Joshua’s Dilemma

As soon as Joshua entered the house, he headed straight to Mr. Chu's room and once there, he knocked twice before waiting for an answer. 

However, no answer came and the silence prevailed for long.

He tried for the third time and was about to do it for the fourth time when the door opened, revealing a much older man with a few wrinkles on his cheeks, dark brown eyes, and his hair slicked back to his nape.

Joshua bowed to the head of the Chu family, who hummed in response.

"You called for me, Sir?"

The middle-aged man eyed Joshua with a sudden, unsettling lust in his eyes.

Joshua, trying not to be too alarmed by the sudden change in the demeanor of the head of the family and showing his discomfort, averted his gaze from his master.

"No, I didn't. But you can come in if you want."

Joshua felt goosebumps all over his body.

He looked at the older man with the best resting bitch face he could show and shook his head with a smile.

"No need, Sir. I'll return to my duties."

The man nodded, his expression tinged with sadness. Joshua couldn't care less and simply bowed to him before bidding farewell.

He went down from the third floor to the ground floor, heading straight to the butlers' quarters.

A friend of his, Zeno, was still asleep on the bed given to him while he approached the resting man.

Standing close to Zeno, Joshua gently pulled back the blanket covering half of his face.

It was a known fact that Zeno slept topless. Joshua sucked up a cold breath as he slowly pulled the sheet off the young man's body.

"Damn," upon seeing the violet and blue marks all over the latter's neck and shoulder blades.

Joshua cursed and pulled the sheet further, only to see red marks near the latter's mermaid line.

The sight brought those goosebumps all over again along with the unsettling feeling.

"Why do I always end up having to work for creepy people?"

He covered the blanket back on Zeno's body and flopped onto his own bed.

Days like this were slow, even for a butler, especially now that Lilian was more focused on her planned vengeance against Lucas.

It was something he felt was extreme, given how little she knew about the person she was targeting. Well, that was probably the reason why she asked him to stalk Lucas. 

The only problem was how.

Joshua clicked his tongue, staring at the white ceiling before his eyes.

Stalking Lucas would be easy enough with his connections, especially since those he had with his cousins and the wonderful Stellar Wang on his side.

However, having an enemy called Rex Lin would not be ideal and only complicate things. He sighed in frustration and got up from the bed before grabbing his laptop. 

He sighed deeply as he took the laptop and placed it on his lap before opening the gadget and searching on Gugul for any information about the youngest son of the Huang family.

As he browsed through the information, Joshua hummed to himself, clicking any link that mentioned Lucas's name, but that was when he heard a slight rustling from Zeno's bed.

He looked over to see his friend sitting up and looking at him.

"Good morning, Joshua. What are you doing?"

Joshua smiled at him.

"Good morning, Zeno. Oh, I was just searching for something. How was your evening?"

Zeno grimaced as he removed the blanket covering him, making Joshua quietly wince in pain inwardly.

"Sheesh, did he go all out last night? Did you do something bad?"

Zeno shrugged, a gesture Joshua had seen countless times before.

"Damn, Zeno. Have you ever thought about escaping?"

Zeno simply stared at him and then stood up before grabbing his towel.

"It's not like I can, even if I wanted to. You already know why." 

Joshua kept his mouth shut and remained silent as he watched the young man, knowing that he had already given up on trying to get out of this place.

'Well, it's not like I will be here for so long, too.'

Joshua sighed, turning back to his screen and scrolling through the contents before noting down some of the information he found relevant.

[Name: Lucas Huang

Age: 24

Date of Birth: 03/01/2000]

"Hmm…not much information about him online, I see."

Joshua continued to scroll down, hoping to find anything else he could jot down, but there any details about Lucas were scarce.

"Damn it. His connection to Rex is going to make this job even more difficult."

Joshua closed the screen and tossed his pen and paper aside, then lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

For what seemed like the nth time, he sighed, wishing to turn back the time when he had accepted the job to be butler of the Chus.

"Hm, what to do now?"

Joshua closed his eyes, considering other means he could use to gather information about Lucas without getting caught by his cousins.

"Jeez, this is so hard."

Opening his eyes, Joshua sat up and looked over at his phone, pondering whether to ask Hunter or Rex himself for help.

He was about to grab his phone from the nightstand when he stopped.

"Wait, what if I just ask Ezekiel to help but also make him promise me not to tell Rex about this?"

'Sounded like a good plan, only if Ezekiel was not that loyal to Rex.' Joshua clicked his tongue in annoyance as he was not left with a dilemma.

"Should I ask for help or just let everything go ahead and personally stalk Lucas?" he muttered.

He groaned mindlessly when the door suddenly opened, revealing Lilian in her fancy pink dress, her small pink bag in hand, holding onto the doorframe while leaning her entire body.

"I didn't know you could procrastinate, Joshua." 

Joshua scoffed, rolling his eyes in annoyance.

He looked over to Lilian and was startled to see what she was wearing.

A tight pink Hello Kitty design dress, a huge pink ribbon at the center, ruffled satin pink gloves and too many accessories on both, her neck and some parts of her fingers.

He just couldn't help but wonder that whoever had told her that she looked good in pink was either blind or dead drunk.

He tried not to stare at her too much and averted her gaze back to his laptop, eliciting a scoff from the woman.

"Just admit that I look pretty. I know it already." 

Joshua held himself back from rolling his eyes at the sudden burst of confidence from this girl.

"What do you need, my lady?"

Lilian chuckled, pulling out a white envelope from her bag and holding it out to him.

"As my personal driver, you will be my escort to this event."

Joshua looked at the envelope, puzzled and slowly opened it. Inside was an invitation to a celebratory party at Ming Corp.

This Saturday.

He frowned, reading the invitation and made sure to read it thoroughly before nodding reluctantly.

"Do I have a choice to not go?"

Lilian shook her head and with a resigned sigh Joshua nodded. "Fine. Let me see if I have anything formal—I'd rather not wear any of your awful tailored suits."

Lilian rolled her eyes as she walked out the door, giving him one final order. "And drive me to Audrey's house while you're at it."