Volume One: Days in the Shantytown - The Secret Investigation Bureau (Part Two)

"Hey, little girl, bring me forty of the most advanced rice cookers." Luo Qian finally understood why everyone wanted to be the boss. Some people even puffed up their faces to look fat just for the chance. Being the boss really did feel great: Pei Sefei handled his shopping, Li Feier handled his fights, and he could wash his hands of it all, lie back in his S-shaped lounge chair, and brew a cup of hot tea. As the fragrance curled upward, he thought this was how an immortal ought to live.

Pei Sefei furiously slammed her phone onto the dressing table. With a crack, the delicate dark-gold phone shattered, scattering expensive moisturizer and eyeshadow across the floor. Hearing the noise, her effeminate manager hurried in and cried theatrically, "Oh, my dear princess, who's gone and upset you this time..." Pei Sefei ground her teeth as though Luo Qian were between them. Like a young lioness, she wanted to tear him to pieces. "That damned man hasn't got a gentlemanly bone in his body! He really thinks I'm his errand girl!"

Fuming, Pei Sefei slapped the table. "I'm not going! No matter what you say, I'm not going today!" Her manager jumped. "My dear princess, you can't skip it! Today's ad is for a multinational company. It's not just about the pay and the breach-of-contract penalty. The ad will air across Asia and Western Europe. It'll be a huge help when you move into the international market..."

"That's not what I meant..." Pei Sefei said, shaking her head.

Studio lights, surfboards, a fake beach, artificial waves. After a full day's work, all Pei Sefei heard was Director's endless "No, no." She had no temper left to lose. She had been distracted today, so it was hardly surprising that her expressions weren't right.

After she had lost count of the takes, Director hurled his chair aside in a rage, shouted a few words in some language she didn't know, and called it a day. Pei Sefei left dejectedly, only for a hand to seize her.

"Ah!" The grip was so hard that she cried out in pain and stumbled. When had Pei Sefei ever been treated like this? She turned and glared at the hand's owner. He had a foreign face that looked only half-evolved, covered in yellow hair. The hair on his head, his beard, and his body hair all seemed to run together, though he clearly thought the look was artistic.

Director waved his arms in fury and shouted at her, plainly blaming her for wasting everyone's day. Pei Sefei couldn't understand him. She had no idea he was complaining about how many euros the equipment and crew cost per day. He was a famous director, and he had evidently taken her for a small-time actress dreaming of breaking into international film, someone he could push around.

Her manager saw Pei Sefei's expression growing stiffer and knew things were about to go wrong. He rushed forward and clung to her for dear life. "Let go of me!" she snapped. Effeminate though he was, her manager was still a man. She couldn't break free, and he dragged her outside.

Once inside the luxury car the company had rented, Pei Sefei saw the foreign director emerge from the studio. He spotted her in the car and muttered a couple more words with open disdain. His expression told her they were nothing good. She sprang up, but her manager threw himself at her and pinned her to the seat. "My dear princess, he's a director who's won the Golden Lion Award! If this company weren't sponsoring his next film, he'd never shoot a commercial like this. Please, let it go. We can't afford to offend someone like him!"

Tears pattered down Pei Sefei's cheeks as she watched the director climb into a black Audi and drive away.

"Let go of me," Pei Sefei said quietly after taking a breath. Seeing that Director had gone, her manager sighed and released her. "Sefei, you don't understand. These are the rules of the world. You must know how lucky you are. Because of your family background, you don't have to sleep with directors and producers to get what you want. You..."

"I want to walk alone." With that, she opened the door and got out. Her manager watched her stubborn figure recede and shook his head helplessly.

Traffic roared past her as the sky gradually darkened. The city lights came on, and the glittering headlights joined into a river of light. Through her tears, that river sparkled like crystal.

Pei Sefei walked alone, hugging her arms, helplessly crying as she went. When she suddenly looked up, she found herself downstairs from Luo Qian's base without knowing how she had got there.

Should I go up? Pei Sefei stood beneath the building and hesitated for a long time...

"That little brat has some nerve. She's my employee, after all. How dare she stand her boss up..." Luo Qian's tea had gone cold, and he had grown tired of waiting, but neither Pei Sefei nor the rice cookers had arrived.

Pei Sefei couldn't yet say what she felt toward Luo Qian. She was a little unwilling to give in to him, and a little curious. Her life was full of pressure, while being with Luo Qian felt easy and carefree, and she had quietly come to like that feeling. Yet she still couldn't accept the way he never treated her as a pretty girl. To him, it seemed, an employee was simply an employee.

