Gu Congjue completely lost his composure. In an instant, his plans for borrowing luck, seeking revenge, and uncovering the truth behind the car crash were thrown into the back of his mind. He perked up, full of sudden enthusiasm, and looked at He Fang.
“How am I supposed to meet him?” he asked. “Is he going to come looking for me, or do I need to go find him?”
“Well… I can’t say for sure,” He Fang admitted honestly, only passing along what little information she could gather. “But I think it never hurts to get out more. If you just wallow at home every day, how is fate supposed to knock on your door?”
Gu Congjue thought Auntie Fang made a lot of sense.
Their conversation didn’t last much longer because Xiang Yuyan called. After Gu Congjue had been slipped away for nearly an hour and a half, his unreliable parents had finally noticed his absence!
“Gu. Cong. Jue—!”
Every child in the world fears the exact same thing: their mother calling them by their full name.
While Gu Congjue was far from an ordinary kid, after fifteen years of living under the same roof, he had gradually come to be dominated by the sheer terror of his own mother.
“You little rascal, where on earth did you run off to? Why aren’t you staying by your father’s side like you’re supposed to?!” Xiang Yuyan was furious and anxious. “Do you really think your parents are living too long? We only have one son!”
Gu Congjue hurriedly pulled the phone away from his ear. Even without the speakerphone on, his mother’s roaring voice practically echoed through the room.
“Mom, Mom,” Gu Congjue stammered, scrambling for a clumsy, terrible excuse because he was both guilty and a terrible liar. “A classmate suddenly asked me out for afternoon tea, so I just…”
“Just because a classmate asked you out means you can just run away?” Xiang Yuyan grated her teeth. “You could have at least given your dad a heads-up! That filming set is so far out, practically in the middle of nowhere. What if someone kidnapped you while you were out alone?”
Gu Congjue rubbed his nose, listening in guilty silence.
I’m fifteen years old and perfectly healthy, he thought to himself. It shouldn’t be that easy for someone to just kidnap me, right?
“Where are you right now? Send me your live location immediately. I’ll have someone pick you up!”
“I… I’m already back in Chao’an. I’m heading home right now,” Gu Congjue replied, completely cowed by his mother’s lecture.
He made a promise to Auntie Fang to stay in touch so they could meet up and talk in detail when they had time. He actually had a lot more questions he wanted to ask, but under the weight of Xiang Yuyan’s formidable wrath, he really didn’t dare delay his return home.
Without letting Auntie Fang check the total, Gu Congjue swiftly paid the bill. He figured that since Auntie Fang hadn’t charged him a dime for her services and was doing this out of the goodness of her heart, it was only right that he covered the bill. She shouldn’t have to spend her own money on top of volunteering her time.
Because of this, Auntie Fang gave him a brand new nickname, calling him the “Little Gentleman.”
Before he left, He Fang stopped him to offer a bit of advice: “Little Gentleman, if you’re worried your parents are going to be angry, you could buy them a small gift to make up for it. They’re only furious because they care about your safety they won’t stay mad forever.”
Gu Congjue glanced over at the adjacent SDP Mall and thought her advice was absolutely spot on.
Unlike the young master who had simply taken a cab, Shen Yanxing had traveled to the downtown area by bus and commuter rail, making his journey much slower than Gu Congjue’s.
Coupled with his total unfamiliarity with the city’s layout, he wandered around rather aimlessly for a while before finally stumbling onto the second floor of the SDP Mall.
Looking around, the entire floor was filled with high-end luxury boutiques! Shen Yanxing, who rarely came to the city, was thrilled. He slowed his pace like a tourist, wide-eyed as he took everything in.
After wandering around for a bit, he finally arrived at the luxury store where he wanted to buy the bracelet. It happened to be the slow season right before a new product launch, so the boutique was dead quiet, and the sales associates were lounging about listlessly.
Shen Yanxing walked in politely and greeted the staff, “Hello, I was wondering if you have this particular bracelet in stock?”
He pulled out his phone and showed the sales staff a photo of the item on his screen.
