After breakfast, while clearing the dishes, Zheng Wan hurriedly leaned in toward Li Mei.
“Second Aunt, are you going to the jewelry store with Sister later? Can you take me with you? I want to see too.”
Li Mei glared at her. She was already frustrated, and this dead girl had no situational awareness, pestering her at such a time.
“Get yourself to the restaurant and get to work. What are you thinking about all day?” Li Mei scolded mercilessly.
Scolded by Li Mei, Zheng Wan lowered her head and muttered unhappily, “You only know how to take your anger out on me, you psycho.”
“What are you muttering?” Li Mei asked with a frown.
“Nothing.” Dropping that single sentence, Zheng Wan quickly ran off.
When Li Mei came out of the kitchen, Meng Ruo approached her with a beaming smile and asked, “Auntie Li, I haven’t seen the gold bracelet my mother left behind yet. Why don’t you take it out so I can see it? That way, we can use the old gold bracelet as a reference to choose a style at the jewelry store.”
Li Mei wiped the water from her hands, untied her apron, and asked with a smile, “Xiao Ruo, do you want to have that old bracelet melted down and made into a new one?”
Meng Ruo spoke expressionlessly, “I don’t.”
Li Mei choked for a moment, then put on a smile again and said, “If you ask me, a new bracelet is better. A pair of brand-new gold bracelets shining on your hand is what looks good; that old one isn’t even bright anymore.”
Meng Ruo acted as if she were moved by Li Mei’s words. “That works. Then take it out, and we’ll go to the jewelry store to melt it down.”
“There’s no rush for that,” Li Mei said, affectionately taking Meng Ruo’s arm. “We’ll go to the jewelry store first to choose a style and have the new bracelet made. We can melt the old bracelet another time.”
“Why be so troublesome? This is clearly something that can be finished in one trip,” Meng Ruo said, sounding confused.
“This…” Li Mei couldn’t think of an excuse to brush Meng Ruo off for a moment, and the expression on her face gradually became awkward.
At that point, Meng Ruo suddenly changed her mind. “But it’s fine to listen to you, Auntie. Let’s go to the jewelry store first.”
“That’s more like it.” Li Mei looked at Meng Ruo and quietly breathed a sigh of relief in her heart.
This Meng girl seems to have suddenly become easy to fool again, Li Mei thought.
Ten minutes later, the two arrived at the jewelry store.
It was a workday, so there weren’t many customers in the shop.
Meng Ruo glanced at the sign by the jewelry store entrance, which stated the gold price was 100 yuan per gram.
Compared to the gold prices in her own era, this was cheap, but relative to people’s wages now, it wasn’t cheap at all.
No wonder most of the women she saw wore silver jewelry; at most, their gold pieces were just a pair of earrings or a ring.
Meng Ruo looked around and quickly took a fancy to a style. The design was simple and elegant; the only drawback was that it was a hollow ring, which deformed easily.
However, if this style weren’t hollow, the gold bracelet would weigh at least forty to fifty grams or more. This hollow ring weighed twenty grams, and with the labor fee, it cost 2,100 yuan.
This price should be acceptable to Meng Jun.
If she were too greedy and picked something costing three or four thousand, Meng Jun would likely resent her for being too greedy and not being considerate of her father, so it was better to stop while she was ahead.
Moreover, she had more than just one “cheap father” to fleece; there was another “sheep” standing right next to her ready to be shorn.
“I think this one is quite good,” she said, pointing to the style of the bracelet in the display case.
When Li Mei saw the price, she hurriedly said, “This is too expensive.”
“I think this one is fine.” Li Mei pointed to a very thin style nearby that didn’t even look like a bracelet.
“How is that a bracelet? It’s so thin, it looks so petty,” Meng Ruo said disdainfully.
Li Mei was waiting for exactly that sentence.
“If you want something grand and thick, why not choose gold-clad silver? The weight is there, and outsiders won’t be able to tell it’s gold-clad silver. It’s the best of both worlds,” Li Mei suggested.
If Meng Ruo agreed to gold-clad silver, then she could grandly have two bracelets made for her; at that time, the cost of two bracelets would probably be less than the cost of one solid gold bracelet.
