As the old saying goes, with enough money, you can even make the devil push a millstone.
Su Ning thought cheerfully that the ancients certainly did not lie. The tailor shop had agreed to her request, and the owner straightforwardly disclosed that he would cancel all his other clients' orders to exclusively serve her.
The profit was simply too massive.
It was so massive that he would rather offend his long-time customers and tarnish his shop's reputation. On this single order, she was spending at least forty thousand silver dollars!
Su Ning slowly let out a breath, feeling her hot blood surging through her veins. She told herself that this was still far from enough; she had not even spent a fraction of it.
"Congratulations, Host. You have just completed another 'Heartless Rich' task." The System popped up. Meeting Su Ning's death glare, it quickly added, "Do not worry, the rewards are calculated separately. They will not be added to the balance of your spending task to increase your burden."
Su Ning was in no mood to pay it any attention.
Suddenly, she remembered the System Shop that had appeared earlier, and to her pleasant surprise, she found that a new purchasable item had refreshed on it.
Upon clicking to purchase, a notice popped up:
On the first, fifteenth, and thirtieth of every month, a new item will be refreshed. Unpurchased items will be overwritten the following month.
She thought about it; yesterday happened to be the fifteenth.
Truly, even God was helping her. Rejoicing for a moment, Su Ning firmly memorized these item refresh dates. She decided that whether the items were useful or not, she would buy them as soon as they refreshed, refusing to let a single opportunity to spend money slip away.
Her gaze shifted to the only item currently available for purchase.
There was no picture, just the simple word "Jewelry."
Su Ning looked at the price. It started with a three, followed by a string of zeros, one, two, three, four... five. Five zeros.
Three hundred thousand!
"What kind of jewelry is this expensive?"
That was her first thought, but then she decided she did not care. The more expensive, the better.
"System, choose to purchase the item."
"Yes."
A white light flashed before her eyes, and suddenly, a carved mother-of-pearl inlaid chest appeared in front of Su Ning. The chest did not look large, but it had a full four tiers.
The first tier was entirely gold jewelry. She counted them; the large and small bracelets, rings, necklaces, and hairpins added up to an astonishing twenty-seven pieces.
The second tier was entirely jadeite, including two bangles, a beaded bracelet, and a plain jade pendant. The green color was incredibly even and lustrous. In this era, jadeite was highly sought after, and high-quality pieces commanded exorbitant prices.
There were not many items on the third tier, just three pigeon-blood rubies, each about the size of a fingertip.
The final tier was the absolute centerpiece.
After tossing about for so long, the sky had already grown dark. The bright, soft lights of the luxury suite shone down on the diamond necklace in front of Su Ning. The massive main diamond sparkled brilliantly, and although the surrounding accent diamonds were not large in carat weight, there were a full seventy-two of them.
"I feel like this necklace alone is worth three hundred thousand silver dollars."
Su Ning spoke in a dreamy tone.
"That is not the case. The value of System items is strictly determined based on the current era. There will absolutely be no mistakes," the System explained carefully.
"True. Although diamonds are expensive in the Republican era, they are not as outrageously priced as in later generations."
After admiring the jewelry for a while longer.
Su Ning happily stored the items away. She then made a series of phone calls to settle her outstanding tabs at various restaurants from the past few days. Adding it all up, it actually came to over six hundred dollars.
One must know that in this day and age, even at a famous restaurant, a standard banquet table with eight dishes, one soup, and two desserts would only cost twenty silver dollars, with discounts available during holidays.
By comparison, Su Ning's expenditure on food was astronomically high.
What she did not know was that in less than half a month, every restaurant in Peiping City knew about a certain Miss Su who had returned from abroad. She was a true epicure who demanded the finest and most meticulously prepared food.
Having grown tired of foreign cuisine, upon returning to her homeland, she wanted to taste everything, from the Eight Great Culinary Traditions to delicacies from all corners of the country.
There is a saying that food is the paramount necessity of the people.
These chefs might look unremarkable, but they understood best which families were truly wealthy and which were merely putting on airs. After all, one could fake a wealthy outward appearance, but meals had to be eaten every single day.
Someone with no money in their pockets simply could not keep up the charade!
Initially, because she was a new customer, they had allowed her to run a tab solely because she was a guest at the Peiping Grand Hotel.
In reality, they were extremely anxious, terrified that she might run off without paying.
And do not say it was impossible.
With the world in such turmoil, what bizarre things had not happened?
Now that they had received the cash in hand before the end of the month, they breathed a collective sigh of relief. After exchanging information with their peers, they unanimously concluded that this Miss Su possessed immense wealth.
They pondered adding her to their lists of regular patrons, meaning they could now serve her their off-menu specialty dishes.
It was not that the big restaurants were bullying their customers.
It was simply that some dishes required ingredients so precious and rare that anyone without such wealth could not afford them, and their availability was unpredictable.
