The thin bank card was p.r.i.c.king Yue Li"s eyes and her soft heart. She never dreamed that she would sell herself out because of money and that the man who wanted to buy her was a boy she had grown up with and liked since childhood.
Yue Li"s white teeth bit her lips and she was silent for half a minute before looking up and spoke with a heavy voice, "300,000 yuan. I"ll be your girlfriend if you can give me 300,000 in a week. I"ll even marry you if you want me to."
"Are you crazy?" yelled Yang Pengchao.
Yue Li smiled. But it was a smile full of sadness, her eyes finally unable to hold on any longer as tears came rolling down from them. Her sobbing was carried in her voice, but she tried hard to restrain her emotions and said, "I"m not insane. But I like money. I like the thrill and satisfaction money brings me. Like I told you, 300,000 yuan; give me the money and you can do anything to me. But if you don"t have it, just stay away from me and don"t ever see me again."
"I…"
Yang Pengchao"s heart was tumultuous as well. He too was in love with Yue Li, but he always felt inferior due to his poor family situation. Regardless of how he set his feet in many things in this county town, the problem of his family was like a chain to him, making him feel depressed.
After graduating from high school, he gave up continuing to study and went to Zheng City alone, suffering hards.h.i.+ps and pains, doing all despicable things and crimes. Everything was for one goal—to make money and wait for Yue Lin in this city. It was because she said that she would take a college exam and enroll in Zheng City College and that she would need to have him to have the ability as well as money to protect her during her time there.
However, that was a total of 300,000 yuan!
At present, even if he tried his very best to sc.r.a.pe some money together, he could only get 100,000 yuan at most, still less than half of the 300,000 yuan.
There was slight contempt in Yue Li"s eyes. She didn"t want to see Yang Pengchao in such a state, but she must do so because she needed money to save a life. It was the life of her mother who had been living through thick and thin with her.
"Hehehe…"
With grim laughter, Yue Li restrained herself not to look at Yang Pengchao again. She walked past him and walked into the distance.
Multiple times, Yang Pengchao opened his mouth and wanted to say something. But never once could he spit it out. He didn"t have money which was like a knife stabbing and sticking into his heart. He could faintly guess something, however, such as why was Yue Li was so anxious to get 300,000 yuan.
"Mengzi, I"m returning back to the city after this smoke. Keep an eye on Yue Li for me for the next seven days. Do contact me right away if there"s anyone who dares to bully her."
"Got it." Mengzi heavily shook his head.
The duo returned to the shabby kiosk and sat down outside on the camp"s stool. They blew up smoke after smoke while Yang Pengchao grabbed a newspaper and forced himself to stir it up a few times.
"This is really unfortunate…."
Mengzi seemed to think of something, but he smiled bitterly while shaking his head.
To divert himself from his vexing thoughts, Yang Pengchao asked, "What is unfortunate?"
"We are so unfortunate to be poor, brother. Alas… let alone for being rich, we could"ve struck it rich right away if we had a precious heirloom pa.s.sed down in our family. Brother Pengchao, tell me about it, why haven"t our ancestors left us an heirloom like a jade carving to us, their descendants?"
"What f.u.c.king nonsense are you spitting out?" Yang Penghcao frowned. "You"re just rambling; I don"t follow."
Mengzi rolled his eyes and grabbed the newspaper in Yang Pengchao"s hands. He placed the headline on the front page in front of him and said, "You wanna know what I said? Take a look and read it yourself."
Yang Pengchao glanced at it and his pupils suddenly shrank after a few seconds. He was overjoyed as he ran fast toward the direction where Yue Li left without even saying anything to Mengzi.
"YUE LI!"
A few minutes later, he had caught up with Yue Li.
Yue Li was still pale. She looked at him in front and said, "What else do you wanna say to me?"
"You only need to answer a question for me in good faith," said Yang Peng with all seriousness. "If you answer it and I still can"t give you 300,000 yuan, I give you my word that I"ll never pester you forever."
"Do ask," replied Yue Lie after taking a deep breath.
"Why exactly are you rus.h.i.+ng in obtaining 300,000 yuan?" asked Yang Pengchao.
"I wanna take my Mom to a doctor," answered Yue Li.
"It"s truly the reason!"
Yang Peng also thought that it was the reason just now. Now that he had heard her answer, he kept Yue Lie in excitement and said tremblingly, "I know that you"re not a woman who loves vanity. Come with me! Let"s go to Shanghai to the appraisal convention held by the Grand Fortune Jewelry. I promise the money I can give you in a week is more than 300,000 yuan. I can give you more than that—be it three, thirty, or even three hundred million yuan."
"You"re crazy," shouted Yue Li while pus.h.i.+ng him aside.
Yang Pengchao moved the newspaper in front of her and said in a deep voice, "I dunno if you have seen the content on this newspaper. But I can clearly tell you that I have a jade carving mentioned in it. It"s the jade monkey, one of the Chinese zodiac carvings."
Yue Li"s eyes stared so wide as she took and read the newspaper with incredulity. She then looked at Yang Pengchao and asked with a trembling voice, "D-do… you really have the jade monkey?"
