Chapter 67

Chapter 67: Auction (2)

Qiao Qing Yan lifted a hand and tapped the bare spot at her pale, slender neck.

“Do you think I need it?” she asked, tone mild.

Si Jin Nan’s gaze flicked there—just for a moment—and he had no answer.

She didn’t need any of it.

The grandmother green necklace she’d donated before the auction even began was worth more than the current lots on the floor put together.

Onstage, the host continued smoothly. “Next, we have a donated item from the Xu family in Cloud City, donated by the Xu family’s Second Miss and Third Miss—jade-carved flying swallow.”

The camera swept across the front rows. Two sisters in light-colored gowns smiled toward the lens, their expressions generous and proper.

Qiao Qing Yan watched the screen. One of those faces felt very familiar.

“There’s a Xu family in Cloud City?” she asked, faint curiosity in her voice. “How have I never heard of it?”

Earlier, she’d guessed Xu Shu Jing’s connection to Xu Zhong Qin was familial.

It seemed she hadn’t been wrong.

“The Cloud City Xu family and the Capital Xu family are two different things,” Si Jin Nan said. “They have no relationship at all.”

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, he added, “If you insist on calling it a relationship, then at most it’s a distant branch—ten thousand and eight thousand miles away.”

Qiao Qing Yan nodded, lips curling. “So the Xu family in Cloud City is still considered wealthy.”

“Half,” Si Jin Nan said.

Half still counted.

Qiao Qing Yan remembered how Xu Shu Jing had entered the industry with the persona of an ordinary girl discovered by a talent scout—then later, people realized she looked strikingly similar to Qiao Qing Yan from four years ago, when Qiao Qing Yan had been seventeen or eighteen.

So Xu Shu Jing rose with the label: “Little Qiao Qing Yan.”

Because their backgrounds were “similar.” Both from ordinary families.

For some reason, when Si Jin Nan saw Qiao Qing Yan smiling like that—quiet, strange—his back went cold.

“Xu Shu Jing isn’t the same as the other Xu family misses,” he said. “You’d better not touch her lightly.”

Qiao Qing Yan turned to him and smiled brightly, not bothering to hide her intent at all. “Tell me. What’s different about her?”

Si Jin Nan looked toward the Xu family sisters again. He hesitated, as if weighing whether speaking would cost him.

“In short,” he said finally, “if you don’t have full confidence, you’d better not touch her.”

Qiao Qing Yan leaned her cheek into her hand, eyes returning to the stage.

If she wanted to touch someone, then even if it were the emperor himself, she would touch him.

—

In the end, the Xu family sisters’ flying swallow sold for 10 million, taken by a young master from a noble Capital family.

After he won the bid, he looked toward the Xu sisters several times, lingering long enough for everyone to notice.

“He’s probably an admirer,” someone whispered.

“Looks like it,” another replied. “That young master seems to be from the Capital.”

“The Xu family’s Eldest Miss married into the Capital, didn’t she?” someone else said. “Looks like the Xu family’s three sisters probably won’t stay in Cloud City either.”

Qiao Qing Yan listened with interest.

She’d checked Xu Shu Jing’s information before. It was clean—too clean. Exactly like the persona built for her online: ordinary family, ordinary background.

It seemed someone had deliberately altered it.

[Master, when did you check? How come I didn’t know?]

Qiao Qing Yan didn’t move her lips. “While you were locked in the little black room.”

System: Dead. If you need me, burn paper offerings.

“Xiao Hua Hua,” Qiao Qing Yan said softly to the empty air, “are you hiding anything from me?”

[Master, what are you saying? How would I dare hide something from you?]

Qiao Qing Yan glanced toward nothing, her smile warm. “Good.”

The system didn’t dare linger. It fled in a puff, turning into a string of data and scurrying back to its little black room.