Antique streets like this generally had storefronts run by specialized processing workshops.
Before long, Qu Nanzhu found one and walked inside. A shop assistant immediately came up to greet him.
She was just about to ask what he needed when Qu Nanzhu casually pulled a piece of ice jadeite the size of an adult's palm from his pocket and spoke first. "Hello, could you help me make this into peace buckle pendants?"
There were so many things to comment on that the assistant did not know where to begin. Wearing a flawless smile, she accepted the jadeite with both hands and asked, "Would you like all of it made into peace buckles?"
Qu Nanzhu said, "I need at least six. Is that possible?"
"Of course. There'll even be enough material left over for a bangle. How does that sound?"
Qu Nanzhu thought a bangle would take up material without being of much additional use, so he shook his head. "Just make it all into peace buckles."
The assistant maintained her smile. "A bangle of this quality could sell for five or six hundred thousand yuan. A peace buckle would fetch thirty thousand at most. Are you sure?"
Qu Nanzhu, who knew nothing about any of this, fell silent.
He was short of money. He needed a lot of it. If he could sell that bangle...
"All right, then. But I still need those six peace buckles. You can do whatever you like with the rest."
"Of course! But if you decide to sell the bangle, could you let us handle it for you?"
Qu Nanzhu did not mind any of that, so he nodded his agreement.
Soon, the assistant came downstairs with a contract. Serious and cautious when it came to contracts, Qu Nanzhu once again began reading through the dozen or so pages one by one.
The assistant showed no impatience. Whenever Qu Nanzhu asked a question, she patiently answered it.
Nearly an hour and a half passed before Qu Nanzhu finally finished reading the contract and signed his name in the space for Party A.
With the signed contract in hand, the young assistant could not suppress the smile tugging at her lips. After shaking hands, they talked as they walked toward the exit.
Qu Nanzhu's requirement was that the peace buckles be finished first. The assistant said that would be no problem, then asked whether he would collect them himself or have them delivered.
Deliveries of valuables like these required an in-person handover. Since he would not necessarily be home at all times, Qu Nanzhu chose to collect them himself.
After leaving the antique street, he bought tens of thousands of yuan's worth of talisman paper and cinnabar on the way. It was already six in the evening when he returned to his rented place. Once again, he brought dinner home to eat, and while eating, he finally had time to order a few pieces of clothing that suited him.
As for the messages practically bursting out of his phone, Qu Nanzhu really did not want to open them.
This was his first bit of leisure since returning to life in someone else's body, and Qu Nanzhu intended to enjoy it properly.
The stone-gambling shop owner had messaged him, saying only one stone had yielded bean jadeite, roughly the size of a fist, and asking what he wanted done with it.
Although Qu Nanzhu had said he trusted him, the owner had kindly recorded videos anyway. Sped up, each was about ten minutes long.
Altogether, they still added up to over an hour.
However, Qu Nanzhu had not received these videos until the early hours of the morning.
Qu Nanzhu did not understand bean jadeite or ice jadeite. He only knew that the stone had little spiritual energy and was therefore useless, so he simply asked the owner to deal with it.
The honest, good-natured owner transferred four thousand yuan to him outright, saying he would buy it himself and consider it a way to make a friend.
Qu Nanzhu did not stand on ceremony either. He accepted the money and thanked him.
Qu Nanzhu spent an hour and a half eating this meal. Before, he had eaten instant noodles because he had no money. Now that he had money, he had been more inclined to buy whatever he felt like.
Besides the boiled dumplings from the restaurant downstairs, he had also ordered all kinds of delivery food on his phone: fruit, milk tea, barbecue, and fried skewers. Not much of anything, but a little of everything.
By the time he leisurely finished the meal, he had also figured out why so many people had called him today.
After he ended last night's stream, he had made several more trending lists, but those topics had immediately been removed. In less than a minute, every trending topic about his miraculous fortune-telling saving lives had disappeared. Meanwhile, although the topic about him saving someone at yesterday's car accident had dropped, it remained on the list.
