The banquet was held in Imperial Jade Hotel, as arranged by William Wang. As we had hundreds of attendees, I had to book one of the larger ballrooms at the basement of the hotel to accommodate everybody.
I wasn't about to invite only a few and leave out the rest. Everyone had contributed to the success of the Monkey Lord…ahem, I mean spider bot. Not just the spider bot, but also all the various warships, war walkers, energy shield generators and other military inventions that Shen industries had churned out over the last year or so. I was determined to ensure that every single employee had a chance to enjoy this banquet.
Of course, inevitably, some declined to attend. A few had family events or other commitments. About one or two happened to be sick. But hey, that's how it is. Life didn't always go smoothly, and not everyone liked events like these. If I wasn't mistaken, there were even a good number of employees who had made good use of their bonuses and went on vacations, so they were overseas and thus unable to attend the banquet.
So yeah. As long as they were happy. Nonetheless, it was good to be prepared. I wanted everyone to enjoy themselves.
"Ah, Mrs. Shen."
"Madam."
Several of my employees greeted Lily Ling when she showed up beside me. She nodded her head politely and returned their greetings. I led her to the food tables, staying close to her while speaking to a few of my employees.
"Sir, about the antimatter drives," one of my technicians spoke up, carrying a plate filled with crab and seafood. I recognized him as Paul Ke, who was part of the staff working on the antimatter project. I nodded at him.
"What's up? How are they going?"
"They'll need a bit of fine-tuning. The propulsion systems appear to have a few bugs, and we still can't produce more than a few nanograms of antimatter."
"Can't be helped. I'll see what I can do about improving the particle accelerators. But the limits of current technology means that we have to make do with what we have for the moment."
"Come on, you shouldn't be talking about work now." Lily frowned and waved an admonishing finger. "You should be enjoying yourselves at such a fine dinner party. Don't let this chance go to waste."
"Ah, yes, sorry about that, Mrs. Shen." Paul laughed and rubbed his head sheepishly. "You're right. I got a little carried away."
"Don't worry about it," I assured him. "I know how passionate you are about your job. It's one of the reasons why I hired you."
"Thanks, sir."
"Sir! Cheers!" Another of my staff raised a wine glass to me when he walked past. I grinned and raised my glass of tea to salute him.
"How's your wife doing? I remember she's pregnant, right?"
"Ah, yeah. I would have brought her along, but she's eight months pregnant now and it's inconvenient for her to move around. I can't wait to be a father."
"Good. I hope she has a safe delivery!"
"Thanks! I appreciate it, sir!"
"Thanks for the dinner, sir." Another staff walked by. This time, she was a female clerk. I nodded at her, remembering her name. Eleanor, was it? "How's your kid? I hope he enjoyed the Star Wars Episode 102 movie that was released last week. You said you planned to take him out for that?"
"Oh, yes. I don't think he understands much of it, though, but he loved the action scenes."
"That's great to hear." I then turned to Paul. "One day, we are going to build spaceships like those in that movie, and make faster than light travel a possibility."
"We will indeed, sir." Paul nodded. Then he bowed. "I won't disturb you and your wife. I'll excuse myself then."
"Don't worry about it, it was great talking to you."
"You have such a great relationship with your staff," Lily observed after Paul walked away to join another gathering of colleagues – mostly the antimatter clique. "I always pictured you as…more distant. But they find you very approachable."
"What, like the cliché CEOs from CEO stories?" I scoffed. "I'm a human just like them. I climbed my way up from the bottom, so I know how it feels to be working the hard jobs. I cannot afford to underestimate the value of each and every one of my employees. Rank doesn't matter. Contribution and results are more important than establishing any sort of hierarchy. And human relations. Most people tend to forget that companies are made of people. A company will only be successful as the people working in them. Rather than have the staff waste time and energy scheming and backstabbing each other in a toxic work environment, I would prefer them to devote their efforts to inventing more stuff for the betterment of mankind."
"That's really ambitious." William showed up with his wife, both of them carrying plates that were filled with chicken, salad, meat and other mouth-watering dishes. I grinned and nodded.
"Yeah. It's great to see you, William. Enjoying yourself?"
