Fists and Lipsticks 2: The Silver Crescent

CHAPTER 02: Changes

CHAPTER 02: CHANGES

Change is a quest.

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 Yellow caution tapes enclosed the Dasera Hotel ten minutes after the bombing incident transpired. Sirens from incoming police, firemen, and paramedics sounded endlessly, each team immediately coming to the rescue in hopes of finding even a single survivor or witness to the blast.

Too bad for them, though. The Empress leaves no trace.

I entered my room draped with nothing but a white towel, warm water dripping from the strands of my hair after a refreshing bath. My sleeping robes were already prepared by my two lady servants. They entered my contemporary-themed bedroom on the top-most floor of the second of five luxury hotels I owned - the Empire Hotel. I sat down in front of a tall mirror, crossing my legs. Then, I gazed upon the reflection that greeted me back.

One of my two assistants took hold of a towel and began drying my hair. The other wiped my legs up to my thighs and then applied lotion onto my porcelain skin. I reached over to the table and grabbed the box of cigarettes, locking a piece between my lips and waited for my maid to light it up for me. I puffed, letting the warm smoke gain access to my lungs, and then exhaled to fill my room with a whiff of tobacco.

It did not take a long time for me to get used to this new glamorous life. I considered it more than just a taste of wealth, more than a display of luxury and extravagance. For me, this change was a quest – a quest to become a different person, setting a bold borderline between 'what used to be' and 'what will be'. Owning a new house, wearing new clothes, meeting new people, playing with new toys, these changes came in succession. I had no control over them as they came one after another, after another, after another.

Time passed by like a hurtling motorcycle on a race track – dangerous, mad, unstoppable. While on speed, everything was a blur. It was during that blur where you forget everything else just to focus on the track ahead of you. The track is like my mission. Anything aside from the track, I consider a distraction.

This revenge was my mission... and I won't let anything stop me.

I puffed my cigarette once again. I studied my reflection on the mirror, now overlaid with the smoke I exhaled. As the fumes subsided, I saw that my hair was now back to how it originally was – black and straight, flowing down to my waist. My servant blow-dried it for the second round, the warm air from the dryer touching my cheeks and neck. As she finished, I pulled away the towel concealing my body as the second one came to me, helping me to put on my clothes for the night. It was not because I was too lazy to put on my own clothes at age twenty-five. It just happened to be one part of the 'new life' I lived. Despite this glamour, some things ought not to change. The color of my eyes, for example – still hazel. My skin was like porcelain, they often say. My lips were quite pale, and so I had to carry a pink lipstick wherever I go. This time, however, I consider it neither a part of disguise nor pretense. It became a necessity. Without it, I felt as if I were a queen with no crown.

I heard a knock on the door.

Exhaling smoke, I answered sternly, "Enter."

Lin Chen, a Chinese assassin I hired into the Silver Crescent, entered the room with three other men dressed as bellhops. Siren, Lin's code-name, was wearing a pink hanfu, not her usual silver trench coat that stored deadly poison darts and kunais. With them, however, was a woman I did not know. Her hair was shoulder length, her slender figure clothed in dark blue frock coat.

"Lady Nu," Lin said. "This woman claims to be a member of the investigation team,"

"Good evening, Lady Nu Huang," the woman said. "I am very sorry for having to come to you at this time of the night. I would just like to inform you that I have been put in-charge of the investigation regarding the explosion in your hotel."