Money Went Too Far
The little room fell quiet, and neither of them spoke again. When feelings ran deep, words became unnecessary. The sour stench of romance hung in the air.
After quite a while, Meng Ke was the first to come to her senses. She asked softly:
"You must be hungry, right? Let's go eat."
Shen Jingchuan was staring at her in a daze, and he shook his head without thinking.
"I'm not hungry."
The moment the words left his mouth, he realized what he'd said and hurriedly added, "...Oh, okay, let's go eat."
Meng Ke glanced up at him, unable to keep the corners of her mouth from curling up. She laughed at him softly. "Silly."
She picked up the seal blanks from the table one by one, carefully wrapped them in soft cloth, then turned and put them in the safe behind her.
Neither of them mentioned the price again the whole time, as if the valuable stones were no different from a pack of tissues.
Once everything was put away, the two walked out one behind the other. As they passed through the front room, Meng Ke greeted the two young sales clerks behind the counter and told them she was going out to eat.
The two women nodded, but their eyes darted back and forth between the pair. They held their tongues, not daring to say more.
They went to the same restaurant as last time and asked for the same small private room. Meng Ke ordered with practiced ease. They didn't talk much during the meal, but whenever they looked up and caught each other's eyes, they both lowered their heads with smiles in their eyes. Even the food in their bowls tasted better than usual.
After they finished eating and came out, Shen Jingchuan walked slowly back to the shop entrance with her.
"Go on inside. I'll be going. I'll be in touch."
Shen Jingchuan stopped and said.
Meng Ke nodded but didn't move. She stood on the steps and watched him.
Shen Jingchuan walked a dozen or so steps, then looked back to find her still standing there. He smiled and waved, gesturing for her to go inside. Only after he saw Meng Ke turn and enter the shop did he turn toward the roadside and raise a hand to hail a cab.
What he didn't know was that Meng Ke stood behind the display window to the side, watching his retreating figure through the glass. Only when the taxi disappeared at the end of the road did she let out a soft breath and raise a hand to touch her still-burning cheek.
In the front room, the two young sales clerks had already exchanged several looks. Their boss's face had been red all morning, and after going out for a meal, she'd come back barely able to keep the corners of her mouth down. Even a fool could tell something was going on.
The two were busy gossiping with their eyes when they saw Meng Ke turn around.
They quickly looked away and put on straight faces, pretending to tidy the counter.
Meng Ke glanced at them and gave them a mock-scolding glare.
"What are you looking at? Don't you have work to do?"
Without waiting for them to reply, she turned and headed for the workshop in the back. Her steps were a little quicker than usual, and the tips of her ears were still red.
Meng Ke first went to the restroom and splashed cold water on her face. She patted her burning cheeks in the mirror, and it took quite a while for her to settle her flustered thoughts.
As soon as she returned to the workshop, she put those thoughts aside and switched into professional mode.
She took the seal blanks out of the safe and arranged them on the table one by one. She took high-definition detail shots from every angle, capturing the grain, the seal faces, and the textures along the sides. Even the radish patterns in the Tianhuang stone and the paths of the blood-red streaks in the chicken-blood stone came through clearly. She sent the whole lot to her collectors' group chat.
The group wasn't large, with only a little over sixty members. They were all longtime customers she had built up over the years, either collectors who genuinely loved stones or people in the trade with money to spare.
Usually, someone might post a small piece for discussion, but it was rare for anyone to put top-grade goods of this caliber on offer, let alone so many at once.
Less than two minutes after she posted the photos, the group exploded. Question marks and exclamation points raced across the screen, and her private messages began chiming nonstop.
Meng Ke didn't reply to them individually. She simply typed a line in the group:
"They're all genuine pieces, unmistakably authentic. There'll be a small closed-door auction at the shop at five this afternoon, open only to friends in this group. If you're interested, come straight over. The doors close at four thirty. Latecomers won't be admitted."
Closed-door viewings and auctions among acquaintances in the trade had long been standard practice. Everyone knew one another, the goods were displayed plainly, and the highest bidder won.
Just after four that afternoon, Meng Ke had the two sales clerks partially lock the shop doors and stop admitting walk-in customers.
She also turned all the counter spotlights up to their brightest, spread out a soft cream-colored velvet cloth, and laid the stones out by category. The two pieces of Tianhuang jelly stone were warm and lustrous, with a smooth, dense texture; the chicken-blood stone was a dazzling bright red; and the dozen or so remaining pieces of Shoushan stone, in all sorts of colors, each had a charm of their own. Under the lights, every piece gleamed.
