Chapter 64: The Bracelet is Worth Ten Thousand
“Huh?”
Jian Xingxia was completely dazed. “What red sandalwood?”
As a girl who had grown up poor, how could she possibly recognize red sandalwood?
Liang Chengcheng cradled Jian Xingxia’s hand, examining it closely. The longer she looked, the more astonished she became.
She couldn’t help but look up at Jian Xingxia. “Xiaxia, where did you get this bracelet?”
Jian Xingxia panicked internally.
The bracelet?
The bracelet came from the Daliang Dynasty, given by Lin Sanniang.
But could she tell Liang Chengcheng that?
“A—A friend gave it to me.” Jian Xingxia could only spin a yarn, fabricating a friend out of thin air.
Seriously…
She had prepared herself to lie, but she hadn’t expected the situation to change so suddenly that her pre-fabricated lie was no longer enough.
Liang Chengcheng’s expression suddenly shifted.
Jian Xingxia’s heart practically leaped out of her throat.
Then she heard Liang Chengcheng say aggrievedly, “Jian Xingxia, do you have another best friend? When I bought a refrigerator and a water heater, you kept grumbling at me, so how come it’s perfectly fine when someone else gives you a red sandalwood bracelet?”
Huh?
Jian Xingxia pressed a hand to her forehead. “I honestly didn’t know this was red sandalwood.”
Liang Chengcheng believed her, but she was still pouting. “You didn’t know, but the friend who gave it to you definitely did. For her to be willing to give you such a great gift, she must like you a lot and want to be your absolute best friend…”
Jian Xingxia couldn’t help but glance toward the backyard.
Lin Sanniang was currently cooking in the backyard kitchen. Jian Xingxia figured that she herself hadn’t known about the red sandalwood bracelet, but judging by Lin Sanniang’s demeanor, she probably hadn’t known either.
Jian Xingxia soothed Liang Chengcheng, “I really didn’t know this thing was so valuable. I’ll return it to her later. Don’t be silly, you’re my absolute best friend!”
Only then did Liang Chengcheng cheer up, and she began lecturing Jian Xingxia about red sandalwood bracelets.
“The price of red sandalwood bracelets ranges from dozens to tens of thousands, but what’s common on the market is usually fast-growing, artificially cultivated new material, and the quality is just average.”
Liang Chengcheng had seen high-quality items before. She pointed to the two strings of beads Jian Xingxia held. “Although the beads are a bit small and two or three of them have some flaws, this is genuine old growth. You can barely find it on the market anymore.”
Hearing her say this, Jian Xingxia also grew curious. “Old growth? How old?”
Liang Chengcheng thought about it and said, “This bracelet of yours is small-leaf red sandalwood, also known as sandalwood padauk. It grows extremely slowly. Authentic old growth takes over a century; otherwise, it could never develop this kind of density and texture. It’s just a shame these two strings don’t have ‘gold stars.’ If they did, top-tier old growth could be hyped up to tens of thousands of yuan a string.”
Liang Chengcheng’s grandfather loved collecting these things, so she had occasionally seen them when she was with him.
Jian Xingxia was thoroughly stunned by now. She hadn’t expected the two strings of fragrant wooden beads Lin Sanniang gave her to be this valuable.
Liang Chengcheng toyed with the bracelet, her expression growing increasingly serious. “Xiaxia, why do I seem to recall hearing a senior sister say before that our country no longer allows the logging of old-growth red sandalwood? Everything on the market now is artificially cultivated, fast-growing new material.”
Jian Xingxia felt a bit worried in her heart too.
She obviously knew the origin of the bracelet—it came from the Daliang Dynasty in another space-time. As the saying goes, a sword from this dynasty cannot execute an official from the previous one. Current plant protection measures couldn’t be traced back to a past dynasty, let alone the Daliang Dynasty of a different dimension.
However, current laws and regulations determined whether this item could legally appear in her hands.
Seeing Jian Xingxia’s worry, Liang Chengcheng simply opened WeChat and sent a message to her senior sister, beating around the bush to ask about old-growth small-leaf red sandalwood.
