Lily Bai’s pounding on the door finally worked—she heard voices outside.
Delighted, she hammered the door even harder.
Bang! The chair in her hand broke apart.
Luckily, there were plenty of chairs here.
She turned to grab another one.
Just then, she noticed something was off with Secretary Grant.
His breathing was rapid, his face flushed, and he was staring at her with a hungry, predatory look.
Lily’s heart skipped a beat.
Why did he look so...
She sniffed carefully and caught a faint sweet scent in the air.
With every breath, her body grew hotter and more restless.
She’d been so focused on pounding the door she hadn’t noticed, but now she realized that sweet scent had been lingering for a while.
This had to be some kind of drug!
Damn it! That’s classic Fane family tactics.
Just then, she heard muffled voices outside: “There was banging on the door just now—someone’s inside.”
“Why is the door locked? Who has the key?”
“It’s a coded lock!”
“President Xiao! What brings you here?”
Xavier Xiao: “Open the door!”
“We don’t know the code!”
President Xiao said, “Find whoever knows the code!”
“Yes, sir!”
...
The drug was clearly potent—Secretary Grant lunged at Lily Bai.
Meanwhile, the people outside were about to open the door.
Lily chopped Secretary Grant on the back of the neck, knocking him out and dropping him into a chair.
Then she shouted toward the door, “Is anyone out there? Somebody help!”
No sooner had she finished speaking than the door swung open.
Outside stood four or five people, with Xavier Xiao among them.
“Lily, what happened?” Xavier Xiao asked her.
“We were both lured in here separately, then locked inside—and someone pumped drugs into the room!” Lily blurted out. “Secretary Grant’s passed out.”
Xavier Xiao was about to reply when someone rushed over, panicking: “Where’s Secretary Grant? Where is he? He’s the host! The conference is about to go live—where is he?”
“He... fainted.” Lily pointed inside the room.
“What?” The newcomer was drenched in sweat and nearly frantic. “What do we do? This is a nationwide broadcast! How could he pass out now? Who’s going to host?”
“Isn’t there a backup emcee?” Xavier Xiao asked.
“No, there isn’t!”
“There’s the hosting script.” Lily went in and grabbed Secretary Grant’s script. “Just find someone to read it!”
“Read from the script? Have you ever seen a host read from a script? The All-Trades Expo isn’t some ordinary event—the host has to memorize the whole thing, and there’s no teleprompter, got it? There’s only five minutes left, and you want me to find someone who can memorize this entire stack?”
Everyone frowned in silence.
“We’re doomed, doomed! Seriously! Secretary Grant’s killed us!” He was sweating buckets, practically ready to faint himself.
“If you really can’t find anyone else, I’ll do it,” Lily suddenly offered.
Everyone stared at her.
“I can memorize the whole thing,” Lily said.
...
Inside the ring-shaped conference hall...
Most of the participants had taken their seats.
As one of the organizers, Colin Grant’s gaze swept over an empty chair in the audience.
Lily Bai still hadn’t returned.
It looked like she wasn’t coming back.
The Fane family really does have their fingers in everything.
They can stir up trouble even here.
Before the event started, he waved over a staff member and asked, “Still no sign of Secretary Grant?”
“Nope!” the staffer replied, frowning.
“So what are we going to do?”