"Wait, what? You're leaving!?"
Lily Ling didn't react well to the news when I informed her about it. She had stomped all the way to my home to confront me, and when she didn't receive a response after ringing the doorbell, she proceeded toward the garage where I worked in.
I almost didn't hear the phone call while working on welding several pieces of metal, the equipment that I had built myself whirring and screeching as a jet of plasma flame shot out to melt the parts together. The servos of a hydraulic arm whined under the weight as it lifted a bulky block to set it on top of another.
Needless to say, I was building a second Hunter. I had already sent the blueprints to Bu Fan so that his factory could get to work immediately, and I trusted that they would produce the platoon of Hunters the military needed. After signing the contract with Bu Businesses, we could immediately get to work.
Meanwhile, William Wang had succeeded in hiring the staff we needed, and I had them building the equipment we needed in the shipyard, a much larger scale of the machines I had in my garage, along with a lot of other stuff. It would take a few weeks to complete everything, but I suspected I would be back from this little expedition from Province Y by the time they finished.
General James Jiang didn't seem very pleased with my proposal that I would follow the chosen platoon. He muttered something about me being a burden, that I would only drag the military down, that they would have to split their attention between fighting and protecting me.
Despite my attempts to assure him that I could take care of myself and that I needed to bring my machine under fire to see the design flaws and problems in order to improve the current Hunter model, none of the generals were under the illusion that they could afford to let me take such risks. They understood the reasoning, of course, but they were pretty nervous.
"Well, from what Colonel Carl Chan said, you are pretty capable of looking after yourself," General Gary Goh had finally conceded. "If you can protect yourself from assassins and mercenaries in exosuits with nothing more than homebrewed weapons, I don't think guerilla insurgents will pose much of a problem."
And so they grudgingly and reluctant granted me permission to follow the mechanized platoon – dubbed the 2nd Mechanized Armored Battalion, 1st Platoon – to Province Y. Of course, they needed time to make preparations, and I also required them to wait a bit before Bu Fan's factory and staff could finish constructing the Hunters. In order to speed up the process, I spent my free time building a second Hunter in my own garage.
That was why Lily found me in the middle of that when she called me. In fact, she had knocked on the door, but I couldn't hear her over the noise of construction. I almost jumped out of my workbench when my smartphone suddenly vibrated and a holographic screen popped up in my peripheral vision.
"What's up?" I asked, after answering the call and opening the door to the garage. Lily stomped in, looking slightly uncomfortable in the heat that had accumulated inside my garage, but she endured it stoically.
"I heard some rumors about you wanting to conduct field tests for your new model of war walker or something along those lines. There are rumors that you've joined a newly created mechanized battalion and are preparing to fight a war."
Even though the mechanized armored battalions were only just recently created, I doubted they were actually new. The exosuit soldiers were all grouped under the mechanized infantry battalions, and even though they were more suited for this sort of jungle warfare, they were still getting destroyed by the guerillas, especially since the guerilla secessionists had somehow gotten their hands on their own exosuits. That was one of the most troubling aspect of the war – despite being poorer and less well armed, how did the rebels acquire exosuits? Combine their exosuits with their familiarity in their home ground, they made use of the forest terrain to their maximum advantage and wiped out the other mechanized infantry battalions sent to deal with them.
In contrast to the mechanized infantry battalions, where soldiers wore exosuits designed by Han Industries, the military created two new battalions for my armored war walkers. The 1st Mechanized Armored Battalion consisted entirely of soldiers piloting the Titans, and currently we had three companies. A platoon consisted of approximately nine Titans, which meant the battalion had about thirty Titans, including those piloted by the command staff.
On the other hand, because of their smaller sizes, a platoon in the 2nd Mechanized Armored Battalion would consist of about twenty soldiers piloting the smaller Hunters. My company – and Bu Fan's factory staff – were working hard to get those twenty armored suits built within the next two weeks. It was a grueling timetable, but the armed conflict in Province Y was only escalating.
Needless to say, despite wearing the latest Astral Crystal Exosuits produced by Justin Han's company, the mechanized infantry battalions were still suffering horrendous losses. Unfortunately, exosuits were easier to replenish and build than recruiting and training new soldiers. I was glad I didn't have to deal with that. However, I still had to prepare for the battlefield.
"No, I have not joined any battalion. I'm still considered a civilian. But I will still have to go to the frontlines to test out my new Hunter model, check for any design flaws and see what I can do to improve the design."
"Wait, what? You're leaving?!"
Lily looked upset. I nodded.
"Yeah, sorry."
"Then what about me?" She placed her hands on her hips, glaring at me. I raised an eyebrow, not sure how to respond to that.
