After confirming his words, I stood before the piece and, without asking permission or showing even a hint of courtesy, I reached out and wrapped my fingers around the neck of the porcein.

  "Vendor Wang, today you've had very bad luck," I said aloud. My tone, dripping with arrogance, seemed to stifle the bustle of the market. "Because of all the people in this city, you happened to run right into me."

  As soon as I finished those words, I opened my hand.

  Time seemed to slow down. The vase, the supposed crown jewel of the Ming Dynasty, slipped from my fingers and plummeted toward the stone floor.

  "Eh?!" Gu Changfeng let out a sharp gasp, his hand reaching out in a useless reflex.

  "Ah!" Xin'er stepped back, her eyes widening with a touch of surprise.

  CRASH!!!

  The sound of the porcein shattering against the pavement was deafening. The "Eversting Phoenix Vase" disintegrated into thousands of white and gold fragments that flew in every direction.

  The crowd surrounding us held their breath in unison. A deathly silence took over the pza, broken only by the echo of the impact.

  "He's crazy..." someone whispered among the people. "He just destroyed an imperial relic worth more than five million... that guy has lost his mind," another passerby commented.

  In slow motion, I watched as Wang Bao's face turned purple with rage and he leaped over the counter with feline movements, even for his plump body. Before anyone could react, he grabbed me tightly by the colr of my jacket.

  "You brat! What the hell have you done?!" he roared, his eyes bloodshot. "That was five million! I'll kill you! I swear I'll kill you!"

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow move. Lin Hai was preparing to rip Wang Bao's arm off. His eyes were fixed on mine, waiting for the order to unleash a massacre.

  Almost imperceptibly, I shook my head.

  'Wait,' I ordered him with my gaze.

  Despite the scammer's hands tightening around my throat, my expression did not change. I kept maintaining that triumphant smile. Everything was going according to pn.

  "Kill me, Vendor Wang?" I let out a dry ugh and, with a swift motion, shoved his arms away. Then I took a step forward, standing so close I could smell the stale tea on his breath.

  "Look closely, dog," I said with a cold stare. "Look carefully at your supposed treasure."

  Instantly, dozens of gazes turned toward the porcein fragments scattered on the ground.

  The afternoon sunlight filtered through the shards, illuminating the interior of the vase's base, which had split in two.

  "There! Look at that!" an enthusiastic young man shouted from the crowd, pointing with a trembling finger.

  Heads leaned in together. On the inner surface of the porcein, where there was supposed to be a rough texture, there was something that didn't fit. It was a tiny inscription, engraved with ser-like precision.

  ?Liu Qian?

  "Liu Qian?" whispered an old collector passing by, adjusting his gsses. "That name... why does it sound so familiar?"

  A murmur began to sweep through the pza like a rising tide. Suddenly, a middle-aged man jumped, spping the palm of his hand against his forehead.

  "Ah! I know! It was in the news st week!" he excimed loudly. "'Qian the Forger,' the genius of high-end replicas who was arrested in the southern province. That guy scammed even his own mother!"

  "What? So it's a fake?" a woman asked, horrified.

  "It's a fake!" shouted another passerby, pointing at the fragments. "No imperial relic would have some random person's signature engraved inside it. Besides... look at the texture! Now that it's broken, you can see it's a mix of resin and bone powder. That's definitely not worth even ten cents!"

  The atmosphere in the market shifted in an instant. The sympathy they felt for Vendor Wang evaporated, repced by contempt. The gazes of the crowd were now like daggers stabbed into the scammer's back.

  Wang Bao let go of my jacket, his hands trembling violently. The purple color of his face transformed into an ashen white.

  "I... I didn't know... I was conned too!" he stammered, backing away like a cornered animal.

  "You didn't know?" I let out a ugh filled with contempt. "It's not a sin to be ignorant, old Wang, but a moment ago you were ready to take my life for a piece of cheap cy. Tell me... how do you pn to compensate me?"

  Wang Bao, cornered and trembling, grit his teeth. His arrogance was crumbling, but his stinginess remained intact.

  "Compensate you?" he shrieked with a breaking voice. "You've destroyed my stall! You've ruined my reputation! Why the hell should I give you anything?"

  "Because I just saved your miserable life, you old fox," I replied, turning my back on him and looking directly at Gu Changfeng. "You almost sold garbage to the Gu Family. If Mr. Gu had taken that pstic phoenix home and they discovered it... do you think you'd be standing here arguing with me? You'd be feeding the fish at the bottom of the river. Isn't that right, Old Gu?"

  Gu Changfeng, who until now had remained silent observing the scene, took a step forward. His gaze swept over the remains of the porcein and then settled on Wang Bao's sweaty face.

  "This young man is right," Gu sentenced with a voice like thunder. "Wang Bao, trying to scam me is not just bad business, it's an insult to my lineage. I don't need to remind you how those who offend the Gus end up, do I?"

  Wang Bao staggered. The ashen white of his skin turned deathly pale. He knew that a single gesture from Gu Changfeng would be enough to erase him from the province.

  "What... what does the young lord desire?" Wang Bao asked, his voice barely a broken whisper.

  I walked through the stall with total parsimony, pointing my finger as if I were choosing fruit at a market.

  "I want that green jade vase over there... that other blue enamel porcein... and that bronze incense burner," I enumerated the few items of value my eyes could observe.

  Every time my finger pointed at something, Wang Bao let out a muffled groan. Those were the genuine objects that had cost him so much to acquire.

  "It's a robbery! You might as well leave me with nothing!" he roared furiously, his eyes bloodshot.

  "Oh, you're right. It's better if you have nothing. That way you won't be able to scam again," I replied with an innocent smile.

  "You...! You bastard...!" Wang Bao couldn't take any more. The fury and the pain over the loss of his assets colpsed in his chest.

  "Pffft!"

  A mouthful of fresh blood escaped his mouth, spshing the stone floor as he fell to his knees.

  I approached him, close enough to whisper in his ear:

  "Take all of this to West District, 18th Street, Apartment 4B."

  The moment the words fell, an almost invisible smile formed on my lips.

  ?Don't disappoint me, old Wang,' I thought as I turned and prepared to leave, letting the chaos knock on Lin Feng's door ter.?