After that person left, the room returned to silence once again.
Ji Chaozhou looked at the wooden box left behind. Ji Mushan would always bring gifts over on his birthday, and they were all expensive and rare things without exception—but today was not his birthday.
Ji Mushan probably felt that the relationship between them had eased, so he sent a gift without need for an occasion.
Ji Chaozhou stood there for a long time before he bent down to open the wooden box. Inside was a delicate jade diorama of a deer and lily-of-the-valley.
The white jade deer had its head slightly raised and was gently sniffing the lily-of-the-valley with its nose. It was very life-like, as if it had vitality.
It would be difficult to feel bad when receiving such a diorama.
Ji Chaozhou stretched out his hand to take out the jade ‘lily-of-the-valley and deer basin’ from the box. Since he promised Aunt Yun that he would ease his relationship with Ji Mushan—even if he only maintained superficial friendship between them—then he should thank the person.
With this in mind, Ji Chaozhou was about to put down the diorama so he could reply to Ji Mushan’s text, when he suddenly caught, from the corner of his eye, a pink and gilt envelope at the bottom of the box.
He placed the ‘lily-of-the-valley and deer basin’ on the living room cabinet, then retrieved the envelope.
Ji Chaozhou lowered his head, tore open the envelope, and slowly pulled out a folded sheet of white and gilt paper.
He thought it was written by Ji Mushan. He hesitated for a moment before opening the letter, but after unfolding the letter, he found that it was not. There was only a paragraph on it:
[The deer is me, the lily-of-the-valley is you; our relationship is as close as they are to each other. You can tell me what’s on your mind, you can also talk about work, and I promise to help you solve it.]
Ji Chaozhou stared blankly at the words on the letter for a while, and finally crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it away.
The letter was written by an outsider. Ji Mushan didn’t even make the time to write it himself but still had the temerity to offer to help with his work.
Ranshan was founded by his mother. Aunt Yun took over the management when she passed away and then handed it over to him when he became an adult.
Now Ji Mushan wanted to get his hands on Ranshan?
Ji Chaozhou’s eyes were cold. He stopped paying attention to the jade ‘lily-of-the-valley and deer basin’; his thoughts of thanking Ji Mushan just now all disappeared, and he went straight to his bedroom to rest.
… …
At this moment, Ji Mushan, who was alone in an empty villa at the other end of city S, had no idea that his reputation had been ruined by a letter.
…
All through the drive home, Cheng Liu was reflecting on which step did she not do well—even though she had given her boyfriend a gift, he only told her to go back home.
Today, Cheng Liu fell in love with the jade ‘lily-of-the-valley and deer basin’ at the first sight. The moment she saw it in the auction booklet, she thought it was very suitable representation of herself and her boyfriend.
The deer was sniffing the lily-of-the-valley!
She was that lively deer, and her boyfriend was that jade lily-of-the-valley, which was obviously cold to the touch but nevertheless exuded a lustrous light, attracting the eyes of everyone around.
The most important thing was that the sound of ‘deer’ is similar to ‘banker’s six’, that is, ‘number six’—it is tailor-made for the two of them!1
Cheng Liu thought that her boyfriend must have not opened the box yet, but when he sees the letter she wrote herself inside, then he will definitely be moved!
Earlier, while waiting for the auction house procedures to finish, Cheng Liu deliberately looked for pink and gold stationery, ready to pen a love letter.
It was a pity that Cheng Liu couldn’t write anything romantic at all; in the end, she could only write a short and dry paragraph of truthful words.
But still, she was quite satisfied with what she had written.
They were all thoughts from the heart, without any hypocrisy.
Cheng Liu has already figured it out: if her boyfriend wanted to be famous in the entertainment circle or some kind of modeling circle, as long as he asked for it, she would definitely spend money behind the scenes so he could achieve his dreams.
What was this called again?
Cheng Liu pushed open the door while trying to recall…
Investor!
Yes, a gold master!
She, Cheng Liu, can be the financial backer behind her boyfriend and spend money to give him good resources.
After becoming a beneficiary of her patronage, will her boyfriend smile at her every day? And then do something like… that?
Cheng Liu imagined the scene where her boyfriend’s usual indifferent and beautiful face smiled only at her, and suddenly felt her nose become hot.
She went home clutching her nose, poured herself a glass of water, sat down and drank it slowly, fully satisfied in her heart: there should be no reason for her boyfriend not to like a hard worker like her.
But… did she have to learn some love words?
She once heard a business partner say that to coax a wife, you have to talk about love, and you can’t just know how to spend money.
Cheng Liu became thoughtful; since she was determined to be a good girlfriend, talking about love should be a necessary skill.
… …
That night, Young President Cheng searched for the complete collection of romantic stories on the Internet and downloaded them all. However, there were too many love words, and she couldn’t fully comprehend them for a while, so she could only use her excellent ability to summarize reports and research information. First summarize, then classify these love words.
Before April 1st, Cheng Liu never thought that one day she would neglect her piled up work and devote herself to falling in love, summing up all kinds of love stories all night.
No, that’s not quite correct.
On that night at a banquet, half a year ago, she fell in love with her boyfriend at first sight. At that time, an idea flashed through Cheng Liu’s mind: no matter what method she used, she had to date him.
In the study, Cheng Liu sat in front of the dimly lit computer screen with a serious expression, studying love stories she couldn’t fully understand.
If It’s Wrong, Then It’s Wrong by Maela @ whitemoonlighttranslations.com
T/N: Aiya, so this is how sugar sweet babies are born!
P. S. Poor Ji Mushan, not only did he not win the auction, he even got maligned without him knowing it.
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- China’s banks and commercial institutions use number system different from the basic system to better prevent forgery. A forger could easily change the everyday characters 三十 (30) to 五千 (5000) just by adding a few strokes. That would not be possible when writing using the financial characters 參拾 (30) and 伍仟 (5000). ↩︎


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