In this regard, Lin Congzhi had to admit defeat—Xiao Jingwen simply didn’t treat money as money. To him, earning it was all about enjoying the process. He had low material desires, cared little for fame or status, and showed no interest in lust. Even a heirloom-grade treasure that others held in high esteem barely warranted a second glance from him.

“Mr. Lin,” the secretary said, walking back over after hanging up the phone. “I’m very sorry, but Mr. Xiao is currently dealing with a dispute and likely won’t be able to make it over anytime soon.”

“Ah…” Lin Congzhi was no longer hiding his hand. Just a moment ago, he had come clean to the secretary and explained the situation, keeping his mention of the ‘warehouse’ vague. To his surprise, she didn’t show a hint of astonishment, nor did she press for details.

It left Lin Congzhi faintly wondering whether the employees in Xiao Jingwen’s company were actual human beings or just programmed androids.

“Then…” Lin Congzhi gestured toward the ring. “Could I trouble you to hand this back to him?”

“I’m afraid not,” the secretary offered an apologetic smile. “Mr. Xiao had the manager pass along a message: you should just keep it and wear it for fun. He also said not to feel any pressure—if it gets lost, it’s really no big deal.”

“…” Lin Congzhi tried to spot a single trace of absurdity in her eyes.

There was none.

It was as if Gleam existed in a world distinct from everything outside the building—a world revolving entirely around Xiao Jingwen. A single word from him could redefine the value of an antique: whether it belonged back in that warehouse or on the finger of a young painter.

The secretary added softly, “Rest assured, since Mr. Xiao put it that way, just wear it around for a few days to enjoy it. Look how gorgeous it is.”

“It’s worth at least tens of millions; how could it not be gorgeous…” Lin Congzhi felt a wave of mild despair.

Though he felt embarrassed to keep holding her up—given how busy she must be on an auction day—he couldn’t help asking one last question: “What kind of dispute is Xiao Jingwen handling?”

“I’m not entirely sure either,” she replied.

“Alright. Sorry for taking up your time,” Lin Congzhi nodded.

Running a business on this scale meant disputes were bound to happen. But precisely because the business was so massive, any conflict that required Xiao Jingwen to handle it personally was unlikely to be a minor issue.

After the secretary took her leave, he raised his hand again to look at the ring. It really was breathtaking—the kind of beauty that could bewitch a person. He recalled Xiao Jingwen’s words back in the warehouse: to make a single lot fetch an astronomical price, he had to lock away every nearly identical piece of fine jewelry in the world.

He had always known Xiao Jingwen was ruthless in business, but his own imagination still fell short.

Honestly speaking, if it were up to him, he probably wouldn’t have that kind of cold resolve.

If he possessed a room full of such treasures, he would inevitably throw an exhibition—a touring exhibition, a global world tour!

The next session featured antique furniture. Buyers entered or exited the hall under the verification of security staff according to their session numbers.

When Zhang Miao came out, she waited for him near the lounge entrance. Seeing him return, she walked up and asked, “Did you find Mr. Xiao?”

Catching sight of the ring still on his finger, she shook her head with a double click of her tongue. “Honestly, that’s way too blinding. Keep your distance from me.”

Lin Congzhi sighed. “He told me to just keep it and wear it for fun.”

“Is that how all filthy rich people act?” Zhang Miao scrutinized him. “Though… joking aside, an antique ring like this really looks better on someone’s hand than sitting in a display case.”

She meant every word. A glass display case was just a cage. As an arts professional who had worked in museums and served as an assistant to renowned masters, she genuinely felt that way. But Lin Congzhi was in no mood for it, offering only a dry response: “Jewelry like this looks stunning anywhere. Let’s head out first.”

He likely wasn’t going to see Xiao Jingwen today. For reasons he couldn’t pin down, a strange sense of unease lingered over him. Yet Gleam was vast, and he had no way of locating Xiao Jingwen on short notice. He couldn’t just waste his day idling here like a waiting wife’s stone—especially when the spouse in question was an ex.

He sent a text on WeChat: I’m leaving first. Whenever you want the ring back, just let me know the time.

Xiao Jingwen’s reply didn’t arrive until three days later.

The air after the heavy rain was exceptionally crisp. In the cleaning trucks sweeping by at four or five in the morning sat heaps of leaves soaked and decayed from the downpour. After three days of rain, the city had finally caught its breath and begun to move again.

It was 5:30 AM—a time Lin Congzhi rarely woke up to, though he often found himself going to sleep around then.

Still seeing no reply from Xiao Jingwen on WeChat, he went to wash up first and drank a glass of warm water.

