The red Lamborghini sports car screeched to a stop in front of the building's glass doors. A tall and exquisitely dressed lady got out and toss the keys to the man on the passenger seat. The car drove off and the lady proceeded to go inside.
The people in the lobby who had been waiting for the elevator to arrive all turned their heads when they saw her. The lady was very young, dressed in a red suit and red Manolo Blahnik slingback. Her suit jacket was smartly buttoned but since she wasn't wearing anything underneath, the smooth bare skin of her neck and collarbones were exposed. Around her white neck hang a huge diamond pendant the size of a small egg. The design looked very old yet distinctive and on the young lady, it looked somewhat mysterious.
The young lady joined the queue on the elevator, totally unconcerned about the gawking stares thrown at her. When the doors opened, everybody held back and instinctively, their gazes turned questioningly to the lady in red, who gave an impish smile. She got into the elevator. The doors closed and only then did the remaining throng breathed a sigh of relief.
The elevator stopped at the nineteenth floor and Fan Bao got out. The young and pretty secretary who was sitting behind the office desk glanced at her.
"Do you have an appointment?" she asked indifferently, eyeing Fan Bao with cool and disinterested eyes.
Instead of answering her, Fan Bao walked to the heavy door and opened it. She went inside without a word, leaving the young woman behind the desk to stare after her stupefied. After recovering from her surprise, the young woman jumped to her feet and ran after Fan Bao.
"You're not supposed to be in here," she snapped, annoyed. "Will you please get out? This is not the ladies' lounge."
"You think I'm a whore?" Fan Bao laughed, amused. "I've never been called that before. It's funny."
"I don't care what you think," the young woman sneered. "Just get the fuck out!"
Fan Bao sat behind the huge desk that dominated the room and put her feet up. The secretary was livid. She grabbed Fan Bao's hand and tried to drag her away. Fan Bao didn't even move, merely looked at her with an amused smile on her face.
"Get out of here, you fucking whore," the secretary spat nastily. "You get out on your own now or I'll have you dragged out."
Fan Bao narrowed her eyes. She put her feet down and took out her phone. She punched a number, her eyes unblinking on the secretary's sour face.
"Li Jun," she said, when the number rang. "Tell the hiring manager to send me a new secretary. I want a male this time. I can't stand this newly graduate tarts and their fake, tall boobs. They bore me. Yes. Now."
"Get out on your own now or I'll have you dragged out," Fan Bao told the girl who looked at her as if she was crazy. The girl looked at her with a confident smile, her gaze travelling down Fan Bao's immaculate appearance. Suddenly, something like doubt flickered in her eyes when she saw the pendant and realized it wasn't a fake but an original. She opened her mouth to speak but Li Jun was already at the door, ushering in a middle aged man and a nervous young man who looked like an intern.
"Mr Chairman," the older man said, genuflecting before Fan Bao. "I didn't know you'll be here today. Someone should have told me," he ended nervously.
"You," Li Jun said, looking at the now pale girl almost shrinking in the background. "Get out!"
The girl looked at Fan Bao, at Li Jun and the older man and ran out, her heels clicking noisily on the marble floor. The older man glanced at the escaping girl without pity, noticing Fan Bao's steely eyes and the satisfied expression on her face.
"This is?" Fan Bao said, indicating the nervous young man.
"His name is Bo Chang, your majesty," Li Jun said. "He just graduated from college and he's been assigned to the IT department."
"I thought he might suit you, Mr Chairman, since he's got a degree in technology," the older man said. "From the best school, too."
"Of course and he's your son, right?" Fan Bao said, smiling derisively.
The older man flushed painfully.
"My youngest, Mr Chairman," he acknowledged uncomfortably. "But I assure you, he'll do a good job. I won't have recommended him to you otherwise."
"Hmnn..." Fan Bao said, looking at the young man speculatively.
The three men waited. Bo Chang looked nervous. His eyes glancing at the open door like he wanted to ran away. Fan Bao coolly sat back on her chair again, took out a pen and wrote one line on a piece of blank paper, which she then handed to Bo Chang. Bo Chang read the words, look at Fan Bao, took out a pen and wrote a word on the end of the sentence then gave the paper back to Fan Bao.
Fan Bao read it and laughed.
"Okay, but you're on trial for six months. Anyway, I want to speak to all the executives today at 10. Gather them all up in....where would you suggest, Li Jun?"
"There's a conference room down this floor, your majesty. You can use it."
"Ok, in there. At 10 sharp," she told Bo Chang. "I don't need anything else. That will be all."
Bo Chang and his father went out.
"What was that about?" Bo Chang's father asked.
"It was a test. She asked me something in the form of a riddle."
"What was the question?"
"Robert's father had three sons. Their names were Curly and Larry and....What was the name of the third son?"
"Huh? What the hell kind of a riddle is that?"
"What's the answer, dad?" Bo Chang was now feeling confident.
"I don't know. So, what's the answer then?"
Bo Chang smiled.
"Look it up in the internet," he suggested, angering his father who looked like he wanted to box Bo Chang's ears.
