Confrontation

"...Cousin Jian." Lu Xifa mustered up all her courage to talk.

"Hmm?" Xie Jian smiled lightly.

With a gulp, Lu Xifa continued, "How did you get my, umm, wallet?"

"Oh? That's what you're concerned about?" Xie Jian grabbed the glass of water.

In Lu Xifa's eyes, the glass of water turned into a chalice full of wine that Xie Jian spun around with elegance before taking a single sip. 'A queen...! A natural-born queen!'

"Let's see..." Xie Jian recalled what had happened yesterday.

"When we were all running towards Xiang, you probably dropped your wallet. Of course, I had no way of knowing, and we were all hurrying anyway, so I kept it in my storage ring. I only remembered that it was there once I got home."

She took another sip of the water. "Does that answer your question?"

Lu Xifa hurriedly nodded.

"Then it's my turn to ask: what is the meaning of this?" Xie Jian slowly opened the wallet, grabbed the picture, and placed it on the table.

As the picture slid off Xie Jian's hand and on the table, Lu Xifa pursed her lips. A long silence ensued.

Xie Jian stared directly at Lu Xifa who was intent on piercing the floor with her gaze.

After a long while, Lu Xifa took a deep breath. "...It's exactly what you think it is."

She decided not to make any excuses. This was her first love, she just couldn't deny it because of anyone. "Ah, but I promise, I will never make any moves on him. I swear."

Xie Jian sighed, looking at how pitiful her cousin was. She'd never experienced this before, but she could empathize with it. The feeling of her love being over before it had even begun... It must be heart-breaking.

"Did you not know that he already had someone?"

"Ah, I knew about it. He bragged about you all the time in school."

"Ah?" Xie Jian was caught off guard and blushed a little.

At this point, the oppressive atmosphere had dissipated for a bit, leaving a small breathing room for Lu Xifa. At least now, she could look Xie Jian in the eye, although for a few seconds at most.

Lu Xifa took the initiative to talk. "Even though I knew... it still happened, I don't know. Maybe because of the 'suspension bridge effect'?"

"Suspension bridge? Why? What happened to you two?" Xie Jian became more vigilant.

"Oh, uhh..." Lu Xifa hesitated to tell her about the incident in the Ning Auction House storage room. On one hand, it was because it was related to her search for the Yang necklace which she intended to keep secret from everyone, and on the other, it was because it ended with both of them getting stripped naked...

Seeing Lu Xifa stumble in her words made Xie Jian nervous. 'Xiang, what have you done with her? Huh? You punk!'

Lu Xifa noticed that Xie Jian's expression darkened the more she hesitated to answer. "Cousin Jian! Don't worry! We've never done anything dirty! I don't want you to misunderstand this."

'Although, I did undress him once... But it was to clean him up! Anyways, you'll never know about this!'

Xie Jian calmed down. She was on the verge of calling Lan Xiang and demanding that he explain himself. 'Speaking of, I wonder what he's doing now...'

.....

Meanwhile, in a certain karaoke room.

Lan Xiang was on the mic, singing passionately as beads of sweat rolled down his skin.

On the soft chair, Ye Qingle's eyes rolled back and her eardrums were close to bursting...

'I will never invite him over for karaoke ever again!'

.....

Even though she had just explained that nothing particularly inappropriate happened between them, Lu Xifa noticed that Xie Jian's eyes had a hint of distrust.

She sighed. "Cousin Jian, I'll tell you what exactly happened, so please trust me."

"Actually, I have a necklace..."

Lu Xifa took the necklace out of her shirt and showed it to Xie Jian. It was still a bit wet and dusty from the incident in the school yesterday. She was curious though, how did it end up on the rooftop? She had to search for it the whole day yesterday because of that.

"--!" Xie Jian's eyes widened. "Is that... a Yin necklace?"

She had surface-level knowledge of these necklaces from school. The teacher didn't really emphasize much on it, aside from the fact that they were extremely rare, and that there was a myth surrounding the necklaces.

'The one who unites the two pendants can control the overall balance of the universe.'

Of course, this was just an offhand remark by her teacher. Truthfully, no one knew what would happen if the two necklaces connected.

"Well, this isn't just 'a' Yin necklace. This is 'the' Yin necklace."

"Eh? What does that mean?"

"It means that this isn't a replica or anything of the sort. Instead, this is the real deal, the very first one that came into being. This is legit, the OG if you will."

"OG?" Xie Jian didn't understand that term. But she understood the context of what Lu Xifa was saying. "How... do you have this then? Shouldn't this be in a museum or something?"

"No! This is our family heirloom, how could it be put in a museum? That would be desecrating years of sacrifice made by my family for centuries, just to keep this valuable artifact!"

Xie Jian was startled. It was the first time she ever saw her cousin getting heated. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry for suggesting that. What does this have to do with Xiang though?"

"Well, ahem, this is really supposed to be a secret, but I also revealed to Xiang my necklace. Although I haven't told him how important it is, his first reaction was to ask if it was from a gift shop. Can you believe it?" Lu Xifa couldn't help but laugh at how ludicrous Lan Xiang could get.

Xie Jian chuckled. She could imagine him doing exactly that.

"I infiltrated the Ning Auction House storage room because I thought that the Yang necklace was there. You know, so I can combine them?"

'So she has thoughts of world domination, huh...' Xie Jian's train of thought went off-track.

"...Wait a minute, did you say you trespassed into the Ning Auction House?"

"..." Lu Xifa didn't know what to answer.

Xie Jian took her silence as an agreement and she went silent as well.

"Cousin Jian, please don't tell anyone..."

"Good job!" Xie Jian threw a thumbs up towards Lu Xifa, leaving the latter bewildered.

She had never interacted with anyone from the Ning family aside from Ning Muqin, but overall, she had a very bad impression of them due to how she was almost forced into breaking her engagement with Lan Xiang because of them.

Ning Muqin seemed like a lovely lady, but that lady was the one who suggested she be engaged to that repulsive Ning Luoxue, so she also got negative points in Xie Jian's mind.

"Uh, erm..."

"Continue." Xie Jian nodded.

"Okay then... As I was saying, I heard rumors of the Yang necklace being there, so I, ahem, went into their storage room, only to find dozens and dozens of crates. How am I supposed to know which crate it was?

For months, I've been opening a crate every day trying to find the necklace. I've also been paying attention to their catalog, but it seems they had no intention of putting the necklace up for auction for the time being, so really, I was forced to do this."

After sipping from her glass of water, Lu Xifa continued.

"Then I found out that Xiang had the skill to see through stuff. How could I not make use of it? So, we exchanged favors. I would let him in the Ning Auction House storage room, and he would help me find the necklace. Almost instantly, he had found it, in a remote corner of the storage room."

"Mhm, and then?" Xie Jian was invested in the story. If it was made into a web novel, she would read it for sure.

"I got excited. This was the artifact that generations of my family had desperately been trying to find. Hurriedly, I opened the crate, and there it was, the Yang necklace. I got too excited.

After that, we... we made the fatal mistake of trying to connect the pendants inside the room."