For Mother’s Day, I took my mom on a vacation to one of the hotels I managed.

We were just relaxing on the leather couch in the lobby for a moment, when

the trainee manager on duty rushed over in a rage and yanked us to our feet.

“This couch is reserved for VIP guests with membership cards!”

“If you’re on a tight budget, stay at a hundred-dollar budget hotel. Don’t come here just for free air conditioning!”

Frowning, I was about to reveal my identity.

However, she slapped a bill onto the counter and demanded that I pay for a ten-thousand-dollar meal right then and there.

I was shaking with anger. “We just got here, and we haven’t even had a sip of water yet. Why on earth should we pay ten thousand for a meal?”

She rolled her eyes and tapped the counter defiantly.

“Anyone who stays at our hotel has to pay this fee!

“It’s a gourmet meal. Whether you eat it or not is your business, but you have to pay!”

I had enough and demanded that she call the manager. But she simply sneered and pointed at her employee badge.

“This hotel belongs to my brother in all but blood. I call the shots in the entire front office.

“It won’t do you any good even if you were to complain to God himself today!”

A chill ran down my spine. I was an only child, and my relatives had never been involved in my hotel business.

Who on earth was this “brother” she was claiming to have, and how did he manage to take my place?

My gaze swept over the name tag on the trainee manager’s chest, and I memorized her name. It was Sasha Dean.

I immediately revealed my identity when faced with her unreasonable demand to pay ten thousand dollars for a meal.

“I’m the owner of this hotel.”

However, upon hearing my words, Sasha looked at me and my mom as if we were idiots. Then, she scoffed. “You must be out of your mind if you think you can get a free meal with that.”

She rolled her eyes, and her tone dripped with undisguised sarcasm. “You’re dressed in nothing but cheap clothes, yet you come here pretending to be the owner?

“I’ve seen plenty of cheapskate bums like you.

“If you’re on a budget, stay at a budget hotel for a few dozen dollars. Why come to a five-star hotel to enjoy the air conditioning and pretend to be rich?”

I looked down at what my mom and I were wearing.

To keep things casual and comfortable, we had taken a stroll through the local market near the hotel.

So, we were both wearing casual cotton-linen clothes that we had just bought from the local stalls. They cost less than two hundred dollars combined.

My mom was carrying nothing but a promotional eco-friendly tote bag she had gotten as a free gift when buying fruit at the market.

Our outfits certainly stood out like a sore thumb in the five-star hotel’s lobby.

Sasha tapped the counter and raised her voice.

“The owner of this hotel is my brother. He built this empire in Waterside Spry!

“Judging by how penniless you look, you’re not even worthy of tying his shoes. How do you have the nerve to pretend to be the owner?!”

Faced with Sasha’s brazen humiliation, my mom frowned and shot me a glance.

Before retiring, she had been a senior teacher at a top municipal high school. Having been an educator her entire life, she never imagined she would be subjected to such humiliation, especially not at her own daughter’s hotel.

When my mom saw me shake my head, she turned to look at Sasha.

“Ms. Dean, what you’re doing right now is extortion.

“Besides, the hotel lobby is a public lounge area. You have no right to use that excuse to chase guests away, let alone make personal attacks.”

Sasha turned pale with shock. She had not expected an elderly woman dressed in cheap street clothes to be so eloquent.

Furious and humiliated, she grabbed her walkie-talkie and shouted, “Security, there are two troublemakers in the lobby! Send someone over immediately!”

In less than half a minute, four security guards stormed in from the hallway.

Sasha pointed at us menacingly and threatened, “In this hotel, I’m the one who calls the shots.

“You will pay ten thousand dollars today. Don’t even think about taking a single step out of here until you do!”

Watching this absurd scene unfold before me, I could not help but wonder.

She had a “brother in all but blood” who dared to lay down the “law” in my hotel. Which executive in the group was pretending to be a big shot?

I had to get to the bottom of this immediately and have human resources and the compliance department look into it.

As I reached for my phone, I realized it was turned off.

Then, I remembered that I had drained the battery earlier at the market while filming a video for my mom.

Staring at the black screen, I quickly regained my composure.

If I got into a physical altercation with these security guards, my elderly mom could easily get hurt.

So, I reached out to stop my mom, who was about to continue arguing with the security guards. Then, I turned to look at the smug Sasha.

“Fine, I’ll pay the ten thousand dollars.

“But since this is a gourmet meal, I demand that you issue a restaurant receipt along with a detailed itemized bill.”

When Sasha saw me backing down and reaching for my wallet, she immediately smirked.

She took the credit card I handed her and swiped it through the card reader at lightning speed for her ten thousand dollars.

However, instead of printing a receipt, she pulled a receipt book out of the drawer. She scribbled a few words on it and stamped it with a red seal.

Then, she tore it off and flung it in front of me. “The receipt printer is broken. This is all I’ve got. Take it or leave it!”

I picked up the handwritten receipt and glanced at it. My expression instantly turned cold.

The receipt did not bear our hotel’s official financial stamp at all. Instead, it was stamped with a seal from a company called “Feast Catering Outsourcing Services Limited.”

As the hotel’s owner, it all clicked in an instant.

This hotel garnered a massive daily foot traffic. By forcing guests to spend ten thousand dollars in this manner and routing the money through this outsourcing company, they could generate a significant amount of revenue over the course of a year.

