Chapter 31: Exposing The Deception
Right after they finally signed the letter of forgiveness, Lawyer Sun sent a copy of the file to both the court and the procuratorate on that same day. The next day, Zhang Pei quickly sent a request to the bank to mortgage their house for a loan. The bank would come within the next week to have someone to take photos. There would also be other procedures about the loan, and they would only be able to get the money after the end of the year, after all the procedures were done.
No matter how much preparation they had had before, with a huge loan of three million suddenly dropped onto them, Liu Man and Zhang Pei still felt very uncomfortable.
It was on a Saturday when they finally ate all the food in their house. Zhang Pei and Liu Man went shopping in the supermarket, and all the vegetables and fruits Zhang Pei picked were extremely cheap, as they weren’t fresh.
Zhang Pei picked up a bag of fresh spinach to check on the price tag, which read: 7.99RMB, 500 grams. It was too expensive for her to afford, so she put it down again. She then said to Liu Man, “Next time, let’s come to the supermarket during the evenings. Their vegetables would be the cheapest right before they close.”
Liu Man answered with an ‘Mm.’
Liu Man was used to eating expired and residual food, so she wasn’t fastidious at all about what to eat. However, she still felt pity for this family, which used to be so harmonious. In her memories, Zhang Pei used to never check the price when she shopped in the supermarket. She would only check the quality.
Zhang Pei also felt as if she should apologize, so she spoke again, “Try to put up with it for now. We have to reduce our expenses and count every penny we spend. When your father comes out, he will be able to help us. After you graduate from college, find a good job, and marry someone good. Our days will get better in the end.”
Yes, in Zhang Pei’s opinion, Liu Man’s only choice in having a bright future was to marry someone. She knew her daughter too well; Liu Man would be nothing if it weren’t for her pretty looks. How was she going to compete with those people who graduated from great universities in any industry?
Before, she was in a high spirit and always talked to her about how she was going to take part in a film. But now, a week had already passed and she never received any response. It was like normal people who were trying to find a job. Interviewers would tell the interviewees to go home and wait for further notices. If there weren’t any announcements within three days, then they basically had no hope.
When they paid at the cashiers, Zhang Pei, who was used to paying in cash, opened her wallet only to find there wasn’t enough money left. She then took out a bank card and handed it to the cashier. The cashier scanned it before telling them, “There’s no money left in this card.”
The cashier checked them out with an erratic look. The mother and daughter both looked quite graceful, and they were both wearing clothing from the best brands. However, they only shopped for things on discount. They took a huge pile, but it had only costed no more than forty RMB. This mother wasn’t even able to afford that little amount of money.
Zhang Pei had never felt more hopeless. She even felt that the other customers behind her were laughing at her. She didn’t know what to do.
“Let me pay with Alipay,” Liu Man showed the cashier her QR code.
The cashier scanned it. There wasn’t any problem this time.
After paying the bills, Zhang Pei pulled Liu Man over to one of the corners, “You still have money left in your Alipay? Don’t tell me it’s from your dad’s credit card. We have to pay for it in the end.”
“Don’t worry, I earned all this money myself,” Liu Man showed her the remaining balance on her Alipay. The first digit was a 3, and there were 5 digits in total.
Zhang Pei felt that it was ridiculous, “You earned all this with that live-streaming you’ve been doing?”
Liu Man nodded, “Yes, and also partially from selling my shoes. In fact, we can sell most of the clothing from our house. Some of them haven’t been worn for many months anyway.”
Zhang Pei never bought second-hand products, and she had no idea why anyone would, “I’ll organize some of my old clothing when we go back. Help me sell them on that website of yours. I don’t know much about the second-hand market; you can mark the prices yourself.”
At last, Zhang Pei took out an entire box worth of clothing. They were all bought in the last few years, and every single one of them were from famous brands. She felt that the new clothing would sell better than those clothing from the last season.
These clothing were put in Liu Man’s closet for now. Liu Man was planning on putting them on sale on Xian Yu on Sunday. But for her right now, there was something more important to do, and that was to get the 500 she used on the fake cat food back.
