Inside the marble foyer of Maison de Lumiere, twelve obsidian-armored European cultivators slammed the butts of their rune-inscribed halberds against the checkered stone floor. Late Foundation Establishment pressure rippled through the salon, rattling the crystal chandeliers overhead.
Behind Lin Mo, the fifty Alpine orphans huddled close to Sister Clara. Grandma Chen calmly stepped in front of the children, holding a diamond-stitched haute-couture evening gown folded over her arm like a kitchen dish towel.
Marquis Laurent strode forward in his ermine-lined crimson velvet cloak. Above his silver-streaked hair, the dark crimson halo on Lin Mo’s retina pulsed with decades of corporate malice: [Marquis Laurent | Chairman of LVM-Ouroboros Luxury Group | Goodness: -53 / 100].
In the European luxury industry, a five-hundred-year-old noble title usually guarantees the final word, Lin Mo thought with a dry inward chuckle. Too bad five hundred years of pedigree means nothing against a fifty-one-percent controlling stake.
“So you are the Eastern upstart who caused such a commotion in Geneva,” Marquis Laurent sneered, tapping his diamond-topped cane against the marble tiles. “Walking into my Paris flagship with a pack of Swiss street orphans and turning Master Jean-Paul’s couture gowns into kitchen aprons? What a vulgar display of new money.”
