A Gift

Finally, she was home. Yiren entered the apartment with a jubilant look. After spending half a day with Lan Ning, it revealed a lot about the man she didn't know. She was ready to accept him as her friend.

Lan Ning didn't turn out that bad after all, as long as he didn't go past the boundary of being more than friends. She was in utter disbelief at why she had issues with him earlier. If not for him helping her out the two times, she would be in an extremely intricate situation.

A package lay on the table with her name on it. She resisted the temptation of tearing the wrapping apart and took it into her room to pore over it bit by bit.

Someone had wrote her name in neat, poised handwriting. Judging by the handwriting on the package, the sender had to be a man. She flipped over the package to take a peek at the return address. The address was a business tower at the CBD, and there was no postage stamp affixed on the package, hinting that it was likely hand-delivered.

She turned the package around in her hand. The weight of the package seemed somewhat light, though she could feel there was something inside it.

Who could have sent it? Images swept through her mind. What if there was a bomb ready to tick off? The fact it had not gone through scanning by the postal system made her fret. She took a deep breath and counted to ten.

Consulting her logic, if someone had sent her a bomb, it would already be ticking away and would have blown off at any time. Why would the sender have waited till now? In this case, whether she unboxed the package or not, the bomb would have detonated, anyway. It would make little difference if she opened it.

She clenched her fists so vigorously that her nails were cutting into her flesh. Eventually, her finger stopped trembling as she cut through the package.

The box contained a smartphone still in its original packaging and a note.

'Please switch me on'

Reluctantly, she clicked on the power button, and the screen fired up. Nowadays, the power button was often incorporated with a fingerprint sensor, so that was what she had left to configure the phone with. Everything inside the phone had already been set. An email was created for her and everything was personalised to fit a girl's needs.

It was like she had set it all up herself. The person who had done this all must have known her really well to understand her interests.

"This is… the latest model of Z-2380?" She could barely contain her excitement as she explored the functions of the cell phone. Who in the world could have presented her with such an expensive device?

Guan Ziming's words suddenly flashed in her mind.

'I'll see to it.'

Had he meant that he was going to get her a phone, so he could contact her for the arrangement with Dong Xu?

She shivered at the thought. She almost asked herself how he ended up having her address, but then she recalled that Dong Xu had sent her home once. Thus, it was no wonder that Ziming had her address. He probably knew even more about her, she realised.

The phone vibrated suddenly to the beat of a tune that followed. Yiren recognised the tune as one of the background music playing at the Hidden Cafe.

Sure enough, Guan Ziming was calling her. She cleared her throat and allowed the phone to ring for a few seconds before clicking on the screen to answer the call.

"Hello," his voice sounded warm as it penetrated her ear.

"Uh, hello. Is this Mr. Guan?"

"Yes. Miss Feng, I am glad to know that you have received the phone. I hope I satisfied you with our company's unreleased model."

"Unreleased model?" she repeated after him, confused. "This phone… is one of your company's creations?"

"Exactly. ZeeZeeTech, rebranded as Z-2380, is one of our sister companies, affiliated with DongTe. I apologise for not informing you earlier, but what do you think of the phone?"

"It's good…"

"What about becoming our beta tester?"

"Beta tester…" she gulped. So, whatever she saved on the phone would not be privy to herself? "Meaning… you can access my personal information?"

"Not entirely. It means you can report to us any bugs or possible improvements. In return, you can have the phone for free."

Yiren thanked Ziming wholeheartedly. She was a simple person and didn't think much of any possible dilemmas it would bring her in the long run. As the idiom goes, 'when the boat gets to the bridgehead, it will naturally straighten itself out'. If any problems surfaced, she would deal with them later.

"Congratulations. You're now the first owner of this model."

That she was the first to own the model, Sky Aquarius, felt extremely gratifying to her. She would have jumped in joy had Ziming not still been on the call. She cheered a few times silently and couldn't stop beaming.

"One more thing, Miss Feng."

"Ah, yes?"

"You requested a meeting with Mr. Dong. I'm calling to inform you that in three hours, he will be at the Limelight VIP Club."

"VIP…Club?" she stammered, a mental image forming in her mind of scantily clad women dancing on poles and sexually deprived men ogling at servers dressed in maid uniforms.

"Don't worry, it's not what you think. Mr. Dong frequents that place because it is quiet and few people go there because of the inconvenient location."

His assuring words alleviated her. But there was an obvious problem: she didn't have any clubwear! And she couldn't possibly afford a cab. The fact it was located inconveniently ultimately meant it was inaccessible to public transport.

"And how do I get there?"

"In about two hours and thirty minutes, I'll send a car to pick you up. Do you think you can make it?"

She bit on her lower lip. She had to try, even if she had little chance of convincing Dong Xu to reduce the terms to three months. But thinking of the bigger picture, she couldn't allow the chance to slip.

Whether it was three years or three months, it was the results that mattered. Compared to not getting anything from Feng Yintian, she would rather take the chance and go for it.

"Two hours and thirty minutes, did you say? I'll be waiting for your transport. What colour and make is the vehicle I need to watch out for?"

"I'll keep you notified through a text."

The call disconnected. Collapsing backwards on her bed, she gazed at the plain-looking pastel ceiling.

"Dong Xu, Dong Xu. How can I ever control my emotions around you?"

Her mind was totally blank.