Chapter 13 - Rich And Willful (1)
"Lulu, because you had nothing else to spend one hundred dollars on you decided to buy an expensive sketch? Such a rich and willful girl!"
"And that artistic signature too!"
"You"re just too kind! It"s not difficult to find someone online to create a designer signature for five dollars."
"Those online designs look like cheap rubbish. I like this one; it perfectly expresses my name and good looks. Closely examine the picture I took; do you know what kind of expression she was wearing when she drew me? You might not know, but for me, the girl who gave me the portrait used a gentle and adorable expression as she said "what I drew is how you look to me". Aww...my skin at that moment was covered in gooseb.u.mps! She"s too fantastic; don"t you think so?"
"...I"m too lazy to talk to you anymore. Besides, if you run out of money, you can just return to your family. Alright, my Supervisor is here, so I have to go back to work. I wasn"t blessed with a good fortune like you."
Liu Lu"s lips twitched, and she removed the phone from her ear to mumble, "She"s acting like I think that my parents" money is but a drop in the ocean. I haven"t squandered it; I think this is worth it." She looked at the sketch in her hand. The more she looked at it, the more satisfied she was with it.
"Can I have a look at the sketch in your hand?" Suddenly, a deep magnetic voice was heard from the side.
Liu Lu was startled and looked up to find two men standing on her left. One was a st.u.r.dy looking man with robust features, appearing to be about thirty-something years old. He was wearing a black T-s.h.i.+rt and dark blue jeans, with his strong arm muscles exposed. He seemed like an unusual man, while the other looked…
As her eyes were sizing up the two men, she abruptly realised she"d been caught staring. There were no angry expressions on the other party, but she felt more scared than when her Father was angry. She didn"t dare look at them again, and moved the paper in her left hand to the right one, furthest away from the men.
The elevator door suddenly opened with a "ding!".
"Um...I have to enter the elevator," Take this opportunity to speak, Liu Lu glanced at the man standing next to her. The expression on his face was eerily calm as his eyes lowered to look at the picture, his long eyelashes covering the emotions revealed within the depths of his eyes.
Wow! So handsome!
As for what parts of him were handsome, Liu Lu couldn"t say. His face wasn"t as eye-catching as the perfect face of a celebrity, yet it still gave off a feeling of handsomeness. And while he was quite tall; his stature couldn"t compare to the body of the robust man beside him. Still, it was clear that he wasn"t lanky.
"Where is the person who drew this?" The man abruptly looked up, and as his eyes swept towards Liu Lu, his expression became a little more serious.
"On the side of the flowerbed at Hundred Flowers Square," Liu Lu staring blankly at his cold stare and immediately answered honestly.
When the man turned around to walk outside, Liu Lu looked at the paper held in his hand and remembered that he"d s.n.a.t.c.hed her portrait away when he"d spoken to her. She quickly chased after him and shouted, "My sketch--"
The man stopped and turned to look at Liu Lu. His eyes were as sharp as a blade, instantly dissolving the courage she"d mustered to ask for her portrait back.
"How much money do you want as compensation?"
"I, I don"t want money…"
Before Liu Lu could finish speaking, the robust-looking man, at a nod from the other man, withdrew a stack of banknotes from his wallet and handed them to her. It looked to be approximately a thousand dollars.
"No, I…"
Another stack of banknotes was removed from the wallet.
"Not enough?" The handsome man indifferently spat out those two words.
Liu Lu shut her mouth with a click.
After the two men had disappeared from her sight, Liu Lu looked down at the money gripped in her hands to discreetly start counting how much was there. With the banknotes she"d just been given, minus the one hundred dollars she"d spent on the artwork, she"d suddenly gained two thousand six hundred dollars!
"Such a wealthy and wayward Young Master!"
Sheng Jiaoyang, who was currently unaware that her sketch had been sold for more than two thousand dollars, was, at this moment, working hard to help people design their signatures. Five dollars for a custom signature wasn"t expensive; it would at most buy her a cup of milk tea. Some of the people watching were interested, yet no one had asked her for another portrait.
Sheng Jiaoyang had managed to complete several drafts of custom artistic signatures and decided to take a break before moving to a cooler location to avoid the hot sun beating down on her. But, just as she closed her eyes, someone stopped in front of her.
"Are you the one who drew this?" A very familiar voice suddenly filled her ears.
Sheng Jiaoyang squinted at the thing being held in front of her face. It was her first sketch of the day; Liu Lu"s portrait. Then, when she saw the blood jade ring on the thumb that was pinching the piece of paper, her heart abruptly skipped a beat.
Her gaze slowly travelled up the arm, to the face of the person before her and sure enough, she encountered the graceful countenance of Shen Zhining.
Sheng Jiaoyang"s lips trembled, but after remembering her current ident.i.ty, she managed to calm down. "That was me. May I ask what"s wrong?"
If it wasn"t something she"d personally experienced, who would believe that one could become another person with an utterly different appearance and bloodline?