Volume 1. Let the Game Begin
After connecting a new USB hard drive from Sister Sisi, I loaded the drafts and a series of other things into it.
Wang Sisi was a standard secretary, and carrying a new hard drive around was something she might need at any time.
Unfortunately, a 128GB USB solid-state drive couldn't possibly store all my resources.
I could only regretfully seal them away.
Bringing my own belongings, I also took out the small-leaf red sandalwood bracelet from the drawer and stuffed it into my pocket.
As for the others... it seemed there was nothing much left.
There was still half a bag of dog food in the room, so I brought that along too.
Carrying these items, I once again picked up my own urn and returned to the car.
Aunt Zhao helped me put everything into the trunk.
Wang Sisi restarted the car, and with a slight tremble, the car started up again, heading towards Liu Yunyan's home.
That extremely unfamiliar... Liu Family Mansion.
"Is the young miss planning to write?"
On the way back, Wang Sisi asked this, and I casually agreed.
After that, the car fell silent again.
Holding my own urn, I watched the familiar scenery outside the window gradually fade away.
The surrounding houses also became fewer and fewer.
After driving for about half an hour, the car finally arrived by a river.
This was the moat of HC City.
The river water was still considered clear overall.
The Liu Family Mansion was on the other side of the river.
To get there, one had to cross a bridge.
Beyond the bridge was the countryside, where many of the farmers were hired by the Liu Family, mainly to take care of the fruit trees covering the mountains.
This bridge was also funded and built by the Liu Family.
Before Liu Yunyan was born, this bridge hadn't been constructed yet.
At that time, the two sides were connected by a simple suspension bridge made of planks and ropes tied onto tires.
I remembered that when I was around twelve or thirteen years old, I came here to play.
Back then, I had already seen the Liu Family Mansion.
But at that time, I had no idea how much such a mansion would cost.
I only knew that this family was very rich.
At that time, Liu Yunyan hadn't been born yet.
The car crossed the newly built bridge.
The bridge surface was very clean.
After all, it seemed there were only a few villages across the river.
The bridge was not heavily used.
The vehicles passing most frequently were the Liu family's cars.
This was the Liu Family Mansion, also the old mansion of the Liu Family.
Usually, Liu Yunyan's grandfather lived here.
But now the old man was traveling in Australia with his wife.
The other siblings of Liu Wanqian’s generation all had their own jobs.
The only ones living here were Liu Wanqian and Gong Lianyu.
In reality, these two hardly stayed here either.
Gong Lianyu barely had a few days off throughout the year.
Liu Wanqian would occasionally come back to have a look.
Now there were only two little kids at home, the twins Liu Yuncheng and Liu Yunyu.
The car slowly drove into the mansion.
What was called a mansion was actually several smaller villas enclosed by a large courtyard wall.
Each villa had its own yard.
It looked like a villa complex, but there were only six or seven scattered villas.
The mountain roads were all well maintained.
They were repaired every year.
The roadside was lined with decades-old trees.
Even though it was winter, the complicated network of withered branches hinted at how beautiful this place would look in summer.
The road surface was clean and neat.
Hardly any fallen leaves could be seen on either side of the road.
After entering the courtyard, it was even cleaner.
Not a single weed could be seen on the smooth asphalt road that wound its way toward the six or seven houses within the courtyard.
Because it was built on the southern side of the mountain, the lighting here was excellent.
The mountain body had been tidied up nicely.
Twisting and turning, the car reached halfway up the mountain and then entered one of the villas.
Honestly, buildings like this were really rare nowadays.
Most of the villas here were in Chinese style on the outside but had finely decorated modern interiors.
Only the oldest one at the mountaintop remained in the oldest traditional style.
It was obvious that this mountain area originally had other residents.
It seemed that after the Liu Family prospered, they bought up all the land here.
The back of the mountain was where the Liu Family ancestral graves were located.
However, this information wasn't really of much use to me.
Arriving at the mansion, this was a three-story villa.
The yard looked just like what I had seen in the video that day.
There was a fish pond in the front yard.
I stood beside it and glanced over, immediately spotting the koi that had been bitten by my husky.
The wounded scales still hadn't fully grown back yet.
After bringing everything down, the two little ones were attending kindergarten these days, so they didn't come out to greet me.
There were also some other servants at home.
I simply greeted them along the way.
Wang Sisi left me the key to my former home, then drove away, saying to call her if anything happened.
I didn't know why Gong Lianyu arranged for me to stay at the old mansion.
Maybe she was afraid I might not be able to think things through.
After all, the incident of pulling out the steel bar really scared Gong Lianyu badly.
Back in my room, Liu Yunyan's room was on the second floor.
The furnishings inside... were barely acceptable.
It wasn’t the Chinese style I liked, but a completely Western-style decoration.
One could say it was a European and American style??
A big princess bed.