"Yeah. Oh, and this is my wife, Wilhelmina Wong." He was directing his words toward Lily, his head bowed slightly. "I think this is the first time you've met?"
"We met at the wedding," Lily pointed out with a smile. Wilhelmina smiled and nodded. I still recalled that time when William and Wilhelmina held their wedding – about a couple of months ago. It was before Lily registered her marriage with me, but William had seen fit to invite both me and her to his wedding. It wouldn't make sense to invite just me when he was under the belief that Lily was my girlfriend, so he sent an invitation to her too.
Come to think of it, though, they had only met once, during the wedding. I myself rarely interacted with Wilhelmina. She was someone who belonged to a different period of William's life. While we used to live together, we sort of drifted apart after William found his own apartment. Wilhelmina belonged to that moment after he moved out and bought his own house, a time that was not very well known to me.
Nothing lasted forever. Just like how I sometimes longed for my childhood days when things were so much simpler, when I could rely on my parents for what seemed like forever, my adult life was also divided into several stages. The overseas period when I lived by myself while trying to achieve my doctorate. After graduation where I picked up odd jobs here and there to survive. And then the startup of my company, Shen Industries, with William's help. The years we spent together, saving money by sharing rent over a single apartment.
And now, after success, how we sort of went our separate ways, got married and proceeded with our new lives.
I still fondly recalled how I would spend nights gaming with William or watching a movie with him in our shared apartment. Now I did something similar with Lily, but she didn't play games, so…yeah. And Lily preferred romance movies to action and sci-fi movies, so there were changes.
Life went on. People changed. Lifestyles changed. As much as I wanted some things to go on forever, they wouldn't. These moments felt like sand, slipping through my fingers despite my best attempts to hold onto them. No matter how much I tried to grab onto them, they evaded me, falling through the gaps of my fingers and leaving me behind.
The only option was to continue moving forward. Eventually, there would be more changes to my current lifestyle. We might have children and I would have a whole set of new problems to worry about. The different stages of my children's lives would bring with them fresh challenges and transformations. Not just family and home life. I had seen my company turn from a two-man rig into a multibillionaire enterprise over the span of a few years. I was aware that it would continue to evolve from here on out.
"Trevor? You're drifting off again."
I snapped back into reality when Lily called out to me. Scratching my head in embarrassment, I apologized.
"Sorry. I was thinking about how far the company has come."
"Oh, I know what you mean." William raised a wine glass in my direction. At some point he had finally finished his food on his plate. "It feels so surreal. I still remember how it was just the two of us. Those were the days, eh?"
"Funny. I was reminiscing on exactly that. And now look." I glanced across the ballroom where hundreds of staff filled out the space, eating, dancing, drinking and chatting. "It's no longer just the two of us."
"Yeah."
"I'm very impressed by how your company rose through the ranks to achieve what it has today." Lily smiled and waved her wine glass about before sipping the crimson liquid in it. "It's a textbook example of fairytale success."
"Yeah, the press called it a meteoric rise, right?" Wilhelmina nodded eagerly. "Which is pretty fitting, considering what your next project is."
"To the stars." I glanced outside the window. This being a dinner, it was obviously held during the evening. Already the sun had set and the night sky spread out beautifully, a lustrous carpet of deepest black, decorated by countless diamond-like stars that twinkled proudly. Even from inside, I could see the Milky Way galaxy, a deep hue of golden that expanded across the horizon like a bridge. I was reminded of the tale of the Weaver Princess and the Cowherd, and how the birds sought to build a bridge for them to unite every year.
Now I was about to weave a bridge – albeit a different one – for mankind to cross the stars and spread their reach across the galaxy. I glanced at Paul and the antimatter team, a smile rising to my lips. Right now, as I mentioned earlier, we were limited by current technology, but I didn't plan on being restrained for long.
To conquer the galaxy and colonize all the exoplanets out there was humanity's birthright, and I would stop at nothing to achieve that goal.
Wait, what? Were you expecting some sort of drama at this banquet? Green tea bitches showing up to try and humiliate Lily? Arrogant young masters waltzing in to demand the use of the reserved ballroom and trying to chase us away, only to get slapped in the faces?
Sorry…but the joke's on you. We don't do that here or now.