Starting from Zero

We left Rezard eating in the restaurant and headed back to our hotel.

The hotel manager saw us from the gate but I gave him a stare, telling him to stay away.

We moved straight to the top floor, which surprised the girls a little.

"This is...your room?"

"Yup."

"A presidential suite?"

"Correct."

"You can afford this??"

Zirai has a pretty big family but they can\'t easily pay for something like this.

"I told you money isn\'t concern. I was serious you know. When we have time I can introduce you two to my parents. You\'re going to be surprised even more."

"Okay I believe you. I think even my mom will drop her jaw when she sees you." Rin Ray nodded.

"So, where is Miss Rose?" Zirai looked around quickly.

"This way."

I took them to her bedroom. Rose is still lying on her bed, carrying a mild smell on her lips. Having a nice dream maybe.

The twins stopped at the sight, attracted by Rose’s looks.

"Like in the fairy tales." Rin Ray commented slowly.

"Now I believe she actually tuned down her looks in the game." Zirai added.

It seems our words woke her up. Her eyelids twitched and finally opened.

"Oh...Hi sweetheart." She rubbed her temples. "I think I drank too much last night. I see three yous."

"A--hahaha!" The twins laughed out.

"Hey Rose, it’s me, Zirai!"

"Huh? Why are you in my dorm?" She can finally see things clear now. "Uh where am I? "

She removed her blanket and saw an unfamiliar pajama on her body.

"Who changed my clothes?"

"Me." I sit on the bed and give her a hug. "Don’t worry, all\'s good."

"Ziri? So what happened? I’m sure I didn’t come here by myself."

"You are supposed too." I pretended an angry face. "You know we are going to have a trip today, and you still knocked yourself out like that? I spent the whole morning trying to wake you up. When I couldn\'t I took you here by force."

"So is this...?" She looked out of the window.

"The hotel on Paradise Island. Now get up. Zirai and her sister are paying us a visit."

"Ah!" She jumped from the bed. "Excuse me you two, just a minute!"

She ran out the room but came back again.

"Where is the bathroom?"

I guess I had to guide her since she\'s unfamiliar with the place after all.

We ordered some snacks before we sit down to talk.

"Zirai, you told me you\'re a single child in your family right?" Rose asked her.

Rin Ray answered us. "Oh don’t blame her, it was my idea. I told her not to tell others about me, so we can sometimes trick people."

"Trick people? Oh I’d like a twin sister to try it out." Rose chuckled.

"Yeah, we even played pranks on our teachers and classmates." Rin Ray began to tell us their "glorious history". "Big sis was never good at math so I always help her take exams in her place. And I was never caught!"

"Oh shush you." Zirai retorted. "And I’m always helping you with your history lessons!"

"He heh..." Rin Ray scratched her head. That temper is more like a boy to me.

"Master, the designer is here." Big K came into the room and spoke to me.

"Already?"

To help with our plan, I asked the chief image designer in Dragon Fate to come to the island. But I only asked that like ten minutes ago.

Butterfly explained: "Oh, it seems the man was just having his day off on the island."

"I see. Let him in." I turned to Rin Ray. "Okay now, your plan executive is here."

"Executive...what now?" She only gave me a puzzled look.

"The man who will help you promote Obaly and crash Cindy for good!"

A man with dark skin, wearing thick goatee walked to us. Well that face kinda reminded me of a certain infamous terrorist in the history.

"Greetings young master, I am the image designer working for Dragon Fate, call me Mr. Wu, please." He talked straight to me, which is quite unexpected since the twins are here.

"Um, do you know me before?"

"We never met like this but I have seen your photos. I must say you didn’t change much."

"Alright. Come take a seat, mister!" Rin Ray quickly dragged him to us. "We need your professional expertise!"

He looked at Rin Ray. "Well aren\'t this a similar face!"

"Both of us. You didn\'t mix us up huh?" Zirai asked.

"As the chief designer, I can well quit my job if I can’t even tell a gentleman from ladies."

"To the business then. I want you to help promote a rookie on the stage."

