My Taboo Harem!

Chapter 973: Phei’s Real Wealth

The main asphalt ran long and swift through the island before surrendering itself to the lake, racing straight over the cold black waters as though human engineering had looked at nature, laughed in its face and decided depth was a suggestion meant for poorer civilizations:

From there the road branched outward into a web of smaller roads, elegant tentacles reaching into the lake and connecting the ten floating buildings spread across the water like a private constellation anchored to the earth by money, arrogance and structural calculations so obscene they had probably caused three engineers to age spiritually during the design phase.

Beneath them Hell’s Paradise Lake stretched dark and fathomless, its surface breathing cold silver under the night sky, and yet the buildings did not bow to it; it did not sink into its suctioning depth nor did it even seem to acknowledge its right to swallow them.

Whether it was mercy or the sheer unbelievability of what humans could build when given enough wealth and a violent dislike for limitation; the structures held fast in their defiance and floated upon the unforgiving lake like declarations written in steel, glass and inherited billions.

One of those buildings, however, made the others seem almost modest.

It rose from the water like some luminous seashell dreamt into existence by a lake spirit with expensive taste, its spiraling body unfurling in broad sweeping layers that coiled and curved with fluid, sovereign grace.

The structure seemed less built than summoned, as if the night itself had bent down and whispered its outline onto the surface of the lake.

Great curling arcs lifted skyward in a resplendent motion, one high spiral rising like the flared crest of a shell caught in the middle of opening itself to the heavens, while the broader lower curves spread outward in layered ribbons of light and glass.

Thousands of tiny luminous points glittered across its pale surface like artificial starlight woven into the skin of the building, and soft golden veins traced along its curves in delicate lines, as though molten light had been persuaded to settle there and remain obedient.

The whole thing glowed with a bewitching almost celestial beauty like a floating sculpture where nature and modern design had not merely met but entered into a decadent affair and produced architecture as their unholy child.

Even before the limousine fully approached, its scale became clearer:

The shell-like marvel was vast, much larger than it first appeared from afar, with multiple levels sweeping outward and inward in elegant circles.

Beneath the shimmering spirals, wide expanses of glass opened up the inner structure to the night, revealing glimpses of the expansive first floor where luxury cars sat beneath golden-white lighting like obedient jewels laid out for worship.

Even from outside, Phei could see rows of polished machines inside, low silhouettes, aggressive designs, long gleaming bodies, each one washed in light and framed by reflective floors that made the entire space feel less like a dealership and more like a cathedral where velocity was religion.

The road eventually curved into a grand entrance terrace already lined with expensive cars:

Sleek black sedans, coupes in metallic silver, elegant limousines, sport models with murderous curves and impossible paintwork—all of them waited or rolled forward in a slow dance of wealth.

Attendants moved between them with professional calm while the glass façade beyond reflected headlights, waterlight and the sweeping glow of the dealership itself.

As the limousine slowed and then glided toward its parking position, Phei stared out the window with such open wonder that it almost ruined his entire image of being a dangerous godly Young Master. Almost.

The boy looked genuinely dreamy, his gaze fixed on the luminous shell rising from the lake as though someone had handed his inner child a crown, a kingdom and a license to drive recklessly in all three.

"So this," he said slowly, the awe clear in his voice, "is Jade’s eighteenth birthday gift from her parents, huh?"

Maddie, who had been waiting for precisely this moment to make everything worse, leaned closer to the window and grinned. "Right? And Jade dared compare this small building to my—"

"Small?" Phei, Noor and Soraya cut in at the same time, all three turning to look at her with such unified disbelief that even Sierra laughed.

Noor stared at Maddie. "You are calling this small?"

Soraya looked from Maddie to the glowing seashell palace outside and back again as if trying to determine whether the rich were born this insane or trained into it. "If this is small to you people, then what exactly qualifies as big?"

Phei turned fully toward Maddie, one hand on his chest in theatrical injury. "Yes, please, enlighten the poor. What is big to you?"

Maddie’s grin only widened, infuriatingly pleased with herself. "My towers?"

The silence that followed was immediate and magnificent.

