"Ugh, I miss Xiaoyun so much!"
Nami complained as she rolled around on the sofa, with the sunlight illuminating her body, before sobody overshadowed her.
"It’s only been half a day. Go outside and play with your daughter like the rest of them."
Leyan murmured as she stood by the windows, turning the blinds on to block out the burning sun from the outside.
"I don’t want to go outside. It’s so sunny... Lily can have fun dealing with Xuanhua."
As Nami pushed her responsibility away, Leyan only shook her head and looked over to the other two ladies sitting on the sofa.
"Kate, Anna, what are you two doing?"
"Just so work stuff... Kate, you sure Xiaoyun is going to make orders after he sees the thing your engineers have made?"
"I’m sure of it," Kate answered.
"But it’s not even finished yet... You can’t expect him to give you money for research, only for you to upcharge him next.
"What upcharge?" Nami curiously asked as she crawled over to where the two of them sat on the side.
"It’s not an upcharge. It’s called intellectual property. The governnt funds the research, and we make money off of it afterward.
It’s just standard business practice... You can’t expect a company not make money for themselves, no?"
"Yeah... But it’s governnt-sponsored research if we accept the money."
"So what? Here, let ask you this."
Kate paused for a second as she closed up the laptop and looked back at Anna right in the eyes.
"Anna, who’s the one paying the engineer’s salary?"
"Us."
"And who’s paying for the facility?"
"Us..."
"Who’s coming up with the idea and the initial research for it to happen in the first place?"
"Us?"
"Now tell , if we took extra funding from the governnt to fulfill a future business order, is it really wrong for us to make up for the other costs?"
As Anna struggled to co up with an answer, Nami looked just as confused. Her mind was telling her Kate’s reasoning made sense.
Nami’s heart tells her sothing was off, though. Sothing within the conundrum felt paradoxical and contradictory.
"If what you’re suggesting is a project being partially funded by the governnt, shouldn’t the governnt also have partial ownership?"
Leyan’s answer caught Kate offguard as she took too long to co up with sothing in her head to re-convince Nami and Anna.
"Mom’s right! You’re trying to take away the share of the governnt contribution. Kate, you almost tricked ."
"Kate..."
Seeing Anna looked a little disappointed, Kate looked over to Leyan with angry eyes for a second before speaking up again.
"Hey! I’m just trying to help us make more money. We’re a private business. Why shouldn’t we try to maximize profit within the legal boundary?
Tell , is anything I ntioned earlier illegal? Can the governnt produce whatever we co up with themselves?"
"Sounds like soone is a little desperate."
Leyan chucked as she walked off towards the kitchen before Kate had the chance to argue back at her.
"We can still make money... Even if it is legal, I don’t like to earn money through unethical ans."
"Ugh, stupid Leyan..."
As Kate facepald herself, Nami couldn’t help but chuckle a little as well, seeing how Anna had completely switched sides.
"Mom! We’re hungry! When are you cooking lunch?" Yuqi’s voice suddenly appeared as she yelled from the backyard door.
"I’m on it now. Give thirty minutes."
"Leyan, let help you."
Anna quickly got up from the sofa, heading towards the kitchen as she had nothing else better to do.
"What are you smiling at?" Kate grumpily questioned as she looked over to Nami, who was struggling to keep it together.
"Nothing."
---
As the evening approached, everyone was out of the house to go shopping, except for Lily, who sat on the sofa alone.
In front of her was the TV, playing a certain ani on the screen as it was wirelessly connected to Nami’s laptop.
"Ryuko, you don’t deserve the right to fight ."
"You don’t get a choice."
Just as a fight scene was about to start, soone suddenly knocked on the door, interrupting the show.
"Oh co on, really?"
Lily quickly turned off the TV, closing the laptop before walking over to the door’s peephole with a short little stool in hand.
"Hm... What was that?"
Jumping back down onto the ground, Lily scratched her head in confusion as no one was there to knock on the door.
"Weird..."