The bracelet was listed at 5,700 RMB on the official website. Compared to the other luxury items under this brand, it was considered very “affordable” the kind of price that an ordinary person would find expensive, yet not entirely out of reach.
Shen Yanxing had had his eye on this bracelet for a long time. At the end of last year, when Gao Qiumei’s company held its annual gala, she had brought Shen Yanxing along to crash the dinner. At the table, one of her female colleagues kept showing off her bracelet and necklace from this exact brand.
Not only did she brag, but she also used the opportunity to subtly mock Gao Qiumei for being “poor” and having “no future with a parasite of a kid.” Shen Yanxing hadn’t said anything back then, happily eating and pretending he didn’t hear a word, but he had quietly held a grudge ever since.
He figured it was just a few thousand bucks for a bracelet what was there to brag about? Just wait and see; he was absolutely going to make sure Auntie Mei wore a bracelet from the exact same brand!
That colleague’s bracelet had cost four thousand, so he specifically picked a more expensive one at 5,700 RMB! Counting the extra money he made from his extra work, he might even be able to buy her a nice little hair clip worth a few hundred bucks too!
“Excuse me, is this style of bracelet available?” His little mental calculator clicked away happily. Fearing the staff hadn’t heard his request, Shen Yanxing asked again with a bright smile.
He naively assumed that luxury goods worked like regular items: if you had the money and they had the stock, you could make a deal.
One of the sales associates glanced at Shen Yanxing, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling. “Out of stock.”
“Huh?”
Startled, Shen Yanxing stepped forward, trying to get a closer look at the display cases.
“Is it really completely out of stock? You didn’t even look at the picture or check the system, how do you know it’s gone?” He was still too innocent to recognize the sales associate’s dismissive deflection.
“Hey, kid, do you even know where you are?” The sales associate, overflowing with a sense of superiority, scoffed and explained with dripping sarcasm, “This is a luxury boutique, not a stationery shop. If you want to buy a bracelet for a girl at school, go find a gift shop. There are plenty of them for twenty bucks a pop.”
It was only then that Shen Yanxing realized he was being looked down upon.
“The fact that I can show you the exact product image and ask you twice about it means I obviously know what you sell here!” Shen Yanxing balled his hands into fists out of sheer anger, though he managed to keep his tone under control. “I came in here to buy something, not to beg for food. You didn’t even bother looking for the item, so how do you know I can’t afford it?”
“The goods in our store aren’t sold to just any regular customer,” the sales associate replied, casually picking at her nails without a care in the world. “You should just leave. I wouldn’t dare take your business anyway. What if your parents report me for fraud later down the line?”
Shen Yanxing had initially thought about asking a different sales associate for help, but those final words pushed him over the edge.
It was bad enough that she looked down on him, but she actually dared to mock his family?!
He didn’t even want this stupid bracelet anymore!
“You’re just a retail sales associate, where do you get off acting so superior?” Shen Yanxing glared at her, turning on his heel to leave. “I am a polite person, so I won’t lower myself to argue with you, nor will I hate this brand just because of you.
“I’m just going to wish that a fake, arrogant snob like you suffers a massive drop in sales, gets reported by your clients, and gets fired by the store sooner rather than later!”
A sixteen-year-old boy’s insults were soft and lacked real malice, making the “curse” he threw out sound rather mild.
But it was precisely because it wasn’t loud, aggressive, or vicious that the pure disgust in his words cut so cleanly. Anyone listening could immediately feel it: Wow, I am truly, genuinely despised.
That kind of pure, unadulterated disdain carried far more sting than a barrage of filthy street curses.
“That’s a bit much, isn’t it?” another store employee muttered, frowning. “You could have just let him look at the counter. If he thought it was too expensive, he would have left on his own. Why treat a kid like that?”
“Yeah, exactly.” “That was way out of line.” “Should’ve just let him take a look.” The other sales associates began chiming in, criticizing her one after another.
The snobbish sales associate was furious but had no real defense, though people who blustered like her shared a common trait: the less ground they had to stand on, the louder they argued.
