Chapter 141 — Old Buffon's Origins
Years of Heartflutter · Page 163 of 214
"She really did have it hard," Yang Ce said with a sigh. "Later we met again, but I didn't recognize her, and she didn't tell me she was Lin Yanhe—she made up a false name, Shen Lin. I didn't know at the time; I just treated her as a familiar friend."
"Then how did you find out afterward?" Listening to this plot that belonged in a romance novel, Chen Shutang could not help feeling a little wistful.
Her own romance with Yanzhou had come about naturally, without any of this miraculous chance encounter, so Chen Shutang was very curious about the story of Yang Ce and Lin Yanhe.
"Later, Lin Yanhe's mother, Aunt Shen, happened to discover that her daughter was no longer a virgin. Lin Yanhe had no way out, so she could only cobble together a reason and say she had a boyfriend. But Aunt Shen didn't let her off so easily—she told her to bring the boyfriend home." Yang Jincong glanced at Chen Shutang with a smile.
"I know. Then she came looking for you to pose as her boyfriend and pull the wool over their eyes, right?" Chen Shutang instantly grasped the crux of the matter from Yang Juehuan's words.
"Mm." Yang Yuting nodded. "She asked me to pretend to be her boyfriend, and so she couldn't keep her name from me anymore. But it seems she still doesn't know that I already know she's the girl I forced myself on back then."
"She's never mentioned this matter all along?" Chen Shutang was rather curious. Lin Yanhe could have used it to win Yang Juehuan's affection.
"No." Yang Yanzhou said, "She even had Xia Xue help her cover it up."
"Then treat her well from now on," Chen Shutang said. Her prejudice and misgivings about Lin Yanhe no longer existed; what remained was only emotion and sympathy.
"I know. But Mengyan, I really thank you—thank you for understanding," Yang Yanzhou said.
"All right, enough flattery." Chen Shutang said, "Go on with your rags-to-riches story."
"Heh heh, all right." Yang Hengye laughed and continued, "If we're talking about really making money for the first time, that was in Yunnan. Zhang Bin, Uncle Zhang, and I were cutting stones in a rough jade shop in Tengchong, Yunnan. I told you, didn't I, that little Lan Ling's sixth sense is especially sharp?"
"No." Chen Shutang pouted and shook her head.
"Heh heh, don't be angry. Lan Ling is just a child—why are you jealous of her?" Yang Ce consoled her. "Lan Ling picked out a rough stone at the time, and jadeite came out of it."
"Jadeite?" Chen Shutang said in surprise.
"Mm, jadeite—the finest of all jade, extremely expensive." Yang Yanzhou said, "In the end, out of that batch of rough stones, I got three pieces of jadeite."
"Three pieces? No way!" Though Chen Shutang did not know exactly how much jadeite was worth, she at least knew that such high-grade jewelry could not possibly be cheap. And she also knew the odds of jadeite coming out of rough stones were not very high—yet Yang Ce had gone there once and come back with three pieces of jadeite. It was nothing short of terrifying.
"The money from selling those jadeites is what started the companies we have now," Yang Yanzhou said.
"So how much did the jadeite actually sell for?" Chen Shutang was astonished. Valuable, yes, but no matter how valuable, it couldn't possibly have funded this many companies.
"At an auction in Hong Kong, it went for over three hundred million," Yang Ce said slowly.
"Over three hundred million?" Chen Shutang's eyes went wide, an expression of sheer disbelief on her face. "I thought a few million would already be a lot. I never imagined it'd be over three hundred million—is that even real?"
"The prices that auction house sets are all denominated in US dollars," Yang Ce dropped another bombshell.
"US dollars?" This time Chen Shutang simply could not keep her feelings in check. It was utterly unbelievable. Just minutes ago, a few million had been a distant figure to her, let alone hundreds of millions—she had never once imagined that one day she would have that kind of money.