For a second, Lily’s curiosity told her to open the door to take it inside. But her rational reasoning quickly took back control.
Back over on the sofa, Lily quickly opened the laptop again, reconnecting the TV to resu the show.
"Little lady, do you know where Mr.Chen is?"
The sudden voice out of nowhere made Lily freeze in place, her hand hanging on the space bar as goosebumps all over her body.
"T-They are out shopping with everyone else," Lily answered robotically as her mind instinctively couldn’t think of anything else.
After sitting still for a whole minute, Lily finally had enough and turned around. But to her shock, no one was there.
"What was that?"
Getting up and walking around the living room, not a single soul was near her. All of the blinds and windows were completely sealed as before.
Even the backyard door was closed. Not a single entrance to the house was opened as she double-checked the locks.
"Was that a ghost?"
The more Lily thought about it, the more goosebumps appeared on her skin to the point that she went back to the sofa and hid herself underneath a blanket.
"G-Ghost doesn’t exist. Calm down, Lily, that must have been so weird hallucination or sothing."
Despite attempts to reassure herself, she manages to scare herself even more as the voices from earlier felt too real to be fake.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" Lily nervously asked, with her head barely peaking out of the blanket despite it being a hot day.
With the living room continuing to be a deafening silence, the fear slowly disappeared from Lily’s mind as she pushed the blanket aside.
"I must be suffering from heatstroke or sothing... That must have been it."
Lily quickly grabbed the remote to turn the air conditioner from low to high mode, sending a cold chill as she clicked on the laptop’s spacebar
"Satsuki!"
Just as the fight scene resud, a sudden knock on the door appeared once again. But this ti, it was followed by a voice.
"Lily! Open the door. We’re ho!"
"Coming!"
Lily grumpily turned off the laptop, disconnecting the TV as she quickly ran over to the door.
"Go help carry so stuff from the car. Mom brought so much stuff today... You okay, Lily?"
Yueyue asked after noticing the pale look on Lily’s face as if she had just gone through so scary mansion.
"I-I’m fine."
As Lily quickly ran off to the car outside, Yueyue didn’t think too much about it as Nami ca in next with a bag of stuff.
"Finally, so cold air. Can’t believe it’s so fucking hot in the month of September." Nami complained as she dropped the bag on the floor.
"The hot temperature is going to continue until next Wednesday," Yuqi murmured as she ca in with a bag full of groceries.
"No fucking way."
"Hey, watch your language," Shuli warned as a baby was strapped to her back, seemingly asleep.
"My bad."
"Nami, your baby."
Kate quickly handed Xuanhua over as she turned back around to go outside, grabbing more bags as the entryway soon filled up with bags.
"You two get your lazy butt from the sofa. Carry these into the kitchen." Leyan hurried as she forcefully sat them back up.
"Okay, okay."
As the two of them got up again and carried the bags over into the kitchen, Anna suddenly noticed an envelope on the table.
"Leyan, did we have mail today?" Anna asked out loud as she dropped her bags and picked up the envelope.
"Not that I know of."
Leyan yelled from the kitchen as she sorted the grocery bags into different piles before putting them into the fridge.
"Weird... Hey Lily, did you bring mail into the house?" Anna asked as she stopped Lily, who just co back from the car.
"No... Wait, how did this mail co into the house?"
As Lily looked shocked by the mail, Yueyue and Yuqi both ca back from the kitchen to carry more bags.
"I saw it resting outside on the porch, so I brought it in earlier with ... Soone should probably open it." Yueyue answered.
"Huh... No address, na, or anything. How did this thing even get here?" Anna wondered as she examined the mail.
"Let open it."
Leyan quickly snatched the mail out of Anna’s hand as she personally ca back from the kitchen to check it out herself.
"Wait, let do this in case sothing bad is inside it." Tianci chid in, rember what happened to Xiaoyun last ti.
After a few seconds of thought, Leyan handed the mail over, letting Tianci open it as they all stood around her with curiosity.
"What’s inside?" Nami curiously asked.
"Nothing."
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