"Can I see him or her? A photo is fine, too."

I spoke to Big K: "Go back to the restaurant and take the girl here."

"Yes sir!" Big K stormed out of the room.

I quickly spoke to Butterfly. "Follow him and make sure he doesn’t do anything violent."

"You can count on me."

There she goes.

Then I continued telling Mr. Wu my plans. "I wish to turn her into an all-around star. She must be taking part in everything, movies, dramas, concerts, et cetera et cetera."

"That should be no problem. How much are you willing to spend on brewing her image?"

"Um. Is...300 million enough?"

I don’t know how entertainment business works so I can only give a guess.

"Hey, hey Sairin, isn’t that too much?" Zirai seems uneasy now. "It’s just a revenge for my sister, you don’t have to use that kind of money."

"We make money to enjoy a good life, and making my friends happy is part of it."

Rin Ray grasped my hands. "Thank you so much! How do I pay you back? Maybe I can give myself to you? So I don’t have to worry about getting indebted."

Zirai knocked on her head. "Oh cut it, sis."

Rose smiled as well. "Don’t worry, I won’t mind. Maybe you two can both join us, so I can take three husbands to go shopping in the future!"

"Bah--hahaha!" Everyone laughed.

----------------------------

"Ah! Let me go!!"

Someone screaming outside drew our attention. I see the elevator door opening. Big K is carrying the girl we asked on his shoulder. She’s punching at Big K\'s back, which of course won’t have any effect on the bulky creature.

"Uh, sorry sir, I kept telling him to be gentle but he won’t listen." Butterfly only shrugged.

Big K walked in front of me and put the girl down.

"Mission accomplished, sir."

I face-palmed.

"Go somewhere else with Butterfly. I\'ll call you when I need something."

"Yes sir!!"

Now...to Obaly. The poor girl is staring at us with pure horror.

"Who-who are you? I\'m only the assistant, if you want to kidnap Miss Cindy you got the wrong people!"

Ouch. A reasonable misunderstanding.

"We\'re exactly looking for you." I faced her. "Answer me, do you need a lot of money?"

She hesitated, but nodded in the end. "Ye-yes."

"How much does Cindy pay you?"

"3 thousand a month. Enough to provide my family."

"Now I pay you 10 thousand. Give up your job and work for me instead, alright?"

"For how long? I signed a ten-year contract with Cindy, if I quit now I\'ll have to pay a big fine!"

"I will take care of the contract. It won’t affect your monthly payment, and I’ll even give you bonus if you did good job."

She hesitated again. "What exactly do you want me to do? I won’t do any dirty job mind you!" I held tight on her clothes.

Sigh.

Rose asked Mr. Wu. "Is that a common idea among celebrities and stars?"

He gave us an awkward smile. "I\'ll have to admit...This is a rather serious phenomenon in these years."

"Make sure it doesn’t happen to her then." I told it both to Mr. Wu and Obaly.

"Rest assured. Most people usually offer that kind of service to gain fame and money. It is not a forced option, as long as they can resist the temptation."

"I guess few innocent girls can resist it when those old foxes are playing from behind."

Mr. Wu lowered his head. Obviously he\'s also one of the "old foxes".

"I heard about your excellent record when working in Dragon Fate, that\'s why I asked you. I trust that you can live up to my requirements?"

"Yes, yes of course!" He wiped some sweat off his forehead.

"I haven\'t agreed!" Obaly suddenly spoke.

"You...don\'t accept our offer? I thought it was good enough." I looked into her eyes. "Think again."

"Okay, as long as you promise not to ask me to do anything related to...you know..."

"Of course. Let’s start now." I nodded to her. "There is a celebrity party tonight and I need you to show yourself to everyone on it."

"Show myself? How? Sing? I can’t sing!"

"I have everyone we need here, they\'ll dress you up from tip to toe."

"Dress up? That won’t work. I\'m not cute, I don’t have a good voice...It\'s no use."

"Master, the personnels have arrived!" Big K returned.

"Huh? Did they fly here on a rocket?"

