Ballad of the Elite

Prologue
“Daddy! You can’t do this!”

An ear-shattering cry along this line filled the corridors of Athena House. The occupants of the second floor, Jordan Teng and Daniel Teng, were woken up from their slumber as it struck their eardrums like a stick hitting a gong. Jordan’s eyes were only half-open at best, and he appeared blurry as heck. He took a sip of water from his water tumbler, which he kept on the colonial Batavian-style nightstand, made of cherry wood, beside his bed. The 15 year old, out of sheer curiosity, decided to wear some clothes before venturing out of his bedroom to check out what was happening.

“I’ve made up my mind. Now, go to bed!”, another voice echoed through the third floor. Well, I was really understating when I said “third floor”. It was a voice that displayed the bossy behaviour of the penguin who had it, which had enough volume to be heard throughout not just Athena House, but it was also heard by the groundskeeper who was only permitted to mow the lawn at night. Jordan saw his brother Daniel outside at the corridor as well. “Dude, what’s happening?”, the latter asked.

“No idea. Looks like dad is really crossed.”

“I love him and you know it!”, their sister Gwyneth Teng yelled once again. This gave the brothers more insight on the situation. They realised that she was arguing with their father about her boyfriend. Their conservative father, Teng Jing Wu, was strongly opposed to the 15 year old dating at such an early age. It was possible that he had found out about the relationship and confronted her about it.

“You are too young to love, young lady! Your only duties right now are to study and to be a filial daughter. You are no longer going to your current school from tomorrow onwards and you’ll be transferring to Clementine Girls’ School next week!”, the elder Teng said with his typical fury. As they sensed that he’s about to exit the room, the two dashed back into their rooms and cowered behind their blankets, hoping that their father would not enter their rooms and berate them for not going to bed.

As he left the room, Gwen had nothing to say. Previously when she first started dating someone at the age of 14, her father was so furious that he not only got the boyfriend’s parents fired (they happened to work for a business that owed a lot of money to Jing Wu), but he also pulled some strings to have the boy expelled from school and transferred Gwen to a private school. At the time, she was so devastated by her father’s vengeful actions that she was in a sad mood for weeks. By now, she had gotten used to his antics, which explained why not a single tear was shed. She merely looked at the antique fan on the ceiling and wondered if there was someone else out there who was in the same situation as her.

“Come over here,” yet another fatherly voice said. This time, it was a boy who was being confronted. A 15 year old boy, to be exact, just like the girl who was confronted by her dad. He walked timidly towards his father, who was sitting in his office in a palace of his at the Magonia countryside.

“Your mom has informed me of what happened,” Emperor Slender told his youngest son Stanley Mason as he looked away from the ever-changing computer on his desk. He dared not to say a word.

“Look...”, his father broke the silence as he stood up. “You’ve raging hormones and you accidentally kissed a girl who did not have the same feelings as you did. Well, having raging hormones is normal when I was your age, but you need to get the signal from her if you want to kiss her next time. Got it? I’ll go into more details about it when I’m done with today’s work, but until then, don’t do anything stupid.”

“Y-yes dad,” Stanley replied. He was expecting a thrashing from his father, who would occasionally give him a piece of his mind for obtaining academic grades that he considered to be “below his (Stanley’s) level”. “Now get out of my office,” his father commanded before returning back to his work.

Even though Gwyneth and Stanley lived a continent away from each other, little did both know at the time that their lives would be interconnected. Before we continue, we must go back to the 1980’s, which is the true start of our story.