Noor blinked. "Your what?"

Soraya leaned forward. "You have towers?"

Even Valentina, who had heard enough rich nonsense in recent weekss to become emotionally numb to most of it, looked genuinely curious now. "You have actual towers?"

Maddie laughed, tossed her hair back and spread her hands with all the effortless arrogance like a girl who had never once doubted the world existed to be inherited.

"Hey, bitches, I’m worth billions. Of course I have real estate in my name."

Sierra, seated beside her, nodded with infuriating calm as though Maddie had merely reminded them that water was wet.

"That is true," she said, in the tone like she was helping lesser beings understand common sense. "Why wouldn’t she?"

Noor and Soraya looked at the two of them with the silent bewilderment of women realizing they had accidentally entered an ecosystem where private towers were spoken of like handbags.

Phei facepalmed slowly and dragged his hand down his face.

"How," he asked with deep spiritual suffering, "can any of you call this small? I know you girls are rich, alright, I know, but have mercy on us. Some of us were still emotionally processing a dealership floating on a lake."

Victoria, who had spent the last several minutes watching this with the detached elegance while waiting for the perfect moment to stab the conversation with information, rolled her eyes and said:

"Says the man who owns a real estate agency and a ridiculous number of properties."

Phei froze.

Noor turned so sharply her hair shifted over her shoulder. "You what?"

Soraya’s eyes widened. "A real estate agency?"

Even Valentina made a soft sound of realization as memory caught up with her. "Oh my God. That’s right. You do have inheritances. I actually forgot."

"Hey," Phei said at once, sitting up straighter as if volume could save him from exposure. "That is just my father’s inheritance, and it is not legally mine yet until I am eighteen."

Victoria’s smile turned faintly venomous in the prettiest way possible. "But it is under your name."

"That is a technicality."

"It is a legal fact," she corrected. "The properties are yours on paper, the agency is yours on paper, the assets are yours on paper; all waiting for you to turn eighteen. And if you add that to the billions you already have after the Maxton divorce liquidation and just waiting for the right age, you are probably the richest person in our age group worldwide."

Noor and Soraya just stared like people did when a conversation stopped being wealth and became weather.

Soraya looked at Phei as if reassessing his face for signs of hidden skyscrapers while Noor looked almost insulted by the sheer scale of the nonsense surrounding him.

Phei, realizing the damage had already been done and that survival now depended on offensiveness, slowly broke into a grin.

"Yeah," he said, sitting back with shameless satisfaction. "It does have a nice ring to it. Richest among you lot."

He gave them a pause.

Then smiled wider.

"Peasants."

"Hey—!"

He was already moving.

Phei burst out of the car laughing, loud and bright, before the girls could coordinate retaliation, and the women followed after him in a wave of mock outrage, laughter, threats and expensive perfume.

Maddie was the first out, pointing at him and promising consequences. Sierra stepped down with much more grace, though her smile gave away her amusement. Valentina exited in elegant indignation, Victoria in glacial annoyance, Nastya in cool, Noor and Soraya with the fascinated disbelief; they were not yet used to romance and class warfare happening simultaneously inside a limousine.

Their small chaos immediately drew attention.

Around the entrance, staff and guests alike turned to look. Conversations softened and eyes shifted.

The lively cluster of beautiful women surrounding a laughing, outrageously handsome young man was already enough to attract attention anywhere, but that attention sharpened all the more when another figure emerged from the entrance.

An Asian beauty strode toward them with a presence that did not ask to be seen because it had never once needed permission:

Her black hair flowed behind her in a silken fall, catching the dealership’s golden-white lights with every step, and her face... her face justified every foolish metaphor ever written about precious things. Even among beauties like Maddie, Sierra and Valentina, Soraya, Noor and dangerously sculpted allure of Victoria and Nastya, this woman’s beauty lit up everything around her with a clear, polished brilliance. There was something luminous about her, elegant and cool and precious indeed, like a rare jade lifted into moonlight.

And as she walked toward the most handsome man laughing in the middle of his chaos, the glowing shell of the floating dealership seemed, for a fleeting second, like nothing more than a backdrop to her arrival.