Shopping seemed to be an innate hobby for women, and even Li Ru was no exception. Since her father passed away, she could count the clothes she had bought on her fingers, but that did not mean she did not want new clothes. After all, a love of beauty was a woman's nature.
Looking at the exquisite clothes from all the high-end brands in the mall, Li Ru's eyes lit up too. She looked here and glanced there, but she never wanted to step inside.
She was a young person too, and she owned a secondhand smartphone she had bought for over two hundred yuan. She had learned a little about the prices of some clothing brands online, or heard about them from classmates from well-off families.
Even the cheapest clothes from these high-end brands cost over a thousand yuan, while the expensive ones cost several thousand or even tens of thousands. With clothes this expensive, she did not even have the courage to go inside for a look.
When the group reached the entrance to a branded women's clothing boutique, Li Ru caught sight of a dress and unconsciously stopped. The dress used a distinctive fabric, like clouds and snow, silky smooth as jade, and its design was simple yet elegant.
"Do you like it?" Seeing his younger cousin staring at the dress in a trance, Li Rui asked.
"Yes-ah, no, I don't." Before she could think, Li Ru instinctively answered yes, then came to her senses and hurriedly denied it.
"Come on, let's go in and look." Ignoring her answer, Li Rui firmly pulled his younger cousin into the women's boutique, while the others stayed outside.
Seeing customers enter, a saleswoman hurried over, but when she saw Li Ru's clothes, washed so often they had faded white, a barely perceptible trace of disdain flashed deep in her eyes.
Although Li Rui's clothes cost a few hundred yuan apiece, she did not think these two could afford clothes costing at least a thousand yuan, or even tens of thousands.
Still, as an employee of a high-end brand, her professionalism was up to standard. As for the disdain in her eyes, that was simply human nature.
"Hello, sir. How may I help you?"
"How much is this dress?" Li Rui asked about the snow-white dress Li Ru had been staring at earlier.
"Sir, this is our brand's latest dress, designed by the renowned designer Gabrielle Chanel and handmade using our brand's exclusive high-grade silk. It retails for forty-eight thousand yuan."
Li Ru knew this brand's clothes were expensive, but she had not expected them to be this expensive. Hearing the price, she tried to pull Li Rui away and leave.
"Go try it on," Li Rui told her in a commanding tone.
Hearing Li Rui tell her to try it on, the saleswoman beside them immediately said, "Sir, this dress is very expensive. Only our store's gold members may try it on."
"Oh? Then how do you become a gold member?"
"You need to spend or deposit at least one million yuan at our store to become a gold member."
"Oh, then take her to pick out a million yuan's worth of clothes." Hearing that becoming a gold member required spending or depositing a million yuan, Li Rui did not even blink before telling the saleswoman to take Li Ru to buy a million yuan's worth of clothes.
"Sir, are you serious?"
Li Rui could not be bothered to answer. He opened the earlier text message showing his bank balance, held it before the saleswoman's eyes, and took it back a second later.
A second was certainly not long. The saleswoman had not had time to examine the message closely, but she had seen the nine in the bank balance and the long string of zeros after it with absolute clarity.
My goodness, over ninety million? Definitely more than that. Over nine hundred million? Or over nine billion? Did it matter?
"Miss, I'm so sorry for neglecting you. This way, please, this way. Let me introduce the women's clothing in our store. Oh, right, let's try this dress first. With your figure, it's sure to look beautiful on you."
Standing nearby, Li Rui feigned confusion. "Didn't you need a gold membership?"
"Hehe, sir, you're an honored customer. Naturally, you don't need one." That was what she said, but inwardly she thought, If I'd known you had hundreds of millions or even billions in your bank account, who would have asked you for some gold membership? These rich people just love playing the pig to eat the tiger. Luckily, I didn't do anything out of line, or I'd have been left with more trouble than I could swallow.
"Can we just not buy it, cousin? It's too expensive." Although she knew her cousin was no longer the same as before, when she heard that he intended to buy her a million yuan's worth of clothes, this girl who had hardly ever bought any decent clothes was still overwhelmed with apprehension.
A million yuan could buy two apartments in the county town, yet her cousin was going to buy her such expensive clothes. Li Ru felt both moved and apprehensive.
"You're my younger cousin. If you dress better, it makes me look good too. Money means nothing to me. Hurry up and choose," Li Rui urged.
Seeing that Li Ru still wanted to say something, Li Rui used the same trick again, holding the bank balance message in front of her as he asked with a smile, "Do you think your cousin is short of money?"
Ignoring Li Ru, who was still staring blankly, Li Rui continued,
"All right, are you the older cousin, or am I? I'm the older cousin, so listen to me."
Li Rui's mindset had now changed completely. Completing any random system mission could earn him twenty billion yuan in cash. What was a million? It did not even count as small change.
By this point, Li Rui's mentality had shifted from that of a minor nouveau riche to that of a major nouveau riche.
Knowing that her cousin had over nine billion yuan, and unable to win against him, Li Ru could only follow the saleswoman to choose clothes.
The next hour passed with Li Ru constantly trying on clothes and Li Rui constantly praising how good they looked. Li Ru, who had become insecure and withdrawn after her father's death, unknowingly became like a cheerful oriole.
Li Ru changed this way because everything Li Rui had done today had given this younger cousin, who had lost her support as a child, someone to lean on again. It also allowed this eighteen-year-old girl, once lively and sweet, to return to the way she should have been.
"Cousin, look! Is this one pretty?"
"Cousin, this one seems pretty nice too."
Like a machine, Li Rui kept repeating the motions of nodding and saying they looked good. He had truly underestimated women's enthusiasm for shopping. Even with the physical fitness he possessed from the Advanced Fighting Technique, he was finding it a little hard to endure.
Only after an hour did Li Rui finally bring Li Ru out of the women's boutique. The others waiting outside had long since grown so bored they were nearly dozing off, and now they finally saw the two emerge.
They all came forward, and Li Ru cheerfully showed her mother the clothes her cousin had bought her. These clothes accounted for only a fifth of everything purchased. They simply could not carry the rest, so they had asked the staff to deliver them to County No. 1 High School. With over a million yuan's worth of clothes purchased, the store naturally offered free delivery.
Looking at her utterly cheerful daughter, Xu Dingxiang's eyes grew moist. Her cheerful daughter had returned, all thanks to this nephew of hers. She was also glad she had not remarried back then. Otherwise, what would the family as it was today have to do with her?
Afterward, Li Rui spent several tens of thousands of yuan buying Li Tai a few outfits, and bought a few outfits for himself as well.
As for the elders, they refused to buy anything no matter what he said, and Li Rui let them have their way. After all, for people who made their living working jobs and farming, buying clothes costing several thousand yuan was very hard to accept, even if it was not their own money.
After buying clothes, he bought Li Ru and Li Tai each the latest Weihua Mate 60 RS, the 16 GB + 1 TB model priced at 12,999 yuan, then transferred each of them another hundred thousand yuan in spending money before taking them back to school.
He and the elders returned to the village as well.