Di Fuyi listened to her quietly and waited for her to finish the whole story. "What do you have to say for yourself?" He then questioned Gu Xijiu.Irritated, Fan Qians.h.i.+ explained, "My master saw the bracelet first for about two months ago. We even paid a deposit for it so that we could keep it until the day when I could finally afford it. We were only a couple of hours late, and yet the owner had already displayed the bracelet for other buyers."
"A couple of hours? If you are late, you are late. Even if it has only been 15 minutes," Di Fuyi interrupted him with his point of view about punctuality. "Haven"t you told your disciple that an agreement is a contract?" He continued to question Gu Xijiu.
The way he made his point sounded like he was giving Gu Xijiu a lesson, which she did not appreciate. "When we arrived, the payment was not yet made, so the owner suggested that we bid for it."
"Bid? How much did you bid for it?" Di Fuyi asked in a tone of mockery.
He did not even wait for Gu Xijiu to answer before offering a full chain of precious white pearls from his pocket. He placed the pearls on the table, blinding everyone there with the pearls" eye-catching brilliance. Each pearl alone was worth ten times more than the bracelet. There were a 108 of such pearls, and the total value of it all was impossible to be measured precisely.
"I will use this chain of pearls to bid for it," Di Fuyi proudly announced.
The owner could not be happier for his sheer luck of fortune. He then turned to Gu Xijiu, patiently waiting for an answer.
Gu Xijiu took a look at the chain of pearls, and then to the bracelet, and became convinced that Di Fuyi must have lost his mind. She wanted to buy the bracelet at first because she could easily afford it, but Fan Qians.h.i.+ insisted on earning her one. He had been working non-stop for two months in order to meet the amount of money required, so she could not let his hard work go to waste, thence she agreed to enter a bidding war.
The amount that Di Fuyi had offered was almost a thousand times more than the original price. He seemed determined to win, with quite a sense of lavish generosity. It seemed odd that he would be willing to do so much for a woman she barely knew.
Gu Xijiu observed the lady next to him and acknowledged that she had a beautiful face. Her stature was certainly graceful, and the look in her phoenix eyes was undeniably inviting. Perhaps the woman was the reason that he had gone mad.
Nevertheless, Gu Xijiu was reminded of a sense of guilt that she had been carrying since their last encounter. If he was buying the bracelet for a woman he cared about, she did not want to complete for it with him. Therefore, she swiftly kept her stack of cash away. "I no longer want to bid for this bracelet. It is yours now."
Fan Qians.h.i.+ was reluctant to give up. "But master, you like the bracelet so much."
Gu Xijiu had to stop him there, "We do not have to comment further on this bracelet. It is only an accessory. I can move on without it." She suddenly added, "By the way, I actually saw a scarlet bracelet in another jewelry shop. I like that one better, but I did not get it because we already had a reservation here."
Delighted, Fan Qians.h.i.+ responded, "Great! What are we waiting for? Let"s get it!" With a new bracelet in mind, they left the shop at once.
The owner, on the other hand, was completely immersed in the joy of his sudden gain. The amount that he had just made valued more than all of his a.s.sets combined. He kept the pearls before selling the bracelet away to Di Fuyi. "National Master, this is yours now."
Di Fuyi stood quietly without any expression. Even the owner could tell that Di Fuyi was not happy, despite having won the bid.
"Thank you, National Master, for helping me out," the lady happily said.
She then reached out her hand at him, full of antic.i.p.ation. "Would you kindly put it on me?" She then pointed at the ring on his thumb and said, "I like this bracelet because the color matches with the ring that you are wearing."
With the bracelet still on his palm, Di Fuyi answered scornfully, "When did I say that I was going to give this to you?"