The Cheap & Dupe CEO

CHAPTER 09

The next morning.

Adam took a tour throughout the mansion in a golf car with his niece and nephew. Leher’s son, Jeffery, the current head butler of the mansion, also accompanied him.

They stopped by the horse stable. While the children played with the ponies, Adam noticed the very many cars stored in the old shed behind the stables. There were at least fifty cars, so he was genuinely shocked.

“Why keep so many cars here instead of selling them away?” Adam asked.

“They are all rare models, so in a few years, they’ll sell for a great price, Young Master.”

“Oh? That’s a great way of earning money. Whose idea was it?”

“Haha, stop joking. It was your idea, Young Master.”

“Hahaha,” Adam embarrassingly laughed.

“When you said the idea to your grandfather, he was impressed even though he saw through that your real intention was just to ride all the costly cars coming into the market,” Jeffery said and chortled. “But buying these cars is easy, so Master didn’t refuse.”

“Buying these many cars is easy?”

“Well, we buy it under our charity organization ‘Conreid Aids’, so we get them at a discount and with minimum to no tax.”

“I see,” Adam’s neurons were firing at this moment even though he maintained a rather casual expression.

“Come to think of it, it’s crazy how the world works.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, don’t take this in the wrong way, but you only studied up to the tenth standard, yet you are successfully running so many educational institutes. Take Second Young Master Eric. His companies sell tens of thousands of tech gadgets every week, but I rarely see him put earphones on and listen to songs. Even when he was young, he never watched TV or played games on the PC, yet he’s running the tech departments pretty well, doesn’t he?”

“Mm,” Adam could only nod in agreement.

“First Young Master is like an inspiration,” Jefferey continued. “Even though he got married when he was young, he didn’t have children until he crossed 40. He’s a complete workaholic. Not just him, but all three of you are an inspiration to me. Thanks to you, I realized that you don’t need to know pythagoras theorem or Newton’s laws to do real estate or build my own company. Though I’m burdened with a wife and children, I want to one day run my own business, so please wish me luck.”

“Y-Yeah, yeah, sure,” Adam patted Jefferey. (I heard from Leher that he used to waste his time in casinos, but it looks like he’s willing to put that habit away. He has bigger ambitions than even his father. Good for him.) Adam briefly remembered how he used to buy lotteries with the money he earned from begging. He had done that for over seven years until he lost hope on it. And there were plenty of times when he stood outside different stores and waited until things were given for free. (Quitting the lottery and other useless habits sure wasn’t easy, but more importantly, I somehow came out of the worst habit of all. Begging. It seems everyone has their own share of habits they aren’t proud of, so maybe, I shouldn’t be too ashamed of my past. I won’t waste this golden chance. I will make sure I succeed so I won’t return to my past life!)

After that Adam helped the children learn golf. He himself had never played golf before, but he knew about it enough to teach the innocent children, though he wasn’t skillful enough to show off.

The attention of the children didn’t last long, and they grew hungry quickly, so he brought them back to the building.

The breakfast was full of natural, healthy meals and no unnecessary stuff decorating the table. By the time everybody finished breakfast, nothing was left at the table, which was completely against Adam’s expectations. Even when used to live with his aunt and uncle, some food would go wasted every day, but that wasn’t the case here. The credit must go to both the chefs and the eaters, he thought.

As he walked out of the building, the limousine stopped right outside. Before the driver got out, he raised his hand, opened the door by himself and got in. The engine was on, but it made little to no sound even after the wheels began to rotate.

It was a smooth ride to the headquarters, enough for him to get forty winks.

When he entered the seventh floor of the headquarters, almost all the employees welcomed him with bouquets and greeting cards, wishing him good health and luck. He took his time to receive each and every single of them, which greatly surprised everyone, but it also made them feel great to shake their hands with them and share smiles together, even though they didn’t get to talk with him much.

There were a couple of women who gave him handshakes for a bit too long, but he guessed that they were probably among those CEO Adam messed with. He didn’t even look at those women for a second time before rushing into his office.

Evelyn followed him inside.

He took his seat and looked at her. “You didn’t bring any greetings or anything?”

“Do I have to?” her reply froze his expression. Is this how a secretary was supposed to speak to her boss?

“Anyway,” Adam didn’t want to argue with her and waste time. “Before I check the schedule for today, there’s a flower shop in the next block. You know that, right?”

“Why?” her brows drew together. Why was he talking about a florist’s shop all of a sudden?

“We can’t do anything about the greeting cards, but all those bouquets outside, if we sell them back, we’ll receive at least half their price.”

She blinked twice, unable to get her head around what he had just said. “Pardon?” she thought she heard him wrong.

“Sprinkle some water, and sell those flowers to the shop quickly, before those things fade away,” he said and opened the files.

Seconds passed.

He looked up at her. “Why are you still here?”

“A-Ah, sorry,” she turned around and was leaving, but she ended up stopping and turning back at him. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” he asked.

“I can’t sell the flowers. It’s not the right thing to do,” she said. “They gave you all those flowers, wishing you good health. If you have any gratitude for what they did, you shouldn’t be selling those flowers.”

Adam leaned back in his chair. “Gratitude, huh… You’re right. If we sell those flowers and send the money to Conreid Aids, we will be able to help a soul or two. That way, gratitude will blossom, won't it?”

“T-That’s…” she didn’t know what to say.

“If you’ve got nothing else, then get to it,” he said and continued reading the files.

She pressed her lips together in a bit of frustration. Eventually, she turned around and walked out.

Adam briefly glanced at her and smiled a little bit. He was about to lower his head toward the file in hand, but his eyes caught sight of a picture in the newspaper. The headlines of the Entertainment page read ‘Waitress on Fire’ and showed the image of Reena slapping the film’s director. “What the…” he picked it up and read the contents. “She quit the film because the director misbehaved with her?” he swallowed his saliva. “This woman… I don’t understand. Was she the same woman who… did all that… last afternoon?”