Reborn As Super Heiress

Chapter 1896: Chapter 1799: Spendthrift

Huo Sining had seen a printed version of the painting Xin Xie Zhi Ping, in an old painting appreciation book Zhou Shitao had given her, probably a reproduction taken from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The scroll depicted twelve half-length, front-facing portraits of imperial consorts, all wearing winter ceremonial caps and winter dragon robes, extremely formal and orderly in style—completely different from the painting before her eyes.

With the Heavenly Eye to aid her, Huo Sining could at least be sure that this painting was unquestionably an authentic work by Lang Shining. But something this casual and lifelike could never have been accepted by the imperial household at the time. At the very least, Huo Sining had never seen any mention of such a work in any historical records.

Lang Shining’s works enjoy a very high reputation internationally. Although some pieces fetch wildly fluctuating prices on the market, overall their room for appreciation is immense.

Several years ago, Lang Shining’s works such as Pingye Mingqiu and ”Deers in the Autumn Forest” had already sold for very high prices overseas. And right before the opening ceremony of the Imperial Capital Olympics, at Zhongjia International’s autumn auction, a Yongzheng-period painting by Lang Shining, the Yongzheng Twelve Month’s Garden of Perfect Brightness Pleasure Map, fetched a sky‑high 144 million yuan, taking first place.

With that Yongzheng pleasure scene serving as a precedent, Huo Sining estimated that if she really put this painting of hers up for auction, its hammer price probably wouldn’t be low either. Although the figures depicted still needed to be identified, its significance was no less than the Yongzheng Twelve Month’s Garden of Perfect Brightness Pleasure Map, and it might even be of greater research value. Once brought back to China, it would very likely cause a huge sensation in the painting and calligraphy collecting world.

Huo Sining’s mind was spinning rapidly, while over there Semiya was already losing patience. She shouted at Huo Sining, ”Are you done yet? If you’re done, let’s keep going!”

Huo Sining was utterly enamored with this box of items, practically wishing she could claim them as her own on the spot. But she knew very well that if she wanted to walk away with them, she first had to get past Semiya.

Still, out of caution, Huo Sining habitually asked, ”Miss Semya, what’s the origin of all these things?”

She asked that purely out of professional habit. She’d been around the antique circle long enough to become a seasoned old hand, and she ran her own antique shop; naturally, her understanding of such items ran deeper than most.

She might love collecting good pieces, but she would never accept items with dubious provenance. No matter how good something was, if its background was problematic, once it ended up in her hands it would be nothing but a headache, so better not to get involved at all.

Of course, this shouldn’t have been an issue in Semiya’s case, but Huo Sining still asked out of habit.

Sure enough, Huo Sining’s cautious, careful manner only made Semiya, standing off to the side, snort in disdain.

”Why do you care where they came from? It’s enough that they weren’t stolen or robbed. Relax, no one’s going to come after you later. My family can even wash the stuff from the black market clean—do you really think a few little things that make it into my hands would still be dirty and leave a trail?”

There was thick mockery and contempt in Semiya’s eyes; she clearly had no respect at all for what she saw as Huo Sining’s petty, small‑minded behavior.

Only then did it occur to Huo Sining that those black‑market items were all ”laundered” nice and clean before they ever saw the light of day.

She instantly realized she’d asked a stupid question. A faint flush crept into her cheeks, and she glanced somewhat awkwardly at Semiya.

These things of Semiya’s had originally belonged to her brother and had been displayed on the curio shelf in his home.

Influenced by a traditional Western education, Semiya knew little about Huaxia culture, and she didn’t care for any of her brother’s pieces.

Still, she was a Rothschild Family heiress after all; she couldn’t afford to look completely uncultured. So, in order to put on an air of refinement, when she came of age, moved out of the old estate, and into her own villa, she went into her brother’s study and quietly walked off with quite a few items to decorate her new place.

These Huaxia antiques were what she’d casually grabbed from her brother’s curio shelf back then. She had simply picked them up without thinking. Only after she got home and sorted them out did she realize she’d hauled back a pile of inexplicable objects that didn’t fit her aesthetic at all.

When her brother discovered what she’d taken, his heart ached; his expression showed genuine pain and frustration.

At first, Semiya had intended to return the mistakenly taken items to him. But seeing him nearly jump out of his skin over them, she immediately realized that those ”who‑knows‑what” pieces must be quite valuable. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have reacted like that.

So she changed her mind and flatly stopped mentioning giving them back. Her brother was fairly generous; unhappy as he was, he never actually went to her house to snatch the items back, and just let her have them.

The problem was that once the pieces were truly in her hands, Semiya had no idea what to do with them. So she simply tossed them all into a trunk, shoved it in a corner of her study, and left it there, untouched, for a very long time.

If she hadn’t lost this bet with Huo Sining, and then learned that Huo Sining was a Huaxia antique enthusiast, she probably still wouldn’t have remembered that there was a trunk full of such odds and ends sitting in her study.

Originally, Huo Sining had planned to appraise and value these items, so that Semiya would at least know what she’d brought out and how significant they were. But she hadn’t had time to speak before Semiya directly laid out her own idea—to keep betting.

Fine, Huo Sining understood now: this girl was a textbook squanderer. She didn’t care in the slightest what these items actually were; she only wanted to use them to win her money back from Huo Sining.

This was classic gambler’s psychology. Huo Sining had seen it in China as well: some people, once they lost themselves in gambling, would go so far as to sell their own wives or children to raise stake money and keep charging back into the casino. Semiya wasn’t that far gone yet, but she was definitely no longer thinking rationally.

Before Semiya brought out these antiques, Huo Sining might still have backed down and tried to persuade this little Princess to drop the idea of another bet. But after seeing so many good things, she no longer thought that way.

Even if it meant risking offense to the black‑market boss, or even to the Rothschild Family itself, she had to find a way to get her hands on these items. Because once she missed this chance, she feared she might never see such pieces again.

Besides, as long as she could win this whole trunk of items, all those things at the black market that had caught her eye would instantly lose their appeal. At least in Huo Sining’s view, compared with what was in front of her now, the black‑market goods simply didn’t measure up.