By ten to five, everyone had arrived, fifty-two people in all. Some were veteran collectors who had come for the actual goods, while others were acquaintances from the trade who had come to broaden their horizons and show support. The little front room was packed and bustling.
At the front of the crowd stood a gray-haired old man surnamed Wang, a veteran expert who had been collecting stones for decades.
He adjusted his reading glasses and glanced over the counter, then smiled and shook his head at Meng Ke.
"Little Meng Ke, whose old collection did you dig up? So many fine things. I can tell at a glance, and I can't be wrong: they're all unmistakably authentic, top-grade goods. There's no need to look closely with a magnifying glass."
The others crowded forward too. Some took out magnifying glasses and held them close to examine the textures and patterns; others shone powerful flashlights through the stones to check their translucency. They were full of praise, and not one of them found a flaw.
Once everyone had more or less finished looking, Meng Ke brought out a precision electronic scale. In front of the crowd, she weighed each piece, announced its weight in grams, and recorded everything clearly.
She skipped the frills. As soon as the weights were recorded, the auction began in order.
The bidding went back and forth. The two pieces of Tianhuang jelly stone drew the fiercest competition, with bidders raising the price one after another. Two veteran collectors also fought hard over the chicken-blood stone.
In a little over an hour, every piece had been sold. A few exceeded their expected prices, while a few old acquaintances got minor bargains. Overall, the results were fair.
When the final tally was done, the sales came to more than twenty-seven million in total.
Sitting in the taxi, Shen Jingchuan could still seemingly feel the soft warmth of Meng Ke's palm on his lips. He shook his head and pulled his thoughts back to the matter at hand: he needed to buy a few presentable sets of traditional clothing.
But when he actually tried to think of somewhere to buy them, he ran into a problem. E-commerce had surged in recent years, and quite a few department stores in Beijing had been unable to keep going and had closed. Even in once-bustling shopping districts like Xidan, many malls had been converted into restaurants and parent-child stores.
There were fewer and fewer counters selling proper ready-to-wear clothing, let alone physical shops selling traditional clothes where he could try them on for fit. He racked his brains but couldn't think of anywhere to go.
"Forget it. Why go to all that trouble? I'll buy them online."
He muttered to himself. It would save him from wasting time wandering around, and he could return anything that didn't fit anyway.
The car pulled up downstairs at his residential complex. He had just reached the fifth floor when he saw three or four large cardboard boxes piled outside his door. The batch of mirrors he'd ordered a few days earlier had arrived.
He glanced around the hallway but didn't dare try anything tricky. He dutifully bent down, picked up the boxes, and carried them inside. Someone might have been watching through the peephole across the hall; there was no point in arousing suspicion for nothing.
Only after he went in, shut the door, and locked it did he raise a hand and put all the boxes into his space. He didn't even open them. They were the batch he'd ordered, so there couldn't be any mistake.
He flopped down on the sofa, pulled out his phone, opened a shopping app, and started picking clothes for himself.
Not everyone in the other world wore loose robes with wide sleeves. Ordinary people wore short jackets and trousers for ease while working; only scholars and wealthy households wore long robes and gowns. There were many styles, not much different from the everyday Ming-style, Song-style, and hanfu outfits here.
He picked out six sets he liked. Once he had finished choosing for himself, he started selecting clothes for the three little girls.
He could only estimate their sizes from memory. Fortunately, clothes could still be worn if the size was a little off, and if they really didn't fit, the seven-day no-reason return policy had him covered.
He tried to pick the more expensive ones, but most still cost only around a hundred apiece, and even the most expensive was just over three hundred. He selected more than fifty items in one go, from outer garments and inner layers to ruqun skirts and little padded jackets. It all came to just over nine thousand, not even ten thousand. This money went far too far.
After paying, he tossed his phone aside and leaned back on the sofa, lost in thought.
Just a couple of days ago, he had still been racking his brains over what to take across and trade for money on his next trip, and how to turn a bigger profit. But now, when he thought about how the jadeite could be sold for several hundred million, he suddenly felt much less driven.
As long as he had enough money to spend and could live a peaceful, stable life, that was enough. There was no need to work himself to death and stir up trouble. Although the money hadn't actually landed in his pocket yet, in his heart, he already felt as though he had that much.