On his easel stood a 4K-sized sketch sheet: he was drawing the ring he had brought back from Gleam. Not knowing when he could return it, he had simply pulled over a studio photography light to set up a proper still-life setting.

Lin Congzhi chose charcoal and graphite sketch, the foundation of all visual arts. Since color couldn’t be used to convey the inherent shades of an object, one had to rely entirely on brushstrokes, value contrast, and line weight to capture its texture.

Back in his student days, Lin Congzhi and his classmates dreaded nothing more than when the instructor brought out stainless steel or glass bottles for still life—and gems were even worse. He still remembered being thirteen years old at home, sketching the exact same setup alongside Lin Lingyu.

Lin Lingyu’s choices were terrifying: her still-life arrangement consisted of an apple she had half-eaten, a partially withered flower, and a half-empty bottle of mineral water. Toward the end, she even grabbed a handful of tiny nail-art rhinestones and scattered them across the table at random.

That was how art students were forged, step by grueling step. Whether it was music, fine arts, or dance, who hadn’t spent their childhood crying while sawing away at a violin? If a neighbor was learning the erhu at the same time, one sounded like chopping wood and the other like slaughtering a chicken—anyone passing by would think the whole floor was firing up a wood stove for dinner. And who hadn’t endured dance practice until their legs could barely carry them down the stairs, pressed down by the waist until onlookers admired their unbreakable spirit?

Lin Congzhi had been through it all just the same. How could a child raised like that easily change his ways?

By 6:00 AM sharp, he began adjusting the final details of the drawing.

His eraser was a pencil-style vinyl tip. The cold, unyielding hard texture of the gem was rendered with hard lead grades. Lin Congzhi’s control over his stroke weight was near flawless; his entrance exam sketch scores for the academy had been among the top tier, making his transition into the oil painting department during his freshman year an absolute certainty.

Over the past three days, whenever he paused, his mind would drift back to Xiao Jingwen’s dilemma.

Drawing this ring was his way of grounding himself. He carefully constructed each small accent diamond to perfection before casting soft shadows over them or blending them out with paper stumps.

What truly constituted a work of art? Rare materials, an exorbitant price tag, a profound atmosphere?

Or was it meant to serve as an emotional sanctuary in human society—a place for people to escape…

Wait.

His pencil tip froze.

At this very moment, he was escaping. He was using rigorous, figurative sketching to run from his anxiety, keeping himself from overthinking how Xiao Jingwen was faring right now.

The young painter sat motionless before the easel. The summer sky had brightened around four o’clock, and the sun was fully up by now. At this hour, he could hear the first city bus rumbling toward the docks, and sanitation workers dragging heavy trash cans past his window.

And then—the chime of the doorbell.

He abruptly gripped his pencil tight. No one ever came to the gallery this early. Zhang Miao and Xiao Chen both had keys, and his neighbor Shao Heng never opened his shop before noon, so it couldn’t be him.

Lin Congzhi immediately picked up the ring and slipped it into his trousers pocket.

Behind the gallery’s glass door hung a dark curtain. Lin Congzhi pulled back a corner of it to peer outside, only to see Xiao Jingwen standing there.

Perhaps his cautious, sneaky demeanor was just too vivid; even through the thick glass door, he seemed to hear Xiao Jingwen let out a subtle snort of laughter.

Laugh all you want… Lin Congzhi opened the door for him.

“So early,” Lin Congzhi turned to walk inside, speaking as he went. “Weren’t you afraid I’d still be asleep?”

“I saw your post on Moments.”

“Oh.”

Lin Congzhi had posted a text-only update earlier: ‘4:35 AM. Mom got back from the club, so I got out of bed.’

His face flushed slightly. He had always wanted to present himself as a cool, composed adult, and that post didn’t look particularly cool.

Xiao Jingwen had brought breakfast, placing it on the coffee table in the exhibition area. Lin Congzhi handed him a glass of water and asked, “What was that dispute about the other day?”

“Just someone causing trouble. It was nothing—all settled now.” Xiao Jingwen took the glass and sat down on the sofa, dressed once again in a sharp, cold suit paired with an equally cold wristwatch.

“Causing trouble enough to drag the CEO out in person?” Lin Congzhi reached out directly to untie the plastic bag, which contained a bowl of wontons and a tea egg.

The corners of Xiao Jingwen’s lips curved upward. “I’m more intimidating.”

Lin Congzhi glanced up at him. Since Xiao Jingwen framed it that way, he didn’t press further. The wontons were still piping hot, so he set the lid aside, pulled the ring from his pocket, and set it down on the table.

“Take it back. Leaving it with me leaves me on edge—I can’t even sleep properly.”