"Yeah, the newspaper has pictures of the jade dragon and jade tiger in it. Their whole bodies are red and the carvings are vividly lifelike. My jade monkey is also all red and very lifelike. It"s similar to the pattern of the jade dragon and tiger, very likely one of a set."
Yue Li squirmed and only after a long while did she finally spit out a sentence, "Then I"m going with you."
****
Somewhere in the Northeast Region, the black market.
Chen Jianshe had been standing at the door of the old man"s house for four hours. In midday, while it was blazing hot, despite having a strong physique, he still felt uncomfortable in being exposed to the sun.
"Just scram! Scram far away from here. Do you want my ox jade? Dream f.u.c.king on!" a curse from an old man came from the inside of the courtyard.
Chen Jianshe pleaded, "I really have no choice left, Dad! Little Lin wants to marry his future wife, while we also need to renovate your house and yard. Yaya still has to study and she also needs money for that. Do you really have the heart to watch your grandson stay a bachelor all his life? Or do you have the heart to watch your granddaughter drop out of school and stay at home? Dad, even if you want to keep that ox jade, you can"t even eat and drink. It"s better to sell it to Great Fortune Jewelry."
There was no sound for a long time from the interior of the pavilion.
Finally, the door opened and a white-haired old man threw out a box wrapped in yellow linen while angrily cursing and yelling at Chen Jianshe, "Take this s.h.i.+t and scram the f.u.c.k out! And do not wander around before me again later. A loser who leaves the family in ruin with only this old thing still remaining. I never expected that even I must lose it in during my lifetime. I truly have committed sin!"
Chen Jianshe held the object and kowtowed in front of the old man. After heavily kowtowing a few times, he got up and ran towards the distance.
****
Beijing.
Nearby the Horse Bridge outside the Sixth Ring Road was a residential building. Mo Xiaohan was fiddling with the rooster jade in her hand while a hesitant look was evident on her delicate face.
She was not short on money. As a senior white-collar worker of a foreign company in Beijing, she had a very decent income and her family situation was likewise quite excellent. They were quite well-off and had no problem going through the day by day.
However, the sky-high price of 100 million USD still shocked her. She never thought that she would happen upon such an opportunity to obtain an astronomical wealth of 100 million USD in her life. Never did she expect that a rooster jade, the heirloom left by her mother after she pa.s.sed away, was so valuable.
Ring, ring, ring…
The sound of her ringtone interrupted her train of hesitating thoughts.
As she grabbed the mobile and saw the name on the screen, she suddenly pouted. Only ten seconds later did press the b.u.t.ton to answer and said, "Chief Li, you…"
"Spare the d.a.m.n you and you. Why are you absent today for no reason and when will you give me the planning book I want? This is preposterous and absurd. Do you really want to go against your superior?" an angry voice of a middle-aged man came roaring from the handset.
Mo Xiaohan quickly replied with an obsequious tone, "Chief Li, I really have something urgent to tend to today. Besides, I already wrote half of the planning book. Could you give two more days?"
"Bulls.h.i.+t! I"ve given you nearly a weeks time, and you tell me it is only half done? Mo Xiaohan, just do it if you"re competent, but get the f.u.c.k out if you aren"t. I give you half an hour of time. If you don"t show up here within time, I"ll let you know how many eyes Lord Ma has!" The raging roar came from the phone again.
Ma Xiaohan"s expression changed. Anger erupted from her chest and she shouted back, "Scram and get the f.u.c.k out, huh? This lady of yours won"t wait for it. You"ve already sent your d.a.m.n underlings to throw my stuff out of the office! And f.u.c.king no way will I go to the company to see how many eyes you have!"
With that said, she hung up and panted in anger and thus came to a conclusion—she"ll go to Shanghai.
****
f.u.kang Province.
Inside a European style villa, Zhan Moyuan read a financial statement with such a gloomy frown that a few of his remaining hairs were torn off. The business of his company has been worse than it was in the beginning of the economic crisis of a few years ago, and now the situation of capital turnover was even worse.
"Money! If I could chance upon such a windfall from the sky, this would have been fine."
Zhang Moyuan took the last cigarette in his box, rubbed his temple, and took his handset and opened a WeChat group. He had tons of old friends, many of whom were rich businesspeople. He was mulling over his options for a long time, but he had no idea of whom he should borrow money from.
"Friends are everywhere when you"re in a normal situation, but in times of danger and hards.h.i.+p, only then we realize they are just brothers in debauchery."
Zhang Moyuan shook his head with a helpless expression. Just as he was about to throw his handset to the table, a headline suddenly attracted his attention. To be precise, it was the information about the pattern of the two jade carvings.
"The dragon and tiger jade carvings?"
Zhang Moyuan"s eyes stared wide. He carefully watched the news for a while before he s.h.i.+fted his eyes to the text above. When he finished reading the above content, the frown on his face completely disappeared and was replaced by ecstasy.
"100 million USD?!!"
He headed outside in a rush and sprinted to his study before grabbing a box from the corner and cautiously opening it. What appeared before him was a completely red jade carving that was vividly lifelike—the jade rabbit.