L Empire Corporate Center

For Manuel Lagdameo, the painfully prolonged polite greetings were just a waste of time. Nevertheless, he thought that hypocrisy and pretentions were part of business so he loathely tolerated the fact in every board meetings like the one they had now. L Empire had not been doing well for the last three months, at least for his standards because the numbers that were running on their screen wasn't bad at all, but they were lower than those of the CGC's—and that itself came as an unacceptable fact not only for the L Empire's president but also for the elders that were behind the corporation.

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"The demands of strawberries in the South decreased drastically since last year" They were at the part of the discussion where they were talking about the struggle they had with the unsold imported strawberries. Almost three years ago, L Empire had won the bidding to be the sole importer of strawberries and yet that agreement that they signed had put them in a huge disadvantage right now.

"The south had been our main target for this import as they had been the one with great demands for the previous years," Draco Lagdameo, cousin of Manuel, who was also one of the board members raised, as all of them stared at the screen laid before them "What seems to be the problem? Had anyone looked up on this?"

"Well Mr. D, the problem in strawberries distribution is just a minor problem. This should not affect even slight—"

"Minor or not, things like this should be handled with greatest care" Samson Lagdameo, another of cousin of Manuel, growled from the end of the table as he cut off whatever the presenter was trying to say. "We are still losing money with this and that should be enough to take this matter seriously"

For the last three months, the board meetings had always been filled with much tension as every board member who were all surnamed Lagdameo had been purposely looking for faults to throw at Manuel. They knew that the elders had been losing trust on him due to what happened to the Lagdameo heir and to his scrupulous actions after that.

At the moment, Manuelle tolerated their harsh words because he had to. He was well aware that no matter what these board members will say or do, they can never overthrow him as the L Empire's president, unless of cours their wives or mistresses gave birth to a son that can continue their lineage bearing the last name Lagdameo, like Darryl.

The presenter breathed heavily and took some courage before he continued his report, "Truth is that we had already checked the matter and the initial report revealed that the reason behind the strawberries' drastic demand decrease in the south was because someone is said to have been growing strawberries and that person sells their products cheaply in the Hampshire market. Because of these, consumers turn to Hampshire to buy them instead of ours as it is less expensive,"

"Impossible!" The board members gasped with unbelief "Was that report even verified? We all know strawberries don't grow there. Was this all a joke?"

"Please Sires" The presenter begged. The L Empire's board were composed of men Lagdameo's who represented each of their households. L Empire was a closed corporation, so no outsiders had been a part of the board eversince. Also, patriarchy was religiously practiced by them so no single Lagdameo woman had been and can be a part of the board previously. "The report was verified several times and it is true. Our agents saw the local fresh strawberries being sold off in the Hampshire market and since these were local ones and not imported, the government cannot hinder the trade for our sake since our contract was only for imported strawberries"

"And who grows them?" Draco Lagdameo who was shocked himself became curious of the fact as it was simply an outrageous revelation.

"They said it was the granddaughter of the town's local doctor. We tried to check her profile, but her records seemed outdated and very hard to trace and she was said to have been away for years now"

"How about school records?" He asked further.

"No trace of whatsoever, she's clean"

"Clean?" It was Samson who spoke this time and raised a brow at the revelation. "Her record comes clean even with L Empire's investigation team?

"Yes Mr. Samson,"

Every board member looked at each other after the questions had been asked. If the L Empire's investigation team had hard time looking for someone's information, it only meant one thing—the one they were after was someone not ordinary. But how come a local doctor's granddaughter become someone unordinary? That was what everyone was thinking at the moment.

"You got her name?" Samson then turned to Franco Lagdameo, Manuel's brother who he thought was the most capable of digging every single information of someone much better than L Empire's investigation team. The only drawback was that his ways were all dirty business.

Franco only flushed a confident look at everyone and shrugged as if the thing was an easy task. He then turned to his most trusted assistant who was sitting at the sideways and the latter went to hand him some documents. With a vicious smile, he threw the papers in the table and leaned back at his seat lazily.

"Xhemin Lae Dugmoch, her school records were very clean that even I cannot trace. That only meant one thing, either she's from Rivendell or she's studying abroad with a school like Rivendell. If none of those were true, then probably she was not studying at all."

"Home schooled you mean?" Samson confirmed as he looked at Xhemin's profile.

"No, it means she wasn't enrolled to any schools. I had checked all homeschooling institutions in the country, she's nowhere" Franco answered him.

"A town's local doctor cannot afford to send a granddaughter abroad. The information here says they only have a few hectares of ranch which in my own understanding would not be enough to pay for a hefty tuition fee" Draco commented as he started to read the documents laid by Franco.

"She could be from Rivendell," Another board member, Dante Lagdameo, Draco's brother who was a teacher by profession and who do not have any business skills to trust to, interjected from the first time. "Didn't they say that one girl made it to Rivendell?"