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The venomous gaze of the hero didn’t go unnoticed by any of them, but while Emilia usually might have considered showing Amos his place, she didn’t want to make Crystal any more uncomfortable than she already was.
Although the ‘girlfriend’ that the silver-haired boy brought with him failed to look like an exact replica of Crystal despite her apparent efforts, how could the blonde heroine not feel nauseous when faced with her ‘doppelgänger’?
Even if she could normally just shrug it off thanks to her rather calm and patient personality, Emilia knew that Crystal definitely couldn’t bear seeing her ‘mirror image’ in the arms of the boy she despised so much.
Unfortunately, the crimson-haired girl was well aware that raising a ruckus right now would only make things worse for them by giving both Amos and his ‘girlfriend’ more attention.
The only good thing about the situation was that Amos was probably feeling even worse than any of them, gloomily ignoring the only person in the hall who was paying him attention.
Clearly, the girl’s existence wasn’t of much value in his heart, which only made Emilia look down on him more.
To distract her from the unpleasant situation, the crimson-haired girl tactfully led both Dixie and Crystal to the seemingly abandoned dessert table first. And once they had all enjoyed the top-notch sweets served by Phoenix, she happily hopped over to where Sam was with her parents. “Big sister, look, we brought you cake!”
Looking at the three different flavors of sweet delight her little sister and her friends brought along, Sam couldn’t help but grin happily. “Ohh, thank you, baby!”
Mrs. White sighed in defeat. “Sometimes I don’t know which one of you spoils the other more.”
Both Emilia and Sam turned to her with sheepish smiles, and the older woman couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “Whatever, it’s not like you can be cured at this point. Go on, have fun.”
The people who had previously been interacting with the ‘serious and cold’ Sam felt like someone had thrown them into an alternate reality. ‘Is this still Samantha White, or did she switch with her clone???’
If not for her parents and little sister interacting so intimately with the girl, they would never be able to accept that the tall girl really was who she claimed to be.
Of course, it only made the ‘clone’ theory more plausible in their minds, just with the clone being the one who usually dealt with business.
Thinking about how heavily they all doted on Emilia, everything suddenly started making much more sense!
The real Sam must always be staying at home and enjoying being pampered, while her poor clone ran around taking care of all the business, right?!
Tsk tsk, to think that the White Deer Corporation had even perfected human cloning to this point… truly terrifying.
The moment they had this thought, some of them couldn’t help but gasp in shock. ‘Wait a minute, it might not be the only human experiment they succeeded in!’
Thinking about how incredibly flexible and strong Emilia’s body was, when combined with this ‘proof’… their gazes towards Mr. and Mrs. White suddenly changed to incredible fear.
These aren’t businessmen at all! Charlatans! Crazy human-experimenting scientists!!!
No wonder they wanted their own territory so desperately, going so far as to send out their precious princess to the front lines!
Emilia didn’t know why Crystal suddenly started giggling, but she couldn’t help but smile in re
lief as she sent the next spoonful of cake to the blonde girl instead.
Crystal found it a little regretful that she couldn’t tell Emilia how interesting everyone’s speculations were right away, but she decided she might as well do it later and just enjoy being pampered now.
Mr. White was naturally unaware of their mental gymnastics, and only puffed out his chest with pride as he patted the girl’s head. “Emilia, let me introduce you to someone now that you’re here. This is Mr. Malevich, one of our most trusted partners in the Nevarah Desert region, and a prime supplier of oil—”
The white-haired man’s gaze seemed to linger on certain regions a bit too long, but it seemed like his self-control was quite good, as he restrained himself just as quick. “An honor to meet you. Your pictures really don’t do your beauty justice, Empress.”
Emilia smiled generously, pretending to be flattered. “Thank you, uncle.”
The man felt like his heart had been struck by an invisible arrow at the word ‘uncle’, but considering their age difference… it really wasn’t unjustified.
Plus, with how murderous Mr. White’s older daughter’s gaze was getting, it was probably for the best that the little empress only seemed to see him as an elder. Adding the girl to his collection was never going to happen anyway.
The white-haired man coughed awkwardly. “Y-Your father mentioned that the empire is looking to expand certain industries to the next level, do you think—”
Emilia wasn’t very interested in his ‘proposals’, so she let Sam take over the negotiations as before while occasionally feeding her a slice of strawberry cake.
Fortunately, with the recent decline in both the status and strength of the Black Tiger Corporation, not many people were paying attention to Amos. At the very least, none of those who were being introduced by Mr. White bothered mentioning him in front of Emilia.
What worried her now was if the hero would take the initiative to come their way on his own. She didn’t want Crystal to face uncomfortable questions from others later, after all.
Luckily, the arrival of a few more people quickly distracted everyone else from these ‘insignificant’ things.
“Please welcome, Mr. Sanders Gray, chairman of the Gray Wolfe Corporation, and—”
“Please welcome, Mrs. Allie Gray, wife of Mr. Sanders, and CEO of the Gray Wolfe Corporation!”
“Please welcome, Mr. Alexander Gray, son of the Gray Wolfe Corporation’s chairman Mr. Sanders Gray!”
Many couldn’t help but be surprised at Alexander’s arrival, even though his existence wasn’t exactly a secret. After all, he was a child born long before Sanders married Allie, and most people thought that he would never receive this level of recognition from his father.
With his ‘real father’ being a hotly debated topic among both people of Carmen and Black Tiger’s associates, it came as quite a shock that Sanders Gray would be willing to do something like this.
Moreover, even more shocking was the fact that his actual children, the twins from his first marriage, had already arrived separately!
It was impossible for people to not speculate on the implications.
Didn’t this mean that in Sanders’ heart, the twins were the ‘outsiders’ who didn’t deserve to be mentioned in with his or his corporation’s name, while Alexander was his ‘real heir’?!
Not many people knew of the ‘competition’, of course, but those who did were only more shocked.
And the most furious were the twins themselves. Jasper mi
ght have even stormed up to his ‘father’ to ‘question’ him if not for Ginny holding him back.
He regained his senses soon after, but the rage was still palpable in his eyes. “How dare he do something like this?! Fuck! What’s the point of the competition now?!”
Of course, what pissed him off the most wasn’t the fact that he would be at a further disadvantage in the competition, but the fact that with this move, his father had effectively completely ‘consolidated’ his ‘real family’.
Even if he had long since hated the man, Jasper couldn’t help but curse. “Bastard! Bastard…! How could he do this to mom, to us?!”
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