"What about you?"
"Aren't you supposed to help me? You're the male lead of a CEO story. You're not supposed to go MIA, you're supposed to assign bodyguards to protect me from the shadows, and then swoop in and save me whenever I get into trouble."
"What the hell are you talking about now?" I asked, very confused. "I'm not obligated to do any of that. I don't even have bodyguards or money to hire them. Also, I'm busy with my own job, I have a lot of stuff to build. I don't have the time to magically appear whenever you're in trouble and save you from your scheming stepsister, stepmother and backstabbing colleagues."
"You…!" Lily clenched her fists, trembling. Then she sighed and shook her head. "I'm going to join the entertainment industry and become an actress."
"Okay." I went back to screwing a few pieces of metal together, wiring the conduits to ensure that power flow was normal. "Good luck with that. I'm sure you'll be able to succeed!"
"I need your help!"
"What?" I turned away from the parts I was handling, my screwdriver still clutched in my hand, and gaped at her. "My help? What exactly do you expect me to do?"
"Use your influence as a CEO to help me get in!" Lily stomped her feet. "Can't you act more like a proper male lead from a CEO story!? Pull some strings in the dark, sponsor me or secretly insert me into a commercial or drama series. I don't mind starting out as the second female lead or even just a small role for an ad, so anything you can get me will be brilliant! Also, I need you to use your influence and power to suppress the malicious gossip and negative rumors that my stepsister is spreading throughout the entertainment industry to hurt my image."
"Aren't you mistaking something?" I scowled at her. "I'm not the CEO or managing director of some entertainment company or talent studio. I'm not a producer. You should be talking to your agent or agency about this. Why are you asking me? I have no connections to media, I have no influence over media outlets or advertisement companies! I don't even know what shows are in production right now! You're approaching the wrong person!"
"You're useless," Lily spat. "This is why you're still single, despite being a CEO! You're not rich, you're not handsome, and the female lead can't rely on you at all. All you do is tinker in your garage or run your company. You never care about the female lead. How do you expect her to fall for you like this?"
"I don't expect anyone to fall for me. I only expect to do my job so that the soldiers relying on my equipment will have a greater chance of returning home alive. And why are you complaining about this now? You know as well as I do that our relationship is fake. Even if it isn't, listen to yourself – you're making unreasonable requests of me. Do you ask a firefighter to arrest a criminal? Do you ask a police to treat your disease? Do you ask a businessman to serve as your bodyguard? No, right? So you can't just randomly throw a request at me – especially one as outrageous as yours – and expect me to fulfil it."
"Useless," Lily repeated vehemently. "All the CEOs I know are cold-blooded and charismatic businessmen who are martial arts experts, can handle guns with uncanny marksmanship, have connections to both the military and media, are capable of ruling the world, and are also rich and handsome to boot. They are practically gods. You're a CEO? Hah! You bring shame to that title! You should just quit!"
Was there something wrong with her brain? Then I remembered, this was Lily Bai talking here. A spoilt, entitled actress who was used to getting whatever she wanted. I was beginning to wonder if she wasn't some malevolent ghost possessing poor Lily Ling's body.
"Anyway, I'm going to Province Y and I'll be away for a couple of months." I scratched my head. "Sorry, but I can't do anything you asked me to do. I just don't have the capabilities."
"I shouldn't have expected anything from you," Lily snarled before she spun around and stomped out of my garage. "I'm going to look for another CEO to romance. You can forget about having a happy ending."
I watched her leave, bemused, and then I called William with my smartphone.
"Boss?" William sounded drowsy when he picked up the call. I guess he was always an early sleeper, but he had also been working overtime and pushing himself the past few weeks, having to handle the equivalent of many jobs – being my secretary and human resource manager all in one, not to mention a few other posts I didn't know he was handling. Good thing I had increased his pay. He deserved the raise.
"Hey, William, do you know any exorcist? Real ones, I mean. Not the fraudulent ones."
"Exorcists?" William sounded groggy and disbelieving. "Why? Your house is haunted?"
"No, I think Lily is possessed. We need to drive the evil spirit out of her."
There was a long silence at the other end before William finally replied, his voice still filled with skepticism.
"Uh, okay. There's this Daoist priest I know. There has been confirmed cases of exorcisms, though I don't believe in ghosts, but everyone who knows him swears he is the real thing. Actually, my parents are the one who know him, my mom meet him during an exorcism rite when one of our relatives needed something unclean driven out of his house. I'll see if I still have his contact."
"Thanks. I'll be relying on you then." I hung up and shook my head. I wanted the old Lily Ling back, and I was going to kick that damned spoilt and entitled Lily Bai back to whatever hell she crawled out from.