Chapter 114: She Should Be Thanking Us
Xu Youyou listened to the back-and-forth between the two men, her heart in her throat. The rusty birdcage they kept mentioning was precisely the item the system had indicated as a hidden treasure.
The man in the Tang suit played his trump card: “I’ve spent hundreds of thousands in your shop. If you don’t give it to me, I’ll start buying my birds elsewhere.”
Xu Youyou glanced sideways at him. Just how was this guy raising birds? How could he spend that much money? Did he go through them in days? A bird-killing machine?
The shop owner hesitated, seemingly swayed by the threat. “How about this—you buy a few more birds? You were looking at the puppies earlier, too. If you spend another five… no, ten thousand, I’ll give you the birdcage.”
The man in the Tang suit raised an eyebrow. “Old Zhang, you can’t just fleece one customer. You still want me to buy more? What about the hundreds of thousands I already spent here?”
The shop owner thought to himself, That’s just your bad luck, but he didn’t dare say it out loud. He didn’t want to give away the birdcage, but he also knew that if he upset this regular customer, he might never come back.
At the crucial moment, Xu Youyou seized the opportunity. “Boss, my dog caused quite a stir in your shop today, and I feel bad about it. Since you’ve been talking so much about this birdcage, I think it looks nice, too. How about I buy it as an apology?”
The man in the Tang suit raised an eyebrow. “Girl, you really want that cage? What do you need a rusty old thing like that for?”
Xu Youyou smiled. “I have a little parrot at home, and I think this cage would suit it well.”
The shop owner brightened up and smugly said to the man in the Tang suit, “See? I told you this birdcage was a treasure waiting for its rightful owner! You didn’t believe me, but look, now it’s sold.”
The man in the Tang suit smirked. “You haven’t named a price yet. She might run as soon as she hears it.”
“How much?” Xu Youyou asked.
“Ten thousand.”
The man in the Tang suit twitched slightly, glancing at the shop owner but choosing to stay silent.
They both expected Xu Youyou to haggle, but to their surprise, she agreed immediately. “Okay.”
She even added, “How much for these birds?”
The birds she pointed at were trembling in their cages, still terrified of Guai Guai, the dog. These were the ones that had been the most scared earlier.
The shop owner’s eyes gleamed as he hardened his heart. “Twenty thousand.”
The man in the Tang suit glanced at him again, slightly taken aback.
Xu Youyou nodded. “I’ll take them with the cage for thirty thousand. But I don’t actually want the birds—I’m afraid I’d accidentally kill them, and that’d be a sin.”
The shop owner’s face lit up. This was a jackpot customer! He beamed and said, “Miss, you have such a kind heart! You don’t see many young people as generous as you these days.”
Xu Youyou pretended to be bashful. “My family follows Buddhism.”
The shop owner immediately chimed in, “That explains it! No wonder your dog is so smart—it’s clearly been influenced by your good karma. If you really like animals, you should check out the parrots and mynah birds over here. I also have hamsters. I stock almost every common pet except for cats.”
Xu Youyou was curious. “Why don’t you sell cats?”
Before the shop owner could answer, the man in the Tang suit chuckled, “A few years ago, he spent a fortune on some rare cats. He got too busy, forgot to lock their cages properly, and they all escaped. They even killed some expensive birds. He lost so much money he was left in his underwear.”
The shop owner hastily defended himself. “That wasn’t my fault! Those cats were just too smart—they escaped on their own!”
The man in the Tang suit laughed. “Yeah, sure! The cats were smart, and you were dumb.”
The shop owner shot him a glare. If Xu Youyou weren’t present, he might have lunged at him.
Thinking about how eager she had seemed to buy a bird earlier, Xu Youyou decided to play into her “animal lover” persona. “I was going to buy a bird, but since they seem so fragile, maybe I’ll get a hamster instead.”
The man in the Tang suit crouched down and teased Guai Guai, “Your owner is buying another pet. You’re about to be replaced!”
Guai Guai, however, didn’t react as expected. Instead of barking or throwing a fit, it simply let out a small hmph from its nose and turned its head away, acting as if the man didn’t exist.
Xu Youyou stroked Guai Guai’s fluffy head and praised it silently. Good boy.
Guai Guai might be jealous sometimes, but he was reasonable. He only got jealous of other dogs. Birds and hamsters were tiny creatures—he could crush them with a single paw. They weren’t a threat to his status.
The shop owner felt like he had just met the best customer in the world. Almost everything he recommended, Xu Youyou bought. Prices were marked up several times, yet she didn’t even try to haggle.
By the time she left, her bank account was four thousand dollars lighter, while her bodyguard carried a birdcage, a hamster, a heap of hamster food, and Guai Guai’s favorite dog food.
She had no idea that, shortly after she left, the man in the Tang suit spoke up.
“Old Zhang, you’re getting greedier. That girl was just being nice, willing to cover your losses, and you turned around and scammed her.”
The shop owner looked a little guilty at first, but then straightened up. “I wouldn’t call it scamming. I bought that birdcage back in ‘99 for fifty bucks. Who knows how much prices have gone up since then? Charging her ten thousand isn’t unreasonable.”
The man in the Tang suit frowned. “Don’t give me that nonsense about how valuable fifty bucks was in ‘99. That cage is a rusted wreck. You haven’t even cleaned it in twenty years, and you still dared to sell it at that price?”
The shop owner shrugged. “A real treasure doesn’t need polishing. Those who understand will see its worth. And that girl definitely knows what she’s doing.”
The man in the Tang suit burst into laughter. “Knows what she’s doing? Please! You took advantage of her just because she’s young and naive. Just last month, when someone else asked about that cage, you only asked for five thousand. And those birds, the hamster, and even the dog food—you marked them all up! Not to mention, those birds that were ‘too scared to live’—you’re the best at nursing birds back to health. A few days with you, and they’ll be lively again. You just played her!”
The shop owner got flustered and retorted, “If she didn’t want to buy, she could’ve just said no! And besides, she’s got bodyguards and money to spare. It’s just forty thousand—I didn’t scam her for a hundred grand or anything. She left happy. In fact, she should be thanking us!”
