Scheme

"Ruxi explain the situation precisely" he orders her.

Ruxi got up, walks to the front, operates the PowerPoint, and starts explaining. "As you can see in the graphs," Ruxi points to the big virtual screen behind her, "the lines show the deteriorating prices over the whole week. The Mystical collection that we launched a couple of months, is getting negative comments now. When we first launched our collection in the market, it got a well-round of appreciation…..but suddenly people are saying we plagiarized it with the Fu company, even though we all know there's a huge difference with the outline and concept of ours in comparison to them. They have an advantage that they released their products first The PR department, as well as the Human & H department, tried to suppress this issue for the time being but somehow it's still on hype. On top of that, the company's price rate is dropping lower and lower. We thought of focusing on holding the company together in the first place and look into the plagiarizing case later on…but I don't think that we can manage to do it."

The news of imitating Fu's product is not the first time. The Mo corp was accused to imitate the men's summer collection which was launched by the Fu's first; they managed to prove their innocence but this time they don't have much power to go against the Fu's, one of the leading fashion companies in the whole Asia.

Shi Lian is in deep thought. All the people inside the room are staring at her in search of some answer.

"What's your opinion on this, Shi?" Mo Zheng Yuan ask her.

"We have a betrayer in our company, heh" Shi Lian smirks.

She figures that the person who leaked the documents is someone from this company and probably of PR and Human & H departments. She cannot say this out loud because she doesn't have any proof regarding it.

"I suspected that this must be the case but I wasn't so sure about it. All the people of our company are trustworthy and loyal so…" Ruxi puts her opinion forward.

"But we all are humans. We can do anything to get what we want, it's human nature" Shi Lian explains in a serious tone, "It's a right choice to uphold the company first but we also cannot let the thief stay in this company any longer. We need two teams; one will take care of the company and the other in investigating the plagiarization."

Everyone starts whispering about what she said; some were disagreeing, most were ready to do it sooner and the others are confused about what to do.

"Shi, how will you investigate it? We cannot afford to involve the police in this mess or else the outcome will be severe for us only" her father says with concern.

This news had given Mo Zheng Yuan a big headache, his health is getting worse now.

"Father I know. I will be leading the investigation without any police help, just some company's people will do" Shi Lian says confidently.

"How can a random girl give us instruction? Chairman, who is she?" one of the staff members raise a question, out of frustration.

Mo Zheng Yuan gives him a death stare, the cold steely look in his eyes is dangerous enough to kill anybody. Jun Jie, the staff member is scared as anything when the Chairman looked at him with those cold eyes.

"Listen everyone!" Zheng Yuan orders in his authoritative tone, "she is my daughter, Shi Lian, and your future Chairman. Be respectful towards her or else….you know it."

The room goes silent; everyone's face is either a shocking one or an unbelievable one.

"She is going to be a Chairman? Isn't she way too young for that?" one female staff whisper to the one beside her, probably her best friend.

"Older than us maybe. Is the Chairman out of his mind?" the other gossips too.

"Are you that free to gossip? If so, then you can leave. We don't need gossipers like you!" Zheng Yuan says in anger and frustration. He wasn't planning to reveal this news until Shi Lian's performance but he couldn't hold it back.

"Sorry Chairman!" they all say in unison.

"Meeting is dismissed now. Get back to work now" he dismisses them.

The members bow to him after getting up from their seats, without making any irrelevant noise they walk outside the meeting room.

"Miss Vice President, divide the people into two teams. Choose wisely while categorizing them" Shi Lian tells her. Ruxi nods and starts writing about the plan. "I have a rough doubt that the person is from the PR or Human & H department" she ruminates aloud. "What makes you think like that?" Ruxi asks in curiosity.

"I can't say anything for sure right now as I don't have any evidence regarding it. "

"Whatever it is, there shouldn't be any risk!" Zheng Yuan tells her as her concerned father.

"Father you are the one who told me that real success is something you get after taking risks.... and right now of we don't take a risk, we may lose," Shi Lian tells her father, a beautiful smile on her fair face.

"Oh, my dear daughter! What should I do with you? You are giving surprises after surprises" he says holding her hand which was placed on the glass table.

"There's more! " she winks playfully making both her father and Ruxi laugh.

After talking a bit more about the plan, Ruxi and Shi Lian went back to work.

"It's a headache" Ruxi complains as she sits on her leather chair.

Shi Lian just smiles and does her work which was left a bit. The sketches were ready, she is giving some final touches on them. "I am done with my work which you gave me. "

"Good... I'll check it later. Just keep it and take a break of what you want or do whatever... " Ruxi is dead tired. She can't even open her eyes to look around. She closes her eyes for a while to gain some energy but eventually, she will fall asleep. One of her bad habits is that she falls asleep way too fast than anyone. That's the reason she did not take any extra break, but today she cannot take it anymore, she has been doing the work non stop the whole week with a little sleep.

On the other hand, Shi Lian thinks of doing some investigation of her own as she is free. She asks Ruxi that she will be back in a couple of minutes. Closing the door from outside she goes to find evidence. Her first stop will be the PR department, it's on her suspicious list.

She enters the department which is located on the 5th floor, 7 floors down from where she was. She takes the elevator and reaches in the meantime. She is not nervous that people will talk about her, she stopped caring about their opinions a long time ago.

"Hello everyone" Shi Lian greets everyone present in that room. The PR department doesn't know about her being the Chairman but sooner or later they will as the rumor spreads faster than anything.

They look at each other, can't figure who she is and what she is doing here.

"Miss, which department are you from ? " a male worker asks.

"I am an intern working under the Vice President " she half lies. It's true she works under Ruxi but not as an intern. She hopes to get some answers because she doesn't want to leave empty-handed after coming this far, from the 13th floor!

"Oh, so you are an intern here. We welcome you to this company" he greets her warmly. The other workers smile at her, she was not expecting them to be this welcoming; it's going to be hard to catch the betrayer.

"Thank you. Miss Ruxi asked me to take a tour around every department and get to know about everyone or more specifically, I need to get adjusted here" she makes up a lie and tells them smoothly. They believe her and now trust her more that she is not some intruder.

"It's rare for the company to hire someone in this situation.... you know about the current situation of the company right? " a female worker asks her.

Boom! Got it. "Yes, I know. The plagiarism news is so upsetting. I bet it's someone's scheme! " Shi Lian intentionally drops this news to get any sort of reaction from them.

"What is Miss future Chairman doing here? " a voice comes from behind.

If the people know that she is lying, it will be harder to get answers here. She remembers that only the executives, two-three members of the Human & H department and a few from the PR department; the people that were present there are not here right now probably, so they cannot recognize her. If anyone who attended the meeting is here, he/she would have revealed her identity but nobody did.