Chapter 91
The early morning sunlight struggled to penetrate the thin barrier at the edge of the city. When the sunlight completely covered the small courtyard of the grocery store, it brought a long-lost warmth. It was not as hot as the previous few days, but a kind of calmness that made people feel comfortable and a long-lost sense of comfort.
Yang Ye lay on her back in the old rattan chair beneath the old locust tree. The chair swayed, and the rattan beneath her made a subtle creaking sound. Her eyes were open, but her gaze had no real focus. She stared straight at the old locust leaves overhead, which had been almost transparent in the sun, without blinking.
"Investigation requires evidence, and so does conviction..." Xu Jingzhe's voice, so calm that it was almost impossible to hear any change, appeared in her mind again.
"After all, it's a new era now, not old age. You can do whatever you want. Now we live in a society ruled by law. How can you say whatever you want?" This is her own voice, with a refutation of her previous thoughts, as well as a hint of imperceptible anxiety and helplessness.
Yang Ye sat up, twirling her loose hair, her eyes lowered in thought. She understood the logic, but those people at Jinshizhai had probably figured it out. Using this method, even collecting evidence of forgery and substitution would be incredibly difficult. After all, all of this was happening under the guise of complete trust and the need for professional endorsement. Even if someone later doubted her, her first challenge would be proving the authenticity of the items she had sent for appraisal and entrusted them to inspect.
This matter itself is like an absurd and almost unavoidable cycle. If you want to accuse Jinshizhai of committing a fraudulent crime, you must first prove to everyone, including yourself, that you are indeed a victim.
Let the victim prove his or her own victimization.
Such absurd logic made Yang Ye feel nauseous and sticky in his stomach, as if he had accidentally swallowed a piece of bubble gum bread that was cooked too slowly with gutter oil and burnt and sticky.
Yang Ye sat in the chair, feeling a little at a loss.
She desperately needed to think of a way to get them to jump out on their own. But how could she attract them? If it were like fishing, the first thing she needed was bait. But how could she place the bait? How could she find the lure? She had to be aware of it, draw their attention, but not be too conspicuous. Yang Ye sat there in silence, his mind turning over and over in his head the only thing he could think of.
"If they swapped my stuff and it meets the standards for filing a case"
“The value of things must be recognized”
She sat in the wicker chair, legs slowly drawn together, body leaning forward, hands resting simply on her knees. Suddenly remembering something, she slowly tightened her arms, hugging her knees even tighter, head lowered, forehead resting against them, even her breathing becoming light.
The sunlight fell on her, and the warmth that had returned after a long time now seemed like a burden that she could not get rid of, making her feel a little breathless.
"Boss, boss!" Zhou Yi shouted twice from the living room, carrying the two large bags of breakfast he had just bought. His voice was particularly abrupt in the empty living room. After waiting for a while, he heard no response. He put his things on the desk temporarily, walked to the yard, and when he saw anyone, he sat down in the rattan chair like a wooden stick.
He walked over and consciously stood in front of Yang Ye. His tall figure blocked many of the eyes that fell on him. A vertical strip of shadow with a clear edge just blocked Yang Ye's face, completely separating her from the dizzying light.
"Have you had breakfast?" Zhou Yiheng bent down and asked.
Yang Ye didn't even raise his eyelids, and said weakly, "I don't want to eat, I don't have much appetite."
Zhou Yiheng ignored her refusal and reached out to grab her arm, which had just fallen. With a little effort, he lifted her up from the rattan chair and walked towards the living room. As he walked, he said, "You didn't eat last night. I bought you breakfast. Eat as much as you can. Thinking on an empty stomach will only make you more confused."
"I don't want to eat," Yang Ye muttered as he was dragged by him.
Zhou Yiheng half-pushed Yang Ye onto the dining table and stuffed all the meat buns and soy milk he had just bought into Yang Ye's hands. He even had a tube inserted into the soy milk in advance.
Yang Ye frowned, her mind clearly still lost in the confusion she'd just been thinking about. She clutched the still-steaming cup of soy milk in her hand, the warmth from her fingertips probably failing to reach her central nervous system. Yang Ye felt nothing, simply continuing with her previous thought, "How do you bait a fish without alerting it to the bait?"
"Eat." Zhou Yiheng looked at her expressionlessly.
Yang Ye seemed not to hear. She continued to immerse herself in her own thoughts, gripping the soy milk cup in her hand a little harder. "If I disguise the bait, will the fish not be suspicious?"
"If you disguise the bait, how will the fish know it is bait?" Zhou Yiheng said.
"That's right," Yang Ye frowned even more tightly, "Bait can't be disguised, but if it's not disguised, won't the fish know it's bait?"
She seemed to have gotten herself into a deeper paradox that she couldn't figure out.
Zhou Yiheng put down the soy milk he had just finished drinking and sorted out the plastic bags spread out on the table. "Why do fish bite the bait?"
"Because of the bait," Yang Ye said, "fish need to eat the bait."
"The fish is about to eat the bait, will it care whether the bait is disguised or not?" Zhou Yiheng looked at her. He had already finished the breakfast in his hand, and the cup of hot soy milk in her hand was cold because of her holding it. The meat bun in the plastic bag had moisture on the outer layer of the skin.
He put away the plastic bag on the table and snapped his fingers in front of Yang Ye's almost dazed eyes.
Yang Ye blinked, his gaze shifting vaguely before finally focusing on Zhou Yiheng's expressionless yet subtly helpless face. Zhou Yiheng breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his reflection in her eyes again. He took her hand and brought the now-cold cup of soy milk to her lips, practically forcing it down her throat.
