Chapter 4
1781 Words
In the evening following her meeting with James Pierce, Emily Sterling sat at home wearing her glasses, refining her profit plan.
James hadn’t called all day, yet Emily felt no anxiety whatsoever about whether this fish on the hook might wriggle free.
She marked James’s birthday on her calendar and organized everything related to him into a neatly categorized file.
Simply put, she had created a client profile for a key account.
—In three days, it would be James Pierce’s birthday.
Which meant that, at the latest, she would receive his call by the day after tomorrow.
After wrapping up her work, Emily glanced at the time. It was nearly ten o’clock.
She removed her blue-light glasses, stretched lazily, and was just about to put on a face mask and head to bed when a video call request popped up on her laptop—this time from Lily Sterling.
A few seconds later, and she would have already closed the computer.
Notably, unlike their parents and friends, Lily had never neglected Emily. On the contrary, she maintained a perfectly measured closeness with her.
When Lily’s plane landed, Emily had been among the first to receive her call.
Considering that Lily was, at her core, still Emily’s ultimate wealth code, Emily sat back down and accepted the video call.
The connection was smooth. Lily’s face quickly appeared on the screen. She sat by a sunlit floor-to-ceiling window, wearing a gray shirt—a color that somehow softened infinitely on her.
“Sis, are you about to sleep?” Lily adjusted her white earbuds and smiled.
“If you’d been half a minute later, I wouldn’t have answered,” Emily said, taking a sip of water. “Paris weather looks nice.”
“It really is. That’s rare,” Lily propped her chin on her hand, lips pursed slightly in a sweet, childish way. “I’ve only been here a few days, and I already miss the sunlight back home.”
“Three years is a long time,” Emily replied languidly.
Perhaps because Emily’s tone was too calm, Lily paused before asking, “You seem to be in a good mood, sis. Did something good happen?”
Emily answered vaguely, “I figured a few things out.”
“I see…” Lily lowered her gaze and thought for a moment. “Sis, there’s something I want to ask you. Could you… not be angry after you hear it?”
“What is it?”
“I spoke with James yesterday,” Lily said cautiously, her gaze flickering. “He told me something about you. That’s actually why I’m calling today… I wanted to apologize. I didn’t know you liked him. If I had known, I would’ve behaved more—”
She paused awkwardly, unable to find the right word.
“… Anyway, sis, I’m sorry.”
“What does me liking him have to do with him liking you?” Emily leaned back in her distinctly non-ergonomic chair and asked indifferently. “And why are you apologizing to me?”
The tragedy of “Emily Sterling,” aside from her own weakness and inability to refuse, was caused primarily by those shameless men. As for the family members who turned a blind eye, they weren’t innocent—but they ranked a tier lower on the scale of guilt.
Emily couldn’t be bothered to overthink why Lily had suddenly called to apologize.
She had no interest in untangling their emotional history, so long as it didn’t interfere with her making money.
Lily pressed a hand to her chest and let out a relieved breath, smiling. “I’m glad you don’t mind. I’ll be more careful to keep my distance from James from now on. Don’t worry, sis—I won’t be with him.”
Emily gave a noncommittal hum, thinking: James Pierce—tragic.
Lily asked again, “Do you still like him?”
She asked innocently, as if it were an offhand remark—pure, sweet, without calculation.
So Emily answered just as casually, “Feelings aren’t something you can discard overnight.”
“… So you still like him,” Lily repeated with a smile. “I understand.”
It seemed Lily had really called only for this matter. Soon after, she wished Emily good night and ended the call.
Emily closed the slim laptop, placed her glasses on top, and put the conversation out of her mind.
It wasn’t until the third day, when she checked the income details in Temptation of Going Home, that she realized something was off.
—The night before last, a little after ten—almost exactly when the video call ended—Lily Sterling had contributed an emotional income of a full $160,000.
After that came several more entries, one after another.
Yesterday, James Pierce and Lily Sterling had contributed emotional income almost back-to-back. Presumably, the two had discussed her.
Emily hadn’t expected the transaction log to double as an emotional tracker.
Leaning back in her chair, she pondered: whatever psychological turbulence Lily had gone through during that brief call, everyone’s emotional fluctuations were intense.
No wonder the app singled out “emotional value” as its own category.
After all, melodrama thrived on violent emotional swings. If it were flat and restrained, it wouldn’t be melodrama.
Substitute romance, in particular, was an evergreen trope of the genre.
