"This is... this is..."
Three high school girls stood below the gleaming marble steps of the Iceberg Lounge, gazing up at the entrance to a building as magnificent as a palace.
Towering crystal chandeliers inside refracted dazzling light. Abstract paintings that looked enormously expensive hung on the walls, and the air was rich with the mingled scents of costly perfume and cedarwood. Elegantly mannered attendants in impeccably tailored uniforms moved to and fro.
Everything was utterly alien to the world they knew, a world filled with fast food, cheap perfume, and school gossip. Like little match girls peeking into shop windows on Christmas Eve, they could only gaze enviously at everything inside.
At the hotel entrance, doormen in crisp uniforms and white gloves already stood at attention on either side. At the head of the welcoming party stood Oswald Cobblepot himself. His hair was neatly slicked down with gel today, and he wore a somber dark suit. His face wore a smile brimming with warmth and deference as he limped forward and bowed slightly to Kara.
"Miss, welcome to the Iceberg Lounge! Your presence truly honors us. The penthouse presidential suite has been redecorated in your favorite style. I hope you find it to your liking."
As he spoke, his gaze cautiously passed over Kara toward Li Jie. After receiving an almost imperceptible nod from him, his smile grew even more solicitous.
"Ka... Kara..."
The expressions on the doormen's faces made her classmates instinctively uneasy, as though these men might pull submachine guns from beneath their uniforms and start spraying bullets at any moment. They edged closer to Kara and asked in hushed voices, "Who is that?"
"Uh... my... butler..."
"Ah!!!"
A luxury hotel, a sheriff for a bodyguard, and a strange butler!
All of it left the three girls