Chapter 972: Afternoon Tea and Dinner

It was only 2004, and many senior female administrators in NYPD only knew how to type and tabulate data when it came to computers. They didn’t know much about gathering information online.

Looking at Elizabeth’s expectant gaze, Luke pondered for a moment before he said, “If you like, you can give it a try. Work like this will become more and more important in the future.”

The Titanium phones still occupied the top position, but all sorts of bigshots who wanted a share of the smartphone market had already started, and a lot of negotiations had already even been completed.

If everything went according to plan, other low and mid-tier smartphones would be popping up around the world next spring.

These bigshots weren’t stupid.

By next year, the wireless network in America would be even more complete, and the market would be even bigger.

As for smartphones without Internet support, they didn’t have the ability to deal a fatal blow to consumers’ wallets, and couldn’t steal too many users away from the Titanium phones.

Luke didn’t care at all.

The more people Jenny could drag down now, the fewer patent lawsuits Titanium Phone Company would face in the future.

Given that chasing profits wasn’t their top priority, Jenny had collected more and more patents in exchange. After quietly buying the patent for phone cases, this would be enough to deal with most patent lawsuits.

This also meant that smartphones would explode in two years.

What Luke had done with the Titanium phones was different from what it meant to the world.

Everyone was bearing witness to this imminent new age. Gathering intelligence online would also become more important and quicker, even more so than the traditional way of gathering intelligence.

If Elizabeth was interested and stepped into this line of work early, she would indeed have broad future prospects.

In any case, she would be a supervisor, not someone who crunched numbers. There was no need to worry about dark circles or hair loss.

Elizabeth was relieved.

Thanks to Luke’s guidance, she had inadvertently stumbled upon gathering information online and intelligence analysis.

After moving to NYPD’s intelligence agency, she naturally leaned toward this area.

She realized that she preferred doing this sort of investigation behind the scenes rather than going out and shooting every day.

Conversely, her “teachers,” Luke and Selina, were more the “active” kind.

Presented with such an opportunity, Elizabeth couldn’t help but wonder if she would be “betraying” her teachers. Thus, she had to talk to Luke in person.

More importantly, she and Luke had talked before about what she would do after she got rich.

Since she had chosen this route, she was basically destined to stay in the office every day. She was afraid that Luke would misunderstand and think that she couldn’t take it

Luke certainly didn’t think so.

Working in the office was like being a housewife; it was work that many people couldn’t take.

It wasn’t like Elizabethe would be hiding at home, playing games and browsing the news; she would have tasks to complete every day.

It was all formulaic and she would inevitably have to work outside work hours; this wasn’t a job she could do if she wasn’t enthusiastic about it.

With Luke’s approval, Elizabeth relaxed.

She drank the black tea in one gulp and stretched out her cup. “Another one.”

Luke had no choice but to pour her another cup. “This is black tea, not Coke, and it definitely isn’t whiskey. Drink it slowly. There’s milk and sugar here as well as biscuits and snacks. Take it as afternoon tea.”

Elizabeth chuckled and slowed down. “Am I disturbing you?”

She knew that despite his lazy appearance, he was serious about his work, but most people wouldn’t notice it.

Luke rolled his eyes. “Since you’ll be joining the intelligence-gathering branch, let me test you.”

Elizabeth was intrigued. “How?”

Luke gave her a tablet. “Just answer whatever questions I have here.”

This way, he would be able to get a lot of information from the intelligence department.

When Elsa and Selina came down, they saw Luke and Elizabeth sitting opposite each other at the window, each holding a tablet.

If it wasn’t for the way they were sitting cross-legged at the coffee table and looking at the tablets, Elsa and Selina might have thought that they were playing Go.

Elsa was confused. “What are they doing?”

Selina sat down with Elsa after giving the latter a tour. She took out another tablet and had a look, before she smiled. “It’s a daily test.”

Elsa shook her head helplessly.

She was an old-school police officer, and she would only teach when she was at work. She didn’t even have enough time to rest after work, so she naturally didn’t have the patience to set such a “test.”

It could only be said that Luke was indeed a serious teacher.

Holding a chocolate chip cookie, Elsa hesitated for half a second before she bit into it.

Then, she took a sip of the warm black tea which Selina had just poured and sighed in satisfaction. “This is just afternoon tea. Life here recently feels even worse than in Los Angeles. At the very least, I can see the sun to and from work in Los Angeles. Here, it feels like a world without sunlight.”

Selina was slightly better. “Haha, my bathroom has a sauna function. Shall we try it later?”

Elsa’s eyes lit up. “Okay, that works.”

As soon as she said it, she shook her head. “Forget it. Dustin’s coming. He doesn’t have much time.”

Selina said casually, “We’ll wait until after he leaves. I dare say that he’ll only be here for an hour at most.”

Elsa said, “Sounds right. Let’s talk again after dinner.”

Selina said, “There’s a guest room on the third floor. You can sleep here tonight if you want.”

Elsa hesitated for a moment before she agreed.

Selina had also stayed over at Elsa’s place before in Los Angeles, and they were on good terms.

As they chatted, Dustin arrived.

Looking at the time, it was two minutes past seven. Unsurprisingly, he was late.

Dustin’s gift was simple but interesting. It was a pot of indoor ivy.

When Selina accepted the gift, he said, “I was going to give you a cactus or something, but seeing how you don’t leave for work so early, you should have time to water it.”

She could only chuckle.

There were some decorative plants in the house, but it was Little Snail who watered them, so she didn’t have to worry about it.

The extra pot of devil’s ivy just needed a thin water hose.

Everybody was familiar with Dustin’s style. After five minutes of small talk, dinner was served.

It was quieter during the main course.

The one thing that could be said about Luke’s cooking was that it was tasty.

From lobster to fish, as well as pork, beef and mutton, all of these could be considered the main dishes. While there wasn’t much of each, there was a little of everything.

If they had really gone to a restaurant, the others wouldn’t have that much time to eat.

They would also have to mind their manners, so enjoying the food would be secondary.

Hence, everybody happily gorged themselves today, and had no time to chat.

It was only at half past seven that their mouths stopped “working.”

Dessert and wine were served, and idle conversation officially began.