She had already organized all pertinent information, had put out notifications on Weibo and on her livestream page. She told her fans that on Saturday night, she was going to completely expose the deceptions of the shops who sell fake cat food on Taobao.
At exactly eight o’clock, she turned on her live-stream. Because there were notifications posted, the viewers count immediately reached more than 400 today.
“I’m ready to start with my water, drinks, and sunflower seeds.”
“Sis, you’re quite on time today!”
“Wow, I didn’t expect to see Daylight in such a close-up perspective as soon as I entered the live-stream.”
On the screen, Daylight was lying lazily to one side. Her huge head took up half the space, and her two ears laid to the sides of her head.
“Mwah, Daylight, so cute!”
“Daylight’s going to kill me with her cuteness someday.”
“Haha, this live-stream’s probably just for Daylight today. The fake cat food harmed the cats and the owners. Sis is probably still angry over it.”
…
All of the cat fans commenting were fans of Daylight, and so they had been paying lots of attention to the fake cat food. Every single time Liu Man live-streamed, there were always people asking follow-up questions. Liu Man wanted to end this entire event today.
She had changed into a black shirt with long sleeves and still wasn’t disclosing her face. Her hands were crossed before the camera, and she started in a soft tone, “Yesterday, I already posted notifications that today I am going to talk about immoral businessmen on Taobao who sell fake cat food. Some of my new fans probably don’t know about this, so I’m going to briefly go over it now.”
“Our Daylight has always eaten cat food from Cats’ Garden. About two weeks ago, I bought a bag of Cats’ Garden cat food containing 15 pounds from them, which costed 548 RMB, from a shop named ‘Winnie loves pets’ on Taobao, who claims to buy cat food overseas for customers. They didn’t take any money for delivery fees. When that bag of cat food got delivered, I mixed it in with all my old cat food, and fed that to Daylight. Some of my fans discovered blood in Daylight’s poop on that same day when I live-streamed. I took Daylight to the pet clinic, and the vet told me that it was probably because of the cat food, and that I had probably boughten fake cat food. I am now going to show everyone the differences between the new cat food and the old cat food I had left.”
Liu Man opened her palms, “On my left palm is the old cat food, and on my right palm is the fake cat food.”
“Hey, the differences are conspicuous. All the old cat food looks a bit bigger than the fake cat food.”
“The colors are different too. The color of the fake cat food is slightly darker.”
“Sis, then where did you get your old cat food?”
Liu Man answered this question, “It’s quite interesting, actually. The previous cat food I had bought, had also been from this same shop, at the same price. However, the packages looked very different, and they only contained 12 pounds. The shop owner told me it was because the factories had changed to a package with a new design.”
“I luckily managed to get a copy of all the menus Cats’ Garden provide, and this came from the New Zealand Cats’ Garden Officials,” Liu Man showed the camera, in a close distance, her printed copy of the chart, “The font is a bit small, and you guys probably won’t be able to see it that clearly. So, I will be explaining briefly. The cat food from which Cats’ Garden produce can be divided into four tastes, and there are four in total. Every taste only has three types of package designs. They can be sold in eight pounds, in twelve pounds, or in sixteen pounds. The bag of cat food that I bought, which contained fifteen pounds, is obviously fake.”
The comment section instantly exploded with discussions.
“Oh my god! I just bought a bag of deep-sea fish cat food containing fifteen pounds from the same shop. Did I buy fake cat food too?”
“I bought it from another shop, but it’s a bag of chicken taste containing fifteen pounds. (sobs)”
“Most of the shops on Taobao sell them in fifteen pounds. It looks more worthy. The ones which are sold in eight pounds are too expensive, the ones in twelve pounds are rarely seen and could go out of storage at any time. I’ve never even seen any shop selling cat food in sixteen pounds.” — Peach is a fairy.
“Live-streamer, then how can you prove that this chart you have is credible?” — ‘I have a cat’ commented doubtfully. This audience member had never been seen in Liu Man’s live-streams.
Credits: Sydney & Kathrien