543 The Revelation Part III (1/2)
The other guests looked at the group of foreigners all sitting together. Iris Long must be talking about them. One of them—the demonically gorgeous woman Ashandra Knightson—was reportedly a famous artist. Based on the others' bearing, they must not be ordinary people either. They were Iris Long's…friends? Really?
Iris looked at her friends from Cross Academy and smiled at them. They all surprised her by attending her launch party without informing her. She invited them, of course, but they all gave various different reasons to decline. That was why she didn't expect that they would all turn up tonight. Even Madame Giulia Moretti came bearing regards and apology from Headmaster Erwan Dupont for not being able to attend due to conflicts in schedule.
It was only Amanpio Kileksky who accepted her invitation as soon as she invited him. Without the young eccentric inventor, Alric Bauer wouldn't have the equipment to manufacture improved versions of Orchidia Beauty products efficiently. So even if Amanpio declined her invitation, Iris would have found a way to drag him to China. Maybe she would even resort to asking her big brother to kidnap him. Fortunately, Amanpio agreed to come without taking a moment to think about it first. However, Jin Liwei had to send one of his smaller private jets to pick Amanpio up from Switzerland because the inventor was too lazy to book his own flight to China.
Iris also asked Jiang Ying Yue to let Amanpio temporarily stay in Little Jun's condo unit at Gold Heights. Jiang Ying Yue agreed. She and her son Little Jun were still staying at the Dragon Palace mansion with Iris and Jin Liwei anyway, so the condo unit was currently empty. It was better for Amanpio to stay there because Yi Mei and the other household staff in the penthouse already had their hands full with Wei Lan. Iris didn't want to saddle them with an additional difficult person to take care of like Amanpio. They already had firsthand experience of his baffling eccentricities when he first stayed at the penthouse before.
Even Ashandra Knightson whom Iris met a few days ago in France didn't mention that she would be attending the launch party tonight. Iris thought that Ashandra would be busy attending another art exhibition somewhere in Europe. She was really surprised to see her friend along with the others
Jin Liwei, however, didn't appear surprised at all. It looked as if he already knew that her friends were coming. He must have deliberately concealed it from her. Ketchup had the capability to detect if her friends landed in China but the white cat didn't inform her. Jin Liwei must have instructed Ketchup not to tell her.
The father and daughter dared to keep a secret from her?
Try as she might, she couldn't find it in herself to be angry at the two of them. Instead, her heart melted into a sweet syrupy puddle. She would ask Jin Liwei and Ketchup later and make them confess their ”crime”, but she had no intention of complaining. It was such a nice surprise after all, especially on a big day in her business career like this.
For now, she needed to thank her friends.
”I would like to thank Amanpio Kileksy, a prolific inventor who creates some of the most mind-boggling things you can ever imagine. Many of them are brilliant, of course…but the others? Hmmm… Let's not talk about that part,” she said, eliciting laughter from her friends who knew about Amanpio's massive collection of hit-and-miss inventions.
Amanpio harrumphed and became sullen when the others began laughing at him. However, he quickly recovered because he was very proud of all his ”babies”, a.k.a. inventions.
Iris continued, ”Amanpio helped Alric build a number of special equipment which they patented together to process the raw materials and combine the ingredients more efficiently without destroying their natural properties, enabling us to retain our mission of keeping our products 100% natural but also allowing us to increase their shelf life as much as possible using only natural means.”
”Oooooh!”
The audience was impressed. They started clapping and continued oohing and aahing.
”Please stand up so everybody can see you, Amanpio,” Iris told him in English.