"Fishing is fishing because you have to use bait. It doesn't matter whether the fish can find it or not. As long as the fish needs it and the bait is fragrant enough, even if it knows it is a lure, the fish will still take the bait."
Yang Ye raised his eyes and looked at him steadily.
Unexpectedly, Zhou Yiheng said again: "Why do you always have to think so much? Isn't it better to be straightforward and simple? If you think so much, others may not have thought about it. Or maybe, you think so much and just hit the point that others need to lay. It's better to be direct. Isn't there a saying that smart people who rack their brains are not as good as stupid people... It's always right to be direct."
At this moment, Xiao Xiao came back from outside carrying some freshly bought vegetables, with beads of sweat dripping down her forehead.
"Isn't it going to get colder? Why does the weather seem to be the same today?" She walked in, closed the door behind her, and went to the kitchen, putting down the bags in her hands that hurt her hands.
"Hey, I was just buying groceries when Aunt Wang next door said that the children from Aunt Liu's family on the street ahead are now clamoring to split up the family property."
"Dividing the family, didn't Aunt Liu's family just get married?" Yang Ye was finally able to break away from her previous thoughts for a short while. She turned her head to look at Xiao Xiao who had just walked in, and put down the cup of soy milk in her hand that was almost finished.
"It's because of that appraisal," Xiao Xiao said, "Aunt Liu had a porcelain vase at home that was appraised some time ago. The other party said it was worth hundreds of thousands of yuan. Now, her son wanted to sell the vase and split the money, but Aunt Liu disagreed, and now they're even making a fuss about splitting the family property."
"That Jinshizhai, what a sin!" Xiao Xiao muttered to himself, shaking his head. "They make up lies without thinking, they just know how to cheat people out of money. You say our place has only been developed in the last thirty or forty years. In the past, people could have a hot meal and find a way to make themselves live a stable life, which was already very good. Suddenly, so many antiques appeared. If there were really so many, how could they not sell them in the past? Anyway, I don't believe in the so-called inheritance from ancestors. You have to have a wish for it. It's hard to live, what's the point of wishing for it?"
Xiao Xiao's words were like a needle, piercing Yang Ye's heart. She clenched her hands, raised her head, and looked at Xiao Xiao and Zhou Yiheng. The confusion in her eyes faded slightly, replaced by a more complicated emotion.
"No, how can we use the real thing as bait? It's too risky," Xiao Xiao objected. "What if they want to secretly copy it like they did before?"
"I just want them to copy it," Yang Ye said. She had recently read all the laws on fraud and counterfeiting, hoping to find the most conclusive evidence against Jinshizhai.
"There are indeed risks, but the boss's thinking is right," Zhou Yiheng said. "For a place like Jinshizhai, they definitely won't take the ordinary bait. The key lies in how we make the bait, what we use as bait, and how we can ensure we receive evidence."
"I'll figure out the bait." Yang Ye already had a plan in mind.
She walked straight to the study door next to the bedroom, which hadn't been opened for a long time. With the curtains drawn tightly, the air inside was oppressive and stagnant, leaving a faint musty smell. She walked to the old-fashioned chest of drawers in front of the window and pulled out a sandalwood box wrapped in soft silk from among several boxes of different sizes in the bottom drawer.
She carefully opened the outer layer of somewhat dry silk, and then opened the wooden box inside. A transparent white jade pendant lay there quietly. Next to the jade pendant was a silver ring that was so rusty that even the outline was deformed.
Yang Ye looked at the jade pendant and picked up the ring next to it. She gestured slightly at her ring finger, trying to put it on, but the deformed ring got stuck before it even reached her knuckle.
A ring that can't be put on is like the past that can never be returned.
Yang Ye took the thing off her hand and put it back into the wooden box. She picked up another jade pendant.
The jade pendant was engraved with many exquisite cloud patterns, with a double fish pattern connected head to tail in the middle, and half of the fish body, which looked like the Yin-Yang Bagua diagram often seen in Taoism. If the two fish were connected from head to tail, they should be able to form a complete circle, but now, only the half of the jade pendant in her hand was left.
"Zhao Zhao, mother hopes that you and Shangyang will be like this pair of fish, relying on each other and living a peaceful and happy life."
Before she got married, her mother held her hand tightly and tremblingly put the jade ring on her Western-style wedding dress.
The mother said that this was left by her mother, Yang Ye's grandmother. The grandmother said that the jade pendant with a double fish clasp, one end represents peace and the other end represents blessing. With it, life can be like a fish, life is as smooth as flowing water, life is as stable as a fish, life can be lived, and life can be good. This is the real blessing.
The cold jade pendant, her once stable emotions suddenly fluctuated for some unknown reason. Xue Shangyang's vague smile, her mother's parting instructions, her mother's eyes as she sent her off to marry, those brief years that were etched in her bones, countless memories she couldn't let go of, shattered into pieces, flooding back to her.
At that moment, the happiness that was so full that it was almost overflowing made her feel suffocated for many years to come.
People who have enjoyed happiness see their happiness disappearing from them bit by bit.
It's like I give you a candy of a different flavor every day, until you get used to the taste of the candy and the gesture I give you. Then one day, I suddenly make salt, chili peppers, vinegar, and everything you hate look like candy. When you happily put my "candy" in your mouth and taste its true flavor, you realize that what I just gave you wasn't candy.
But you will still get used to putting everything that looks like sugar that I give you into your mouth, until your sense of taste is completely lost and you are completely numbed by my so-called "sugar".
Xiao Xiao followed in and saw Yang Ye staring at the jade pendant in a trance. She leaned against the door and asked, "Do you want to take this with you?"
"Ordinary goods won't whet their appetite," Yang Ye said, looking up. "Only items like this that can't be carefully evaluated will make them let down their guard."
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