An excited Kiana, a bewildered Cecilia, and the inconspicuous Ziegfried arrived at the top-floor office conference room. Yaqing was sitting on the reception sofa.
"Big Sis, and little Kiana too, come give your uncle a hug." Yaqing smiled and opened his arms.
Kiana disdainfully pushed against Yaqing's handsome face. "Uncle, I'm not that little anymore."
Yaqing clutched his chest. "Ah, that really hurts."
Kiana shoved him hard in irritation.
Yaqing staggered back a few steps and fell onto the sofa, smiling helplessly.
"Alright, little brother, stop teasing Kiana." Cecilia looked at the two children with amused exasperation. She sat beside Yaqing and leaned against his shoulder with a smile.
"Mom~" Kiana stomped her foot, then sat on the sofa and hugged Cecilia's slender waist.
Ziegfried silently sat on the sofa across from them.
"Big Sis, I'm planning to use you as the protagonist's inspiration." Yaqing naturally draped an arm around his sister's shoulders.
"Huh? Me? Is that okay?" Cecilia wore a blank expression. Bianka had clearly inherited it from her.
Yaqing nodded at Rita.
As his secretary, Rita immediately understood. She picked up the proposal from the desk and placed it on the coffee table, crouched down to open it to the script pages, then left the conference room with a swaying figure.
"Let me see, let me see." Kiana picked up the proposal.
Cecilia leaned over her daughter's shoulder.
The focus of the Second Honkai storyline was Ziegfried and Cecilia's love, as well as their familial affection for Sirin. "Ziegfried, you should take a look too. You have a role in it as well."
Yaqing stood up and gave his seat to Ziegfried.
"Me? Alright." Ziegfried sat on Kiana's other side.
The script was long, especially since Yaqing had made changes to extend it. Yet Cecilia was immediately engrossed in it. Ziegfried in particular nearly jumped off the sofa in excitement when he saw the line, "To protect the person I love most, I am willing to give my life!"
There were no voiceovers or visuals in the proposal. Scripts were unlike novels and made it difficult to immerse oneself in them, but the lines still moved Kiana and the other two to tears.
"Mom, was Sirin really that miserable?" Kiana asked tearfully.
Cecilia's beautiful eyes brimmed with tears as she tightly hugged Kiana.
When he saw Cecilia's sacrifice, Ziegfried clenched his fists.
Yaqing had not included the final episode in the proposal, because he was afraid Ziegfried would storm headquarters in a rage. Still, once the movie was released, it would no longer be his problem.
Ziegfried excitedly gave Yaqing a bear hug. "Brother Yaqing, I had you all wrong. I never expected you to be the one person in this world who understood me best!"
"Let go." Yaqing disdainfully patted nonexistent dust from his suit.
"Uncle, Mom didn't... How could the female lead possibly be so easily..." They said women were emotional creatures, and Brainless Idiot was included among them. With tears in her eyes, she stared at Yaqing.
"Uh..."
Yaqing felt uncomfortable under her gaze and could only remain silent.
Cecilia understood him. This character had such a fully developed personality, and the ending had laid so much groundwork. If Yaqing let Cecilia survive, that would be the true flaw.
Cecilia comforted Kiana.
Ziegfried nudged Yaqing with his elbow and whispered, "I saw Anti-Entropy characters in there too. Are you planning to have Welt do voice acting as well? Don't you know about his relationship with Otto?"
Yaqing gave him a deadpan look ←_←. "Isn't that why I asked you to come? Did you really think I only wanted you to do voice acting?"
Ziegfried looked troubled. "I really can't say. Unless you let Welt see his own role, he'll definitely suspect Destiny of trying to smear him in the anime."
"If he wants to see it, let him. This is only a prequel, anyway."
"A prequel?" Ziegfried's eyes widened. He snatched the proposal from Kiana's hands and flipped through it rapidly, ignoring her puffed-up cheeks.
"Uh..."
Ziegfried looked at Yaqing. He guessed that the next protagonist would either be Kiana or Theresa, and Theresa was far more likely.
"The protagonist is Theresa?"
Ziegfried asked in disbelief.
Yaqing neither confirmed nor denied it. He merely smiled.
Seeing that, the Ziegfried couple took it as confirmation.
"Ah! It's actually Aunt..." Kiana immediately lost all hope for the future plot.
"Stop guessing. If you could figure out the future developments that easily, how would I make their ey—money?" Yaqing said mysteriously.
At that moment, the sexy secretary Rita pushed open the door, served everyone tea, and stood smiling beside Yaqing. Ziegfried's mouth twitched. When he had been assigned elsewhere, the president had never arranged such a beautiful secretary for him!
"Oh, right, Big Sis, don't just sit around either. Help me ask Theresa."
"Alright~"
Yaqing picked up the phone again.
He called a certain office drone who was currently at work.
Kevin and Theresa's Road to Voice Acting
"Ah, wilderness... late at night... and mysterious disappearances... Don't tell me it's haunted?"
Inside the recording studio, the microphone had been lowered specifically for Theresa. Hearing Theresa's completely emotionless voice, both Yaqing and Shub frowned.
Using the microphone, Yaqing spoke to Theresa in the recording booth behind the soundproof glass. "Theresa, can you put some emotion into it? You need to show thirty percent fear, thirty percent panic, and forty percent inner conflict."
"Huh?" Theresa's eyes widened. She shot Yaqing a fierce glare and said resentfully, "My voice isn't a pie chart! And besides, I, Theresa, am an S-Rank Valkyrie of Destiny. How could I be afraid of ghosts?!"
"Theresa, do you dare say you aren't afraid of ghosts?"
Yaqing gave a teasing smile and posed a question that struck at her soul.
