Transmigrated as the Cannon Fodder Spouse of the Disabled Beauty - Chapter 8

Returning to the banquet hall, the scene remained exactly as it had been before Xu Luo left. In the schedule arranged by the Mo family, the social networking portion was designated to be exceptionally long.

Xu Luo suppressed the urge to yawn, following numbly by Song Yunran’s side.

Because she was so bored, her gaze drifted unconsciously toward Song Yunran most of the time. Consequently, she noticed something: ever since they returned to the hall, the aura surrounding Song Yunran had shifted slightly. It felt as though something new had been mixed in. As for what exactly that was, Xu Luo couldn’t quite analyze it yet; she just felt that something about her was different.

As the banquet reached its mid-to-late stages, the prolonged, tedious socializing finally became too much. Xu Luo couldn’t hold it back anymore and covered her mouth to let out a yawn.

Just as she finished and was about to pretend nothing happened, a hand suddenly reached out toward her face. Her reflexes were sharp, and she dodged it.

“I just wanted to help you pick off an eyelash that fell on your face. Xu Luo, you yawned so hard an eyelash actually fell out.” The owner of the hand leaned toward Xu Luo as she spoke, lowering her voice to deliberately create an ambiguous atmosphere. “So cute.”

Xu Luo: “…”

Both she and Song Yunran looked at the newcomer. Xu Luo’s gaze was filled with questioning, while Song Yunran wore a smile, her eyes unreadable.

Facing these two stares, the newcomer only looked back at Xu Luo and said, “Xu Luo, I was winking at you over there until my eye almost cramped. Did you really not look at me once?”

She sniffled. “How heartless.”

“…” Xu Luo felt completely baffled. While haphazardly wiping away the eyelash, she asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m Zhou Miao, did you forget?” the person replied.

The original novel had very little description of the original “Xu Luo,” and Xu Luo hadn’t discovered this person in the original body’s social network. She appropriately put on a look of confusion.

“She is the ‘friend’ Luo Luo made at the last banquet,” Song Yunran supplemented from the side. Her eyes darkened by a shade, yet her smile deepened. “The one you got along with very well.”

Xu Luo let out an “Ah.” So it’s you!

Xu Luo immediately backed away eight feet.

Zhou Miao: “???”

Sensing that a “black pot” (blame) was about to crawl onto her back again, Xu Luo decided this was no place to linger. She made an excuse to escape: “You guys talk, I’m going to go grab a drink.”

With that, she left Zhou Miao to Song Yunran and bolted.

The two women left behind: “…”

Waiters carrying drinks were everywhere in the banquet hall, but to stay as far away as possible, Xu Luo didn’t take a drink from those weaving through the guests. Instead, she went to a remote beverage station.

She had hidden herself far enough away, but it didn’t take long for that woman named Zhou Miao to find her.

“Drink this, this one tastes better.” Zhou Miao picked up a glass of sweet wine from the various drinks and offered it to Xu Luo as a recommendation.

Xu Luo didn’t take it. Her gaze swept through the different beverages as she said to Ms. Zhou, “Since you recommended a drink to me, let me recommend a movie to you.”

“Hmm?” Seeing her recommendation snubbed, Zhou Miao shrugged and drank it herself. After finishing, a hint of watery charm appeared in the corners of her eyes.

She had beautiful peach-blossom eyes that slanted upward slightly, brimming with a smile.

“Xu Luo, do you want to go see a movie with me?” she asked with a grin.

When she smiled, a dimple appeared on her left cheek, looking very sweet.

However, unlike the sweet scenery of her left cheek, her right cheek was somewhat rugged, covered in burn scars.

Xu Luo glanced at her, looking directly at her right cheek without showing any sign of abnormality.

She had actually noticed the condition of the woman’s face from the start. It was hard not to notice, as it was quite prominent.

It seems that in order to humiliate Song Yunran, the original host deliberately hand-picked her targets.

Looking at the other person’s face, Xu Luo had only this one thought.

Zhou Miao said, “A movie… I don’t mind. If you invite me, Xu Luo, I’ll definitely go.”

Despite the injury to her face, Zhou Miao’s personality wasn’t awkward at all; she was quite free-spirited.

Xu Luo said, “I’ve already seen it. You go see it yourself.”

Being told plainly that this wasn’t an invitation but a mere recommendation, Zhou Miao curled her lip, her interest waning, but she politely kept the conversation going: “What’s it about?”

“A love that lasts until death,” Xu Luo said.

“A love story… that’s something I like.” Zhou Miao regained a bit of interest.

Seeing her interest, Xu Luo gave a brief summary: “Basically, it’s about a man having an illicit affair with a married woman, and in the end, they both get killed by the woman’s son.”

Zhou Miao: “…”

She could tell now she didn’t know if the love in this story “lasted,” but she certainly knew everyone died.

She looked toward Song Yunran at the other end of the hall, who was currently chatting with a noble lady.

After watching for a while, she asked, “Song Yunran doesn’t have a son, does she?”

Since she and Xu Luo were “colluding in an affair,” she wouldn’t get “double-killed,” right?

Xu Luo chose a glass of juice, took a sip, and said with a sweet smile, “Why don’t you go ask her?”

Zhou Miao arched an eyebrow.

“Xu Luo, I preferred the ‘you’ from last time,” she said. “Because back then, you hated Song Yunran just as much as I do.”

Now, Xu Luo was clearly biased toward Song Yunran and was even making up a “double-kill” movie to bluff her.

