A Warm Marriage After Rebirth

Chapter 156: Chapter 156: Making a Deal (Part 5)

"Are you sure it had nothing to do with you?" Marshal pressed instinctively. He couldn’t be blamed for his suspicion; the timing was simply too coincidental. They had just held a symposium there, and the very next day, details from it were plastered across newspapers and television. The reports were filled with words like "counterfeits," "high-quality forgeries," and "incompetent appraisers," pushing Serenity Antiques directly into the eye of the storm.

Sanford is a city with a thousand years of history, and it teemed with antique shops that had a zero-tolerance policy for fakes. Now, Serenity Antiques was facing a joint attack from the entire industry! Customers were showing up to demand re-appraisals, and the police were coming by to investigate. With the nation’s largest jade counterfeiting case having just concluded, the police were taking these customer reports extremely seriously. Serenity Antiques had been pushed to the brink of closure!

’Miles Galloway poured a fortune into that antique shop—an immense amount of manpower, resources, and money. How could he possibly be willing to just let Serenity shut down? This incident has cost him so much. He will absolutely not let this go, which is why I’m so damn worried!’

"If you want to be technical, I guess it’s not entirely unrelated to me. But I only made a passing comment, wondering how an antique store as large as Serenity, with so many appraisers, could still let a fake onto its shelves. There were so many people there; it’s possible someone overheard and decided to make something of it!"

Seraphina Sterling’s face was lit with a warm smile, a complete contrast to Marshal’s grave expression. She clearly wasn’t treating this as a serious matter.

At that moment, Marshal was certain she had masterminded the whole affair! ’Even if she wasn’t directly involved with the news reports, even if this was all the work of one of Miles Galloway’s business rivals, I’m positive that Seraphina Sterling is the one pulling the strings from the shadows!’

"You need to tread carefully. Don’t play this game too big, or you’ll get dragged down with it! Miles Galloway is not as simple as you think! Do you really believe he won’t see through your little plot? And another thing—anyone capable of being his rival is not someone to be trifled with! Are you so sure this person will be a pawn in your game, doing your work for you? You’re walking a tightrope here, and below you is a bottomless chasm. One misstep, and you’ll be shattered!"

Marshal persisted, unwilling to give up trying to reason with her. ’Seraphina Sterling’s nerve is unbelievable!’

"But I still have you, don’t I? And the Yorke Family?" Seraphina Sterling maintained her warm smile, but she subconsciously quickened her pace.

’Of course she knew she was walking a tightrope, but she had no other choice. Miles Galloway had already made a move against her. If she didn’t act now, she would just be waiting for him to crush her. Rather than sit and wait for doom, she had to strike first. The disparity in their strength was enormous, but if she handled this correctly, winning wasn’t entirely out of the question.’

’The path she had chosen was destined to be fraught with peril. If she couldn’t even deal with one Miles Galloway, how could she possibly have the strength to confront the immensely wealthy Hale Family?’

For the next while, Seraphina Sterling remained busy with winter camp activities. The Galloway Family, after sending a group of thugs to corner her, made no further moves. Michelle Galloway and Crystal Marshall both withdrew from the camp. Michelle even transferred to a new school. Quentin Marshall took an early retirement over the incident with Miles Galloway, and true to his word, Director Lowell saw to it that Sanford First High School got a new principal.

After a week of frantic damage control, Serenity Antiques was still forced to close down. The reason was simple: over those seven days, the shop was so swamped with customers demanding re-appraisals that it was impossible to conduct normal business.

While the reputation of Serenity Antiques plummeted, Apex Collections’ fame skyrocketed thanks to the symposium. With Serenity serving as a cautionary tale, the renown of Apex Collections grew even more. In fact, the scandal at Serenity boosted the fame of Apex Collections to twice what they had projected, far exceeding their expectations.

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