The whole room was almost entirely pink, so dazzling that my eyes hurt.
Letting me sleep in such a room... as a man in his thirties, how could I possibly accept it!
No way.
I directly made a call, asked Wang Sisi to prepare some Chinese-style furniture for me, and also had someone tear down all the pink wallpaper in the room and move out all the furniture.
Anyway, being rich meant being willful.
I still had over a million yuan on hand, enough for me to get a full set of Chinese-style furniture.
There was no one else at home, so I had the final say.
Even if I did this, no one would raise any questions.
After that... there was a flurry of activity, moving furniture, tearing wallpaper, packing three big boxes of clothes, and cleaning.
Seeing the surprised looks in the servants' eyes, I could only respond in silence.
Wang Sisi, after all, was the secretary of Gong Lianyu, the CEO of a multinational company.
Although she looked young, she was clean and efficient when it came to handling matters.
I made the call at noon, and by the afternoon the furniture had arrived.
Following my habits, I arranged all the furniture neatly.
Of course, I also bought my favorite canopy bed.
However, Wang Sisi didn’t use my money but directly reimbursed it through the company accounts.
Each villa here was about the size of a sixty to seventy square meter apartment in the city.
Except for the kitchen, everything else was complete.
Anyway, I could never understand the mindset of the rich, having been poor all my life.
Most of the items in the room were replaced with Chinese-style furniture.
The overall structure couldn’t be changed and there was no time to remodel, so I added several screens to block off the bedroom entrance and separate it from the living room.
Inside the bedroom, there was a huanghuali canopy bed, a huanghuali dressing table, and two large huanghuali wardrobes.
There was no other way, Liu Yunyan had too many clothes.
Even the twenty-plus square meter bedroom was fully packed.
The living room was relatively large, about forty square meters.
I added a few antique shelves and two bookshelves, placed a larger luohan bed next to the bookshelves for reading, and set up a large stone tea table.
It was entirely handmade with a flowing water design, giving off a natural feeling.
Not far away, I prepared a set of the Four Treasures of the Study and a solid wood desk.
Then there were cabinets, chairs, and all sorts of miscellaneous things.
Altogether, it cost nearly five hundred thousand RMB.
Damn rich people!
Looking at the completely refreshed room, I nodded in satisfaction.
For me, this kind of decor was indeed very comfortable.
However... the bewildered looks from the people around made me feel somewhat helpless.
"Alright, you all can leave now. Aunt Liu, please prepare a guest room for Aunt Zhao. She might be working here long-term in the future."
Seeing the joy in Aunt Zhao's eyes, I didn’t say much.
I simply gave an instruction to Aunt Liu, who had always taken care of our villa.
Strictly speaking, Aunt Liu was also a relative of the Liu family, just a distant cousin within five degrees of kinship.
She originally lived nearby.
This place used to be called Liu Family Village, and just from the name, one could tell that generations of Lius had lived here.
In fact, our ancestors might have been the same person.
But that would have been several hundred years ago, and now there was hardly any blood relation.
"Yunyan, what are you up to today?"
Aunt Liu asked, puzzled, as she kept glancing around the room at the new setup.
"I just... didn’t like the original feeling, so I changed it."
I replied calmly.
Aunt Liu could only shake her head helplessly.
"Alright, I can't control you. Do whatever you want. Zhao Xiuyu, right? Sister Gong has already told me about you. Clean up a bit and follow me to find a guest room later. Working here will be much easier than doing odd jobs elsewhere. You won't have to do anything extra. Since Yunyan likes having you around, this room will be your responsibility from now on..."
Aunt Liu had watched Liu Yunyan grow up.
However, since she was only a hired hand, she couldn’t say much about Yunyan's behavior, which made things more convenient for me.
Aunt Zhao carried her luggage away.
I also gave her a copy of the room key.
Of course, I didn’t give her the bedroom key.
In case I wanted to do something fun and got interrupted, that would be awkward.
After all... the female body was still quite a mystery to me.
Soon, the room became quiet.
I casually placed my urn on the tea table.
Looking at the design of the small bridge and flowing water on the table and listening to the trickling sound nearby, I frowned and scanned the room’s arrangement.
"Why does it still feel like... something is missing? Right! The husky is still in the backyard. Hmm... no rush. That guy can't run away. I’m already dead anyway, it doesn’t matter if I see it a little later."
If anyone else heard this, they would probably be utterly confused.
"Hmm... what's missing? These antique shelves and bookshelves look too empty. I remember Liu Wanqian's study had a lot of good stuff... like that enamel porcelain from the Qing dynasty and those few Song dynasty blue and white porcelains. Each of those is worth millions… Oh right, wasn’t his study also Chinese style? And he had a lot of books."
Emmm... how should I move those things into my room?
Looking at my own hand, a black shadow slowly appeared.
I had a way!