She doubled down defensively, “Am I wrong, though? Look at how plainly he’s dressed his hair is a complete mess and he looks totally unkempt. He’s obviously just a troublesome kid who can’t afford luxury goods.
“Besides, I did you guys a favor, alright? What if we tore the stockroom apart looking for that bracelet only for him not to buy it? Then we would’ve wasted our time for nothing.”
The other associates merely pursed their lips, choosing not to reply.
The snobbish woman felt completely defensive inside, but she forced a confident front anyway. “The middle school entrance exams just ended a few days ago, and these wild kids love to wander around causing trouble. If you ask me, we should do as little business with them as possible. Even if you do run into a few rich kids, how much commission is that pocket change really going to add to your monthly targets?”
Just as the words left her mouth, another young gentleman walked into the store. He wasn’t particularly tall, looked quite young, and still carried a trace of baby fat on his face.
“Excuse me…”
Gu Congjue scanned the display counters with a slightly bewildered look.
“I’m looking to buy something?”
Gu Congjue was dressed very casually today in athletic wear. After all, he had originally planned to “learn the ropes” at his dad’s filming set, where everyone wore comfortable athletic clothes. Showing up dressed to the nines would have looked incredibly bizarre.
This highly deceptive casual athletic outfit gave the snobbish sales associate another burst of confidence. She had just finished complaining about “wild kids,” so of course she had to take a few more jabs!
“What is it with you middle schoolers who just finished your exams? Can you stop causing trouble? We’re very busy with work here and don’t have time to play house with kids.”
Gu Congjue narrowed his eyes. “Huh?”
“We don’t have anything you want here, so please leave,” the snobbish associate said, gesturing toward the entrance. “Little brother, next time you walk through a door, remember to check what kind of mall and what kind of store this is, okay? The things in our shop aren’t meant for regular people.”
Gu Congjue reached into his small crossbody bag, pulled out his wallet, and extracted a sleek, silver-textured card embossed with shimmering gold lettering.
“I can’t buy anything even if I have this?”
The snobbish sales associate froze. “What is that?”
The other sales associates, driven by curiosity, hurriedly crowded around to get a closer look.
Upon closer inspection, they realized it was an incredibly rare so rare that most sales associates had never even seen a physical copy Special VIP Card!
Word on the street was that the global headquarters had only issued thirty thousand of these cards worldwide, gifted exclusively to the absolute elite of their global clientele. And the number printed on the card held by this young teenager was actually under three digits!
“S-Special VIP young gentleman, what can I help you find today?” The snobbish sales associate singing a completely different tune now, her voice trembling as she invited Gu Congjue further into the shop. “I am s-so incredibly sorry for my disrespect just now.”
Gu Congjue paid absolutely no attention to her apology. He merely looked past her at the store manager who was rushing over in a panic, and pointed at the pale, trembling snobbish associate.
“Can you fire her? Her presence makes me highly uncomfortable.”
Author’s Note: Protecting his wife from afar is still protecting his wife!
=== Mini Theater! === Where did that ultra-rare Special VIP card come from—?
“Ruler.” Gu Congjue poked his head into the study where his parents were currently debating a new business strategy. “Do we have a ruler?”
He was halfway through a geometry problem and needed a ruler to draw an auxiliary line, only to realize he didn’t have one on hand.
Gu Pingyue and Xiang Yuyan were forced to pause their conversation, rummaging through the massive desk piled high with various documents.
“Do you really need to be that precise? Can’t you just use whatever’s lying around to draw it?” Xiang Yuyan complained as she flipped through papers. “I’ll have the helper buy you a new set later.”
Gu Congjue thought about it and figured she was right. Why not just find something flat to make do?
“Alright, never mind then,” he said, turning to head back to his room.
“Come back, come back, take this!” Xiang Yuyan called the kid back, tossing a flat object over to him. “The brand handed it out when we went to their fashion show. Take it and play with it.”
“Huh?” Gu Congjue stared at the shimmering silver card in his hand, completely baffled. “Is this… a membership card?”