"How?" I asked. Lily stared at me for a moment, her brow creasing.
"Firstly, we should get rid of those guys who tried to drown you. I remember this body's father having great respect for you. If you make enough noise, you should be able to land them in hot soup." She frowned as she studied me, as if trying to sift through her host's memories. "You have connections to the military, don't you?"
"Yeah…"
"Excellent. Use them." she placed a hand on my shoulder and smirked. "I'm sure they will do something about it…to ensure these guys don't dare to touch you again."
"Okay." Lily had a point. I wasn't going to simply let those bastards off just because their parents begged me. I had refused the compensation earlier, choosing to take care of Lily, so their parents couldn't do anything to me.
"For now…I'll be all right. They shouldn't touch me today, so let me rest." Lily held her head. "I'm still not used to this…I'll need some time for my mind to settle down."
"Oh, okay." I nodded.
"So you can go now. Just make the arrangements and deliver justice to those people." She smiled again. "I'm counting on you. For the girls…I'll find a way to deal with them. I'm sure that they won't let this go…that they will want revenge. This body's stepsister, especially. She'll find some way to harm this body again. Just like the cliché villainess in a trashy CEO novel."
She made a face when she saw me raising an eyebrow. "Yeah, I read lots of those when I was younger. Never liked them, would love to bash them online on web fiction forums. I don't know why so many of them are about rape. Being raped isn't romantic. It's actually quite traumatic, which makes the heroines' response to the event illogical. I suspect almost all of the CEO novel authors have never been raped in their lives before. I would even wager that a good majority of them were virgins when they were writing their stories, with deluded fantasies of how romancing a rich and handsome CEO is like."
Lily Bai was scary. Very scary. But I completely agree.
"Anyway, when I have the chance, I will definitely thwart Linda Ling's attempts and find a way to get back at her." Lily was nodding. "For now, let's deal with the immediate enemies first…those guys who tried to physically drown you. If you do that, their girlfriends – and Linda – will attempt to take revenge by targeting me."
"Would you be all right?"
"Yeah. I'm no longer the weak and vulnerable Lily Ling." Lily Bai puffed her not modestly sized chest out proudly. "I know how to handle bitches like them. I've been dealing with more extreme versions of them ever since I started acting."
She then grimaced and looked away.
"I can't believe that I let my guard down when facing Yvonne Yang. I'll never let that happen again. I'll definitely get my revenge on that scheming witch!"
"Okay." I took a deep breath. But I still didn't depart. There was a single burning question in my mind. "I want to ask you a question, ma'am. What happened to the original Lily Ling? Is she…gone? Is there no way of…bringing her back?"
"Ah, right. You're close to the original owner of this body." Lily Bai looked a little guilty. "I'm sorry, but I don't know. I don't even understand how I ended up being reincarnated in this body."
She paused for a moment. "Actually, I don't know if I might still be Lily Ling, since I have all of her memories. I might be acting differently now because of the memories from Lily Bai. Maybe we merged into one being? I don't know."
"Huh?" I stared at her, not sure if she was making any sense. Lily shrugged.
"It's hard to explain. How do you define someone? By their memories? Personality? I'm sure I'm also behaving differently from the original Lily Bai. Am I an amalgamation of memories of personalities? Am I a completely new person? Am I Lily Ling who has Lily Bai's memories? Or am I Lily Bai who somehow reincarnated into Lily Ling's body? Or am I a newly born entity with the memories of two people?"
"Uh, well…I don't know." This was getting way complicated. "But you are correct. The memories thing do complicate things."
"Hmm, I don't think there's any real need to overthink this." Lily sighed. "I just assumed that I was reincarnated into Lily Ling's body because that's the standard trope for this type of CEO romance novels."
"But you could be wrong."
"Exactly." Lily rubbed her chin. "Just treat me like Lily Ling who inherited Lily Bai's memories. I feel like that's more accurate of my situation right now. I'm also having trouble remembering anything from Lily Bai's life, other than her last moments of being murdered."
She shuddered. "Those memories were the strongest and most vivid. That's probably why they left the deepest impression upon me."
"I can't imagine what it must be like," I said, even though I had experienced life-and-death situations a few times. Shooting it out with mercenaries breaking into my office or house and trying to assassinate me had to rank among one of the most critical conditions I had the misfortune of suffering. "I'm sorry."