Don’t like the me of today?

A sense of gratitude flowed naturally as Xu Luo said sincerely, “Thank you very much for your change of heart.”

Zhou Miao: “…”

She wore a complicated expression, stared at Xu Luo for a long time, and then left.

Xu Luo didn’t care whether she stayed or went. Finding the juice in her hand to be very much to her taste, she picked up another glass.

Xu Luo’s timing in returning to Song Yunran’s side was perfect; the banquet was just about to start its next segment: the auction.

This was a charity banquet, and the charity auction was the highlight. For this auction, the host Mo family had collected many strange and unique items. Their values weren’t all high, but they were interesting, so they could fetch good prices in this special setting.

Compared to making small talk over drinks, the auction was clearly more to Xu Luo’s liking at least it was interesting and full of surprises.

However, only Xu Luo felt the “surprise.” Song Yunran attended one or two charity banquets every year, and they were all more or less the same, so she didn’t find them surprising at all.

The other guests present felt the same as Song Yunran.

Until the final auction item appeared.

“This is a ‘Mermaid’s Tear,'” the auctioneer introduced simply. The object of his introduction was a pearl resting in a gift box. The surface of the pearl glowed with a faint white luster, signifying it was a high-quality… ordinary pearl.

Indeed, though the quality wasn’t bad, it was far too ordinary for the guests present. It wasn’t even as eye-catching as the creative chair auctioned earlier.

The auctioneer saw the reaction of the guests below, smiled slightly, and continued, “‘Mermaid’s Tear’ is not its name, but its essence.”

In the jewelry world, designers loved to give rare jewels human names like “Heart of the Ocean” or “Blue Moon.” The guests assumed “Mermaid’s Tear” was the same.

But the auctioneer said it wasn’t. He said, “This is the tear of a legendary mermaid.”

This one sentence stirred up a thousand waves.

“A mermaid’s tear?” “A mermaid?” “That kind of creature from fairy tales?” “…Has the Mo family started using fraudulent marketing?”

In the crowd, Xu Luo, sitting next to Song Yunran, suddenly let out a soft “Eh?”

Song Yunran looked over at her.

On stage, the auctioneer saw that his introduction had sparked discussion among the guests. He waited quietly for the talk to ferment to a certain degree before continuing.

“This is the Mermaid’s Tear, a family heirloom of the Yan family. Yes, that same Yan family that has now declined.”

“As everyone knows, the Yan family was a very famous clan in the last century, possessing staggering wealth. But just as famous as their name for riches was the Yan family’s genetic disease. The Yan family suffered from a severe genetic illness, which meant few of their descendants lived to adulthood. In the last century, when the Yan family’s fortunes reached their peak, only one descendant remained the head of the house at that time.

To improve the family’s genetics, the Yan family head chose a girl from a poor family to be his partner. Having witnessed the family’s disease, he believed children from poor families were more resilient. However, shortly after the wedding, his wife ran away with a large portion of the family wealth. At the same time, the genetic disease embedded in the Yan bloodline struck the family head, and his health rapidly declined.

When the head of the house was so ill he couldn’t leave his bed, the wife who had run away suddenly returned.

The returned wife had undergone a sudden change in temperament; she became extremely gentle and served the sick master wholeheartedly.

They dragged on like this for a while, but the master’s body still couldn’t hold out.

One day, the master woke up in the morning feeling much better. Realizing this was just the final glow before the end, he sadly called his wife over and made all the arrangements for her after his death.

The wife remained silent. After the master finished his arrangements, scales suddenly appeared on her cheeks. Those scales spread rapidly from her cheeks to her neck, to her arms…

The master was shocked.

Something even more astonishing happened: after he saw the scales, his vision suddenly changed. His wife, who originally had an ordinary appearance, now appeared in his eyes as a face of incomparable beauty.

The wife with the perfect face stood silently, her legs gradually transforming into a fishtail.

Ah, my wife had already died when she fled with the money. The one who returned is a beautiful mermaid.

The master realized this.

The mermaid told the master she had descended to this world to protect him. As she spoke, tears fell from her eyes, turning into crystalline pearls.

‘Eat it, and you will have a healthy body,’ the mermaid told the master.

She also said she had to leave.

The master was surprised, but eventually accepted reality and sent the mermaid away with a smile.

However, the master did not consume this Mermaid’s Tear. He had fallen in love with this mermaid during their time together. When she left, he cherished his lover’s tear and passed away.

The Yan family lost its last direct descendant. Distant relatives inherited the estate and eventually squandered it all. The Yan family declined, and this Mermaid’s Tear was treated as an ordinary piece of jewelry by those relatives and put into circulation.

The Mo family happened to receive this pearl and also collected the story behind it.”

At this point, the auctioneer, wearing gloves, picked up the Mermaid’s Tear and turned it around to show the audience. The guests quickly noticed that this seemingly perfect pearl actually had a flaw a side that had been hidden just now.

“After the Mo family obtained the pearl, they took a small sample from this spot. These are the marks left after sampling.”

“The Mo family commissioned a professional institution to analyze the sample. Analysis shows that the components of this pearl possess extremely high activity and incalculable medicinal value.”

“The Mo family has always been philanthropic and dedicated to charity. Now, we are auctioning this Mermaid’s Tear. The proceeds will be used to fund children with severe and rare diseases.”

“The auction begins. Sold to the highest bidder!”

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