Chapter 3

The security guard’s large hand—wrapped in a white glove—was already on my collar.

That cold, coarse touch felt exactly like the officers who dragged my father out of our home twenty years ago. The orchestra in the hall had stopped completely. All that remained were the aristocrats’ contemptuous murmurs as they watched with champagne in hand.

Mrs. Hughes, crushed by despair, closed her eyes, unable to bear the coming cruelty.

“Stop!”

I twisted hard, shook off the guard’s grip, and yanked a wad of cash from the lining pocket of my cheap suit.

It was everything I owned.

It carried the mildew stink of an East End pawnshop, dusted with the grime of the lower class—then I slapped it down on the gleaming, mirror-smooth rosewood display table.

“Under the iron rule of British auction houses, before the hammer falls, anyone has the right to force a buyout of an unsold lot at ten times the appraised price—paid in cash!” My gaze burned like a blade as it stabbed toward Sterling on the dais. “You appraised it at fifty pounds. This is five hundred.”

The air seemed to be sucked out of the hall.

Everyone stared at me like I was insane. Emptying my pathetic savings—for industrial trash already sentenced to death by a top master?

“Master Sterling…” the auction supervisor wiped sweat from his brow, asking the tyrant onstage for permission.

Sterling lounged arrogantly in the purple velvet-backed chair. In his cold blue eyes flashed a cruel, delighted sneer. He slowly rotated the emerald signet ring on his thumb, like a man watching a rat thrash inside a trap.

“Let him buy it,” Sterling said softly, his voice gentle with poison. “If this gutter rat wants to spend his stinking little savings on a lesson, why shouldn’t we indulge him? This is the best comedy of the night.”

The crowd erupted into eager laughter.

“Idiot—who does he think he is, some alchemist turning stone into gold?”

“That money is probably his last full meal in this lifetime.”

I ignored the jeers. I walked straight to the stunned Mrs. Hughes, shoved the crumpled bills into her shaking hands, and took the velvet box holding the “black glass” necklace.

“Supervisor,” I ordered coldly, “get me high-concentration silver-cleaning solution. And a high-power ultrasonic cleaner.”

The supervisor snorted with disdain, but under Sterling’s tacit approval, he waved someone over to bring the tools.

A transparent glass vessel was rolled under the spotlight. The sharp chemical smell of solvent instantly cut through the expensive champagne in the air.

The elites covered their noses, their disgust deepening, all waiting for my bankrupt humiliation.

I inhaled once. No hesitation.

With tweezers, I lifted the black-spotted necklace and submerged it directly into the churning solution.

Sss—

Violent chemical reaction bloomed instantly, frothing the surface into a cloudy foam.

“Finally… finally it’s coming off! This disgusting shell!” The gemstone’s shrill voice exploded in my mind, cheering in manic ecstasy. “Wash it cleaner! Strip off every last bit of that lowly coating!”

Expressionless, I watched the murky liquid and pressed the ultrasonic switch.

A high-frequency buzz echoed through the hall.

One minute. Two minutes.

The laughter around us began to turn impatient.

“Are we done yet? Do we have to stand here watching a lunatic wash a piece of junk gla—” A socialite’s voice cut off mid-sentence.

The cloudy solution settled.

And under the harsh light, the necklace base—once pitch-black—reflected the cold, classic luster of antique platinum.

That was not a texture scrap copper could ever possess.

A tightly strangled gasp rippled through the crowd.

Sterling’s fingers, which had been tapping the armrest, froze.

I shut off the machine and slowly lifted the necklace with the tweezers.

As the last drop of murky fluid fell away, the century-old black disguise dissolved completely.

The center stone—previously condemned as cheap glass—was now fully exposed beneath the crystal chandelier’s blazing light.

Every breath in the hall vanished in that instant.

A blue so deep it made the soul shiver.

Not a trace of impurity. Within it lay a velvet softness—like the purest sky over Kashmir’s snow mountains, like the most secret tear of the deep sea. Light passed through the crystal and exploded into brilliant, breathtaking fire.

“Cornflower blue…”

Someone whispered in the dead silence, trembling.

Those words detonated like a silent nuclear blast.

The magnates who had been untouchable seconds ago looked like their eyes might fall out. The women who had been pinching their noses now shoved forward shamelessly, as if they could press their faces against the gem.

“Untreated Kashmir sapphire—top grade! Perfect velvet effect—my God!”

“That’s at least twenty carats! A peerless treasure!”

Mrs. Hughes clapped a hand over her mouth. Tears poured like a dam breaking. She couldn’t believe she had nearly sold her family’s lifeline for fifty pounds.

I watched the so-called upper class turn rabid, cold as ice.

In a world that worshiped matter and profit, there was no slap more direct—more brutal—than this.

“I’ll pay one hundred thousand pounds!” A fat banker broke the silence first, hand up in frenzy.

“Get out of the way—I’ll pay two hundred thousand!”

“Three hundred thousand! Nobody compete with me!”

The price rocketed. In seconds, the hall became a screaming marketplace. These old-money nobles who prided themselves on elegance tore their dignity apart for that purified gemstone.

In the end, the “industrial trash” appraised at fifty pounds was smashed down on the spot by a Middle Eastern oil tycoon for an astronomical six hundred thousand pounds.

I handed the six-hundred-thousand-pound check to a sobbing Mrs. Hughes, then turned slowly.

On the dais—

Sterling’s face had turned an ugly iron-green. He stared at the sapphire, chest heaving. The violet-gold medal of authority on his chest looked ridiculous now.

Europe’s number-one appraiser, publicly mistaking a six-hundred-thousand-pound treasure for fifty pounds of garbage.

A humiliation he could never erase.

I straightened my cheap old suit. Under Sterling’s gaze—so murderous it could cut—I let a cold curve lift at the corner of my mouth.

First blood.

I took it.