Chapter 67: The Snipe, the Clam, and the Fisherman

Two hundred thousand to buy a kitchen knife?!

Xian Hongye's words left both Lei Ren and me utterly startled.

What kind of concept was this? It meant that the money Xian Hongye spent could buy more than two thousand top-quality kitchen knives. That two hundred thousand was an amount Wang Hou and I would need to run our restaurant for three or four years to earn back.

In short... in the eyes of ordinary common folk like us, that was an "astronomical sum." Even if the knife were made of pure gold, it wouldn't be worth that price!

At that moment, I finally understood what true influence meant. Having money was having influence. What was the ultimate truth? Money was the ultimate truth.

No matter how profound one's inner fire, knife techniques, or Heaven-Reach Palm might be... none of it could ever compete with the sheer, crushing power of cold hard cash!

Facing such an outrageous sum of money, I was left speechless, but Lei Ren refused to resign himself to defeat.

Old Master Lei completely lost his composure right then and there, angrily snapping, "Little sister, why do you have to barge in and meddle like this?! Besides, Tian Bu'er and I have a contract. Have some respect for contract law, will you!~"

Lei Ren still seemed intent on using the same oppressive tactics he had used against the Broken Celestial Master to intimidate Xian Hongye, repeatedly bringing up the duel between him and me.

Unfortunately for him, Xian Hongye was not someone who played that game. Not only did she refuse to be intimidated, but she even knew how to "turn her opponent's strength against them."

Hongye was a supervisor at a state-owned enterprise, and her logical thinking skills were exceptionally sharp. Faced with Lei Ren's accusation, she parted her red lips slightly, raised her delicate eyebrows, and retorted, "The contract you signed with Tian Bu'er—what does that have to do with me?"

Those words flushed Lei Ren's face bright red. Trembling, he pointed a finger at the imperial kitchen knife on the table and blurted out anxiously, "But this kitchen knife was agreed upon beforehand—"

"Agreed upon what?" Xian Hongye tilted her head and asked with a smile. "This kitchen knife belongs to the Zhao family. Did the master of the Zhao family say a single word just now about selling it to you? Do you have a contract? Do you have a deposit?"

Using his own logic to trap him, these retorts made Lei Ren's mustache twitch, his temples throb, and his eyes turn bloodshot with rage.

With no other options left, Lei Ren finally played his trump card.

"You certainly have a sharp tongue, young lady! I am impressed! But I'd like to see how you plan to produce two hundred thousand in cash!"

Lei Wangcai immediately chimed in to support him, "That's right! Hard cash! What if you're just all talk and end up scamming the Zhao family?!"

The reason Lei Ren and Lei Wangcai kept hammering away at the requirement for cash was because they could tell the Zhao family held a deep distrust of outsiders.

After all, as the old saying went, "A large store bullies its customers, and a wealthy customer bullies the store." If someone could simply use empty words to squeeze out all the competition, it would create a monopoly. Buyers naturally grew arrogant then—wouldn't everything come down to whatever they decided to say with a cough?

Whether Zhao Haikun believed Hongye's empty promise of two hundred thousand, I couldn't be sure. But Gui Yuxiu, that woman, absolutely wouldn't stand for it.

Sure enough, prompted by Lei Wangcai's reminder, Gui Yuxiu immediately chimed in, "Little sister, don't blame sister for not warning you, our Zhao family wants hard cash, not empty promises."

Clearly, she also doubted whether this young girl could actually produce that much money. In fact, not only did she doubt it, but I doubted it too.

It was true that Xian Hongye was a wealthy second-generation heir, and her family seemed to have some business ventures. People of her background usually kept a low profile, but the poise and insight she revealed in her speech had already made everything clear to me.

It wasn't strange that she could afford twenty thousand to buy a knife, but two hundred thousand in hard cash... I doubted she could pull that off.

Two hundred thousand in cash, at the very least, would weigh around ten pounds. That would be a heavy, massive lump of bills—enough to knock someone unconscious if you threw it at them.