Once her young-lady temper flared, Pei Sefei had naturally stood Luo Qian up. Kindhearted by nature, though, she felt guilty about it. She had worried over him all day and, as a result, botched the commercial and taken a vicious scolding.

Luo Qian was still complaining when someone knocked. He leaped up. "You're finally here..." But when he opened the door, he froze. Pei Sefei's hands were empty, and two tear tracks marked her face.

His expression changed. "What happened? Who bullied you? Tell me, and I'll make them pay!" After so long, someone finally cared about her. Pei Sefei could no longer hold back. She burst into tears and threw herself into Luo Qian's arms.

"What happened?" Luo Qian frowned as he brought her inside and shut the door. Pei Sefei sobbed, "That Director was horrible to me... Waaah... I don't want to go home. Dad and Grandpa never wanted me to work in the first place. If they find out, they'll lock me up at home again... Waaah..."

Luo Qian's face darkened. "Which Director?!" He had heard about the unspoken rules of the Mortal Realm. At first, he thought Pei Sefei meant the director had taken advantage of her. Luo Qian instinctively counted her as one of his own—not his woman, of course. She was his employee, and that made her one of his own. Whoever dared bully one of his people must be like an old man celebrating his birthday by eating arsenic: tired of living.

In fact, it was a foreigner eating arsenic.

Pei Sefei kept shaking her head and refusing to tell him, but information was everywhere these days. Luo Qian switched on the computer at his base, connected to the internet, and found heaps of news with a quick search. She was the fastest-rising actress in the country, and her collaboration with the multinational company had drawn enormous attention. The director was internationally renowned, too. Luo Qian had no trouble finding out which hotel he was staying at in China.

"Hmph!" Luo Qian shut the computer and left without another word. Pei Sefei sat stunned for a while, then cried out, "Don't do anything rash! He's a foreign national protected by international treaties..." Luo Qian was already gone. She sprang up, grabbed her phone without another thought, and dialed a number. "Uncle Xiao Liu, there's something you have to help me with..."

The City-State Grand Hotel was the most luxurious five-star hotel in City X. Like many so-called "five-star hotels" in the country, whether its service truly met five-star standards was another matter. In sheer opulence, at least, its decor lost nothing to world-famous names like Hilton or Sheraton.

Luo Qian stood at the entrance in an extravagant Gucci suit. He had just bought it at the upscale shopping mall nearby for more than a hundred thousand yuan. The extra expense pained him deeply, and he had already decided to recover every bit of it from the unlucky fellow named Wolslo.

Doormen at high-end establishments always judged clothes, not people. Luo Qian flicked his sleeve, revealing the Vacheron Constantin on his wrist at just the right moment. The doorman promptly bowed and opened the revolving glass door for him.

The imperial suite on the top floor had every luxury: 24-karat-gold-plated fittings, mother-of-pearl bathroom fixtures, pure silver mirrors...

Wolslo was in a foul mood. Thanks to the shot of morphine he had taken that morning, inspiration had been gushing from him like a spring, only for that stupid Chinese woman who knew nothing about art to ruin it all. After throwing a tantrum at the studio, he had returned to the hotel, enjoyed the services of an expensive call girl, and settled comfortably into the whirlpool bath to rest with his eyes closed.

Damn it. If not for the two hundred million euros in sponsorship, who the hell would come to this desert of art—Asia? Wolslo considered his next film. He wanted to win an Oscar statuette. He had chosen an art film, but most investors had little faith in it. Despite his title as best director at the Golden Lion Film Festival, he couldn't find a major backer.

He had complete confidence in the film, though. The Oscars were becoming more commercial, but the films most likely to claim best Director were still stories full of human concern and social reflection. He believed his art film would certainly win best foreign-language film.

Just then, the multinational company had wanted to use his fame to promote its new generation of products and invited him to direct a commercial. Though he had never shot an advertisement, he had been forced to consider the offer seriously: two hundred million euros for his commercial debut.

"Phew—" Wolslo, covered in body hair, sat up in the tub and found an excuse for himself. "Art lives forever, but artists need money to live."

Knock, knock. Wolslo frowned in annoyance. "These useless Chinese people can't even manage to be good waiters. Didn't I tell them not to disturb me again?"

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