“Miss Yun, something’s weird with you today.”
Yun Xiangxiang went straight to Qian Yongnian and stared at the stone after she came home. He noticed something was off with her.
“Grandpa Qian, I’m sorry. I need to send this away for a while,” Yun Xiangxiang was apologetic.
She understood how important it was for a jade sculptor to come across a piece of excellent stone. She sought him out first. She gave him hope, but now she had to destroy it. She knew that it was cruel.
“When are you taking it back?” Qian Yongnian didn’t notice the undertone. He was calculating the time he needed to make the accessories.
“Perhaps…never,” Yun Xiangxiang had to be honest with him.
“What?!” Qian Yongnian was shocked. “What happened?”
“This jadeite…” she didn’t hide anything and told him the transpired events. “Nothing’s more precious than life to me.”
Qian Yongnian could understand her decision. When she was about to keep the jadeite in a bag, he stopped her. “We can make a fake one for the police.”
“A fake?” Yun Xiangxiang was surprised.
“Make a fake one with a dark green jade. Just give them a heads up,” Qian Yongnian explained. “It also has a green gleam after polishing. But even the best one only shines a light shade of green. We can make a highly polished one, making it hard to tell them apart.”
The criminals wouldn’t have much time to verify it. Not to mention, they might not succeed anyway. They only needed to hand it over to the police and make the criminals believe it was the real deal. The rest would be the police’s problem.
A fake black jadeite wasn’t a significant loss even if it was destroyed during the fight, even though it was also expensive.
They needed a better stone to make a fake. It at least had to be indistinguishable from the real deal even when checked from afar.
“Is it possible?” Yun Xiangxiang was starting to hope.
“I am confident it will,” Qian Yongnian guaranteed.
He knew how to make fakes. He learned it so he wouldn’t get duped, but it came back to bite him eventually.
“Tell me what you need. I’ll get someone to fetch them for you,” Yun Xiangxiang wanted to gamble on this.
“I don’t need anything. I have a piece of it right here.” If Yun Xiangxiang or anyone around her were caught buying this dark green jade, their plan would fail.
The criminals were professional jewelry thieves. They must know jewelry to a degree.
Qian Yongnian had some materials left on him. But those who were into this didn’t want to buy his work. Amateurs couldn’t afford them.
He didn’t starve during all these years, so he didn’t take them out, even if he was poor.
He wanted to give it to his grandson when he would make a family. The stones could be exchanged into money, lightening the burden on his grandson’s life.
He didn’t tell Qian Qian about this. He didn’t want his grandson to rely on him too much.
He brought all of them here this time because his grandson would be sitting his entrance exam soon. He wanted to sell all of them here.
Qian Yongnian took a black oval stone the size of a bowl out. There were no traces of sculpting on it.
“The gloss is far too different from the black jadeite,” Yun Xiangxiang noticed it at a glance.
“Try and say that again conclusion after it’s polished,” said Qian Yongnian.
“Grandpa Qian, I’ll buy this jade from you. I can’t let you waste it. You can make some accessories with the leftovers. I’ll give them out as gifts,” Yun Xiangxiang offered.
“Sure. I’ll bill you after everything is done,” Qian Yongnian accepted her offer.
“How much time do you need, Grandpa Qian?” Yun Xiangxiang asked.
“I can finish it by tomorrow,” Qian Yongnian understood the urgency of the situation.
“Thanks for your hard work,” Yun Xiangxiang was grateful.
She left him to his own devices and went to see Song Qian, “Notice anything off recently?”
“No,” Song Qian knew about the situation from Ai Li. She snorted, “Just some small-time thieves. You don’t have to worry about it.”
People like them were trash to Song Qian. If they dared to attack, she would kill them all.
“I know you’re not worried, but please be careful. You and Little Lin better don’t go upstairs these few days,” Yun Xiangxiang had to make preparations.
Song Mian’s house was different from hers. Most of the security measures there were installed during renovation.
Song Mian didn’t change any part of her house out of respect for her and He Wei. That was why he bought the units below and above hers.
“You should tell the young master about this,” Song Qian didn’t object to her arrangement, but she needed to remind her.”
“Yeah, I know,” the situation had taken a turn for the worse. If she still kept it a secret from him, that would be too cruel to him.
She told him about it that night, “Everyone says I’m lucky. But they don’t see the dangers behind it.”
Song Mian didn’t look nervous or worried. He consoled her gently, “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. You’re a lucky girl. You can discover a threat against you even when you’re just staying in a hotel.”
If this episode did not happen, the eventual attack could cause great harm to her. From this event, Song Mian knew he didn’t protect Yun Xiangxiang enough.
“You’re right,” she had to admit that he was correct.
“Here, let me take you on a sightseeing trip,” Song Mian hiked up the mountain with his phone in hand. He wanted to cheer her up.
As he went up, his phone showed her the land of South Africa. Yun Xiangxiang had never been to South Africa in both lives. To her, South Africa was desolate, barren. She thought it only had deserts, plains, and dried up earth….
But that was not what Song Mian’s phone showed. The beauty of nature there looked like it came straight from an oil painting.
There were vast, green plains and rolling mountains. There was a purple sea of flowers, and a clear sky dotted with pure, white clouds…
Yun Xiangxiang brightened up like the nature that was shown to her. “It’s so gorgeous there. It’s totally different from what I had in mind.”
“Their ecological reserve and the wilderness here are gorgeous. I’ll have to bring you here next time,” Song Mian smiled when he thought of coming here with her. “There’s also a private hunting ground.”
“Okay, I’ll be waiting for that day. You better don’t forget this,” Yun Xiangxiang was more determined to go find him.
“I’ll retire once you decide to stop filming. When that happens, I’ll take you to all corners of the world. Ah Jun has gone to all sorts of places and found out many interesting spots. I want to see all of them with you.”
He would only be by one woman’s side for his life, taking her to everywhere in the world.
This was a meaningful and romantic affair.
“Retirement? You should think about grooming your successor first.” Yun Xiangxiang thought Song Mian was thinking too far. She was just eighteen. It would be at least twenty-five years before she would consider retiring.