"You seem to have it rough too." Lily shook her head and smiled. "It's possible that Lily Bai's ghost was so incensed and held such a deep grudge that it possessed this body. Perhaps her ghost will leave my body once we get revenge for her. But for now, we'll make use of our combined knowledge, memories and experience to get revenge not just on Yvonne Yang, but also Linda Ling and her friends. As well as Wendy Lim, if she attempts to help her daughter usurp my position as the first daughter and heir of the Ling family."
"Usurp?"
"Why do you think Linda is pulling all these stunts? Just for the sake of being cruel? Of course she desires my position and inheritance. As Dad's biological daughter, I'm being favored by him. The company will eventually be mine."
She paused for a moment and grimaced.
"But now…I don't know why, but I want to go back to acting, not managing."
Yeah, because all heroines of CEO novels were either actresses, fashion designers or one of those "chic" and glamorous vocations. At least she wasn't an assassin or the boss of an underground mob. That would be utterly ridiculous.
"We'll think about that later. For now, you should rest." I wondered if I should hire a priest to exorcize Lily Bai's ghost from Lily Ling's body, but decided against it. I wanted to help poor Lily Bai with her revenge. But first, I had to verify her story. When I returned home, I would google Lily Bai and Yvonne Yang.
Leaving the room, I brought my smartphone up and contacted the military. A private picked up my call, but the moment I told him who he was, he immediately stopped me.
"Mr. Shen! Wait a moment! The colonel has been waiting for your call."
"Huh? Why would the colonel be…?"
"He received intelligence from someone working in the Ling family. They said you almost drowned."
"Yeah…what? You guys already know about that?!"
The military was nothing, if not efficient. Also, I didn't know they had an agent planted within the Ling family. That was a scary thought and once again I vowed not to do the cliché CEO thing and hire an army of servants to take care of my family and estate. Hell, I wasn't going to buy a massive estate either. A regular house and a Toyota were enough for me.
"That's right. Anyway, hold on for a moment, sir. I'm putting you on Colonel Chan's line."
Oh, he must be talking about Colonel Carl Chan. I remembered him. We had met a few times, briefly, and he was supposed to be in charge of my security. Both times when the assassins broke into my home, he had arrived to deal with the matter. I had handed over the captured mercenary to him to interrogate, but I was pretty sure interrogation was the military police's jurisdiction, not his.
Barely a few seconds passed when Carl Chan's voice boomed over the line.
"I heard about the bastards trying to drown you," he said. "Don't worry, Mr. Shen, we will make them pay for it. I have already sent soldiers there."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! No need to make a big deal out of this!"
I couldn't suppress my shock. The army was nothing, if not efficient. But they were always too late. By the time they arrived, I had already dealt with the crisis. Even so, I appreciated them always coming to clean up my mess. In the first place, I didn't blame them – teleportation technology did not exist, and I couldn't expect them to assign an entire platoon of soldiers to guard me 24/7. Those poor guys had a life, and I wasn't going to let them be separated from their family.
"Shouldn't you be leaving this to the police?" I asked hurriedly.
"No," Chan replied angrily. "The military will handle this. I have a firing squad ready."
Wait, what? Firing squad?
"You're going to shoot them?" I asked incredulously.
"Yes. If we leave it to the police, they'll go to jail at most. But their parents will bail them out by bribing the judges, and they'll most likely get a slap on the wrist, maybe pay a fine and be put on probation. Worst case scenario, they force you to drop the charges."
Money could really corrupt anything. No wonder they said it was the root of all evil.
"On the other hand, the army can deal with this quietly and effectively. We have ways of making people…uh, 'disappear' from the face of the world, and no one would be none the wiser."
I didn't know what to say. In fact, I didn't have the chance to say anything. At the moment, I heard the screeches of wheels as an army of rovers and trucks rolled to a stop outside the Ling Manor. Hurrying out of the house, I saw soldiers hopping out of their transports, armed with laser rifles and plasma guns. They formed neat ranks in front of the main gates, their guns at port arms.
"You…what's going on?" Leon Ling spluttered when he saw the army at the gates. An officer stepped forward, the insignia on his uniform signifying that he was a captain.
"I apologize for the commotion, sir, but we are here to take certain criminals into custody."