Ye Ming eagerly draws a semi-round circle with his foot around himself. Reyn stops herself from snorting at the badly shaped circle as she coughs quietly to cover her snickering. Ye Ming doesn’t even notice as he begins to move fluidly with already learned combat movements of Lightning Strike. The movement’s flow like water from one to another until they become effortless.
The night turns to day, but Reyn doesn’t interrupt as she waits for Ye Ming to awaken on his own. These moments of insight are crucial and if she awakened him, he may never regain them again. Reyn instead went back to work and left her shadow clone in charge. The moment, Ye Ming looked about to awaken, Reyn would be able to sense it and would swiftly switch places with her shadow clone.
Some days later, while busy at work, Reyn surprisingly finds Chief Chén knocking on her office door. Reyn glances up with surprise at Chief Chén, who says, “A moment of you your time, Miss Mephistopheles, please come to my office as soon as you save your work.”
Reyn nods her head in reply as she quickly saves her work and heads to Chief Chén’s office. Chief Chén gestures at her to sit down as Reyn somewhat warily does so. “Miss Mephistopheles, we are having an important guest visit us tomorrow and we would like it if you would accompany him around for the day,” Chief Chén plainly stated.
Reyn hides the unhappily look on her face and quickly says, “I’m honored Chief Chén, but I don’t believe it is appropriate given my recent transfer to the department. I’m sure that there are plenty of my seniors that would more than willing to do so.”
Chief Chén stares at Reyn with some relief at her tactful response. “In that case, I’ll assign a more experience member to fulfill the task,” Chief Chén coolly answered.
“Of course, Chief Chén. And is there anything else?” Reyn asked as she got back to her feet.
“No, that will be all, Miss Mephistopheles,” Chief Chén replied. With glee, Reyn happily returns to her desk to work, completely forgetting about the incident until the next day.
The next day, Reyn walks into the office to find most of the office whispering in groups glancing at the other end of the office. Reyn approaches the gang and says, “What’s going on?”
Yáng furrows his brow in reply, while Zhào snorts in reply. At seeing, neither of them wanting to speak, Reyn glances at the short figure of Huáng. Huáng quietly says, “We have an important visitor coming today and the Chief is already with him in the office.”
“Oh, are we getting a new boss?” Reyn asked.
Zhào grumbles, “No, that’s not it. Rather everyone is cooing over the youth’s looks and wealth.”
“Eh?!” Reyn said out loud as she remembers the conversation of yesterday with the chief. Reyn silently thanks her lucky stars for allowing her to miss that annoying and rather pointless assignment. Reyn really hated making small talk with clients.
Yáng drily comments, “I’m sure, that it’s merely a new investor if I remember correctly, his name is Sūn Lì.”
Reyn’s eyes flash in recognition of the name as she warily glances in the direction of the crowd. Reyn had covered her tracks perfectly by placing a forgetful spell around the area and setup a low-level illusion spell to make anyone seeing the video that Reyn had walked home.
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Reyn narrows her eyes as she connects the dots, the only reason for that person to be here is if the spells failed or were purposely removed. And after that it wouldn’t take a genius to connect the dots in regard to her sudden and strange disappearance from the CCTV’s video footage. And of course, know it was going to bite her in the a*s!
Reyn frowns as she ponders the question, who would have that kind of power in this small city? Though her spells were low level, they couldn’t easily be taken off by just anybody. It wasn’t an enemy, but someone was probing her capabilities. Reyn’s eyes darken as a suspicion appears in her mind of the possible culprit.
Yáng must have noticed something on Reyn’s face, because he says, “Is something the matter?”
Reyn shakes her head and says, “I just forgot something at home. But I guess I’ll have to make do without it.” Zhào grunts in understanding while Huáng remains smartly silent on the subject.
Reyn politely smiles and waves goodbye to the gang, before heading to her office. Reyn swiftly gets to work and ignores her present dilemma as she firmly believes her personal life should never interfere with her profession. Reyn steadily does her work undisturbed until lunch time as the gang had already finished their work and had texted her to hurry up and come downstairs for lunch. Popping her neck, Reyn rises from her seat and heads towards to the elevators.
Reyn presses the elevator door button and waits for the elevator to rise. From behind her, Reyn senses footsteps and suddenly hears the voice of Chief Chén. “And that will be the end of the tour, Mr. Sūn. We’ve already made reservations at the Phoenix restaurant for lunch, sir. Is there anything else, we can help you with?” Chief Chén asked.
Reyn doesn’t react as the group approaches her from behind as she pretends she is far too distracted to hear them approaching. The group halts behind her with a soft rustle of movement. After a second, Chief Chén politely says, “Miss Mephistopheles, are you heading to lunch as well?”
Pasting a smile on her face, Reyn turns around and politely answers back, “Yes, that’s right, Chief Chén. I’m heading downstairs to join Mr. Yáng, Mr. Zhào and Mr. Huáng for lunch.”
Sūn Lì suddenly says, “Why not join us for lunch, Miss Mephistopheles? I heard that you’re new to the department as a transfer from Usonia.”
Reyn glances at the handsome man before that is in his early twenties probably twenty-three years old at the latest. A very attractive man with black-greys eyes that can easily charm any man or woman. Too bad for him, because Demon King’s don’t choose their partners based on physical appearance, but on strength.
Reyn politely declines, “I would rather not impose, and nor do I think it is appropriate given my current position, but nevertheless thank you for the kind gesture.”
Sūn Lì carefully studies the foreign woman before as he recalls the grainy features on the CCTV footage. Part of the reason he was here was to invest, but the other reason is to study the woman captured on CCTV that paused before the alleyway, before walking around the corner. Her actions weren’t what captured his interest, but rather than she never reappeared on any CCTV camera again on her route back home which shouldn’t have been possible.
There were only two possible explanations for her disappearance. One, she knew how to stay out of sight out of the CCTV camera’s view. But if she had nothing to hide, why do so? And the second was either there was a glitch, or someone had masked her presence on purpose. But once more the original question was asked, why would that be the case?
After an exhaustive search, the identity of the blurry figure on screen is confirmed as the foreign woman before him, Reyn Mephistopheles. An ordinary accountant, who was recently transferred to this branch company from the main company in Usonia to fill the open senior accountant position for one to two years until the position could be properly filled.
Yet no matter how Sūn Lì studied her, he found nothing amiss about the foreign woman. Her physical appearance wasn’t half bad and could even be considered pretty if properly dressed. The only real attracting feature are her strange brightly colored eyes that hold an almost inhuman tint to them.
Even her past history brought up zero red flags other than an exemplary work and academic track record and a zero-criminal past. His men had been most meticulous in searching for anything including juvey court sealed records, but nothing popped up. Other than the average speeding ticket or parking ticket, there was nothing else to note. Perhaps, it was all just an unfortunate coincidence, but Sūn Lì didn’t believe in such simple coincidences of fate. Surely, there must be more to it.