It happened to be right around lunchtime, so her senior sister replied very quickly.
“Old-growth small-leaf red sandalwood? Although it’s rare, it’s still available on the market. For one thing, this kind of literary curio is valued for its age, and plenty of old items have been passed down from the past.”
Her senior sister laughed. “Most importantly, our country isn’t the primary source of small-leaf red sandalwood. This wood is notoriously hollow in nine out of ten trunks, making it very difficult to harvest usable timber, which is why it was incredibly precious in ancient China.”
“But India has it. That’s the primary source of small-leaf red sandalwood. The old growth newly appearing on our market is almost entirely imported from India.”
“Hehehe, just wait a few more years. Once the small-leaf red sandalwood we’ve cultivated grows mature, it will be considered old growth too, and we won’t have to import it anymore.”
Her senior sister was bursting with confidence in her field of research.
Hearing this, both Liang Chengcheng and Jian Xingxia breathed a sigh of relief. Liang Chengcheng knew her best friend hadn’t accidentally stepped over a red line by touching a protected plant. Jian Xingxia was also glad the bracelet had a legitimate explanation for its source.
She immediately separated one of the strings and handed it to Liang Chengcheng. “For you.”
Liang Chengcheng was surprised. “For me?”
“Yeah. Someone gave me two strings, and I decided right from the start: one string for you, one string for me.”
Originally, Jian Xingxia had just thought the beads looked quite pretty and smelled very fragrant and soothing. After looking it up just now and asking her senior sister, she learned that red sandalwood also had the effect of calming the mind and soothing the spirit. Since Liang Chengcheng had been irritable because of work lately, it was the perfect gift for her.
Liang Chengcheng’s eyes lit up, and she spoke up decisively, “Alright, I’ll accept this. But for old growth of this quality, saying it’s worth ten thousand yuan isn’t an exaggeration. I’ll transfer it to…”
“Stop!”
Jian Xingxia interrupted Liang Chengcheng. “Talking about money hurts feelings. If you really want to calculate it that way, why don’t you calculate how much the refrigerator, sofa, and water heater you bought cost, and I’ll transfer that to you.”
Liang Chengcheng chuckled twice and stopped talking.
Combined, the things she bought naturally exceeded ten thousand yuan. Forget it, forget it, she would ride on Xiaxia’s coattails for once.
With the bracelet issue resolved, Liang Chengcheng happily snapped a few photos and sent them to her grandfather to show off the great item she had received.
Just then, the two of them suddenly caught a rich, savory aroma of food.
“It smells so good! Xiaxia, did the auntie you hired make this?”
It naturally was. After all, the closest household to this place was Lu’an Village, which was two or three kilometers away; the aroma of food couldn’t possibly carry that far.
Following the scent, the two of them slipped into the kitchen.
Jian Xingxia tensely witnessed the first meeting between an ancient person and a modern person.
As it turned out, because Liang Chengcheng kept in mind what Jian Xingxia had said about the auntie not being talkative, and since she was thoroughly used to hired nannies and aunties anyway, she didn’t pay much attention to Lin Sanniang at all.
She simply hurried over to the edge of the stove, chanting repeatedly, “It smells so good, it smells so good!”
Then she gave Lin Sanniang a bright smile. “Auntie, the food you made smells amazing!”
She immediately began looking around for chopsticks, picked up a bite to taste it, and even called out to Jian Xingxia to come eat too.
Jian Xingxia observed quietly. Liang Chengcheng was adapting perfectly well and didn’t mind a thing. Perhaps to her, life in these grand mountains was already very different, so even if she found something odd about Lin Sanniang, she would just attribute it to local customs.
Like wearing trousers underneath a skirt, for instance. Or the braided buns that clearly had far more hair volume than an ordinary person.
But Lin Sanniang was entirely different.
Even though she was a hired maidservant with years of experience who understood the rules of domestic help perfectly, the very first glimpse she caught of Liang Chengcheng caused Lin Sanniang to completely break down.
“Oh… Oh my god! How could this young lady come out without wearing any clothes?!”