This was no longer a simple violation. It was an extremely serious case of embezzlement and money laundering!

I carefully folded the receipt and tucked it into my inner pocket.

“Show me the way. Let’s go eat your ten-thousand-dollar luxury meal.”

Ten minutes later, the food was served.

At the sight of the dishes on the table, my mom shook her head in disgust.

Several of them were clearly pre-packaged meals, and the fruit juice was obviously made from syrup.

My mom picked up her cutlery and poked at one of the seafood dishes. Then, she commented, “The veins in these shrimps are black, and the meat is mushy. These shrimps have clearly been frozen and thawed repeatedly.

“This braised pork isn’t fresh either.

“You’re charging ten thousand dollars for garbage food that’s worse than what you’d find at a roadside truck!”

My mom’s voice grew louder and louder. It drew the attention of people at several nearby tables.

Sasha was afraid that this would instigate a public outcry. So, she immediately brought the security guards over. After that, she forcibly ushered me and my mom to the most secluded corner of the restaurant.

When I saw how furious she was, I deliberately taunted her. “This meal is terrible. You can’t even pretend to make it look presentable.

“I bet your brother’s just some low-level thug who’s living under a rock, right?”

“What nonsense!”

She was so agitated by my words that she got carried away and started bragging, “My brother is in charge of all procurement for dozens of hotels across the whole of Waterside Spry!

“He just paid cash for a river-view villa at Riverbend. Yesterday, he even picked up a top-of-the-line Porsche!

“Poor schmucks like you could work your whole lives and still can’t afford even a single wheel of his car!”

In charge of all procurement in Waterside Spry?

Mr. Clark was the director of procurement, but he had always been honest and humble. Also, he was about to retire. There was no way he would do something like this.

If it was not Mr. Clark, who else could be meddling in the procurement of this five-star hotel and turning a blind eye to staff lining their pockets so brazenly?

Who on earth was it?

My mom and I did not take a single bite of the exorbitantly priced meal.

I planned on getting the room key first to settle in. Then, I would find a way to get a charger for my phone and get a handle on the situation.

“My last name is Shelton. I’d like the key for the top-floor presidential suite reserved in the system.”

I handed my ID to the front desk receptionist.

Just as the receptionist was about to enter the information into the computer, Sasha snatched my ID. She then casually tossed it onto the counter after a single glance.

“The presidential suite is reserved for my brother to entertain his distinguished guests!”

She crossed her arms defiantly and spoke while rolling her eyes. “Poor schmucks like you who can’t even shell out ten thousand for a meal without whining are only fit to stay in the most remote standard room on the first floor!”

I wore a deep frown.

I had been personally involved in the design of this hotel. The top-floor presidential suite had always been marked as [Reserved for the Boss] in the internal system.

Without my exclusive password, no one could change the room’s status.

She had actually downgraded my reservation without my authorization.

I had enough, so I walked straight past the counter and into the front desk work area.

“Hey! What are you doing? Who let you in?” the receptionist shouted.

I shoved her aside and placed both hands on the keyboard.

As the hotel’s actual controlling shareholder and a contributor to its system architecture, I could recite the system’s backdoor commands with my eyes closed.

In just a few keystrokes, I pulled up the status log for the top-floor presidential suite.

Looking at the data, I laughed bitterly with rage.

Since last month, the presidential suite that was listed at eight thousand eight hundred dollars per night, had been secretly resold to a group for two thousand dollars per hour.

Every afternoon, they would bring in dozens of people to take turns shooting photos. They were clearly using this hotel to pretend to be socialites.

I did not object to such behavior. The issue was the fact that they were using the suite I had reserved for myself.

Two thousand per hour amounted to sixteen thousand dollars for an eight-hour day. I feared all that money had probably gone straight into Sasha and her brother’s personal accounts!

I blurted out everything I had been thinking in one go.

A look of panic flashed across Sasha’s face, but she immediately turned the tables on me.

“What nonsense! You’re illegally hacking into the hotel’s computer system!”

She pointed at me and shouted to the security guards outside, “Security, this woman is a hacker! She’s stealing our hotel’s trade secrets!

“Confiscate their room keys immediately and kick these two cheapskates out!

Several security guards immediately rushed toward us.

My mom pointed at the lead security guard and warned him sternly, “Try and touch us. Restricting a person’s freedom unlawfully is against the law!

“You’re just security guards hired by the hotel. You have no authority to enforce the law on us!

“If you dare lay a finger on us today, can you afford the legal consequences?”

The security guards were just employees after all. My mom’s words shook them, and none of them dared take another step forward.

Suddenly, a startled cry rang out from the lobby lounge. “Oh, no! My diamond necklace is gone!”

A woman dressed head to toe in designer labels rushed to the front desk in a panic. She was stomping her feet in frustration.

“I just went to the restroom and left my purse on the couch in the lobby. When I came back, my necklace was gone!

“It’s a limited edition. It’s worth over two million dollars!

Sasha’s eyes darted around. Then, she immediately pointed at my mom and me before shouting, “It was them! Just a moment ago, these two were sitting over by that couch!

“These cheapskates can’t even bring themselves to pay a ten-thousand-dollar bill. They’re definitely the ones who stole it!”