Lumian didn't try to greet Huang Tao, still looking ahead until one of the elevators opened its doors.
The rush hour had already passed, and only a handful of people were waiting in the elevator area, entering in sequence.
Today, Lumian only wanted to succeed in the interview, hoping for no other incidents. He didn't plan to observe Mr. Huang or make further contact, so he chose the position furthest from Huang Tao, only politely nodding when their eyes met.
Mr. Huang was a celebrity among celebrities. It was impossible for those working or planning to work in this building not to recognize him. The others in the elevator had already greeted him in various ways, so Lumian couldn't completely ignore him.
Huang Tao, hands in his pockets, was casually chatting with a middle-aged man who seemed to be a department head from the Intis Group headquarters, showing no air of authority as a big boss.
As the elevator ascended, the others, including Lumian, got off at their respective floors, while Huang Tao went to the sixteenth floor.
His CEO office was actually near the administrative department on the tenth floor. The sixteenth floor had been arranged as a luxurious club for entertaining VIP guests and for his own relaxation.
There was even an indoor swimming pool there.
The beautiful secretary standing guard at the private elevator turned and said with a helpless smile,
"Mr. Huang, why are you competing with the employees for the elevator again?"
The four employee elevators generally couldn't reach the sixteenth floor, but Huang Tao could make them go up using card swipes, fingerprint recognition, or facial recognition.
Huang Tao didn't speak, smiling as he looked at the mature and beautiful female secretary, his gaze sweeping over every detail of her face.
The female secretary's heart trembled, and her voice lowered as she asked,
"Mr. Huang, is my makeup not done well?"
Huang Tao smiled.
"Beautiful things are worth appreciating."
Without waiting for the secretary's response, he walked directly towards the swimming pool, silently saying to himself,
My aesthetic taste hasn't changed, yet I actually thought a man looked quite good just now…
…
Parking lot attached to the lottery center.
Franca, who was five minutes late due to traffic, turned to Anthony and said,
"No accidents so far."
She didn't say things like "This time it's really going smoothly" or "We should be able to claim the prize successfully today."
It's not too late to be happy when the money is in the account!
Anthony, who had been repeatedly educated by Franca about the prize-claiming process seven or eight times, nodded, opened the door, got out of the car, and walked towards the lottery center.
Franca, feeling a bit uneasy, tossed a lollipop to Ludwig.
"You wait for me in the car, don't go anywhere."
"Mm!" Ludwig bit down on the lollipop, first gnawing off the outer wrapper and swallowing it.
Franca left the vehicle in a running state to ensure the air conditioning continued to work.
She got out of the car, muttering,
"This is not good behavior. Parents, please don't learn from this. Don't leave children alone in the car. It's dangerous if you take out the key, and even more dangerous if you don't…"
But with Ludwig left in the car, it wasn't the child who was in danger, but the car and the surrounding pedestrians.
Franca then used the shadows cast by the morning sun to sneak into the lottery center, hiding behind an obstruction not far from Anthony.
She listened intently to the conversation between Anthony and the staff member, holding her phone, ready to call and correct his statements at any moment.
The staff member said to Anthony,
"First prize can't be claimed yet, but other prizes can be."
Is it really possible? The method of separating the ticket from the person really works… Or maybe the dream's tendency is actually targeting the person who won the first prize? Franca, hiding in the shadows, felt a surge of excitement as she listened.
After a few more exchanges, when the staff member asked for the lottery ticket, Anthony pretended to have something to do and took out his phone to call Lumian.
Tenth floor of the Tech Building, Intis Group headquarters, outside the "West Lognes" conference room.
Lumian sat on a chair with three other job applicants, waiting for the interview.
Suddenly, his phone rang.
Seeing that the caller was "An Ruide", he rejected the call and put his right hand into his trouser pocket.
There was a mirror about half the size of a palm and the second-prize winning lottery ticket.
Lumian first wrapped the ticket in layers of spider silk, then formed a layer of frost on the outside of the silk, and finally ignited Flames of Destruction on the surface of the frost.
After quickly completing these preparations, he pressed the ticket into the mirror.
The lottery ticket immediately fell into a tunnel of void darkness, plummeting towards the corresponding mirror.
Along the way, the quietly burning black flames, constraining destruction, slightly illuminated the depths of the mirror world, as if warning all unknown entities that dared to set their sights on the lottery ticket.
When the ticket reached the mirror carried by Anthony, the Flames of Destruction had already extinguished, melting the frost and the spider silk.
The intact lottery ticket emerged from inside the mirror, just as Anthony's extended hand pressed against it.
Anthony took out this lottery ticket and handed it to the staff member.
After receiving it, the staff member's hand retracted slightly, and he muttered to himself,
"It's been kept in a fridge all this time?"
…
Tenth floor of the Tech Building, outside the West Lognes conference room.
