Vicki listened to all of them with a smile.

Only until they stopped talking and focused their attention on her, did she stop smiling and say in a grave voice, “So, you guys don’t intend to rest?”

“Maestro, it’s fine that we don’t rest. As long as the customers are happy, it’s completely fine to act one more day.”

“Yes, Maestro. We’ve finally gotten famous and there are so many people waiting to watch our performance. We can’t wait to get on stage, so we don’t need a rest.”

“We have discussed and felt that there is no problem.”

Everyone nodded and said in unison.

Old Man Mi opened his mouth and eventually chose to keep quiet.

Bam!

Vicki suddenly banged the table.

The meeting room was deadly silent immediately.

Everyone stopped smiling and looked at Vicki in shock and befuddlement.

“Do you all think there is no problem?” Vicki looked at all of them coldly. Her eyebrows were already raised as she coldly said, “I think that there is a huge problem!”

“Maestro…” Old Man Mi said softly.

Vicki ignored him and continued on speaking, “Have you guys forgotten what I have told you in the beginning? An excellent opera actor doesn’t have to butter up the audience. You only have to focus on your acting on stage and whether the audience likes it or not is up to them. Are you guys going to lose your original intention because of this little attention?”

Everyone looked serious. Some of them wanted to speak, but no one was the first to do so.

Vicki disappointedly said, “Ever since I brought you into this trade, I have been telling you that the voice is the actor’s life. If you don’t let your throat rest as it deserves because you are chasing after the temporary cheers and applause, you will cause the shortening of your vocal chords’ life. Frankly speaking, I am very disappointed.”

All of them lowered their heads with shame.

Even though they were different ages and most of them were older than Vicki, Vicki was the one who guided them into being an opera actor and was their master. She turned them from the dreamless bottomfeeders of society to opera actors who could use their voice and performance to express themselves.

Just as Vicki said, she had been warning them about how to protect their throats to prolong their performing lives as soon as they joined the profession.

“I set the rule of resting one day every week to let you guys come back in a better shape to give back to the audience after a day’s rest, so that they can get to appreciate a real, full, and outstanding performance.

“I get what you guys are thinking, but you should clearly know that the audience likes our excellent performance on stage and not the fact that our performances are daily,” Vicki said gravely.

Every one of them had a thoughtful expression.

Old Man Mi stepped forward and solemnly promised her. “Maestro, we will rest as we planned before and will try our best to give the best opera performance to our audience.”

“Yes. We won’t disappoint you.”

“We know that we are wrong.”

Everyone agreed and didn’t dwell on their mistake.

Vicki finally smiled and nodded. “Alright, let’s go back to sleep. We still have a performance tomorrow morning.”

After saying that, she turned and left first.

***

Standing on the tower of the Black Cat Opera House, Vicki looked at the moon that was half concealed by the clouds with a smile.

“Why are you smiling so duffly? Is this all you are capable of?”

“I am getting closer to my dream now, so what’s wrong with smiling? I am not only smiling, I am going to laugh too… Hahaha…”

“Alright… Stop laughing, it’s embarrassing.”

“I simply want to laugh. Don’t over my mouth… Mmm…”

“This is my mouth too and if I say no laughing, it means no laughing!”

***

A weird one-man-show took place on top of the tower for a while.

“Do you think Mag is a little weird?”

“Why so? I think Mr. Mag is a very outstanding person.”

“He’s far too outstanding to the point that it’s weird.”

“Grandfather said a chosen one will appear in every world every once in a while and he or she will receive extremely great fortune from the universe. Mr. Mag might be such a being.”

“The fortunate one means being extremely lucky, but his weirdness is in his almost perfect skills.

“A god of swordsmanship who has become a demi-god in a god-forsaken place like the Norland Continent, and he actually cooks so well that no chef in this world is his match. Not only that, he can even appreciate opera and is great at being an angel investor and a businessman.

“His copyright awareness is also way ahead of his time and his ability of copyright operation is extremely powerful. His ability to drive consumption is even more astonishing and his methods are as good as a great business operator.”

“Erm… In this case, Mr. Mag is indeed a perfect man.”

“Don’t be a love-struck idiot! That is some other woman’s man!”

“What’s the problem? Beauties have loved heroes from the beginning of time. It’s tradition.”

“Shut up! I’m not one of those shallow women!”

“But I am.”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

“Mmm…”

***

“The tickets for the ‘Miss Black Cat’ morning show are now on sale! 200 copper coins for one ticket. Please line up in an orderly manner for your purchase. Enter the theater immediately after you purchase your ticket and sit according to your ticket number. One ticket per show. No refund or exchange!” Mala stood at the opera house’s entrance and yelled. It was only eight in the morning but the line in front of the opera house had already reached the door of Titan Tavern.

Due to the opera’s extreme popularity, the situation of reselling scalper tickets had occured in the past few days. The 200 copper coins ticket could be sold for 500 copper coins. The profit was even higher than the ticket’s original price itself.

Hence, Vicki came up with a solution of selling the tickets on the spot and then going into the theater to watch the show immediately to stop the scalpers from reselling the tickets.

Of course, the disadvantage of this approach was that the audience who wanted to watch the performance had to line up for a long time in advance.

However, Vicki could only think of this method currently. At least, it could ensure the audience who wanted to watch the opera could purchase the ticket with less money.

Mala had become the Black Cat Opera’s official part-timer and she was responsible for selling the tickets. She would occasionally go on stage as a small character without any dialogue for fun.

Of course, there was one more reason why Mala was enthusiastic about it. She could go backstage when the show was over to learn opera singing from Vicki and the others.

Although her talent was just mediocre, Mala had great interest and the opera actors enjoyed teaching her, so she was considered as one of them. She sounded even more enthusiastic when she was selling the tickets.

“This lass is getting louder…” Eiffie rubbed her eyes as she opened the window and looked towards the Black Cat Opera’s direction disdainfully. She couldn’t help curving the corners of her lips upwards when she saw Mala, who was smiling like a scrooge. Just as she was about to retract her gaze and close the window, it landed on a few figures in the long line.