If Xian Hongye had been carrying that much money on her all this time, there was no way I wouldn't have noticed over the past few days. But the strange thing was, along the entire journey here with her, I hadn't seen her carrying any extra luggage. So how could she possibly talk about paying in cash?

Because of this, I truly suspected she was just bluffing.

Faced with the skepticism of the Zhao family's matriarch, Xian Hongye just smiled. With her unique smile and way of thinking, she quickly neutralized the crisis at hand.

Without missing a beat, Xian Hongye turned her head with a smile and said to Zhao Shuihe, "Shuihe, lend me your phone for a second."

Zhao Shuihe let out an "oh" and promptly handed her phone over to Hongye.

In a flash of insight, I understood what she was planning.

With absolute composure, Xian Hongye unlocked the phone and asked Gui Yuxiu, "Sister-in-law, your family has a bank card, right?!"

Gui Yuxiu nodded.

This Zhaojia Lou was not some isolated place cut off from the outside world. A bank card, being such a common financial tool nowadays, was definitely something she possessed.

Upon receiving a affirmative reply, Xian Hongye smiled with absolute confidence. While dialing a number on the phone, she said to Gui Yuxiu, "Sister-in-law Yuxiu, just give me your bank card number. I'll have someone transfer two hundred thousand yuan directly into it right now. You'll have both the card and the password in your hands, and you can withdraw it at any time. Even if someone has cash, there's always a chance it could be counterfeit. But money withdrawn directly from a bank is never fake!"

Xian Hongye's words completely crushed Lei Ren into silence.

Her statement was a clear reminder to Gui Yuxiu that even if Lei Ren had physical cash, it could potentially be fake and unreliable. Paying through a bank transfer was far faster and safer than Lei Ren's cash.

Why didn't we think of that...

After all, Gui Yuxiu might not trust me, and she might not trust Xian Hongye, but she couldn't possibly distrust a state-run bank!

With just a few sentences, Xian Hongye completely demolished both me and Lei Ren.

The buyer of the imperial kitchen knife was thus settled, and it belonged to none other than Xian Hongye.

Cornered so brilliantly by Xian Hongye, Lei Ren suddenly deflated like a punctured ball. Watching his ashen, disgraced expression, I knew he had completely given up.

Of course, he must have felt profoundly resentful. After all, he had lost to a mere "young lady."

Right at that moment, Xian Hongye's call went through. She spoke softly into the receiver, "Dad, I saw some clothes I like, but I'm short two hundred thousand, I need some money..."

Listening to Xian Hongye, my liver trembled in shock! She casually asked her father for two hundred thousand just to buy clothes... and her dad actually agreed to give it to her.

What on earth did her family do for a living...?

Just like that, under the watchful eyes of everyone present, Xian Hongye and Gui Yuxiu completed the transaction.

As if to show off, Hongye scooped up the dark, iron-colored kitchen knife with both hands, and with a gentle smile, she handed it right to me?!

I stared at the knife she was offering me, stunned for a split second, and then asked in utter confusion, "What are you doing?"

"Lending it to you, of course," Xian Hongye said with a smile. "This young lady plans to lend this kitchen knife to you. Take good care of it for me. If you lose it, I'll hold you solely responsible."

Xian Hongye's move achieved two goals with a single stroke: she handed the knife to me while effectively blocking Lei Ren from using the "duel" as an excuse to make trouble.

Since she was merely lending me the knife, it meant the ownership still belonged to her, not me.

Her actions completely shattered the very last shred of hope Lei Ren had left.

Lei Ren stood up in silence, fluffed his mustache, waved a hand at his nephew, and sneaked away from the Zhao family estate in dejection, amidst neither applause nor mockery.

As for me, I was still dumbfounded by this dramatic turn of events, and it took me a long while to snap back to reality.

Xian Hongye had actually spent two hundred thousand to buy a kitchen knife... just for me.

This inevitably made my mind wander into some rather wild places.