Lili stood up from a chair to stretch a bit. Her body was aching from constantly sitting by the table and being bent over the jewelry she was making.
She sighed as her phone chimed. If this guy was going to change his order again, she would lose it. It would be for the fourth time, no, the fifth. She had only a week till her vacation and needed to finish those earrings so she could pack. But no, this guy had different plans.
Tired of it, she opened her phone and was stunned for a bit. It wasn't that customer, but her friend.
"Have u posted about going on vacation?" Lili read and emojis of all kinds followed it. She chuckled.
"Not yet…" she answered and sent a crying gif after it. It was fitting for her situation right now.
"What if someone will put a new order in?" What was this stupid question? Lili laughed at Lucy. She had to be like this. Her customers were her source of bread.
"Politely say no...?" she answered and shook her head.
"Pff. U r not able to say no. Just post it and it will be okay." Lucy sent and Lili wasn't that stunned that Lucy knew her a lot, sometimes.
Yeah, like she was so good with social media. But Lili listened to Lucy and made a little photo saying that she won't be available because she is going to Hong Kong for two weeks, but she will post some updates.
For the past one and half hour, she was engraving the initials of newlyweds into the bride's earrings. An amazing gift from the husband, but a pain in the ass for her. One minor mistake and she could start the entire process again.
Lili checked her messages again just to be sure that the customer hasn't changed his mind. Then silenced her phone and got back to work.
Little by little, she finished the earrings, took some pictures to post later, packed them, and quickly went to the post office to ship them. It was already late afternoon, so she needed to hurry before it closed.
When she got home, she started to pack but soon gave up. Lili was really looking forward to her vacation in Hong Kong. New inspiration shouldn't be a problem after that. That was why she decided to travel.
Lili glanced at her noticeboard, which was unusually empty, hoping that her break would inspire her. Because doing jewelry without ideas was hard and bothersome.
She started to pack her luggage again, and when she had finished, she laid on her back, thinking. She and Lucy planned this vacation for a long time. They watched a lot of Chinese dramas and were wondering how it looks in reality.
It should be exciting to go there personally. Try new food, sightseeing, have a change of tempo, and just chill out. And have dreams come true. Yet, somehow, Lili felt uneasy.
Now, with no order and already packed luggage, she had six free days to have fun before going. And fun, for a shut-in like her, meant games and movie time. Her phone rang again.
'No, not now,' she sighed as she opened her phone. There were times she wanted to be back to ages when telegraph messages took a long time to deliver. The profile picture of the sender was somehow familiar. She googled the name and found out it's a gaming company in China. But there were only a few details in English for her.
'Hello, we would like to order bracelets with special designs from you. Your previous designs were appreciated by our CEO.' Lili had to read that message many times repeatedly to believe it.
"Hello, your offer is amazing. For a small artist like me to design for such a big company. It would have a big impact on my reputation. Yet, I'm on a two-week-long vacation and I won't be able to produce anything good in the little time I have until departure," she finally managed to squeeze out a decent and polite answer.
"Yes, we saw your notice. It is perfectly fine. Our CEO is in Hong Kong right now. We would appreciate it if you found some time to meet him there and discuss the details with him." Lili gawked at the message, stunned.
"Can you give me a few minutes to think it over?" she wrote and silently freaked out.
"Sure." It didn't take long and Lili had to write to Lucy. This was too surreal.
"Ef it... I just got an offer which is impossible to decline…" she wrote and sent a freaking out gif to her. But got back only one word: "Decline!!!!" And a bunch of pissed emojis.
"Impossible!!! It's money, and it's a gaming company… You know how I love games," Lili wrote, thinking it would be better if they called or spoke.
"But I would need to meet them in Hong Kong…" she continued.
"I hate you... You work on your vacation and because you're not speaking Cantonese, you make me work too... I hate you…" Lucy whined.
"I love you…" she answered, just to aggravate Lucy more.
"Deal then. I need details of the meeting. And I'm bringing my interpreter, so you don't have to worry." She was thinking of Lucy when she wrote an interpreter.
"That's good. I'll provide you with further details soon. And our CEO can speak English, so you don't have to worry about not understanding him." They wrote back promptly, and Lili was suddenly very nervous about the visit.
"Thank you. Hear from you soon," she sent back, being polite, so they won't change their mind. The social mask was tiring her out.
Lili locked her phone and opened a laptop. She wanted to have free time. But screw it. She was a small artist and a big money will surely help her so she could be pickier with orders later.
She logged into the game she loved to play, called The Secret of Legends. It was awesome. The game didn't require her to play often, but when she did play every day, it provided amazing rewards.
Her occupation was a healer, a supporting character. She was basically useless alone, but in a team, they needed her a lot. From the beginning, she knew she had to join the team for quick leveling up and she became a great player.
But once she wasn't careful when picking a team and ended up in really low power with 40K combined damage going on 800K HP self-healing boss. They lost and blamed her, telling her she was useless. Since then Lili leveled up alone, gathering materials for her job, which was a weaponsmith.
Somehow, she made herself a staff that was ranked god-level and ended up high in rankings. Since then, she raised her job skills and made legendary-level weapons. And lots of players were willing to pay enormous sums for excellent weapons.
So, thanks to her staff and the time she spent practicing her healing abilities, she was ranked among the top twenty healers on the server and first as a female healer.
Lili ran around the map looking for some Wolf diamonds and then took up the quest for healing NPC that got sick with boss poison. Nothing hard. She was prepared to log out for lunch when she got a message from someone named Thunder.
"Hi, we need a healer for the Netherworld leader. Are you willing to help us?" She was dumbfounded. Staring at the screen.
Thunder was a very well-known name in SoL, at least in the Asian part of the game. He was a leader in the best guild on the server. And she couldn't believe he was messaging her.
And the Netherworld leader was a new super-rare hard boss, showing up once a month. It had an annoying ability to bleed the entire team with a big DPS. But a healer could use debuff on the boss and heal the bleeding of teammates.
"Heyo. I might not be the best choice... I haven't played in a team for long. Might drag you down…" she answered politely, meaning it. Lili didn't want, literally, fuck up the entire team's chances for rare drops.
"No worries. We have a talented team. They will cover you. Just debuff the boss and heal when needed. They will do the rest." He had put it nicely so she wouldn't feel bad even when they lost. Others would think it was not her fault.
"K then... Where are you…?" she reluctantly agreed.
Thunder sent her location and when she got there. They added her to the team.
She sent some 'Hello, hope I won't be too much bother' message and got funny answers like 'I don't expect much of you anyway...' which eased up the nervousness.
They asked her if she speaks Cantonese, and whether she wanted to voice chat. She quickly searched for earphones and enabled the team talk.
Their English was not bad at all, and they could communicate without a hitch. Especially with the player named Doom. He had a slight Asian accent, but not as heavy as others.
After the initial discussion about tactics, they entered the instance.