188 The Meeting 1

"Roses are blue, Tears are red...

Do you remember why you bled;

And toiled so hard, with tears abundantly shed..."

In a beautiful summer afternoon, such cringy lines sang by a throaty male voice actually accompanied a piece of very beautiful and catchy music inside the car. It quite made Sofony speechless, eventually prompting her to mildly glare at her driver.

Her eyes narrowed.

'... He's been with me for some time... Is it just a careless mistake? I have to be sensible and not fire people at random for the littlest wrong done.'

Within the luxurious silver car, Sofony slightly smiled at her driver. "Please. I would prefer to hear Sofia's songs. Thanks in advance."

The old man was at least perceptive enough to notice the slight displeasure in her eyes. He apologized for missing out that song in the playlist. Then as he drove the beautiful woman to the chateau of the Albarez, he did have the known singer and actress' voice occupied the vehicle for the whole ride.

The woman leaned her back on the seat with closed eyes. 'Better.'

Sofony tried to calm herself down, as she would finally be meeting Gio's only close relative, his uncle and the behind-the-scenes power magnate of the whole country - Conrad Albarez.

'... It's been three years since I received the message from him through George.'

She reminisced that time when she was challenged by that man to be at the same level as Amelia Morgan in the business world through pure natural abilities, in short, without any hypnosis work or system-behind-the-scenes play.

A soft smile appeared on her lips. That man had adequately hinted his knowledge of the immoral system, as expected of someone who could stay in his pedestal for so long despite the influx of people like Marc Goldwin and his own nephew who have enough capabilities to replace him, in the surface. He was actually someone with relation to an immoral host. Even she of today could not fathom him... which meant his unknown backer was not someone she could go against.

That same man had thrown her two conditions in order for him to relinquish his hold of Gio's Ever Victorious to her. The first one was already stated. The old magnate had indirectly told her to be as competent as Amelia first before dreaming of taking over as Gio Albarez' representative. Of course, she had no problems with that, understanding that it was her lover's uncle's way of ensuring Gio's hard work would not be ruined in the hands of some stupid woman.

But then, when the second condition was revealed to her, silent anger immediately rose up from her heart, lingering persistently even after three years.

Leo Jones. The magnate wanted her to be at the same level as him as an immoral host. She couldn't describe the indignance that grew in her heart due to realizing that Conrad Albarez knew so much regarding their affairs yet offered no assistance to prevent his nephew from being tossed out of Alina City by a hostile enemy to a location only god knows where.

Naturally, she considered the angle that Conrad Albarez might only have superb access to Intel but with no real power, system-wise, to back it up. This was why she tried her best to calm down the uncomfortable feeling drowning her whole heart.

Today would be the day that she would gauge the extent of knowledge the magnate had about their whole situation.

And she honestly didn't want to imagine what she would do if ever she learns that Gio's uncle had the power and means but still chose to stay his hands three years ago instead of helping them, or even, just Gio, in the name of blood relationship.

...

"... I've grown up without even realizing it myself,

and I've become able to tell more elaborate lies;

I've experienced many kinds of pain,

and yet, this ache still lingers."

The twilight is so red, it makes me feel like crying..."

....

'Beautiful...'

Sofia's heavenly singing voice made way into her ears. The lines in her song were so melancholically sung. But for some reason, it could mysteriously help her clear her mind. It made her open her eyes to also see if the twilight had already descended upon the world outside.

Somehow what greeted her was the sight of a happy family of three walking out of a restaurant from her left side. Her mind fleetingly wandered to the distant past where she and her parents had done the same on her 10th birthday. It was a beautiful memory, burned in the back of her mind. Regrettably, it was also a memory that would never happen again in the future. Thinking of this, she moved her gaze away from that happy and beautiful sight.

A couple of seconds later, probably still due to the word 'family', her subconscious suddenly went back to the fiasco earlier where she asked that swine human whether he had some messages he wanted to relay to his family members.

One reason she became so disappointed in him was that he never once mentioned his family to her, only begging for his own survival.

Such a person who confided about selling his pitiful son for some sort of promotion in that oddball of an organization yet had gloriously forgotten to offer words of apology for doing so even when faced with death was not in any way worthy of being pitied.

The selfishness of that man in a bare display made her make up her mind to not stop the suffering Chris Meyer had ordained for him.

....

"The clouds are breaking apart,

and tears are pouring out from between the gaps.

I held on tightly to your image inside me as it slowly became a blur."

....

Sofony quietly shook the thoughts out of her mind. This matter which was eventually reminding her of that organization was to be carefully thought over at a later time since there was a more important undertaking to worry about in front of her.

She would be finally seeing that person who refused to meet her even though she had already been a Level 5 host and Amelia's peer for more than a year and a half.

What could be the topic of their discussion? She was not informed hence she could only endlessly speculate.

His goal could be to see if she matches his nephew and heir. If he was really very capable, there was a chance he was aware of Gio only using a favor to make her the Silver's princess. Would there be a debate or interesting event about this? She wondered. Unfortunately, the idea itself sounded so boring and unworthy of wasting her time.

To be honest, if not for the chance that Conrad could be aware of some information which could help her find him sooner, she wouldn't be so eager for this meetup.

Bored, and with the same weird feeling stuffing her chest, she sang along with the song that made her clone successful as a singer. The mesmerizing rays of sunset shining her face from the outside were probably what pushed her to do so... or maybe, she just somehow wanted to voice out some of the inner thoughts and fears which she didn't know were still existing inside her heart...

...

"... The twilight is so red,

It makes me feel like crying...

Your voice is becoming fainter and fainter

In the engulfing sunset..."

...

...

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