18 Chapter 18 - Chinese Whispers

"I'm sure we have all played Chinese Whispers, at one point or another in our lives. It was a playground classic when I was younger and our phones looked like bricks and had the durability of one too! That just makes me feel old. Moving on. Looking back now I can't help but feel some of the most important lessons in life, we learn without even thinking or realising, as kids at parties and in the playground chasing after each other, hurtling back and forth without a second thought. Dear lost youth! We learned how to hide away parts of ourselves from others from Hide and Seek; we learned to sleep with one eye open from Wink Murder and learned the potency of rumours and their disastrous consequences from none other than Chinese Whispers. I remember always being incredibly frustrated by the game in general, especially when people mumbled or just suffered from a complete mind blank and told each other completely fabricated sentences where the original meaning and sentiment have been completely lost, especially in the chain of children who were only half paying attention and already trying to figure out how to get back to their friends or whatever.

If you are reading this and thinking to yourself what on earth is this mad woman on about then you are either just too young or too absorbed to even go outside to play in whatever the new fad trend is these days or I was the only child who started scheming at the tender age of four. And if you can identify with this type of behaviour then I must congratulate you on your tenure and eagle-eyed observation skills, birds of a flock, we must be then.

Chinese Whispers though deemed a children's' game, like anything else if used in creative enough ways, can be lethal. It is in the very nature of rumours, they fly and look at first glance, pretty harmless, but upon closer inspection, they are double-edged swords, capable of just about anything."

The headquarters of Lee Corporations was usually a bustling place of movement in the morning, full of people in business and formal attire, skirts and pinstriped suits, most of them looking overworked and slightly grey-tinged, clutching styrofoam cups of liquid gold as if their lives depended on it. The usual level of noise was like a thick blanket that set itself in place at around 7 am in the morning and stayed largely unchanged for the whole of the day, only subsiding after the bulk of the trading day was over at around 7 pm, and then there was, of course, the overtime workers. However, at this time, on this day, the offices were eerily quiet, perhaps because it was currently one in the morning.

Adrian Lee stood, leaning against the bulletproof glass of his office, and took a sip of burnt amber liquid from the delicately carved crystal tumbler as he stared out at the sea of twinkling lights under his feet. He had never been too great with heights as a child, preferring to keep both of his feet on solid ground, however, as he had grown and so had his business, the view had grown on him enough on him for this to be his favourite position now for all his musings and ponderings.

There had been a halt, completely in production lines, for the first time since he had made a name for himself, his mind was racing with something that involved something other than strictly business. It was a well-kept secret in the social circles that he was a part of, on the outside, Adrian Lee was every part the perfect gentleman, a genial and charming host and devilishly handsome to boot, however, he did have a mile-wide vindictive streak. One wrong move and lord knew that he would make it so that you and anyone who cared would be obliterated right off of the face of the planet.

His war against Zhao Bohai and the insanely large empire that his daughter had just inadvertently inherited in full was about to become the first of hopefully many landslide wins. He massaged his temple with two fingers and downed the rest of the whiskey in his glass. There was a problem.

While he had been waging war against Zhao Bohai, he had had no qualms. There had been nothing that was off the table when it came to underhand tactics and cruel takedowns when it came to 'The Dragon King' himself. He could, after all, take it, having matched Adrian in his ruthlessness and vindictive nature. As much as he hated to admit it, the old man had given him a run for his money, his stocks having fluctuated faster than the blink of an eye and more unpredictable than the spells of sunshine interspersed with the dismal rains of Glasgow. The last few years had been hellish for both of their companies, both having quite literally been on the brink of bankruptcy three months before the death of Zhao Bohai. By some miracle, they had both managed to stabilise their stocks, but, he knew this was a precarious fine tightrope they were perched on. As they say, the higher you climb, the harder you fall.

However, there was something that caught in his chest. It settled heavily right next to where his heart resided, as small and shriveled it may have been, there was something there? A twinge of guilt, or something else? Pity? No that wasn't the right word. Surely not. Pity was not in Adrian Lee's vocabulary and it was certainly not an emotion that he felt. Like. Ever.

This could not be happening. He refused to let it happen. His mother had cautioned, never let a woman rule his heart, it would wreak havoc. He was going soft. The very thought sent icy fingers of dread crawling their way down his spine and he shuddered involuntarily. He couldn't. Absolutely not.

The war he had spent the better part of his adult life fighting, his everything: the hellfire that consumed him and worked him like a fiend; the one thing in his life that remained steadfast and sure, even though it was destructive; it was everything. He was one battle away from winning this whole ludicrously high-stakes war. And yet. He couldn't bare to let it all go. It would kill him, there and then.

The epiphany having had a chance to fully sink in and two more tumblers of whiskey later, he was startled to see the weak strands of sunlight peeking through the darkness of the night. It had been a long night but a smirk played at Adrian's lips.

Bring on a new day. He buzzed the intercom and left a message for his team who would be arriving shortly with more coffee than any one company ever had the right to contain in its four walls at any one time.

"Bring in our friends in the media at the earliest stage: it's time to play a little game of Chinese Whispers."