Weird. Is my Luck attribute affecting me in my real life?

"They were coming home from a marketing campaign held in Australia, when they heard the plan they just went off their plane earlier."

"Perfect. Tell them to gather at the stylist center, they should have most equipment they need."

"Understood!"

Then we took Obaly to the center. It\'s four in the afternoon, not many people are here. Our people are already waiting. The original workers all left the place. Looks like we paid them to rent the entire place.

I told them my plan, in general. These are all experienced people so they can figure out the details.

I found a place to sit and watch them getting to work.

Obaly is placed on a lounge, while a group of designers surrounded her. Two of them are working on her hair, another two on her face.

"Sir, we don’t have enough time to do a thorough facial adjustment. Can we use the artificial cells?"

"I don’t know the details, just make sure to give her a good look before nine o’clock, no matter what you use."

"Understood!" The designer turned to one of his assistant. "Give me the cell regeneration fluid."

"Do we have to? That thing cost us 20 million fund."

"Do it! Did you hear our orders?"

"Aye aye on it!"

A music accompanist walked to Obaly with a paper sheet. "Try to sing several notes here."

Obaly complied. The musician signaled her to stop soon.

"Sir, her tune is not...optimal. Do we give her a throat operation to mend it up? Or do we only train her in our limited time?"

"The operation will take a long time to recover right? I need her on the stage tonight."

"Don’t worry, we only use laser to modify her tissue in minimal extent. She’ll be able to use her voice like normal within an hour."

"Do it then."

He asked the assistants to push their surgical instruments in here.

At the other end of the hall, several people are in front of the computer are trying to make a dress according to Obaly\'s digital model, and a dozen of fashion designers are working on the fabrics.

Rose and the twins are picking clothes among the showing cases in the center. No females can resist that I guess.

I walked to an idle designer. Not all of them get work to do at the moment.

"Can I help you, sir?"

"Can you change my image a little?"

"Of course." He walked to a distance and inspect my body. "What kind of look is in your mind? "

"Make sure people can notice me as a man upon the first look, instead of confusing my gender again."

"That\'s simple!" He dragged me onto another lying chair. "First, let me change your hair."

He brushed my hair into those marine-style crew-cut. It felt strange but at least few women would wear a hair like this.

"Now let’s get you some clothes."

We went to the gentleman section and picked out a bunch of different costumes. After some trials and disagreements I finally chose a leisure sports wear. I think this is pretty suitable for street dancing. At least this will better persuade people of my gender.

"Oh wow, Ziri? What happened to you?" Rose came and saw my new look.

"How do I look?" I tried to strike a pose.

"Are you...going to show up on the stage too?"

"Ah!" The twins finished their shopping as well. "You want a place on TV?" Zirai asked.

"Ahaha that looks funny!" Rin Ray talked her mind straight.

I looked at my designer. "Guess we change it up."

After some other effort I decided to wear a format suit anyway.

"Will this do?" I asked the girls for opinion again.

"Good!" They all nodded.

"Sir, we’re finished!" Mr Wu came over.

"That\'s pretty fast."

"Pray take a look, and tell us if you want any changes done."

He took us to the designing stage, where a row of other designers are keeping Obaly hidden behind.

"Ta-da! Meet Miss Obaly, the rising star!"

Ahh! So this is the power of professional image designers. The shining lady standing in front of me is totally different from that common girl we saw hours ago. The tailor makes the man! I mean woman!

"She looks beautiful!" Zirai circled around Obaly and admired. "But how did you do it? This is completely someone else!"

A designer explained: "Actually we could have done better, if not for the hurry and lack of equipment. We can improve her further if we take her back to the design center back at the headquarters."

"This is fine!" I also checked Obaly up close. "Perfect! Exactly what I was hoping for!"

"A pleasure, sir."

"Did you do something to her voice too?" I asked Mr Wu.

"We did some minor modifications to her vocal cords using our lasers and cell regeneration medication. We also stimulated her tongue a little. She also had some short breath problem which can\'t be solved right now...But we can amend that with the help of certain digital sound systems. We don’t have enough time to compose a new song for her so we selected several songs from our database, all copyrighted to us. We\'ll let her try them out, then choose which ones are most suitable."

