cursed under his breath when he thought of it.
Though his mood had lightened after meeting his friends and new sister last night, it did not last for long.
When he reached home, he looked at the file that Helen had given him and remembered that she would come by to discuss the further details about his new project.
So he decided to finally take a look at the blueprint that she had designed for his gaming arena.
'She might have fucked up our friendship but she's still a professional when it comes to her work.' He opened the file and looked at her designs.
But what he saw inside gave him a bigger headache.
'I told her that my game house should give off a nostalgic vibe to it but she has designed it just like any old arcade!' He then flipped through the pages and grew even more frustrated.
'What is this? Is this how a console room should be? I explained what I had wanted and this definitely isn't it!' He felt like burning the designs because of how awful they were.
He then felt that maybe this was his inner anger for what happened at the restaurant manifesting itself in this way.
So he decided to take a look at them when he was in the office the next morning but unfortunately, the result was the same.
He was looking at those exact files when his loyal Eunuch barged into his room.
'Still horrible!' He lamented and looked up.
"Asst Kim, I am already in a pretty bad mood so don't just stand there and piss me off any further! So tell me, why are you here?" Reuben looked at him with an intense gaze and saw him shudder.
"This is definitely going to make it worse." Mathew Kim mumbled and unlocked the Tab and passed it to his boss.
'Remember not to kill your beloved Eunuch, my benevolent Emperor.' He implored inwardly as he watched the Emperor's face darken with what he saw on it.
