Jiangcheng, a land of premium prices, Tianqiong International Shopping Center.
This was the gathering place for top-tier luxury goods, a silent showcase of wealth and status.
Jiang Muyun, surrounded by a few meticulously made-up, fashionably dressed close friends, stepped lightly into a top brand store famous for its custom haute couture gowns.
Under the dazzling crystal chandeliers, the store staff had already lined up at the entrance to welcome her, professional smiles fixed on their faces.
“Mu Yun, Su Qinghan seriously said you can swipe whatever you want today and she’ll pay?”
A friend with chestnut-colored curly hair, linked arms with Jiang Muyun, her tone filled with undisguised envy.
A faint smile curved on Jiang Muyun’s lips as she nodded slightly. “Mm, Qinghan said the birthday banquet is important, so I should pick something I like without considering the price.”
These light words revealed both Su Qinghan’s indulgence and her own special status.
“Oh my god, she really treats you like no other!”
Another girl in a Chanel suit covered her mouth in surprise.
A slightly chubby, innocent-looking girl nearby couldn’t help but chime in, her tone blunt. “She’s that good to you—money on demand, everything first-class. Mu Yun, just give in to her already! Miss Su, you know? So many people would die for that!”
On hearing this, Jiang Muyun gently furrowed her perfectly drawn brows, then relaxed into a mysterious smile. She lowered her voice. “Oh, you just don’t get it, do you? Romance, especially with someone like Qinghan, is all about ‘novelty’ and the ‘unattainable.’ She’s still head over heels for me now. If I let her have me too quickly, someone as cold and picky as her might get bored soon enough. You have to keep her dangling, make her always think about me, pay for me, worry for me—then she’ll get more and more invested and never want to let go.”
The chubby girl suddenly understood and clapped. “That makes sense! You’re so smart, Mu Yun! Someone like Miss Su, who can have anything she wants, you definitely can’t satisfy her too early!”
“Exactly, exactly!”
“Mu Yun really is a top student—even her love life is strategic!”
The friends chimed in, endless flattery filling the air.
Basking in the feeling of being the center of attention, Jiang Muyun’s eyes almost overflowed with pride.
With the server’s almost obsequious service, Jiang Muyun began choosing a gown.
She casually scanned the rows of elegant racks, her fingertips brushing over soft, expensive fabrics.
“Miss Jiang, what do you think of this one? It’s our spring new arrival, hand-sewn by a master from the Paris atelier. The embroidery uses real gold thread…” A senior sales assistant carefully presented a champagne-colored floor-length gown.
Jiang Muyun took it, draped it loosely over herself, and compared it in the mirror.
The gown was indeed beautiful, with exquisite tailoring and luxurious details.
“Very pretty!” the curly-haired friend immediately praised.
Jiang Muyun also looked satisfied and asked casually, “How much is this?”
“This piece is currently priced at eight thousand yuan, Miss Jiang,” the assistant replied respectfully.
Who would have thought? Hearing that number, Jiang Muyun’s just-risen smile instantly froze, and her brows furrowed in displeasure.
With a trace of disdain, she tossed the gown back into the assistant’s arms, her voice turning cold. “Less than ten thousand? Wearing something of this grade would just embarrass Qinghan, wouldn’t it?”
As she spoke, she even glanced at the curly-haired friend who had called it “pretty,” as if to say, “Is that your taste?”
The curly-haired friend’s face went pale, and she dared not speak again.
The slightly chubby girl next to her was confused and muttered quietly, “But… I think that gown was already pretty and expensive enough… It wouldn’t embarrass anyone to wear it.”
Jiang Muyun turned around, once again wearing that gentle yet slightly helpless smile. “You don’t understand. To Qinghan, money is just a number. What I want is something worthy of her feelings and worthy of the face of both our Su and Jiang families. Something too cheap would instead make me seem like I don’t value her feelings enough, or disrespect myself.”
She paused, her fingertips pinching the hem of a nearby gown encrusted with diamonds that sparkled with a cold, dazzling light under the lamps.
Suddenly, as if remembering something, a contemptuous smirk curled at the corner of her mouth. “By the way, do you girls still remember… that Yan Yu?”
“Yan Yu?” The chubby girl was stunned for a second, then immediately showed a look of disdain. “Remember, remember! That poor lame girl who used to copy your outfits every day, trying to be Miss Su’s substitute! Hah! She can’t even walk straight. I don’t know where she got the nerve.”
“That’s the one,” Jiang Muyun sneered, undisguised disgust in her voice. “A while ago, she was pretty cocky in front of me, like she actually thought she was something. A substitute that Qinghan used and threw away—I don’t know where she gets her confidence.”
She reached out and gently stroked a dress made of silk and feathers, its price tag shockingly long, her eyes haughty. “For this birthday banquet, I’ve specifically reserved the top floor of Cloud Top Garden. The guests will all be wealthy and noble, all dressed to the nines when they come in.”
She paused, then asked with malicious anticipation, “Guess what Yan Yu will be wearing?”
Imagining the scene, she couldn’t help but giggle lightly, pure malice in her eyes. “I bet she’ll show up in some cheap knockoff from a secondhand market, imitating my style again, looking miserably pathetic, right?”
“Those knockoffs are so obvious—it’s amazing she has the nerve to wear them out!”
“Yeah!” the curly-haired friend quickly agreed. “Then at the party, Mu Yun, you can ‘kindly’ ask her: ‘Yan Yu, don’t you have money to buy clothes? No worries. My dog had a trip to the groomer this month, so I saved enough dog food money to buy you something decent. Consider it… a gift from me?’”
“Pfft—!”
The girls burst into laughter, as if they could already see Yan Yu humiliated and at a loss.
Jiang Muyun laughed along, her body swaying. Ever since she returned from abroad and received Su Qinghan’s unreserved love and indulgence, she increasingly felt the world should revolve around her. What she wanted, she got. What she hated, should be trampled into the mud, never to rise again.
Yan Yu? A stain of the past, a joke who didn’t know her place.
Perfect timing. With this birthday banquet, she would squeeze every last bit of value out of that joke in front of everyone, especially in front of Su Qinghan, and then crush even her last shred of self-esteem like trash.