Reborn As Super Heiress

Chapter 621: Chapter 618: Tenfold Compensation for a Fake

Logically, such a new product should be paired with trendy setting techniques to make more sense, yet this designer opted for the least cost-effective method, a choice that made Ouyang Jun extremely wary.

”Forget it, why bother fighting with these people? It’s getting late, so how about we call Elder Yu and the others to go have lunch together?” Ouyang Jun suggested.

He wasn’t trying to smooth things over, but simply felt that it wasn’t worth it for Huo Sining to purchase the necklace because he was now convinced that there was something wrong with this diamond necklace.

But Huo Sining was stubborn. Once she made up her mind, not even ten bulls could pull her back.

Waving her hand at Ouyang Jun, she quickly pulled out her bank card, swiped it for the payment, and with a smile shook her head at Ouyang Jun, ”You don’t have to say anything, I know! Just wait and see what happens in a bit!”

The commission for the sale of this particular order alone could net the sales associate close to twenty thousand, and although there were occasionally sales like this, they certainly weren’t common.

Since the company’s opening, there had been no shortage of people buying diamonds worth tens of thousands, but those spending hundreds of thousands were very rare.

Huo Sining had already entered her bank card PIN on the keypad, and the receipt was printed out; it was too late for her to have any regrets now.

The shrewd saleslady inwardly breathed a sigh of relief and with a smile completed the transaction. She placed the quality certificate for the necklace and the invoice into a red box, and was about to put the necklace in as well.

”There’s no need to put the necklace in the box! Just hand it to me,” Huo Sining said as she took the necklace into her hands, then looked at the saleslady and asked coolly, ”Do you have tools like pliers or scissors here? I’d like to borrow them!”

The sales associate had no idea what Huo Sining was planning to do, and she glanced between Huo Sining and the manager, hesitating for a long time before finally fetching a pair of small pliers from the shop’s toolbox for Huo Sining.

In gold and silver jewelry stores like this one, when jewelry needs maintenance or simple repairs, they’d require the help of craftspeople to complete the task. Apart from complex technical work that has to be sent back to headquarters, many ordinary small items can be processed right in the store, which is why these stores usually have toolboxes on hand.

Huo Sining handed the pliers to Ouyang Jun with a slight smile, ”You’re stronger, help me take this diamond out. Be careful, just pry open the platinum setting, and the diamond will fall out on its own.”

What Huo Sining said had both the saleslady and the manager dumbfounded.

By the time the manager snapped back to reality, Ouyang Jun had already started working on it.

The manager became anxious at once and hurriedly explained, ”Miss, you’ve already paid for this necklace, and if you damage it, we won’t be held responsible!”

Huo Sining nodded with a cold smile, ”If I damage it myself, of course, I won’t make you responsible. But what if this diamond really is defective? I remember seeing an advertisement at your front door, claiming a tenfold compensation for fakes, right?”

The manager was taken aback and said, ”Miss, rest assured on that point. These goods have just been air-shipped from our headquarters as new arrivals; the quality is absolutely flawless!”

Huo Sining hummed lightly without saying a word, just waiting for Ouyang Jun to extract the cracked diamond from inside the platinum setting.

Flawless, you say? Hmm, she was going to find the evidence!

She wanted to see, once the evidence was irrefutable, how the manager would try to wriggle out of it!

The sales associates all looked at Huo Sining as if they were staring at an idiotic nouveau riche. The saleslady who had just murmured that Huo Sining ”can’t afford it and is pretending” had now disappeared to who knows where.

In their eyes, as long as the bill had already been issued and their store had made money, that was all that mattered. To them, nouveau riches like Huo Sining weren’t worth competing with, not for those who were poor and working hard to earn money.

Huo Sining might not have had a deep understanding of diamonds, but she had flipped through quite a few books related to jewelry during this period.

Having witnessed Yan Feng craft inlaid jadeite jewelry from leftover material, she was fairly familiar with the technique of bezel setting, so when she examined the base of the necklace’s setting, she spotted the problem at a glance.

In fact, there was something fishy about the diamond’s bezel setting from the beginning.

Generally, designers who use this bezel setting technique are very cautious.

Because the bezel setting is fixed, if the backside is sealed, there would typically be a small hole left in the center to adjust the position of the diamond’s face, to facilitate corrections during the setting process in case of any issues.

But this necklace did not have that small hole!

It was obvious that the designer was afraid that, with the hole, people would be able to see the flaw inside the diamond. By doing so, they were really just betraying their guilty conscience—trying to hide something only made it more conspicuous.

Ouyang Jun used pliers to carefully pry open the platinum setting, and although it took some effort, he was very careful not to touch the bottom of the diamond thanks to Huo Sining’s prior warning.

The sales associates and manager watching at the side had their eyes wide open.

Once the setting was opened, Ouyang Jun took out the diamond and placed it on the glass counter, smiling at Huo Sining.

Huo Sining leaned over and immediately turned the diamond over; the front half of this blue gem was crystal clear, nearly perfect.

But when Huo Sining flipped the diamond, everyone present was dumbstruck.

The lower half of the blue diamond had indeed chipped and cracked; it turned out to be a flawed, cut inferior diamond!

The manager, who had previously been adamant that their store only sold genuine products with no issues, went red-faced upon seeing this substandard diamond, stammering, not knowing what to say in his defense.

”Manager, let’s calculate; for the craftsmanship of the platinum bezel setting, I would estimate fifty thousand, and the platinum chain thirty thousand. Perhaps it’s worth more, but this flawed diamond ruins its value. You work in the jewelry business, and you understand something without me needing to point it out—a designer’s work is often priceless.”

Huo Sining’s brows and eyes drooped slightly as she flicked the diamond in her hand, and she said indifferently,

”However, I feel that this so-called Italian master you speak of, a high-level product designer willing to design for a flawed diamond, no matter how skilled he is, his character is worthless.”

”Consumers come to buy these luxury items because they trust your store’s reputation. I think, even estimating his craftsmanship at fifty thousand might be high. If this blue diamond were intact, it would be worth far more than five hundred thousand, but now that it’s flawed, I wouldn’t want it even for fifty thousand!”

The manager’s face turned pale, understanding full well what Huo Sining meant.

If the company’s chief designer had a questionable character, how credible could the diamond jewelry he designed be?

Clearly, this was something to be doubted.