"She’s not going up there with these cheap clothes right?"

"Of course not, our tailors are still working on it, I believe they’ll be done any moment now."

He’s true. Someone ran to us with their finished products and quickly dragged Obaly into the changeroom. When she walked out of the room she’s now wearing a pure white silk midriff-baring jacket, white leather miniskirt with velvet rimming. There are several holes on the skirt, which reveal her improved white skin without exposing any private parts. Her chiffon cape and those tall, silk stockings are all designed to fully show her alluring body while not intending anything too far.

A designer took out a white, puff headband and placed it on her head. Now she’s truly an angel.

"Niiice! This is going to humiliate that Cindy witch to hell I say! I’m counting on you, hear me??" Rin Ray stepped around Obaly in excitement.

"Anything else you need to do?" I asked.

"Step practice, and simple voice control training. We can’t do much now but better than nothing."

An instrument coordinator walked to Mr Wu. "Let’s record her voice so we can later use our computers to help with her singing."

"Ah." A really wicked idea popped up in my mind. "Mr Wu, go and buy off all major television channels to broadcast the party tonight from 9 to 11. Try to negotiate with the Central Television too. If they can\'t, ask them to find time and repeat the show tomorrow. Also, tell the telecom operators in Dragon Fate to broadcast the signal to other countries with our satellites, especially developed areas."

"Uh, sir? That will cost much more than our budget."

"I never make bad deals. We have a world-class superstar at our hands now, and I only promised her ten thousand each month. We\'ll easily get the money back."

"Ew. So my husband is a big bad profiteer." Rose commented.

"Nope. Obaly agreed on it on her free will. Even if you tell her my plans now she won’t complain, trust me. I helped her get famous and earn money, while I take profit in the long run. Nothing\'s wrong. No one else could have done this for her."

"Still...I probably should be more careful around you, so you don’t suddenly decide to sell me to someone."

"Didn’t I buy you already, my little slave?" I booped her lip.

"Hey!" Rose ran away and pulled Zirai close. "Careful now! I have backup plan!"

"Backup what?" Zirai wasn’t listening to our "drama", now she\'s confused.

"Ha-ha!" We just laugh without telling her what we’ve been up to.

"We leave now, I believe you can handle everything else?" I spoke to Mr Wu.

"Yes of course. Just enjoy the night, sir."

"Alright. Let’s go Rose."

When I led the three girls out of the hall I just noticed they are each carrying a big packet in their hands.

"What are these?"

"Some new clothes we took!" Rose answered.

"That’s some pretty big bags."

"Worrying about your wallet?"

"Oh hell no. I just throw away 300 million, some extra clothes won’t hurt."

"Then thank you for your treat handsome!" Rin Ray is carrying the heaviest load among the three. I guess she found additional fun apart from our plan.

"Where are we going now?"

"Still time before the party so...Let’s check the game." Zirai suggested. "Bi-Lin should be ready by now. We’ve been away for some time, I\'d guess Hawk is tiring himself out."

"Oops. I forgot to tell him our absence."

"Let’s do it then."

I take over all the shopping bags. "You go and buy three game helmets. I\'ll take the stuff back to the room."

"Three?" Rin Ray protested. "Get me one too!"

"You play [Zero]?"

"No but I want to try it out now, so I can make more friends like you!"

I stopped a bit. Now she mentioned it...I’ve been making some new friends since I started playing the game, I\'m also talking a lot more, compared to before.

"Hello?" Rin Ray patted on my shoulder. "You heard me?"

"Not a problem." I gave my credit card to Rose. "Four helmets then."

"Very well. Careful not to damage our new clothes! Or I\'ll punish you!" Rose gave me a last order and ran away with the girls.

She’s definitely not the Rose I met the first time...Maybe this is her true self? Anyway, it\'s a bless for her to finally get away from her tyrant parents.

Back to my hotel I guess. I hope we can find connection ports in the room.