Chapter 197 You Guess
Caroline had just arrived at the office when someone knocked on her door.
"Come in." Seeing it was Axel, she knew her boss must have something to discuss. She invited him to sit on the sofa, poured a glass of water, and handed it to him. "Mr. Campbell, please have some water."
Axel took the glass and set it down, then said to Caroline, "I was on duty yesterday, and the director of the Electricity Management Office came to report something to me."
His expression was serious, and Caroline listened carefully.
Axel said, "There's been an increase in electricity theft, illegal usage, and line losses this year. Do you think our office should work with other departments to crack down on this? We need to tackle this with a focused campaign - fast, precise, and hard-hitting. Only with strong measures can we reduce the losses."
Caroline took this very seriously. She glanced at her watch. "Nine-thirty. Let's have a meeting with the team to work out a plan and divide up the areas."
"Okay," Axel nodded. "I'll have someone notify them about the nine-thirty meeting."
Seaside City had only been upgraded from a county to a city seven years ago. It was a fourth-tier city covering about 656.75 square miles, with five street offices, one provincial-level economic and technological development zone, one comprehensive bonded logistics zone, eighteen townships, and twelve villages. The total population was about 800,000, with nearly 500,000 living in the urban area. The workload and difficulty were obviously huge.
After the meeting, they decided that Caroline would coordinate with the city police for joint enforcement, conducting surprise inspections of illegal electricity theft and usage throughout the city. When encountering people who were aggressive and uncooperative, the police would handle them. Cases involving large amounts would go through legal proceedings and prosecution.
Caroline didn't ask for reduced responsibilities because she was a woman. She formed an inspection team with seven other colleagues to go into the field and investigate electricity theft and illegal usage.
After finalizing the plan, Caroline immediately went with Axel to the Seaside City Police Station. After explaining their purpose to the chief, they received strong support from the police department, who agreed to help the electricity inspection team maintain order at the sites. If any violent resistance occurred, they would respond immediately to prevent anyone from getting hurt.
Electricity theft was highly covert, involved a huge workload, complicated processes, and was difficult to carry out. They would encounter uncooperative individuals and businesses who would obstruct them, curse at them, and some irrational people would even make violent threats. All of this was within Caroline's expectations.
That evening when she got home, Leopold wasn't there. She sent him a message, but got no response. Half an hour later, Leopold came out of a meeting room and immediately replied when he saw Caroline's WhatsApp message.
Leopold: [Honey, I just got out of a meeting and saw your message. I have to work late tonight, don't wait up for me.]
Caroline: [Got it. Don't stay too late, you're working too hard.]
Leopold: [Good news - the stock market went up. Looks like it really worked.]
Caroline smiled happily. It's good that it had risen; Leopold's pressure would be reduced a bit.
She replied: [Congratulations! It'll keep going up, all the way up!]
Leopold: [Don't know if mine will come true.]
She hadn't seen him make a wish, so Caroline asked: [What did you wish for?]
Leopold: [Guess.]
How was she supposed to guess that? Caroline sent a helpless emoji.
She rarely sent emojis, but every time she did, Leopold saved them.
Leopold: [I'll tell you when my wish comes true.]
Caroline: [You get back to work, I won't bother you anymore. Come home early when you're done.]
Leopold: [That's it?]
Caroline: [What do you mean?]
Leopold: [Be nice, give me a kiss.]
Caroline sent a kissing emoji, which made Leopold very happy. He smiled with one corner of his mouth lifted. Lily happened to see this scene. Seeing him grinning like a fool, she said as she passed by, "Mr. Wipere, let me guess - you're chatting with your wife on WhatsApp, right?"
Leopold put away his phone, and the smile disappeared completely from his face, returning to normal.
He said with a detached expression, "How did you know?"
Lily laughed.
Leopold looked at her with disgust. "Don't laugh like that. It's silly."
Lily was speechless. He had just been laughing exactly like that.
The two walked into the office one after the other. Lily closed the door and said, "The information you asked me to look into is all here."
Leopold took it and said, "You can go home now."
Lily knew he needed help lately, and the workload was huge. "I'm free, I can work overtime today."
"Go home. There's no work that needs you right now. Just come in on time tomorrow." Leopold opened the file. "By the way, any news from Oscar?"
"Not yet." Lily watched his expression. "Should I call and ask?"
Leopold raised his hand. "Don't ask. Asking would be pushing him."
Lily nodded.
"Go home. Your dad just had surgery a few months ago. Your family needs someone to take care of things too."
Lily appreciated Leopold's understanding. "Thank you, I'll head out now."
As she was closing the door, Leopold reminded her, "Take Ivy Lane, there's no traffic."
Lily smiled and said goodbye. "Thank you, Mr. Wipere."
The door closed, and the office was quiet again.
The stock market's initial rebound was a show of trust from the market and investors in Leopold's return to a key position. To keep the stock price rising, they needed to find a bigger promotional platform and a broader user base for Celestial Waters Hotel.
That afternoon, Lily had started collecting data reports from major variety shows and related new media platforms across the country from the past year, as he requested.
After big data analysis and Leopold's judgment, they finally chose a large-scale outdoor competitive reality show from a provincial TV station. The show's audience covered a wide age range and followed entertainment trends. Celestial Waters Hotel had over thirty large resort hotels that could be provided free to the production team as activity venues. After the show aired, it would be huge publicity for the Celestial Waters Hotel brand.
But how to contact the production team? Leopold was stumped.
Until he noticed that one of the companies working with the production team was actually Erica's company. Leopold's brow relaxed.
At this time, Erica should have just finished rock climbing.
Leopold called Maddox. "What are you up to?"
Maddox was designing blueprints on his computer with his phone on speaker nearby. "Drawing plans. What's up?"
Last time Leopold had given him some working capital, securing the company's cash flow. He couldn't let down Leopold's effort and trust, so Maddox had lowered his pride and personally negotiated several projects. The company was running normally now.
Leopold asked, "Is Erica's company called Cyber Entertainment Company?"
Maddox said, "Yeah."
"I want to talk to her about some business cooperation. What's her phone number?"
Maddox gave him the number while working on his design. Leopold wrote it down. "I've been busy lately, but come over for dinner when I have time."
Maddox asked, "Your wife cooking?"
"I'm cooking."
"Okay. I'm ordering dishes."
"Dream on. You eat whatever I make."
"Make me two cheese lobsters," before Maddox could finish, Leopold said, "You look like a cheese lobster. What does Erica like to eat?"
"Erica loves cheese lobster."
Leopold rubbed his forehead. "Forget it, I'll just ask Erica myself."