4 The King of Diamonds (Part 2)

It all started when Fu Qiang visited Tu Yi's restaurant. Tu Yi was more effective than a salesman in marketing his upper-crust restaurant during their first meeting that he awakened some ember of curiosity in Fu Qiang. He woke up one Monday morning with a curious appetite for fried rice cooked with peas and ham and egg that he remembered Tu Yi talking about it during the engagement party. He then decided to check out Tu Yi's restaurant and have his lunch there with some friends.

Tu Yi was ecstatic and personally served Fu Qiang like a god. He was not obsequious or fawning but respectful and very much aware of the great honor the great man had bestowed upon him that day. Fu Qiang liked what he saw, liked what he ate and he became a regular not long after his first visit.

Tu Yi's orbit changed after that. Fu Qiang liked and trusted him so he became a close confidante. His young age also worked in his favor because Fu Qiang trusted his judgment, his instinct in making a difficult deal happen. The progression of their friendship spun so fast that within two years, Tu Yi was already running a department in the Templar conglomerate. It was the communications department, the hub of the conglomerate's activity and events.

Under Tu Yi's creative and shrewd media handling of the Templar name, the company reached even more heights than ever before. Tu Yi refocused one segment of his operation to target young rich women who usually spend their money running after rare and classical pieces they would later leave their kids when they die.

Tu Yi did away with this old fashioned thinking by convincing these bored rich young women to celebrate life by embracing each moment with a diamond that expresses their joy, their happiness, even their sorrow. It was a shrewd twist to selling a bottle of snake oil because it actually worked. Fu Qiang then decided to split his designers into two groups, the classical and modern jewelers. When he decided to retire at the age of seventy-five, he picked Tu Yi as his successor over the disagreement of some of his old friends. But since he owned the company and he holds the majority shares, nobody really put up a fight to change his mind.

At the young age of forty, Tu Yi fulfilled the promise his mother Tu Sya saw in him by becoming a major force in the jewelry business.

Nobody really put up a fight against him either. Fu Qiang's children were not interested in the business. His eldest and second sons all pursued careers in medicine and were successful at it. His third son, who was a pilot in the army, died soon after, leaving two sons and a daughter. The two sons were even more adamant against joining their grandfather's business and instead followed different careers in law and the military, respectively.

What's shocking, however, was Fu Qiang's attitude about his children and grandchildren's stance about not joining the business. He didn't care, he told Tu Yi. He didn't care because he already had an heir picked out as it turned out. The daughter of his third son, who was not yet twenty and sickly to boot.

Tu Yi was literally rocked by what he said. He gaped at Fu Qiang for a full minute before he laughed, assuming the old man deliberately misled him by not telling him the truth. By this time, Tu Yi already had a good valuation of what he meant to the company. Revenues never went down under his watch, despite inflation and economic hardships all across the two hemispheres. Diamonds were products that appeal to the pride and vanity of each customer, man or woman. And as long as pride and vanity exist within the darker borders of the soul, then diamonds will never lose their value.

Everyone assumed that since Fu Qiang picked Tu Yi as his successor, the same would be the case when he dies. As it turned out, Fu Qiang was not joking when he told Tu Yi about his choice of successor. It was Fu Fan Bao, the 18 year-old daughter of his third son, who died in a plane crash. Fu Fan Bao who never went to college or worked in her entire life. Fu Fan Bao who was always sick people were saying she will never reach twenty because of her weak heart.

Of course, Tu Yi was livid. It didn't matter that he lost out to a complete moron in gaining control of Templar. It didn't even matter that Fu Qiang didn't chose him as his successor. What mattered to him was the utter and complete stupidity of relinquishing total control of a billion dollar conglomerate to an uneducated moron who probably never even washed dishes in her entire life. What can Fu Qiang be thinking? He raged quietly.

Hidden behind the narrow borders of his soul, of course, was the thought of him losing power, the power that brought him to the highest level of society only a few people can imagine. And because he feared the loss of this power, he started thinking of unpleasant thoughts. Like killing Fan Bao for one. Killing her but making it appear like it was an accident. By convincing Fu Qiang's family to sell the business to him. Fu Ru Shi was already dead so there was no one really to oppose him if he choose to make a move against the family.