It would only be the best for you, Meng Ruo curled her lip. She didn’t want gold-clad silver.
And this idea of “gold-clad silver”—she had probably planned it long ago and was just waiting for this moment.
“Auntie Li, how many grams was my mother’s bracelet?” Meng Ruo suddenly took a turn and asked about this.
Li Mei was startled, then feigned ignorance. “How should I know? I only helped put it away; I never weighed it.”
“I feel like Dad probably wants me to have one made with a similar weight to that bracelet. Why don’t we go home and bring that bracelet here to weigh it?” Meng Ruo said with an innocent smile.
“There’s no need to make another trip; it’s too much trouble,” Li Mei said with a smile.
“It’s no trouble,” Meng Ruo said. “I took the whole morning off anyway.”
Seeing that she was about to be exposed, Li Mei could only change the subject. “You liked this one just now, so let’s get this one then.”
After saying that, Li Mei felt her heart bleeding. 2,100 yuan—she herself couldn’t bear to buy such expensive gold jewelry.
“Great,” Meng Ruo said with a smile. “Boss, I want two of these bracelets.”
Before the owner could agree, Li Mei’s sharp voice interrupted him.
“Wh-What?” Li Mei’s voice rose abruptly. “Two? Why two?”
“Didn’t Dad say he wanted to make a pair for me?” Meng Ruo blinked at her innocently.
Li Mei was so anxious she nearly bit her own tongue. “What your father meant was to add to the old bracelet your mother left behind to make a pair.”
“Yes,” Meng Ruo nodded, then reached out her hand toward Li Mei. “Where is my mother’s old bracelet?”
Li Mei froze.
“There’s no need to be in such a hurry,” Li Mei said with a forced laugh. “As for your mother’s old bracelet, I’ll bring it to be melted down later and give it to you once it’s made.”
Meng Ruo gave a mocking smile. Wait for you? Wait for you to bring back a gold-clad silver bracelet for me?
“There’s no need to wait for later. We’ll go back and get it now; we still have plenty of time anyway,” Meng Ruo said with a smile.
For a split second, Li Mei felt that Meng Ruo knew the truth—that she knew she had melted down the mother’s old bracelet long ago.
Why was she so easy to fool at home, but won’t let this go now that we’re at the jewelry store? It was obvious that Meng Ruo had tricked her into coming to the jewelry store to put her in an impossible position.
In the end, Li Mei could only accept her loss. Who told her to be greedy and melt down someone else’s gold jewelry?
It wasn’t that she was afraid of Meng Ruo; she was mostly afraid that “pulling up the radish would bring up the mud”—afraid that if this matter reached Meng Jun, it would lead to other things being exposed. After all, the things she had done behind Meng Jun’s back weren’t limited to just this one.
“Then two it is,” Li Mei said, clutching her pounding heart.
If she felt her heart bleeding just now, it felt like someone had carved a piece out of it now. Not only carved it out, but twisted the blade once.
And the person carving her heart was Meng Ruo.
“Auntie Li, please pay. 4,200 yuan,” Meng Ruo said with a smile.
4,200 yuan?
If she didn’t want the matter of melting the gold to be known by Meng Jun, she would have to pay 2,100 yuan of that out of her own pocket.
This Meng Ruo was absolutely doing this on purpose; she definitely knew about the melted gold and was taking the opportunity to blackmail her.
Li Mei was so angry she closed her eyes. It was a good thing she didn’t have a heart condition, or she would have collapsed right on the floor.
2,100 yuan? The old bracelet her mother left was only a dozen grams or so, and now she had to have a new 20-gram bracelet made. What a loss! She was filled with so much regret that her heart turned bitter.
The day after Li Mei had the pair of gold bracelets made for Meng Ruo, Yang Qing also found her, and the two went to the jewelry store together to have gold jewelry made.
Meng Ruo had a pair of earrings, a pair of gold rings, and a necklace made, which also cost nearly 2,000 yuan.
Next, it was just a matter of waiting for the Yang family to come and present the engagement gifts.