"Miss, have you ever thought about forging a new trade channel yourself?" Lin Tian asked with a furrowed brow, believing that someone as sharp and strong-willed as Xiao Manxue shouldn’t be at anyone’s mercy.
Xiao Manxuan nodded, then shook her head, and after a moment said, "I’m not really sure, my sister personally took jade experts to the jade mines in Myanmar and participated in the public sale of raw jade there, but she suffered heavy losses."
Raw jade and rough stones mean pretty much the same thing. It seems that Xiao Manxue also attempted to circumvent the Bai Family to purchase raw jade but was unsuccessful.
"Second Miss, what do you think of the people from the Bai Family?" Lin Tian asked, recalling Bai Yufeng’s ruthless nature and assuming the Bai Family members weren’t much better.
How a family teaches and raises its young ones is reflective of its values; the environment cultivates the kind of offspring it produces.
At the mention of the Bai Family, Xiao Manxuan expressed clear displeasure. She snorted, "Humph, I particularly loathe the people from the Bai Family. That Mr. Bai is always pestering my sister, and Old Master Bai is always trying to pair his son with her. How could my sister possibly like someone like him? But Mr. Bai just won’t take no for an answer, humph!"
"Mr. Bai?" Lin Tian was taken aback. He had seen Bai Yufeng before and, just based on looks, his presentation wasn’t bad; Mr. Bai probably wasn’t much different.
"Yes, Mr. Bai, Bai Yuze," said Xiao Manxuan.
Just from the name, Lin Tian imagined Bai Yuze to be the kind of graceful gentleman. Could it be that Xiao Manxue’s standards were so high even such a wealthy and handsome man couldn’t match up to her? Then who among the young talents could?
But Old Bai from the Bai Family was shrewd too, having his eldest son chase Xiao Manxue and his second son pursue Xiao Manxuan. If either of his plans succeeded, swallowing up the Xiao Family was just a matter of time.
Hehe, too bad, his sons were disappointing and hadn’t won the hearts of the beauties. Lin Tian felt a little schadenfreude.
"Such beautiful sisters, if I could manage to win them both over, that would be what they call ’a blessing shared by all’, right?" A ludicrous thought suddenly crossed Lin Tian’s mind, startling himself so much that he almost lost control of the steering wheel.
"Lin Tian, what are you doing? We nearly crashed into the guardrail!" Xiao Manxuan was shocked by the swaying vehicle.
Lin Tian pretended not to hear and continued driving; he surely couldn’t tell her that he was thinking about winning over both her and her sister.
They soon arrived at the school, and as Lin Tian entered the campus, he noticed the atmosphere was different. Yesterday, all the students’ attention had been on Xiao Manxuan, the school’s "belle of the ball." Today, they were all sizing up Lin Tian, making him wonder if there was something amiss with his hairstyle.
"Lin Tian..." A girl’s voice came from behind him. As he turned around, he saw a cute girl running up to him, then shyly pulling out a pink envelope from behind her back to hand to him.
His brain short-circuited for a moment and Lin Tian dumbly accepted the envelope. The cute girl gave him a glance with her teary, watery eyes before running away flustered.
What was happening? Even as the cute girl ran off, Lin Tian hadn’t snapped back to reality.
"Hmph, she wrote you a love letter!" Xiao Manxuan said, somewhat jealously.
"How do you know it’s a love letter if I haven’t opened it yet?" Lin Tian turned it over and over in his hands, seeing nothing special about it.
Xiao Manxuan rolled her eyes at him, saying, "The way she looked at you just now, there was at least a hundred thousand volts in her gaze. I even felt the electric shock from here!"
"Really? Maybe I’m an insulator? I might as well throw this letter away. I’m a bad guy; I can’t go around ruining decent women," Lin Tian said, and he meant it. He wasn’t ready to begin a romantic relationship yet.
"You’re just now realizing you’re a bad person? Going around causing trouble for girls, you’d better keep this letter. Every girl who’s experiencing her first stirrings of love has a dream of a white knight, and even if their dreams can’t come true, they shouldn’t be thrown in the trash."
The little girl said this with her head down before she walked back to the classroom. Lin Tian scratched his head, confused about what she was thinking.
Throughout the day, Lin Tian received love letters now and then. During Fang Ming’s Chinese class, Lin Tian was curious to see what was written inside a love letter. But just as he opened it, Fatty Huang’s roar came from behind him.
"Ah, I’ve finally received a love letter!" Fatty Huang opened his Chinese textbook, and a love letter fell out. He shouted excitedly.
"Whoosh!" The whole class turned their eyes in this direction, and teacher Fang Ming immediately fixed her gaze on Fatty Huang. But that wasn’t the point; the point was that Fatty Huang sat at a single desk by the window, right behind Lin Tian.
Now, because of Fatty Huang, teacher Fang Ming discovered the love letter in Lin Tian’s hands—it was a complete accident!
"Huang Dayong, and you too, Lin Tian, go face the wall in the corridor!" Fang Ming glared fiercely at Lin Tian. She had heard about the events of the soccer game and thought Lin Tian had done well. But now she caught him being distracted in class.
So all the lectures she had given him yesterday were in vain. Romance was fine, but not at the expense of studies.
Zhang Lingyu watched him with a smirk. That girl, after watching Little Hua last night, he didn’t know when she had left. Xiao Manxuan looked helplessly sympathetic.
Out in the corridor, Lin Tian and Fatty Huang stared at each other, then said in unison, "Misery loves company, huh!"
Teacher Fang Ming must have been so loving and strict with Lin Tian that Fatty Huang was pardoned after standing for one Chinese class period. Meanwhile, Lin Tian had to stand for two periods before he was finished, but he knew teacher Fang Ming meant well, so he had no complaints.
Throughout the day, no one from Sun Decai’s crew came to trouble him, and after school, he received a call from Liu Wenxing.
"Brother Tian, Sun Decai didn’t attend classes today; he was busy raising funds. Even with the money he won, it’s not enough to fill the huge hole, hehe."
"Heh, that explains why it’s been so quiet today. Don’t worry, he won’t dare to renege on this bet; there are some people he can’t afford to offend. We just have to wait and count our money," Lin Tian chuckled.
After hanging up, Lin Tian felt strangely better. Not only had he thoroughly humiliated Sun Decai yesterday, but he also swindled him out of ten million. Ten million! He’d never seen that much money in his life.
But thinking about how ten million is nothing but chump change to the big families, Lin Tian calmed down. The car he was currently driving, between the Xiao Family’s initial purchase and the cost of modifications, cost well over ten million.
Back at the Xiao Mansion, Xiao Manxuan and Zhang Lingyu were out playing again. Lin Tian really didn’t understand how two people who had just met could be as close as if they’d been best friends for over a decade.
He opened the trunk of the car, where a big bag of envelopes lay. Xiao Manxuan had adamantly refused to let him throw them away, even taking the bag of love letters back with an air of importance.
As he was wondering what to do with this bag of love letters, a woman’s voice suddenly came from outside the garage: "Sister, are you in there? Open the garage."
"It’s not your sister, it’s your Brother Lin inside," Lin Tian blurted out reflexively, but he quickly realized who the person outside was.
"Miss Xiao, how can your servant be so rude!" a magnetic male voice then sounded.
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