After Jenny steals the editor-in-chief's position from Lulu with the 'help' of the magazine owner, Lulu quits her job.
In the following weeks, her life changes dramatically. She unplugs the phone and hides at home, watching soap operas rented from Blockbuster. With a bowl of instant noodles and a cup of coffee on the stand next to her sofa, she watches them around the clock, living in a fantasy world that takes her away from the realities of war or severe acute respiratory syndrome-related news. Instead of getting herself into real cat fights, office politics or heartbreaking relationships with men, she watches other people suffer. Their characters' torment makes her feel not too bad about her own situation.
As she cries and laughs at their silliness, she feels she has outsmarted them.
Lulu prefers kung fu soap operas such as The Water Marshals and The Eagle-Shooting Heroes. Kung fu stories are always set in stunning desert, lake or forest locations - a real contrast to the concrete jungle in which she lives. At times, the fight scenes are violent, but they are aesthetically so. Each time she sees a duel on screen, she imagines herself scrapping with Jenny. It would perhaps be more honourable than behind-the-back mischief.
Because she has rented so many videos and DVDs, Blockbuster sends her a free gift, Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad series workshop. Lulu watches it for the sake of practising English and as a change of pace. But soon, she is captivated. In the video, Kiyosaki talks about the Cashflow Quadrant; the differences between an employee and a business owner and explains why most employees go from job to job while others quit their jobs and build business empires. According to Kiyosaki, one can get rich as a business owner, or stay a member of the middle class as an excellent employee. He encourages people to find their own business models rather than rely on corporations for financial freedom. Lulu is inspired and cheered up by this god-sent video.
'I'm on the right track to financial freedom by quitting my job. I should have my own business and be my own boss,' she tells herself.
'But the next step is to find the right business. That is to say, what can I do?'