People immediately realized why. Everyone simply shared an unspoken understanding and joked that Qu Nanzhu was being "controlled by a powerful hand"!
To those talent agencies, Qu Nanzhu's rise to fame had been abrupt. Previously a complete nobody, he had suddenly emerged out of nowhere, and people immediately started digging into the forces behind him.
In the end, they discovered he was a new streamer at a small media company-and had even terminated his contract just yesterday afternoon!
If they did not make their move now, when would they?
Qu Nanzhu instantly became the streaming industry's hot commodity. One after another, they rushed to call him with contract offers, but before noon, his phone had been switched off. After that, no one answered.
Apart from a few media companies that refused to give up and kept calling and texting, most settled into quietly watching and waiting.
Yet even when tonight's stream began, Qu Nanzhu still had not announced signing with any company, leaving a whole host of media company agents with mixed feelings.
Another thing was that Qin Siyi had published a new post, first thanking Qu Nanzhu for saving her younger sister, then warning girls to protect themselves and the people around them.
The attached picture was a photo taken with Su Youqin in the Su family's garden. In it, Su Youqin looked shy, but her expression was normal.
Netizens offered congratulations one after another and praised Qu Nanzhu's abilities.
Amusingly, just minutes later, Qin Siyi tagged a netizen and asked when he would livestream himself eating a keyboard.
The comments section filled with laughter.
It was almost time to stream. With no experience working a job, Qu Nanzhu was still hurriedly clearing the dining table at 7:56.
As soon as eight o'clock arrived, fans who had yet to see their streamer began "protesting." The bullet comments flew by too quickly to read.
At one minute past eight, Qu Nanzhu hurriedly started the stream, thinking that just one minute should be fine. Seeing hundreds of thousands of people waiting in his livestream room and the bullet comments scrolling just as before, he relaxed a little more.
In truth, everyone had simply been stunned by his face.
Having just eaten spicy food, his lips were as red as cherries. On top of that, he had rushed around tidying up. Although he had not sweated, his face and ears were now red, making him look radiant at a glance and inevitably giving people all sorts of ideas.
[Streamer, be honest. What were you doing just now? Why were you one minute late?]
[Damn it, those moist lips and flushed cheeks. It's really hard not to take it as THAT!]
[What does the person above mean by that?]
[You know, THAT!]
[Nooo, handsome, I only just became your fan. Please don't have a partner!]
[Is the person above nuts? Why should becoming his fan mean he can't have a partner?]
[Exactly. Qu is a fortune-telling streamer. What business is it of yours whether he has a partner? He doesn't make his living off his looks.]
[Wait, is no one curious who his partner is?]
[Hold on, so why was he late?]
[One minute is fine, isn't it? No need to be so harsh.]
[Is that one minute really the point?]
[New here. Do I just call him wifey, or is there a procedure?]
[Person above, top right corner, out the door, then left to the slaughterhouse, okay?]
Watching the growing flood of comments, Qu Nanzhu picked out the key question to answer. "I was late. I was eating and didn't check the time."
[Oh~ So you were "eating"~]
[I'll decide for myself whether he was eating or being eaten.]
[It's okay~ Baby, what did you eat today?]
[Baby, I haven't eaten dinner yet. Can I eat you~ Just a tiny bit down below~~ I won't eat much~]
[The person above is unhinged.]
[The person above is unhinged.]
The comments gradually took a strange turn. Qu Nanzhu could not even understand some of them. He scrolled through without finding a single one he could respond to. Just then, dazzling gift effects covered the comments, and his eyes lit up in a very literal sense.
4567318875's comment was particularly conspicuous-
[What did you eat?]
Qu Nanzhu thought for a moment and said, "Quite a lot. Boiled dumplings, milk tea, barbecue, and some other things."
[Wow, no wonder your lips are so red. It was the spice, right?]
[A big shot really is a big shot. Has to fire off two volleys of rockets before speaking.]