Chapter 334: Meeting in the City (Part 3/3)
Translator: Strivon
Under the urging of Old Jin, the first thing Peony did was get off the car. She put on her wide-brimmed hat, brought her hands to her head to fiddle with her hair, and got her pony tail to come through the back of her hat. She shook her head slightly, giving off a sense of luster and beauty, and the dynamic feeling of life.
Now Luo Nan was able to confirm that Peony was rather tall. She absolutely had the figure of a model, looking to be in the same category as his cousin Mo Ya. In other words, she had to be taller than a hundred eighty centimeters. This caused the youngster, whose real body was barely a hundred seventy centimeters, to feel rather pressured.
Luckily, he didn’t need to reveal himself.
Ink hopped out of the window. It extended its wings, did a slight turn, and flew up into the air. Luo Nan saw that the elevator was waiting a floor above, and he used the power of interference to press the button. The elevator’s light lit up, and it opened just as Peony arrived in front of it.
“Thank you, Mr. Ink.” Peony gave a drawn out laugh, but she had thanked the wrong person. The skin beneath her eyes shown clearer during her smile, carving two crescents, while her eyes seemed to be covered with mist. They were hazy and unclear. This made her appear all the more charming.
Peony walked into the elevator as she smiled. She patted her shoulder. “Want to take a break?”
Ink already made a decision by itself before Luo Nan could personally express himself. Perhaps Ink felt that the elevator was too cramped, being unable to completely extend its wings. It simply dropped onto Peony’s shoulder.
“Wow, you’re heavy.”
Whether it was looking at Ink from a species perspective or from a real-life situation perspective, Ink was no doubt a large fellow. Right now, its two claws gripped on to Peony’s shoulder. It retracted its wings, putting them away. It would have whacked Peony in the head if it didn’t.
The elevator went up, and soon reached the fiftieth floor. There was someone waiting at the exit. That person was stunned as he saw Peony, and especially the enormous crow atop her shoulder. It took a while before he approached them and said, “Hello, are you Mrs. Peony of the Hidden Indigo Firm?
Peony gave a grunt of agreement, a very sufficient attitude.
The receptionist’s gaze slowed a bit when it swept across Peony’s face. Then his mind inexplicably shivered. He soon judged the cause to be from the crow.
Disregard whether or not the crow was bold and imposing. This crow that perched on the beauty’s shoulder was leaning forward habitually in its stance. Its height seemed to be bearable, but its tail and body formed a diagonal line. The crow’s stance was akin to someone leaning forward with their body, pressing right before the eyes in a deadly glare. The pitch-black eyes were completely fixed. They were eerie. And they were looking more and more uncanny.
The receptionist involuntarily took a step back, but realized that he was being impolite. He gave an awkward laugh and shifted to the side. He extended a hand and said, “Please walk this way.”
Peony nodded and walked into a small conference room ahead.
The room was approximately forty square meters. The tables and chairs placed throughout everywhere except the center were oval-shaped. In the center was some device. The device wasn’t even on, but there were a lot of people sitting in the chairs. There were about twenty people there.
The agreed upon time was 9:30, and right now, it was already 9:32. They were late by two minutes, but the conference had yet to begin. It seemed that they weren’t the only ones who were late.
Seeing Peony come in carrying a giant of a crow, everyone in the room all turned to study them.
Peony maintained her polite yet estranged smile. She took on everyone’s gazes as she found a place to sit down. She adopted a gaze of curiosity, and her gaze swept over the faces of everyone in the room. She was expressing extreme relaxation with her body language.
Ink hopped down from her shoulder and stood atop the desk in front. Under Luo Nan’s will, Ink gathered its wings and closed its mouth. It uttered not a sound. It only twisted its head back and forth, and its eyeballs swiveled along.
The beauty and the crow shifted their gazes, switching targets in sync and out of sync. One woman. One crow. They blatantly observed the other people in the meeting. In the end, these powerful people somewhat couldn’t take it. They broke their gazes away one after another.
Originally, there were some people who wanted to get close to the beautiful girl when they first saw her. They wanted to say hello and see what might transpire. However, they dismissed these thoughts one after another, and the atmosphere became awkward.
As such, of the twenty or so people in the room, only Peony’s expression didn’t change from beginning to end.
Luo Nan was forced to admire her. He had Ink as a shield, with himself being several dozen kilometers away. He had nothing to worry about. However, Peony’s performance spelled that of experience. She was calm and composed. Unyielding and imposing.
It was unknown what kind of work she did at the Hidden Indigo Firm.
Luo Nan realized that he was so busy for the past few days to the point of dizziness. He knew very little about his future partner. He was mulling over whether or not he should go ask Zhang Yingying for more information when the door made a sound. Another person came in, who paused a bit before coming over to their side.
The newly arrived person simply pulled out the chair that was next to Peony. Then he bowed with a smile. “May I sit here?”
“Feel free.” Peony tilted her head. She roughly studied the person a little, and she didn’t refuse.
This person sat next to Peony. He was a young man in casual clothes. His medium length curly hair was one of the more striking things about him. They hung to the end of his shoulder, appearing a bit fluffy. His skin tone was extremely white, and he even had an earring in his left ear.
Luo Nan was certain that this brother’s stylist was absolutely top-notch. Such a hairstyle not only didn’t appear effeminate, it enhanced the contours of his facial structure, which seemed to carry a bit of mixed blood. Pairing this with his V-shaped build made it so that he gave off quite an aura of masculinity, kind of like an old European lord.