Xiao Jingwen uttered a quiet “Mm,” but made no move to pick it up. He finished the water Lin Congzhi had poured for him, set the empty glass down, and continued: “Yang Qingzhi has been brought to justice, and Yu Shijing didn’t manage to flee either. He might still have some old loyalists—’uncles, aunts, and elders’—around him. If you happen to run into him near the studio, don’t follow him easily.”

“Mr. Xiao, I’m twenty-seven, not seven.”

Finishing his sentence, his hand stirring the wontons paused mid-air. He looked up. “Wait… do you mean the person who made a scene at the auction was one of Yang Qingzhi’s people?”

Xiao Jingwen nodded. “To put it nicely, her followers are loyal. To put it bluntly, they just wanted to wring some leverage out of me.”

“Did something go wrong with one of the auction lots?” Lin Congzhi couldn’t think of anything else.

Incidents involving auction items could be minor or catastrophic. High-value lots were a major crisis, while lower-value pieces—such as forged contemporary art or minor damages to an item—were standard operational mishaps.

“Yes,” Xiao Jingwen said. “A yellow rosewood eight-panel folding screen snapped in the warehouse.”

Lin Congzhi followed up, “An inside job?”

He had personally witnessed the security measures at that warehouse.

“Yu Shijing did it,” Xiao Jingwen replied.

“Him?” Lin Congzhi’s eyes widened. “How on earth did he sneak in?”

With lowered eyes, Xiao Jingwen picked up the ring from the coffee table to examine it, speaking in a flat tone: “Indeed. How did a kid in his early twenties manage to sneak into Gleam’s secure warehouse?”

The gemstone gleamed brilliantly under the light. Xiao Jingwen leaned forward, taking hold of Lin Congzhi’s right wrist. He gently pried open the fingers holding the spoon and slid the ring back onto Lin Congzhi’s hand.

The gem was practically larger than the bowl of the spoon he was holding.

Yet in that very split second, realization struck Lin Congzhi: “You let him in on purpose.”

“Of course,” Xiao Jingwen said. “He wasn’t entirely stupid—he knew to go to the security control room to cut the surveillance feeds first.”

It went without saying that the so-called ‘security control room’ was almost certainly a trap set by Xiao Jingwen. How naive, Lin Congzhi thought. How could an auction house pulling in over two billion RMB per quarter fall for such a rudimentary breach?

Even though he knew this man could be cold and calculating, Lin Congzhi still sat stunned for a moment. He stared blankly at Xiao Jingwen. “Weren’t you afraid he’d… go on a rampage and smash everything in sight?”

“He’s an art student,” Xiao Jingwen remarked nonchalantly. “He wouldn’t have the heart to do it.”

At times, Xiao Jingwen could send a chill down his spine—yet this exact same man had gotten fully dressed early in the morning just to buy him breakfast.

“So… the former allies from Lubife posed as buyers at the auction to win the yellow rosewood piece, only for your staff to discover it was damaged during packaging, which triggered the whole dispute?”

“Precisely,” Xiao Jingwen said. “They used it as leverage to demand compensation from me, staged a sudden health crisis, and threw a scene at the company. That was the only reason I stepped out to handle it.”

“And after that?” Lin Congzhi asked. “You probably didn’t call the police—I didn’t see any police cars that day—so Lubife’s people settled with you privately?”

“Privately,” Xiao Jingwen let out a soft laugh. “The condition was that Lubife—or rather, what is now Carloan Auction House—hand over their operational management rights to me.”

As Xiao Jingwen spoke, he began peeling the tea egg for him. His fingers were long with distinct joints, his nails neatly trimmed. A bit of the braising liquid inevitably stained his fingers.

“Are you planning a full acquisition?”

“No, I won’t hold shares—just management rights,” Xiao Jingwen replied. “I have no interest in their small-time auction house. But I recall they put up a sheet of parchment from 1548 last year, and I thought you might be interested in painting on it.”

Lin Congzhi didn’t look up at him, simply because he didn’t know what expression or look to offer. The thirty-three-year-old man sitting before him was far more mature than the Xiao Jingwen of his memories.

Xiao Jingwen placed the peeled tea egg into the small container and said, “Over the next few days, I’ve arranged for a few people to take turns keeping watch around your place. When you go to the studio, I’ll pick you up if I’m free. If I’m busy, someone will accompany you on the bus or subway.”

Xiao Jingwen pulled out a couple of paper towels, wiping his fingers clean one by one—looking for all the world like a man wiping away bloodstains after a kill. He looked straight into Lin Congzhi’s eyes and said softly, “It wouldn’t matter to me if Yu Shijing burned my warehouse to the ground. But you’re different. I can’t very well lock you inside a display case, so don’t feel like I’m going overboard.”