Bo Chang just laughed and went to sit behind the receptionist's desk where he picked up the phone and started calling people.
That ten o'clock meeting turned out to be a brutal knockdown for the smug executives plotting to oust Fan Bao as chairman. These executives silently applauded Tu Yi for wresting control of Templar before that sex scandal blew him out. In the privacy of their bedrooms and sitting rooms, they freely expressed their opinion of Fan Bao as a moron. They were contemptuous of her because of her young age, her lack of education, and her glaring lack of work experience. What can Fu Qiang be thinking leaving the company to this idiot, they thought. There's only one way to deal with that kind of moronic outsider but to bully and threaten her so she'll be forced to relinquish the chairmanship and give it to someone else worthier. That nice nephew of Tu Yi, for example, who's always been a great team player.
These wily executives were anticipating a bloodbath, with the endgame of Fan Bao thrown out of Templar forever. What they didn't realize was that they were about to meet a buzz saw which will ruthlessly and without mercy clip the great power they once enjoyed at Templar for many years. Some of them will go bankrupt, most will leave their mansions to live in cheaper houses, some will be thrown out of their exclusive clubs for non-payment of dues, and most will land in jail. There is one thing they will never forget though: the day they met Fan Bao and realized they had just met a brick wall they can never plead or bargain with, ever.
They filed into the conference room at exactly ten that morning. Eighteen top executives picked personally by Fu Qiang to help ran Templar. The eldest was in his late sixties; the youngest, in her early forties. They all looked at Fan Bao with undisguised contempt. Fan Bao stared back at them haughtily, twirling a red pencil in one hand.
"You're all fired," she said without preamble. "Li Jun, have security escort all of them out. That's all."
The eighteen men and women looked at Fan Bao shocked. Then they sniggered because they thought it was rather funny, an eighteen year old child flexing her fledgling muscles like she didn't know that they knew she was a rank amateur compared to them. Fired? Please. They'll sue her until her head spins and she's run out of L City bruised and battered.
"You can't do that," a burly man seated at the end of the table snarled angrily. "That's against the law."
"Oh?" An Ning's voice was silky smooth. "Pray tell me, why not?"
"We have a contract," the man said, sneering. "You fire us, we will sue your ass off. Then let's see where Templar will be by the time we're through with you."
Fan Bao looked at him without speaking then she extended a hand toward Li Jun who gave her a folder. Fan Bao silently read its contents. There was a cruel flash in her eyes which nobody saw.
"Name, Ling Yan. Age, 56. Salary, $550,000 annually. You've been in the company six years. Tell me, with that kind of salary how can you afford to buy a $150 million resort in L City, send your son to a school in England, then pay for your daughter's wedding in Paris? Did you win the lottery or something?"
Ling Yan was surprised and as he looked at the cruel expression on Fan Bao's lovely face suddenly afraid.
"What are you talking about?" he said, shrugging the fear he felt with a sneering laugh. "I've always been loyal to Templar. You're just making false accusations. I can sue you for this, you know. This is what we get for putting a girl on the highest office. False accusations and incompetence."
Fan Bao signaled to Li Jun, who took out his phone and dialed a number.
"Yes, Officer Li. You're still looking for a lead on that human trafficking gang, don't you? Well, the name of the mastermind behind that gang is Ling Yan. He works here as an executive in Templar. Also, if you're looking for the killer of that prostitute who was beheaded last week the murderer's name is Kung Gan. He's also an executive here in Templar. There's another executive here who's involved in the killing of his mistress, another one who's been sexually abusing his teenage daughter, and another one who owns that illegal prostitution house in Keylan Street. Yup. They're all here. Even that lady who caused a young actress to commit suicide when she viciously harassed her in social media forums. Come here now and arrest all of them."
Li Jun put down his phone and looked at the eighteen executives with cold eyes. Fan Bao was smiling, her lips curved in a cruel line. The executives looked at each other sweating with fear and one by one they made a mad and panicked dash through the door. They were barred, however, by the sudden presence of Bo Chang and Li Jun. The two men looked at the angry mob and tried to stand their ground even when Ling Yan broke through by knocking Bo Chang to the ground.
Li Jun looked at Fan Bao who nodded imperceptibly. Li Jun smiled then his fists started flying, knocking at the executives with brutal accuracy. The bodies thudded at the desk, the door, the floor, and the walls. A wild-eyed female executive tried to ran through the melee but was stopped by a flying kick which sent her staggering onto a wall. Fan Bao walked towards her, not a hair out of place, a stunning smile on her lips. The woman groaned and opened her dazed eyes. The last thing she saw was a foot wearing red Manolo Blahnik stomp hard on her right hand. The heel of the shoe stabbed on the soft flesh until it broke bones and blood to gush out. The woman screamed but the pressure on her hand was unrelenting.
Fan Bao only let her go when the police arrived. And what they found was a bloody brawl that saw several of Templar's top bananas bloodied, beaten to a pulp and Ling Yan, the human trafficker, with shoulders dislocated from back to arm. And standing amongst the bloody carnage was Fan Bao, still immaculate in her spotless red suit, with not a hair out of place, coolly smiling like a gracious hostess.