The young man introduced himself after sitting down, “Hello, my last name is Long. I am ranked seventh. My friends call me Long Seven. I just joined this group. Allow me the liberty to ask your name.”
“You can just call me Peony.”
“Peony?” Long Seven swept his gaze across Peony’s cheeks to land atop her wide-brimmed hat. “I’m guessing that you’re a student of Acumen College.”
Luo Nan ate some shock, but he soon realized that he was getting ahead of himself. From beginning to end, Long Seven was just chatting with Peony.
Peony had no ill will toward this handsome person of a mixed race. Her smile burst forth from the corners of her eyes as she asked in rapport, “What’s your reasoning?”
“Please forgive me for being blunt. Jungle Owl is a non-professional gaming clan made up of students. They just entered the WCG Tournament in only one game called Ten Days in the Wilderness. Their achievements aren’t much to write home about. Their merchandise is mainly and only consumed in Acumen College.”
It was only now that Luo Nan noticed that there was a logo in front of Peony’s wide-brimmed hat. It was in the shape of an owl. It was probably the logo of the so-called Jungle Owl.
“It’s not that bad. Jungle Owl has quite good-looking ‘skin.’ There are tons of fans inside and outside the school.”
Peony leaned in to the side, using her elbow as support on the table. Her fingertips felt along the edge of her wide-brimmed hat. This casual action made her hat tilt a bit, giving off a bit of an easy-going feeling.
Long Seven didn’t say anything. Some of the members looking at them had eyeballs nearly bulging out.
Next, Peony and Long Seven chatted about eSports. It was just that Long Seven knew the styles, members, and accomplishments of the various gaming clans like the back of his hand. On the other hand, Peony was far more interested in the attractiveness of the members of each team… regardless of them being male or female.
“Ha, I really have an appearance complex. Other people look at the live streams, while I look at the sidelights, the interviews, and so on.” Peony didn’t hide her interests at all. She giggled in utter delight.
Long Seven was about to speak when he suddenly froze. In the middle of his startled gaze, one of Peony’s hands propped up her cheek, while the other hand reached forward. Her long fingers gently brushed across the curls by the side of Long Seven’s face. It seemed that she even touched his skin.
“Of course, you’re not bad too.”
The ambiguous levels were off the charts!
The thrill levels were off the charts!
Most of the people in the conference room were eavesdropping on and peeking at the conversation between the beauty and the handsome man. When Peony made this move, some people gasped from being caught off guard, while some people’s eyes lit up bright with raging flames.
The cause of all this was the rampant growth of emotions in the heart.
Long Seven instantly recovered from his astonishment. He instinctively reached out, seemingly seeking to grab Peony’s probing fingers. But he hesitated a beat.
Peony withdrew her delicate fingers without a sound, but she held an earring of lustrous silver between her thumb and index finger. This was none other than the earing that was on Long Seven’s left ear.
Long Seven became serious for the first time upon meeting when he saw the object in Peony’s fingers. He said, “Miss Peony….”
“You can just call me Peony.”
Within this dialogue provoking déjà vu, Peony’s posture remained unchanging; she continued to have her cheek propped up by her arm. She just held the earing between her fingers, and studied it in great detail close to her eyes. After a while, she visibly exerted force with her fingers. The fine circular earring didn’t react.
Long Seven’s expression turned grave. He was right about to speak, but how was he to know that the beauty before him would extend an arm before his eyes and say, “It’s quite a good earring. Is it made of platinum?”
Long Seven didn’t answer Peony’s question. He immediately grabbed the earring and hooked it back on his ear. His tense face softened a bit, but it was impossible for him to return to his previous state of speech and laughter. The atmosphere grew all the more bizarre.
Ink could feel all the changes in the atmosphere. It subconsciously flapped its wings, dropping a feather.
Peony reached out and held it. She jabbed Ink in the head, all smiles. She played around, minding her own business. She looked like she didn’t care at all about Long Seven’s change in attitude.
What an egotistical woman….
Luo Nan had just made this initial judgment when someone else walked into the conference room. This person stood straight in front of the oval table. His eyes swept across the room in a circle before nodding and saying,
“Everyone is present. Let the meeting begin.”
The man who just arrived had a face that already reached old age. He was at least seventy years old, but he stood ramrod straight. He introduced himself with ample energy and a magnificent voice, “I am Trigate Corporation’s CEO. My name is Wu Bin. I am also the person in charge of this project and the organizer of this team. I will be the one to coordinate the project’s specific actions for the following time period. Among the people sitting, there are two professionals worthy of trust. There are also the elite of the company and those who possess powerful strength. I am confident that this Preservation Operation will achieve satisfactory results.”
Wu Bin’s speech was a bit bureaucratic, but he kept in accordance with the government and military background of Trigate Corporation.
His stiff speech didn’t represent a rigid mind. Wu Bin was fully aware that the experts he invited were meeting with the team members for the first time. They needed to have an intuitive understanding of each other. He took this chance to call upon one of his subordinates, “Introduce yourselves, starting from you.”
The subordinate quickly stood up. He was just about to speak when Peony raised her hand from the middle of the table. Her fingers were still playing with the dark blackish blue crow feather as she said, “Director Wu. The Hidden Indigo Firm wishes for you to first explain the personnel that compose the action team. According to the contract agreed upon by the firm and your company, we should be the only professional consultants and conductors. Where did talk of two professionals come from?”
Her words shut up the poor subordinate, who was left looking stupidly at Wu Bin.
The atmosphere in the conference room entered an even more awkward stage.