Lumian quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
It seems now that the dream tendency interfering with our prize claiming indeed comes from the Celestial Worthy. If Mr. Fool thought this matter was problematic and wanted to prevent Franca from claiming the prize, with the lucky coin for positioning, he wouldn't have been bypassed so easily…
After a while, Lumian's phone vibrated a few times.
He picked it up and saw that a friend with the WeChat name "True Hidden Blade" had sent several messages in a row:
"Successfully claimed the prize!
"We're rich now!
"Oh, by the way, the first prize can't be claimed yet."
First prize can't be claimed yet… Lumian suddenly felt puzzled, Is the first prize winner an ally or an enemy? Does the dream's obstructing tendency come from the Celestial Worthy or Mr. Fool?
His previous deductions suddenly became less certain.
Because it was also possible that Mr. Fool was obstructing Franca's prize claiming, but the purpose was to affect the person who won the first prize. He and his team were just caught in the crossfire. Today, whether the lottery ticket was separated from the claimer or not, it would have succeeded anyway.
As Lumian pondered, from the corner of his eye, he saw Zhou Mingrui passing by from afar, but Zhou Mingrui didn't pay attention to the interview here, engrossed in discussing something with Luo Shan.
"Next, Li Ming," the interviewer called Lumian into the conference room at this time.
Lumian entered calmly, politely greeted the two interviewers, one male and one female, and sat down in the chair designated for interviewees.
After asking a few routine questions, the female interviewer, about thirty years old, looked Lumian over.
"Why did you drop out of high school?"
"Puppy love," Lumian answered without any shame.
"Puppy love shouldn't lead to dropping out, right?" the male interviewer, who had also experienced puppy love, asked puzzledly.
"We had a child," Lumian calmly added.
The two interviewers were momentarily speechless, both lowering their heads to write down a paragraph about this with their pens, for later evaluation reference.
Lumian's eyes suddenly took on a silver-black hue.
He discreetly extended both hands, touching and amplifying the streams of fate favorable to him.
The two interviewers then wrote down similar words:
"Decent image, height exceeds standard, young and strong, married and had a child early, needs to support a family, values money quite highly…"
After writing this, the female interviewer further asked,
"How old is your child?"
"7 years old," Lumian answered truthfully.
"7 years old? Aren't you only about 22?" the male interviewer blurted out in surprise, "Didn't you say you had puppy love in high school?"
"I only said I dropped out of high school because of puppy love, not that the puppy love started in high school," Lumian explained seriously. "I had a child in the third year of junior high. By the second year of high school, both my parents had passed away, and I needed to support myself, my girlfriend, and our child, so I had to drop out."
The two interviewers looked at each other, not knowing how to evaluate this situation.
After about ten seconds, the male interviewer asked,
"Have you learned martial arts?"
"Do you need me to demonstrate?" Lumian inquired sincerely.
As he asked, his whole demeanor became slightly sharper.
"No need, I can sense it," the male interviewer felt that the applicant looked quite capable of fighting.
After asking about expected salary and other questions, the female interviewer said to Lumian,
"That will be all. Wait for our notification. If you don't receive a call in the next day or two, it means you haven't passed."
She spoke very frankly because this young man seemed approachable. Although he had dropped out of high school and had puppy love and a child early, he was very polite and had the looks for the job.
Lumian, who had lightly used Charm, stood up and politely said goodbye.
…
"La la la, la la la, I'm a little newspaper seller…"
Franca hummed a nursery rhyme cheerfully as she drove.
She had received the prize money of over 156,000 yuan, and because each bet didn't exceed 10,000 yuan, no tax was required.
Now, the team temporarily had no financial worries. Next, apart from contacting and probing relevant individuals, they would find ways to earn more money to rent one or two items from the Star Dream Provisions Store.
However, the idea of buying similar lottery tickets would have to be postponed for a while, as the hidden struggle behind winning and claiming prizes seemed quite intense!
Of course, they could continue to buy scratch cards, but they would have to frequently change lottery stores.
While envisioning the future, Franca's phone suddenly rang.
Wearing earphones, she chose to answer.
The call was from the human resources department of the Intis Group, asking Franca to come for an interview tomorrow morning.
Haha, when things go well, everything goes smoothly! Franca muttered to herself, extremely happy.
Later, she would have to use Lie and makeup techniques to make herself moderately less attractive, to avoid catching Mr. Huang's attention and being forced to resign and leave, unable to complete the task of contacting Zhou Mingrui.
But making herself less attractive didn't mean becoming truly ugly, just reducing her beauty to a certain extent. Otherwise, if the appearance-focused Mr. Huang happened to wander into the administrative department one day and felt this employee wasn't good-looking, he might fire her on the spot. What then?
…
Dechuang Garden, Building 5, 23rd floor.
Jenna, who hadn't encountered any abnormal situations all day, leaned against the window, watching Luo Shan return to her residence wearing a women's shirt, pencil skirt with stockings and high heels, change into a casual dress, and leave the building again carrying a white handbag.