Twenty-Three

When Altria was finally done with all the explaining, it was already past working hours, so the exhausted employee decided to hail a taxi right home instead of taking public transportation. It was some distance from her workplace to the station, and she was too tired to walk all the way there. When she was walking to the taxi stand, her phone started to ring.

Altria had encountered her classmates being scammed by unknown callers, and she was not about to repeat the same mistake. Since the call was from an unknown number, she instead replaced the phone in her pocket. After ringing for some time, the caller hung up. As she was sitting at the taxi stand, she heard the sound of a car stopping in front of her, and looked up. It was a luxury sedan car, and the driver looked a bit familiar. She took a closer look, and realised it was Lyrid, in a pair of cool-looking sunglasses. He rolled up the window, and said in his most charming tone, "I'll like to treat you to dinner for your help earlier."

Thinking about how she had been hurt in the past, Altria hesitated at first, but after much consideration, she said solemnly, "Only a dinner?"

"Only a dinner," Lyrid said. "As thanks."

the "Date"

Without a further word, Altria walked towards the car. Lyrid immediately alighted from his car and opened the door for her carefully, and making sure she was seated comfortably and her seat belt buckled before he closed the door and returned to his own seat.

They headed towards an affordable restaurant for Italian cuisine, the Pesto Place. As Altria was not familiar with the restaurant, Lyrid decided to make the choice for her.

"Which do you prefer, rice or noodles?" he asked. After a few seconds, she decided on having rice. Lyrid ordered one of the restaurant's top ten dishes, mushroom risotto. He settled on the seafood medley pasta for himself.

As they were waiting for their orders to arrive, Altria asked him if he could leave his number so that they may keep in touch. After all, they were volunteers, and she would be interested in another trip, if she had the chance. Smilingly, Lyrid informed her that he was the unknown caller earlier, and she smiled apologetically. She then asked how he had obtained her number, to which Lyrid handed her the business card that she had dropped outside the convenience store, following their drive back after the trip.

She appeared to look a bit sad upon seeing her business card.

"Altria, are you okay?" Lyrid asked.

Altria nodded, but hung her head for a few seconds before she was willing to talk. She told him about how she had returned to face the circulating rumours, how she believed that the supervisor was innocent, and how she had been transferred to the research facility instead. She had loved her job and her friends at the archive records department, and although Mrs. Silva was a kind superior to her, she missed her old job. Above all, she didn't want to be branded as a home-breaker and she was upset that some of her co-workers had believed the rumours rather than her own words.

Lyrid patted her on the back to console her, and his soothing voice and words brought her some tranquility. Relaxing her mind, she discussed with him on her plans to seek for other jobs in the society as she decided she needed a new change in environment and would like to try something new, having been working for some time in the Archives.

He had been rather supportive, and then said some words of encouragement, "Altria, I believe you can do it. You're young, energetic and a hard worker. Companies need someone like you. You're very determined and motivated. From the time you were helping me out earlier at the research facility, I can see that you will have a good future in another company." He paused for a few seconds, took a sip of water, and continued, "Say, I work in this company, and my friend in HR told me that they have an urgent vacancy."

Her eyes seemed to twinkle, and she responded with a question on what were the expected job responsibilities. He quickly made up a description in his mind, and replied, "Erm, they deal with exhibitions, so they are looking into employing a person to keep the presentation area and exhibits clean and neat. Perhaps, some curator skills would be handy, since the exhibits would need to be restored to a presentable condition. And lastly, some documentation for writing up policies on the gallery."

She nodded and thanked him. "I'll look into the job to see if it's applicable for my skills and experience," she said. "By the way, what's the name of the company?"

"It's the Dong Gallery," he said, and heaved a sigh of relief in his mind that she didn't question if he was related to the company.

When the food arrived, Altria was delighted that it had looked sumptuous. She had never tasted anything as delicious as that in her entire life. Of course, Lyrid hadn't mentioned to her that it was in fact, a Michelin-starred restaurant, but because he had booked the entire restaurant and paid some second-class workers to dine in with them, she hadn't suspected that it was a place that only the rich could afford. Furthermore, she had been distracted by the issues bothering her.



