With a faint pang of guilt, Qiuyun only told the lady of the house about Mr. Jiang rewarding her with an apartment and leaving his number.
The couple were in the middle of a tiff, and Yu Xiang deliberately glossed over Jiang Yihua's part, exclaiming in surprise, "So you're the one who found that silver bracelet, Xiaoqiu!"
"Huh?" The news traveled fast.
Yu Xiang was puzzled. "You don't know? The silver bracelet was featured on National Treasure last night. Go check the trending search—it might still be up now."
Qiuyun pulled out her phone and sure enough, spotted the hashtag #Nan Jiyun's Letter of Divorce#.
For it to make it onto National Treasure, it must have passed carbon-14 dating and been carefully verified by experts before being presented to the public with the story of a nation's grievance and a family's regret.
She logged onto a shopping site and saw a brighter, more refined silver bracelet displayed alongside a replica of the divorce letter, and couldn't help but raise an eyebrow.
It had only been a month, and Jiang Yifeng had already managed to turn the product into reality and get it listed online. The supporting supply chain behind it was seamless and the process so practiced—yet he still wore the mask of a playboy within the Jiang family.
Afterwards, she sent both the news and the shop name to Jiang Yihua, so he could dig deeper along this lead.
Shortly after, Jiang Yihua replied, and Qiuyun told the lady: "His idea is that for now, we act like we know nothing. Wait until we've slowly figured out just how deep Young Master Jiang's waters run."
"Oh."
Yu Xiang responded coolly, then looked at the letter of divorce and sighed. "I wonder if Yaoniang lived the rest of her life well, never getting the divorce letter she waited for."
Qiuyun sighed along with her.
A regret from a thousand years ago—people today can only speculate, but it does no good.
She glanced at the sales figures and was surprised by how impressive the numbers were after just one day.
Although the bracelet was pricier compared to other silver bangles of the same weight, it featured a hidden clasp structure, and an old master craftsman had slightly improved it by adding a small hinge at the junction of the two bracelet ends.
The original bracelet had a tiny pin hole that would break the moment you poked it, but now it could be reused, which undeniably added to the bangle's fun and practicality.
For instance, you could stash some cash inside, or slip in the code to your own lock. As long as you kept an eye on waterproofing and took it off while showering, it could come in clutch in a pinch.
After a moment’s thought, Qiuyun ordered three. The little gadget was quite amusing—she'd buy one each for Jiang Chuling, Yu Heng, and Qiu Ze.
The two girls' bracelets were just for fun, but the one for Qiu Ze was purely for promotional purposes.
She occasionally checked him out online and noticed the kid was pretty popular among undebuted trainees. Then again, trainees had no exposure or stage to speak of, so their popularity essentially boiled down to looks.
And those with great looks naturally attracted tons of fan-site photographers buying stock photos, creating a virtuous cycle that gradually built up his popularity. He now had a base of followers.
To avoid revealing her address through the sales backend, Qiuyun had the bracelets shipped to her new apartment.
Also, "Ma'am, I'll need to take a day off tomorrow. I'm going with your husband's secretary to the property registry to handle the title transfer."
"Go ahead. The house rules are back on track lately, and there's nothing urgent to handle at home. I have a school meeting to attend this afternoon anyway."
Yu Xiang sent Qiuyun a red envelope of one hundred thousand. "This is the bonus I promised you then, plus a little housewarming gift."
Qiuyun smiled. "Thank you, ma'am."
"Mommy, Xiaoqiu-jie!" Jiang Chuling rushed in, rare for her not to throw her backpack aside right away. "Do we have any pretty paper at home? I want to wrap my book covers!"
Yu Xiang took her daughter's backpack with an amused look. "School's been in session for over two weeks now—why the sudden urge to wrap book covers?"
Jiang Chuling was excited. "It's Little Heng! She wraps hers so beautifully!"
Yu Heng followed the young miss back inside, holding up her own textbook. "Like this."
Qiuyun praised her. "Little Heng, your hands are so nimble. I'll go dig around the storage room for you."
"Thanks, Qiu-jie," Yu Heng said warmly.
Once in the storage room, Qiuyun pulled out a few luxury-brand paper bags, ones where the paper size, thickness, and pattern were decent enough to use as book covers.
As for why the stock was so low—well, Lan Xin had taken all the previous ones.
Authentic luxury shopping bags fetch at least a few hundred each on resale sites. The young miss bought plenty, and adding it all up, that could bring in several thousand in extra income per haul. Who wouldn't find that tempting?
At that thought, Qiuyun opened the homepage of her secondhand resale account.
Come to think of it, she hadn't maintained this page in ages. After all this time on the shelf, anything that could sell had already sold, and the rest would probably never move.
While the young miss was learning to wrap book covers from Little Heng, Qiuyun took down all the unsold listings, planning to toss them all away tomorrow.
As she was about to log out and delete the app, she spotted a few recommended products lower down the homepage.
Qiuyun squinted—the calligraphy for sale looked oddly familiar.
Clicking in, she found not just the handwriting but even the user ID to be familiar.
She opened the chat history—oh? Wasn't this the kind soul she'd run into on her very first day on the resale site? No wonder it was recommended on her page; they had interacted before.
Out of curiosity, she tapped on the image to zoom in’ examine the calligraphy—
Supple yet strong, lively and flowing.
Who else could it be but Pei Cizhou!
Qiuyun gritted her teeth in fury.
Oh, fantastic!
When Cheng Garden asked him to write the Teaclassic, his little high-and-mighty face charged her seventy-five thousand and acted like it was barely enough. Now here he was behind the scenes selling calligraphy copies on a secondhand site—an entire Ode to the Shanglin Garden for just two thousand eight hundred!
How to put it? It was like running into a haughty fox-dog on the street, all aloof, refusing to be touched or petted—only to see the same dog wagging its tail at a pet café. Ha! And nobody was even paying attention!
Because sales down below: zero.
Phew~
No anger, no anger; getting upset over him won’t do me any favors.
Qiuyun let out a long breath, trying to shake off the feeling of being ripped off.
Just as she was about to exit the site and keep the screen out of sight, out of mind, a system notification popped up at the top:
—Ding dong~ The item you just viewed has been reduced by five hundred! A once-in-a-lifetime deal won't wait, so grab it while you can, dear customer!
"..."
Qiuyun narrowed her eyes. He's really asking for it.
She screenshotted the page, saved the image, and with a switch of her address and number, placed an order.
Oh, how she looked forward to the day Young Master Pei would pay ten times the current price to buy back his own little piece of history~
Meanwhile, on the other side.
Pei Cizhou had barely adjusted the price a minute ago when somebody snapped it up—clearly, someone had been lying in wait for his calligraphy for ages!
Just as he was kicking himself over the price cut, he took a closer look and realized the buyer was someone he knew.
Wasn't this the person who'd exchanged a few messages with him months ago, the one selling fake luxury goods?
One look at her page confirmed all her listings had sold out—the whole page was completely empty.
Well, well.
Not only did this person take his advice, but they also had impeccable taste.
He sent a greeting emoji over, asking if she wanted simple or fancy packaging for shipping. Of course, the fancy option came with an upcharge.
But by then, Qiuyun had already joined the young miss and Little Heng in their book-wrapping project and had no time for him.
Before bed that night.
Looking forward to moving into her new place tomorrow, Qiuyun ordered new appliances online and arranged for same-day installation.
