Love Began with the First Meeting

"You look charming when you smile," Elsa blurted it out. Her face was suddenly kissed pink like a spring rose, the blooming color, so cute against her smooth skin. The intensity of the man's gaze made her want to make a run for it. With a smile of apparent amusement, he stared at her for a long time, so while his gaze was soft he didn't drop his eyes for a moment. The moment their eyes locked, Elsa's blush seared through her cheeks as though her face was on fire.

Their shadows lengthened with the sinking sun shining brightly on their faces. They watched the pinks, purples, blues and golden colors of the sky melt together into a picture-perfect sunrise. 'If only I could freeze this moment in time so that Elsa would just remember this happy moment and forget all the unpleasant ones with me from our childhood, ' Charlie thought.

Amused, Evelyn raised an eyebrow and then rolled her eyes at Elsa and Charlie.

"Oh please, get a room! Or maybe I should just leave you to your soap opera? Charlie plays the leading man and Elsa, the leading woman, the queen of his heart! A heart-warming love story! You two adore each other but you are afraid to confess your true feelings to the other. Then, against all doubts, you finally express your undying love for each other. Charlie stretches out his hand to hold Elsa's hand, just like this," Evelyn said as she stretched out her left hand to hold her right hand. "And then you kiss each other. Ah, a happy ending for you! The end!" she added, her puckish grin widened.

Charlie smiled, placing his palm to his face and shaking his head. He then turned around to face Elsa. She turned her head to the side to avert his gaze, but the sudden rosiness of her cheeks gave her away.

Suddenly, the sound of engine revving interrupted their heart-warming moment. Charlie, Evelyn and Elsa looked over the villa's gate and saw a black limo driving in and parking right beside Evelyn's luxurious sports car.

"Humph. Some Douche Bag arrives!" Evelyn said, staring at the black car. Quickly turning around, she grinned and scampered off into the villa.

Taken by curiosity, Elsa squinted her eyes at the black car, trying hard to see who was inside. A few seconds later, the door was pushed open from the inside and a man came out. Ezra was clothed in a white shirt, dark trousers and a pair of glasses. Some would say that he wasn't handsome as Charlie was, but his manly charms made up for that. Although he was young, he carried himself with the grace and maturity of a man.

A sense of jealousy came over Charlie as he saw Elsa gawking at Ezra attentively. 'Elsa, you do realize that I'm standing right here, your boyfriend, right? Anyway, I'm much more handsome than he is!' he thought to himself.

"Let's go inside, Elsa," Charlie said as he held Elsa's hand. He noticed Ezra approaching them but he casually chose to ignore him.

All Ezra wanted to do was greet Charlie and Elsa, but before he could even open his mouth, Charlie grabbed Elsa by the shoulders and pushed her away like a trolley. Feeling a bit awkward, Ezra stood there puzzled. But then Elsa turned her head around and gave him a smile to lighten the mood. 'That was very kind of Little Bun,' he mused.

When Charlie and Elsa entered the villa, there were already thirty people in the house. Evelyn was always good with entertaining guests as she had strong communication skills. She was laughing and talking with everyone, as if she had known them all for a long time. Most people liked Evelyn because they could always count on her to make them laugh.

"Hey Elsa, I'm here!" a young man shouted and waved his hands. He looked a little unmanly.

He sprang up from his seat, eyes sparkling with delight, stretching out his arms to hold Elsa. But before he could even get close, Charlie raised his foot and stopped him, unintentionally leaving his footprint on his shirt.

"Hey, hey, Charlie! What are you doing? My shirt was custom-made and you've just ruined it!" the young man complained, pointing to his shirt. The entire house exploded into a roar of laughter, scorching the ceiling.

"Evan Meng, do you have a death-wish? I can't believe you tried to hold Elsa in your arms," one of them laughed and taunted him. Everyone continued laughing as if she had just added salt to his wounds. "Ezra is here! Really? Is everyone here? No, Bess hasn't shown up yet," the guests saw Ezra and started to talk with each other.

"Bess has classes today. She will be here after class. She told me to start the party without her," Evelyn replied, frowning at Ezra.

The guests looked each other and smiled upon seeing Evelyn's expression. They thought that Ezra must do something to make Evelyn mad. "You've got it bad, man," one of them mouthed at Ezra.

Elsa was extremely delighted to be able to join the party of the "Madness Is Good" group, but she wondered why this group had so many members.

"Elsa, allow me to introduce these amazing people to you. The shameless man who wanted to hold you is, Dangerous Beauty. His real name is Evan Meng. LOL is the nice gentleman over there with a handsome and sophisticated face. His real name is Ezra Zhou. To be honest, he's a bit crazy," said Charlie. "Look there, do you see the man who looks like a Botox job gone horribly wrong? He is Ice Is Water Awake and his real name is Shaun Lu. The only normal person among them is Valiant Life, Eli Chen. But I'm sure that he is suffering from multiple-personality disorder. And he..." he then added.

Charlie teased everyone in the villa except the female players. He complimented the female players while making out the male players to look like bastards or bad-asses. Elsa's lips twitched in a faint smile as she heard his words. 'Charlie, you must be kidding me,' she thought.

After he introduced all players to Elsa, Charlie cleared his throat and announced in front of everyone, "This is Sweet Dream. Her name is Elsa. She is my girlfriend, your sister-in-law!" His introduction was short but quite convincing. With just one line Charlie managed to tell everyone that Elsa was his girl and warned them not to try anything inappropriate with her. If anyone were to do something stupid, like Evan Meng did earlier, they would have to face the consequences.

After all the players gave their blessings to Charlie, the male players took turns to reintroduce themselves to Elsa. "Elsa, my name is Dangerous Beauty.

I'm endowed with a natural beauty that's too hard to hide," Evan Meng used a quote from an ancient Chinese poem to describe his appearance.

After a while, almost every male player managed to clear their individual names, except Ice Is Water Awake.

"Hello, Elsa, I'm Ice Is Water Awake, Shaun Lu. I'm older than you and Charlie. Maybe you can call me big brother," he briefly told Elsa. Judging from first impressions, he was a straight-forward fellow with a very pleasant voice.

Elsa looked at all the people around her and smiled. She knew that the players of "Madness Is Good" had known each other for a long time, but she didn't know that they were so close to each other. Everyone got her thinking about an old Chinese saying, "Birds of a feather flock together." This meant that people who were alike often became friends or spent time together. Perhaps being successful and ambitious was a commonality that bound them together. Some of them were very good at school. While the others, either came from prominent families, or started their own business when they were at school.