Lyrid dropped her off at the place she resided with Astrid after dinner. From the window, Astrid watched as the man whom she recognised as one of the volunteers from the trip, park and alight from the car, before accompanying her up the lift to send her to the doorstep of their place. As expected, Astrid bombarded her with a hundred questions due to her curiosity.

..........................................

After a series of engaging questions during the interview, Altria was accepted into Dong's Gallery. As Lyrid had recommended her for the job, she told herself she would repay his kindness when she could.

Who was he? she thought to herself. Firstly, he didn't seem rich. She recalled how he and his cousin were inseparable and worked together, as they had introduced themselves during the trip as co-workers. His 'friend' in HR had also revealed that he was one of the division supervisors due to his excellent academic background. Perhaps this was why he was lucky enough to be already a supervisor. She was informed that she would be working in Lyrid's department and had three months' probation.

She donned a gown similar to those worn in laboratories and began restoring a very crucial document. It had been the first business permit of the company after it had been incorporated decades ago. When Lyrid knocked on the door, she had just completed her job. She then sealed it in a transparent plastic enclosure before removing her gloves and handing it to Lyrid.

"It's very important to my boss," Lyrid said. "This document has high sentimental value as it was the very first permit since the company started out decades back."

She smiled, and told him her thanks again. He then asked, "Would you like a tour of the company? This will help when you need to find your way around to the other departments for work. Unless of course, if you prefer getting lost."

She let out a little laugh at his words. Lyrid showed her around the company, and introduced her to the other employees, including Ceries whom she had already met, being her cousin's boyfriend. She got to understand their roles and how long they had been working in the company. Ceries also shared with her a few stories about the company and how it was rumoured to be haunted since decades ago. Some of the very first occurrences had been missing stationeries, until someone decided to be funny by asking the 'spirit' to help him find a document that had gone missing. Three days later, the document was found exactly where the person had stood to ask for help from the spirit.

Another issue had been the 'cycle' of married female employees getting pregnant, and this included employees with infertility issues. Somehow, the employees believed it was linked to the 'spirit', and the 'cycle' had been going around for years. "I hope I don't ever have to deal with this problem since I'm single," Altria joked. "It would be scary if I suddenly ended up pregnant without a male."

Lyrid felt a bit annoyed upon seeing how popular Altria was with the male colleagues, but he kept his cool.

............................................

The Visit by Immortals

"Is it fine to bother him at this time?" Altria asked the elderly woman sitting outside Lyrid's office. The woman just grinned, "You're special. Is it urgent? So just go on and knock on the door." She had wanted to submit her proposal for the next gallery exhibition.

She knocked, and heard him ask her to come in. Upon entering his room, she was introduced to a man in an executive suit. It happened to be Siming who was updating the Dijun on news about the Sky Kingdom, and was in disguise as a mortal. When she shook his hand, she felt Lyrid's eyes was on them, and he appeared to be jealous. Despite this, she felt he had no reason to be jealous, and perhaps she was just overthinking things.

She would also be visited by Cheng Yu and Liansong, both also in the guise of mortals. As Cheng Yu visited the company in a similar attire to Siming, Liansong who was accompanying her, would find her extremely attractive, especially in an OL-styled skirt ending above her knees. They would sit at a sofa in the lobby while awaiting Altria to pass by. After finally managing to see her one day, Cheng Yu called out to Liansong for him to bring her back to the Nine Heavens as she saw that Fengjiu was fine.

It was just his bad luck. A woman in a mini-skirt and a plunging neckline had just walked past them, and caused Liansong to look towards her due to the skimpiness of her outfit. An infuriated Cheng Yu dragged him by the ear back to the Sky Kingdom. The aftermath of the incident was that it resulted in a 'cold war', a lovers' quarrel that would span over several years.

"I Love You"

Altria had been rather busy when Lyrid knocked on Altria's office door to ask for some assistance in reading some text on a picture he had of a Papyrus parchment. At the same time, he had wanted to discuss with her on her proposal.

"Can you read it?"

As she was rather preoccupied, she answered absent-mindedly, "I love you" and he responded with "I love you too", causing her to blush but she quickly pretended she did not hear him, quickly informing that the script in the picture was an Arabic-based text known as the Jawi script.

Silently the Dijun thought in his mind, of course I know what it means, but I just want to hear the words from her mouth.