Business as Usual

I looked at the two huge piles of files on my desk and resisted the urge to slap my past self until he puked blood. This was 2 years' worth of work that I just never touched because I was too busy chasing after an iceberg.

"Heh, maybe I should change my name to Cheng Titanic"

Xiao Yan deserved a raise, the only reason there wasn't more to do beyond these two piles was that she was helping me out behind my back.

I got to work, there wasn't much to do on the first file I picked up, it just told me about the changes made in certain contracts. Like the fact that all contracts with Shuang Fei were cancelled, this was probably done on my Mother's orders. I sighed and decided to let it go.

'Mom I love you but you can be so nosy sometimes.'

There wasn't anything I would have done differently when it came to handling the contracts with Shuang Fei's company but I wanted to do this with my own hands. 'Ah, whatever. Not worth getting mad over.'

The next few files were full of proposals sent to me by other young masters and businessmen/women who wanted to do business with me. But these were all sent 2 years ago, my reputation then and now were night and day. While I had been behaving like a licking dog for much longer than that, it wasn't as well known as it is now.

Sorting through the file, I got rid of all the old proposals/invitations. After I was done, there were only 10 files left on the table. The rest went into the shredder. Only 2 of these files were addressed to my 'limelight' company. One of them was a 'courtesy' contract proposal, basically a small business that wanted to get acquainted with me. The terms looked great so I set it aside to look into it later.

The second file did not have a 'company header', just a black lily printed on a red background. My eyes opened wide as I recalled that this was the logo used by the queen of the underworld 'Minghou'.

She had quite a few limelight businesses, some were in the security industry while others were... in the floral industry. These were smaller businesses that basically laundered her black money. I just received a business from one of her floral companies.

It looked like a regular business proposal, she wanted me to create and supply her with a specific chemical that made the flowers more fragrant.

'But isn't that business just a front? Also, why me? I have basically been making a fool out of myself for the past 5 years, there is no way she thought I had the qualifications for this!!'

Maybe, this was an invitation to meet her? There was contact information at the bottom of the page. I resisted the urge to bang my head against the wall, the plot had tried to get me to call her earlier to assassinate the main character and now I have an invitation from her to arrange a meeting.

I kept this file aside for later, I will make that future me's problem.

The other 8 files were for my 'shadow' company. The owner of this company was registered under a fake identity. The name I had chosen for this company was Obsidian Labs and the owner's name was Wu Yin.

Looking at those names... it was as if past me was asking for others to think of it as a shadow company and a fake name. More reasons to beat the crap out of the plot once I get my hands on it.

These were business proposals by medium-sized businesses, I carefully examined the 7 files and signed 2 that benefitted me the most. The others were set in another pile to be given to business development teams to either renegotiate or discard.

The last one was from Shuang Fei's company, "Golden Lotus"

She was asking why the contract was not renewed this year and was willing to renegotiate terms. The new proposal quoted a laughably low payment amount. While it was much higher than what I quoted when I first approached her to help her business, it was still much lower than the lowest quotes anyone else would give her.

I wonder what went through her head when she quoted this amount, does she think she was swindling the business owner this entire time? That would be funny.

I have been trying my best not to think about her since I broke of the engagement, while my memories and feelings for the past 5 years were very disjointed and not in sync with how I feel now... the feelings for her still feel very real.

I have been distracting myself ever since I talked to my mother about it, the desire to do that has increased even more so ever since I was mind control for a few seconds. There are too many things I do not know for sure, were any of my feeling real? what about Shuang Fei's?

It was just too... stressful.

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Hey! past me, future me here. I just want to say FUCK YOU.

It's midnight and I still don't know if I should contact her or not, this is a literal liúmáng (gangster) we are talking about, if I don't go and she takes offence to it I could die or worse tortured and then die.

I ignored the monkey part of my brain that claimed that it wouldn't mind being choked by a female gangster. *Ahem*

Maybe it was the caffeine or the fatigue that didn't go away after drinking said caffeine but I sent an email saying I agreed to meet up and set up a proper deal. I reasoned that if I can't persuade the main character not to kill me I could at least make sure he doesn't have all the golden thighs. I also wanted to see if she was one of the heroines, while the other 3 were nothing more than silhouettes in my vision I could at least try and see if that changes when I see her.

Even if she wasn't one of the heroines, having someone like her as an ally could be very useful.