Chapter 4: It's Just a Piece of Broken Glass, Why the Waterworks?
"What did you say?" Rain Lin exploded. "I'm warning you—you'd better watch your words!"
"Why are you yelling? I gave you money, didn't I?" Vera's clear eyes flashed with cold fire. Demanding compensation for a piece of glass? Dream on.
"Vera! Who do you think you're fooling?" Yvonne Yang jumped in, the first to object.
Rain wiped her tears, her voice dripping with indignation. "Two yuan? You think I'm a beggar?"
Seeing the crowd gathering around them, Rain cranked up the volume. "My dad said this was an ice jade pod pendant—top-quality ice jade with natural green veins! He bought it specially from abroad! If he finds out it's broken, he'll kill me!"
Watching Rain's pitiful performance, Vera almost laughed. The girl had serious acting chops. In her past life, Vera had fallen for it completely—apologized profusely, groveled, and dragged her parents into the mess, all while having no idea she was being set up. Her parents, equally clueless, had humbled themselves to apologize. But those days were long gone. Vera was now a graduate-level expert in archaeology and artifact appraisal. She wasn't that timid little pushover anymore.
Vera's eyes narrowed dangerously, icy daggers fixed on Rain. She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a chilling low.
"It's just a piece of broken glass. What's with the waterworks?"
Rain's heart lurched. Her face went black as charcoal as she stared at Vera like she'd seen a ghost.
Vera smiled coldly. She knew this pendant all too well. If not for this stupid piece of junk, Mrs. Mei wouldn't have forced her to apologize and admit fault. Her father wouldn't have sold off the precious jade he'd collected for years just to pay for her tuition—setting off the chain reaction that led to her family's destruction. The memories of those unbearable times burned through her like wildfire. And to think she'd been fooled by such a pathetic trick when she was young!
Vera's cold gaze swept across the room. Plenty of antique dealers and collectors were here tonight—people who knew their stuff. But they were all here to suck up to Mei Ling and her husband, the Education Bureau director. Not a single one would speak up and tell Rain her pendant was a fake. No one would say a word in Vera's defense.
So much for relying on outsiders. Vera would have to handle this herself.
She picked up the broken pendant—a little bean-shaped piece about the length of a finger joint. At first glance, with its faint glow, it looked almost like ice jade. But real ice jade had a unique feel: thirty percent warmth, seventy percent coolness, with an icy translucence. Rain's pendant was dull and dry, completely lacking that watery depth.
Vera's eyes sharpened. She carried the pendant over to Rain and held it up to the light.
"Look closely." Her voice was ice. "Real ice jade is crystal clear, bright as water. When you touch it, it feels cool and smooth. Your pendant here is obviously dull and lifeless—completely lacking any real quality."
Then Vera took the pendant and smashed it hard against the floor.
"Hear that?" She held up the pieces. "Real jade makes a crisp, clear sound when you tap it—musical, resonant. Yours went 'thud.' Dead sound. No music at all. You know what that means? Fake. This is glass. Just plain glass. And you have the nerve to call it ice jade? Rain Lin, tell everyone—did your dad lie to you, or are you lying to all of us?"
A wave of murmurs rippled through the crowd.
Rain's face went dark. She clutched the two yuan in her hand, unable to squeeze out a single word for a long moment. Under everyone's blatant scrutiny, she felt her face burn with humiliation.
The truth was, her pendant wasn't genuine at all—just some accessory she'd bought at a mall. Sure, her dad had actually given her a real jade Buddha once, but the style was so old-fashioned it clashed with everything she wore. She'd never even put it on. Now, thinking back, she could have kicked herself for being so stupid.
But there was no way in hell she was admitting any of that out loud.
Rain regretted everything. Of all the days to pick a fight with Vera, why today?
But was this even the same Vera? Rain stared at her, unblinking. This was her classmate? The same girl who was too timid to speak above a whisper?
Same face, sure. But the change was massive. Unrecognizable.
Same person, though. How could one person change so much? Not the face—the eyes, the presence, the aura.
Vera's confidence was overwhelming. Rain's pride wouldn't let her back down, so she blustered instead.
"What gives you the right to say it's fake? Who do you think you are? I'm Rain Lin—do you really think I'd wear a fake? Fake jade? Counterfeit? I don't even know what you're talking about!"
Vera wasn't in a hurry. Rain might not know jade, but the antique dealers and collectors here certainly did.
She picked up the broken half of the fake pendant and walked over to a glass window.
Standing there, she smiled faintly and spoke with deliberate calm.
"Anyone with even basic knowledge knows that real jade is fine-textured, glossy, and quite hard. Glass imitations look similar at first glance, but when you examine them closely, they have none of that warmth. Plus, glass colors are too bright, and glass is much softer than real jade. Let me demonstrate."
She held the pendant against the windowpane and scraped it firmly across the glass.
"Now, if this were real ice jade, it would leave a scratch on the glass while remaining completely undamaged itself. But if it's glass faking as jade..." She held up the pendant and pointed at the window. "Both of them lose. See the scratches? On both?"
The pendant and the glass now bore identical ugly marks.
Vera turned to Mei Ling with a faint smile. "Director Mei, am I wrong?"
Mei Ling didn't answer. Her previously pleasant expression had frozen into marble.
Vera's smile widened as she addressed the crowd. "The facts are right here. So tell me—when I offered her two yuan as compensation, was that too little?"