Yu Yin noticed that Lana's attitude remained unchanged, still perfectly pleasant. If it had been her previous stylist, that person would have rolled her eyes, looking down on Yu Yin's behavior with utter contempt, convinced that Yu Yin was indeed a penniless nobody who couldn't hold herself up in proper society.
That stylist had heard whispers about Yu Yin's background and always looked down on her, treating her with disdain and an air of superiority.
Yu Yin had tolerated this person for a while, but eventually grew tired of swallowing her pride. She figured that since she was paying top dollar for a service, she deserved value for her money. She was the one enjoying the service—why should she have to endure mistreatment and scorn at every turn? That was putting the cart before the horse.
But she knew full well that she was nothing more than a decorative vase in the Zhao household. She wasn't even sure she had the authority to dismiss her stylist.
One day, she told Zhao Shunian she didn't want a stylist anymore—she didn't like having one. He asked why she didn't like it, and she said she wasn't accustomed to that kind of service.
Zhao Shunian simply said "Alright," and that he would have someone handle it. Not long after, Lana appeared before her for the first time.
Zhao Shunian had his assistant, Qin He, scout out a new styling studio. Qin He put considerable effort into the search, seeking someone with strong professional skills who could satisfy the missus. After careful deliberation, he selected the most suitable candidate—Lana—and Lana became Yu Yin's new personal stylist.
And so the image of the hard-to-please, demanding Mrs. Zhao was cultivated, all while Yu Yin herself remained oblivious to it.
Sometimes, being difficult to please earns you better service than being easygoing…
After receiving the price list, Yu Yin was taken aback—she hadn't expected such figures. The Hermès Birkin crocodile-skin bag she'd had her eye on came to over 400,000 RMB after currency conversion.
In reality, that was just the retail price of a Birkin crocodile-skin bag. Purchasing one on the second-hand luxury market would cost far more, because buying a bag at Hermès requires purchasing matching accessories.
Yu Yin flipped further down the price list and found the outfit and shoes she'd picked out. She silently calculated: 16,700 plus… and this was even with her consciously trying to be frugal.
Yu Yin had initially been tempted by a Chanel diamond-encrusted crocodile-skin handbag but had suppressed the impulse and not taken it—its value could equal an entire month of her allowance.
Every month, Zhao Shunian gave her a fixed allowance—two million yuan deposited into her bank account. It was purely spending money; none of her purchases were reported to Zhao Shunian. It was her own private nest egg.
The expenses for the items she'd selected today came from a separate fund, paid upon Zhao Shunian's confirmation.
Despite having mentally prepared herself in advance, Yu Yin was still astonished to realize how extravagant her life truly was. It was only now that she fully understood that the savings she'd accumulated could never sustain the comfortable, refined lifestyle she now lived.
Yu Yin was someone somewhat insensitive to material comforts.
But as a child, she had been a vain, materialistic girl—temperamentally the complete opposite of her humble adoptive parents. When others had nice things, she wanted them too. Even at a young age, she consciously pursued expensive, high-quality items and sought to compete with others.
Later, when she discovered she wasn't their biological child, she matured a bit and gradually came to understand that her family's financial situation couldn't support such desires. She didn't want to wallow in envy and jealousy day after day, tormenting herself. So her mind gradually learned to block certain things out, and her craving for material comforts grew dull.
After marriage, Yu Yin's material life underwent earth-shattering changes, yet her inner turmoil remained minimal—whatever they gave her, she accepted. Her attention was more focused on her role as a pawn in the game between the Zhao and Liang families, wondering when she would lose her usefulness and be cast out of the game.
Only today did Yu Yin realize how deeply she had been corroded by extravagance. The material desires she had once fiercely suppressed had silently revived and expanded, and she had completely fallen into the trap of money…
Finally, Lana left the villa in a daze of unease. She had been serving Yu Yin for over a year and believed she had figured out Yu Yin's preferences—those items had been carefully selected by her and the buyer. Yet Yu Yin, against all precedent, had kept none of them. This was an unprecedented situation.
Lana concluded that she still hadn't truly understood Yu Yin's tastes. Mrs. Zhao indeed lived up to her reputation—inscrutable and hard to read. She silently vowed to herself that she must hold onto this major benefactor.
…
At the General Manager's office of Zhaoshi Group, Qin He kept feeling that there was some notification he hadn't received today. Suddenly, the phone rang—the boss needed to see him.
This realization struck Qin He like a bolt of clarity: he hadn't received any spending alerts from the bank.
Entering the office, Qin He addressed him as "boss" and then waited quietly for Zhao Shunian's instructions.
Zhao Shunian wasted no words, directly assigning Qin He a series of tasks to handle.
Compared to Yu Meimei's leisurely pace, Qin He, as Zhao Shunian's assistant, wished he could clone himself to handle the work at hand swiftly and with high quality.
And he was merely the personal assistant—Zhuang Jie, the director of the general manager's office outside, was Zhao Shunian's right-hand man in work matters.
Judging by Zhao Shunian's demeanor, Qin He could tell the boss would be working late into the night. Wealthy people don't simply enjoy life and skip work just because they have money; on the contrary, many are workaholics. If given the choice, they would wish for 48 hours in a day.
The general manager before him, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, was a workaholic among workaholics, with an extremely strong drive for career success. His career was his other half—all manner of temptations paled in comparison to his work.
After concluding his itinerary at the international economic forum abroad, Zhao Shunian came straight to the group the moment he landed back in the country, wasting no time in implementing and rolling out the collaborative projects he had secured overseas. As for rest, he certainly got it—resting on the plane counted as rest, and the fatigue of long-haul international travel was dispelled that way.
Zhao Shunian noticed Qin He hadn't left and asked without looking up, "Is there something you need to say?"
Qin He said, "We still haven't received any notification of large expenditures from Mrs. Zhao today."