After staring at Lily’s $160,000 entry for a moment, Emily tapped the trackpad, reopened her proposal, and made a few small adjustments.
Yes—occasionally stirring emotions a little harder might be beneficial.
Halfway through revising, her phone rang.
Emily paused her typing.
Her phone was on Do Not Disturb. Only one user group could break through.
And at present, there was only one person in that group.
She didn’t keep James waiting. Flipping the phone over, she raised it to her ear. “Hello.”
James’s voice was taut. “Tomorrow. The entire day.”
“Alright. My working hours are from 9:00 a.m. to midnight,” Emily replied calmly. With one hand, she wrapped up the final edits in her document, opened her synced calendar, and selected the long block for the next day. “Confirming a fifteen-hour booking?”
“… Confirmed,” James said heavily. “I’ll send my requirements later.”
“Payment secures the reservation,” Emily reminded him evenly.
James hung up without another word.
Less than a minute later, Emily received his transfer—$1,500,000, as casually tossed away as spare change.
Emily adored that kind of disregard for money.
Thanks to James’s generosity, her bank balance had already reached $2,000,000.
Though the countdown to returning home still read a staggering −9,997,637,851.00, at least the start was smooth.
Smiling, Emily closed Temptation of Going Home, opened her chat with James Pierce, and began reviewing the client’s service requirements.
James was clearly improvising, sending his demands one by one, sometimes rapidly, sometimes with long pauses.
Emily waited patiently. When five minutes passed without a new message, she gently asked: Is that all?
The status “The other party is typing…” lingered for a long time before a single word finally appeared: Mm.
Emily casually sent back a Thanks, boss sticker, copied the scattered messages into her document, and began preparing for the next day.
James’s requirements weren’t particularly excessive. That same evening, he even had a complete set of coordinated dresses, shoes, and jewelry delivered to Emily’s address.
When the doorbell rang, Emily initially thought it was takeout. The moment she saw the sales associate in a tailored suit holding luxury brand boxes, she realized her mistake.
After receiving the gifts, Emily didn’t try them on immediately. She paused, then pulled out her phone to check.
Gift value from James Pierce: $80,000.
As expected—movable assets counted just like bank transfers.
Emily tossed the expensive dress onto the bed and laughed softly.
One hundred million dollars still seemed distant—but not impossible.
It all depended on how well her leeks would grow.
…
James Pierce deleted every sharp-tongued message he had typed. In the end, frowning, he entered a single Mm, sent it perfunctorily, and tossed his phone aside, out of sight.
Ever since returning from his last meeting with Emily Sterling, James had felt restless, unsettled.
In the past, he had only liked Emily’s face—after all, she was Lily Sterling’s twin. But the moment Emily moved or spoke, she became entirely different.
He knew perfectly well that Emily wasn’t Lily—and yet…
During those three hours, Emily had been Lily, vividly alive.
After Emily swept out of the restaurant that day, James had been so furious he nearly smashed the glassware.
The next day, acting on impulse, he called Lily. It took two attempts before she answered.
Her voice was as cheerful and soothing as ever. “James, is something wrong?”
“Mm…” James hesitated, then said, without burden, “There’s something I never told you. Your sister likes me. She confessed to me.”
“How could—” Lily sounded shocked and guilty. “Then the day before I left, when you confessed to me, my sister must have been heartbroken. If I’d known, I would have—”
“You don’t need to do anything,” James interrupted gently. “She knew I liked you. She knew what I planned to do that day. She accepted it. You don’t need to feel guilty. I just thought you should know.”
Lily fell silent for a long time before letting out a quiet sigh.
“So… my sister likes you,” she murmured.
“But I only like you,” James said firmly.
The moment he said it, the heaviness in his chest dissipated, leaving him oddly relieved.
—That’s right. The only one I like is Lily Sterling.
And yet, two days later, James received another call from Lily.
She was sobbing. “I spoke with my sister… She said she still likes you. James, could you stop liking me? I don’t want her to be hurt.”
James was silent for a long time. “I’m sorry, Lily. I can grant you many things—but not this.”
When the call ended, James could almost taste iron at the back of his throat, as if he’d taken a heavy blow to the chest.
I can’t contact Emily anymore. If Lily finds out, she’ll be upset.
With that thought, James endured for one day.
Only one day.
One last time—then he would truly cut it off.
Thinking so, he dialed Emily Sterling’s number.
“… Tomorrow. The entire day.”
- Writer