The plan to kill Fan Bao finally materialized when Tu Yi overheard a well-known couple talking about him and the future of Templar. Of course, Tu Yi will not inherit, the wife said to her husband. He's just a paid servant taking care of the business for Fan Bao. What will happen to him? Who cares? The family will probably retain him as a director or something. Anyway, he's done. Or they could offer him a fat check so he could ride off into the sunset and retire, the husband said. The couple shared a laugh. Tu Yi went back to his office and called a famous name in the Underworld about an assignment he wants this person to do for him.

The assassin easily posed as a servant in the prime minister's house. Fan Bao was always in her room. She seldom ventured out so it was easy to put poison in the iced tea she always take to bed with her every night. She took the poison but she survived. Nobody knew what happened to her killer though because he disappeared.

And tomorrow morning was the reading of the will. Tu Yi was sweating ice. He both dreaded and welcomed the dawn when it arrived. He was hoping that the judgment against Fan Bao will arrive and interrupt the proceedings. That's the only way he could think of to end this farce.

At exactly ten that morning, everyone gathered at Fu Qiang's lawyer's office located in a major street in L City. Fan Bao was late and everyone was getting agitated. The lawyer was an old man who was a stickler for time. After announcing that he would begin reading the will at exactly 10:05, he sat back on his chair and peered at them with a pair of gloomy eyes.

The Fu Fan family was not a large bunch. Fu Qiang's two sons came with their wives and children. Fan Bao's brothers also came but since both of them were still single, the entire family numbered a measly dozen, which already included Fan Bao to the total. Fu Qiang had been a very generous man in life so only his close family were there to listen to his last words. And Tu Yi, of course, because he was the president of the company he founded.

10:05. The lawyer cleared his throat and readied his papers. He was about to speak when the door opened. A young girl stood there followed by a tall, slim man who stared at the people inside the room like they were monsters about to devour the young girl and it was his duty to protect her from them. But it was the girl that really caught Tu Yi's attention.

She was tall for her age and possessed an exquisite slimness that made her body float when she walked. Her legs were long and slender and her skin were so creamy white that it literally popped out of the black dress she was wearing like a flower from a bed of thorns. She was not beautiful but her plainness was redeemed by a stunning pair of black sharp eyes that missed nothing. The face was so vivid and so alive it could literally warm an entire room. She smiled, and that smile literally stopped Tu Yi's heart.

He watched as she took a seat some distance from him. She smiled at her family but she didn't approach them. She smiled at him but didn't approach him either. The lawyer again cleared his throat and began the reading of Fu Qiang's will.

The gist of it really was that Fu Fan Bao got everything and the rest of her family got only the share that Fu Qiang deemed really belonged to them. Tu Yi got nothing except Fu Qiang's thank you and a gold pin that his late wife gave him before her death. It was a stunning pin, with a cluster of exquisite diamonds and rubies. At first glance, worth about $1.2 million. But the price will most likely double in two years because of its historical value. It was Fu Ru Shi's pin, after all. The famous Fu Ru Shi who modeled the Templar diamonds for years before her untimely death at the ripe old age of fifty three. That Fu Ru Shi.

Tu Yi's mind, however, was in a swirl. All he could think about was the tiny speck of lipstick that smeared a corner of Fan Bao's lips. Everything else about her was immaculate except for that small blotch and for the life of him, he couldn't pull his mind away from thinking about it. He wondered what it would feel like if he could lick that blotch away with his tongue? How would Fan Bao react? He shook his head angrily. He was going crazy thinking about a girl who will destroy his cozy little life and his resentment reawakened.

When the reading ended, Fan Bao approached her brothers and her uncles. They seemed happy to see her. Because they've become so used to seeing her ill and whatnot, Fan Bao's brothers looked at her like they hadn't seen her before. Even her uncles were confused, until she faked being sick by drooping her shoulders, drooping her mouth, and pulling her face like she was depressed and in need of medicines.

They laughed at her. The uncles, her brothers, the uncles' wives and their children. And Tu Yi, in secret. She was enchanting. And he couldn't take his eyes off her. Even if it meant his certain death, he couldn't take his eyes off her.