Daily Life in the Countryside After Being Reborn

Chapter 774: Chapter 104: Here Come the Troublemakers

Dozens of carats of pear-shaped transparent white diamonds, square red diamonds newly unearthed from South Africa, sold at Sotheby’s Auction House for tens of millions and handed over to Yabao Company to be processed into a 12-carat yellow fancy diamond ring, with international supermodel Giselle and celebrities from Hong Kong and Taiwan, Zhang Xiaoyu, making on-site appearances, offering shows featuring beautiful men and women every two hours, with attendees receiving a pair of silver studs just for showing up.

Various innovative promotional tactics ensured that this international multi-country jewelry exhibition was eagerly anticipated by the public even before it opened.

On the morning of March 24th, the outside of the National Convention and Exhibition Center was bustling with many people. The originally planned six thousand plus free tickets to be distributed over three days had to be sold due to high demand. VIP clients’ invitations, distributed earlier, had a separate security passage set up for international friends and exhibitors to enter.

A few local aunties who came straight from the market with their baskets waved a booklet in their hands, "This is deceiving people; they said we could visit the whole venue for free, but now we have to spend five yuan, and we can only attend something like the D3 and D4 pavilions. They say we can’t visit what’s its name, the Yabao something."

"It’s Cartier and Tiffany. When my daughter got married, we spent eighty thousand yuan and only bought a tiny ring, outrageously expensive. They only let people visit a few domestic pavilions," another trendy-looking auntie said, clenching a ticket in her hand.

Speaking of nothing else, just for that pair of silver studs, she had to buy a ticket to get in; exchanging five yuan for studs was still a good deal.

"Since we’ve already spent the money, we might as well go in and have a look. My mom’s turning eighty next month, I’ll find her a bracelet," a group of aunties went into the exhibition center together.

Such scenes were taking place in a somewhat orderly chaos in pavilions D3 and D4.

After walking through Pavilion D3, the aunties had not yet found where the studs were being distributed, "Hey, I’m going to be late for buying groceries, walked around for a bit, didn’t see anything good. It’s all old styles, and the prices are scarily high. Each booth looks so similar, kept thinking I walked through the same place twice."

"Exactly, no wonder my daughter said early in the morning, if you want to go, you should go to the International Pavilion. Not to mention other things, just to see those tall-nosed foreigners who speak fluent Chinese was quite interesting. They kept saying ’ni hao’ repeatedly, very amusing," a few local women joked, getting dizzy from the winding paths in the pavilion. If it weren’t for them still not having received those silver studs, they would have left already.

As they were speaking, a group of foreigners dressed in elegant black suits walked by, a party of five, four men and one woman. Each of them, male and female, had a delicate brooch on their chest featuring a smattering of tiny diamonds arranged in the letters VC and A.

They were coming from the direction of the International Pavilion. Towards that direction, several security guards were stationed; as they saw the party approaching, they respectfully saw the people through.

"Wow, looking at the grandeur, it must be some important people. Shall we go take a look? I heard that celebrity Zhang Xiaoyu will be performing on stage outside D3 and D4 shortly," the aunties thought, if they really didn’t get the silver studs, seeing a celebrity could make up for it.

According to the exhibition schedule, Giselle would be showcasing this year’s newest jewelry from Cartier in the area between pavilions D1 and D2, while Zhang Xiaoyu would be showing off Zhou Dafu’s gold jewelry in the D3 and D4 area. Looking at the time, it was almost ten o’clock, there was a planned performance, so it should be around this time.

Indeed, the rest area between D3 and D4 was gathering quite a crowd of visitors there to watch the spectacle, but the aforementioned group dressed in suits was not among the crowd.

This year’s international jewelry exhibition featured exhibitors from 17 countries bringing along various treasures such as jade, jadeite, pearls, diamonds, etc., but the most eye-catching of the year were the colored gemstones.

Not only did they showcase a rare collection of colored gemstones including a 12-carat yellow diamond ring valued at three million yuan, this exhibition also hosted a dedicated design competition for colored gemstones for the first time.

"Esteemed exhibitors and guests, welcome to this edition of the multi-country international jewelry exhibition. This year’s event features the highest number of exhibitors and the most diverse types of jewelry ever shown. It fully demonstrates the increasingly affluent Chinese people’s comprehensive understanding of jewelry consumption. We have set up different exhibition areas in four pavilions, ranging from traditional gold, platinum, diamonds to non-traditional jade, silverware, and more. In this exhibition, we also have the chief designer and production team of Yabao, France’s royal jewelry brand, and we have also invited the renowned Chinese silverware master, Li Quqi. Yabao Company’s booth is located at A2 in Pavilion D1, and Master Li Quqi’s booth is at C7 in Pavilion D4," the host explained, and successive guests started moving towards different directions.