For instance, the head chef at Dongxing Restaurant, which Su Ning loved to frequent, had a signature dish: Braised Shark Fin in Brown Sauce.
It required the finest Luzon yellow shark fin, three-year-aged Jinhua ham, plump hens, pork knuckles, dried scallops, and more. It took a full six days of preparation to produce just one small bowl of braised shark fin that would make any gourmand's mouth water.
Other restaurants had similarly labor-intensive and expensive dishes.
If you were not on the list, you could not eat them.
Therefore, the old locals of Peiping would say in private that if you wanted to know whether someone was truly wealthy, you just had to see if they could eat the secret signature dishes at the various restaurants.
If they could not, no matter how glamorous their clothes were, they were nothing but sheep droppings, shiny only on the surface!
............
Unaware of all these intricate details.
Here, having finally whittled her balance down to around five hundred thousand, Su Ning breathed a half-sigh of relief. After some thought, she called the front desk to ask for the contact information of the best-selling newspapers in the city.
The receptionist gently asked her to wait a moment.
Within moments, a document was delivered to her room.
It not only contained the contact information for the top ten newspapers in Peiping City but also thoughtfully annotated the daily style of each publication, detailing which ones were purely gossip tabloids, which ones loved to discuss current affairs, and which ones were favored by the literati.
It was extremely detailed and comprehensive.
Just by looking at it, one could gain a basic understanding of the newspaper industry in Peiping City.
Su Ning sighed in admiration, "It is so good to have money."
This information seemed ordinary and trivial, and even an average person paying a little attention could easily figure it out over time, but time was exactly what she lacked!
Having obtained the contact information, she immediately contacted all the newspaper offices on the list without stopping to rest. Skipping the pleasantries, she directly stated her request:
To publish a funeral notice on their best and most expensive pages.
Starting tomorrow, for three consecutive days.
At this time, newspaper offices handled a lot of this type of business, so they did not find it strange; at most, they thought Su Ning was being exceptionally generous.
The price for the best pages was not low, let alone for three consecutive days.
However, when money came knocking, they naturally could not turn it away. Most of them accepted the business. For the one or two that were already fully booked, Su Ning tripled the price, and they instantly agreed to let her cut in line.
"What exactly is the message to be published? Since Miss Su is a major client, we can provide editing and polishing services."
The extra polishing service was, of course, offered because of the heavy amount of money Su Ning was throwing around.
Major clients naturally enjoyed special privileges.
"Thank you very much, then." The female voice was hoarse and low. After a brief pause, she spoke slowly, "I want to publish a funeral notice for my father. His name is Su Huaishan..."
After several revisions and additions, Su Ning's telling of this story had become increasingly flawless in its details. Her persona was more prominent, and even her emotions were perfectly pitched.
At the very least, the people at the newspaper offices were deeply moved by what they heard.
Such a legendary experience is more captivating than the most popular novels on the market right now.
"I'm sorry, I just can't stop once I start talking about my father." After a while, Su Ning finally paused, speaking with a touch of sorrow and exhaustion:
"For the official publication, just stating my father's name and the specific time and location of the funeral will suffice."
The newspaper staff member almost blurted out.
Please don't! It would be such a pity not to publish a story as fascinating as this.
Su Ning didn't think it was a pity at all. Su Huaishan was someone she had entirely made up. It was fine if only a small circle of people knew about him, but if he attracted too much attention, the flaws in her story would easily be exposed.
She hung up the phone with the last newspaper agency.
Su Ning was already parched. She took several gulps of water before hearing the system ask:
"Host, are you planning to spend the remaining money on the funeral?"
"Other than a funeral, what other reasonable way is there to spend a massive amount of money in such a short time without arousing suspicion?" Su Ning rubbed her temples and said calmly:
"A funeral that causes a sensation throughout Beiping will deeply embed my image as someone with wealth rivaling an entire nation into people's minds. Those who are curious about me and want to get in touch will naturally flock to me."
"Is there any better deal than this?"
As she said this, flames seemed to dance in her eyes. The system silently took a screenshot and asked in confusion:
"But the funeral date is set for just four days from now. Will there be enough time?"
Organizing a funeral was not that simple. The various procedures were tedious, and a multitude of items were needed. Even an ordinary family would require seven or eight days to prepare for a funeral.
Su Ning gave a sinister smile:
"It would certainly be difficult if it were just me and a few workers from the Su family doing all the work. But don't we still have Bureau Chief Jian? My thirty thousand US dollars weren't spent in vain. It's time to put him to use!"
Meanwhile, at the police station.
Jian Ren, who was in the middle of lecturing his subordinates, suddenly felt a chill sweep over his entire body. He couldn't help but sneeze, feeling a wave of suspicion and unease:
Is someone scheming against me?