"Uh..." Theresa awkwardly scratched her pretty cheek and stubbornly said, "I'm me, but Theresa in the story is an S-Rank Valkyrie of Destiny!"
Yaqing smiled and said in Otto's voice, "My dear little Theresa, whether or not you are an S-Rank Valkyrie, in the president's heart, you will always be a child who has never grown up. And how could a child not be afraid of ghosts?"
"Shut up!" Theresa's little face flushed red as she snapped coyly, "Don't talk in Grandpa's voice!"
Yaqing shook his head and said to Shub beside him, "Shub, take care of our little Theresa for now. I'm going to find the voice actor for that 'Kaslana Forefather.'"
Shub nodded and looked at little Theresa in the recording booth with a faintly amused smile.
Theresa shuddered, a sense of foreboding rising in her heart.
"Um..."
As the Salary Thief of the Destiny Far East Branch, before two in the afternoon, President Yaqing had casually given himself the afternoon off and driven to World Serpent Technology Company ten kilometers away.
World Serpent Technology Company was called a company, but it was more like a research institution. Its reach was vast, ranging from chip networks to machinery and materials, and it was especially renowned worldwide for its three doctors.
After parking his car, Yaqing took out his phone and called a certain office drone who was coding for the network.
"Hello, Kevin? I'm downstairs at World Serpent."
On the ninth floor of World Serpent, the office drone Kevin, who was typing code, saw his vibrating phone. He looked around at his still-busy colleagues and stood up.
At the workstation opposite Kevin, a mature woman in office wear with short gray-blue hair watched his departing figure with puzzled dark-red eyes. Her ahoge swayed slightly, as if she were wondering whether reporting Kevin for skipping work to a certain Snakey CEO would earn her a raise and bonus.
After Kevin got off the elevator, he saw Yaqing sitting bored on a sofa in the front lobby. Helplessly, he said, "Yaqing, what are you looking for me during work hours for?"
Yaqing set down the tea served by the receptionist and smiled faintly. "Kevin, do you still want to be a hero?"
That single sentence transported Kevin back to his high school days.
Back then, Kevin had been a sunny, passionate high school heartthrob. Because of something someone had said, he had excitedly told Su and Yaqing that he wanted to become a hero.
Kevin's face reddened at the mention of his embarrassing past. Annoyed, he said, "Did you come all the way here in broad daylight just to make fun of me?"
Yaqing slung an arm around Kevin's neck, glanced at the surveillance camera in the corner that was watching them strangely, and gave a subtle smile. Leaning close to Kevin's ear, he said, "I can't fulfill your desire to be a hero, but I can create a version of you in an anime and let him become one."
Kevin tilted his head in confusion. Once he understood, his face filled with excitement. "Really?"
"Shh!" Yaqing made a silencing gesture.
Kevin instantly understood, though he still could not hide the excitement on his face.
On the twelfth floor of World Serpent, a certain Snakey CEO watched the two whispering into each other's ears on the surveillance monitor with a puzzled expression. Seeing Kevin both confused and excited, she clicked her tongue disdainfully.
Yaqing took the elevator upstairs with Kevin.
Mei was not in her office, so Kevin and Yaqing could only go find Mobius.
Knock, knock.
Hearing the knock, Mobius silently closed her computer.
"Come in."
Yaqing pushed open the door, with Kevin following behind him.
Mobius looked up, her pretty face showing disgust as she watched the two enter together.
"I never thought you'd come here with your little lackey. What, your anime company can't keep going? Did you come to World Serpent to beg for food?" Mobius curled her lips, still as sharp-tongued as ever.
"Senior Mobius, your mouth is still as hard as ever." Yaqing unceremoniously sat down on the sofa in Mobius's office.
Office drone Kevin felt extremely uncomfortable. First, he was not familiar with his senior at all. Second, as an office drone, being in his boss's office during working hours made him feel awkward all over.
Yaqing did not feel that way. More accurately, he was the largest investor in World Serpent Technology Company. When Mobius and Vill-V had just graduated from university and wanted to start a company, Yaqing had invested a huge sum of money.
That was the day Kevin learned that the roommate he had lived with for three years was actually a hidden tycoon, with enough money to buy half of the Far East.
"Heh." Mobius curled her lips. "So you came here for this little lackey today? What does your anime company need him for? Coding?"
"Of course not." Yaqing smiled. "Kevin has considerable ability."
"Heh, what ability could he possibly have?" Mobius said disdainfully.
Kevin looked embarrassed.
"Senior Mobius, tell Mei that I'm borrowing her boy for today."
Apparently, Kevin was not the only one who felt uncomfortable. Yaqing did too.
Mobius propped up her head and watched Yaqing leave as though fleeing. With a sickly expression, she covered her cheeks with both hands.
Yaqing held the steering wheel with one hand and took out his phone with the other. Familiar with the routine, he opened a folder and tossed it to Kevin, who was nearly asleep in the passenger seat.
"Look over the script. You don't have many scenes, so familiarize yourself with it first. Try to finish all your voice work today."
Kevin drowsily accepted the phone.
There were no visuals on the phone screen, only text.
As he drove, Yaqing considered the remaining voice acting roles.
Amber's voice acting could be done by Sister Amber.
But who should voice the three pseudo-Herrschers created by Sirin?
After thinking about it, Yaqing could only turn to several female students at Theresa's St. Freya Academy.
Shub could handle the remaining unimportant voice roles.
"Hey, Yaqing, someone named Ziegfried sent you a message." Kevin shook the phone.
"What did he say?"
Yaqing merely glanced over before focusing on driving again.
Kevin read aloud, "He says he arranged to meet Welt tomorrow afternoon at three at the café in the St. Freya Academy commercial district."
"Help me reply: okay."
Before you continue