Besides, all Xiao Keyi knew about luxury goods was their looks and shapes; when it came to their inner qualities or other distinctive features, he knew nothing at all.
He racked his brains for ages and still couldn’t figure out whose design this was; he really had no clue.
Even though he often followed fashion weeks and all kinds of fashion magazines, there were just too many. He couldn’t possibly search through them one by one; by the time he found it, it’d probably be some distant year in the future.
"I don’t know who designed this at all, hurry up and tell me."
Xiao Keyi really couldn’t take it anymore; he was extremely agitated now.
Seeing his girlfriend like this, Xu Ke stopped playing coy.
"Okay, okay! Actually these few pieces are all works by the American master designer Max Jone. The two images on my phone are designs he created a few years ago, but for certain reasons he never made them public. And the pair of shoes in your hand should be an even earlier work of his. I don’t know what year it’s from, but I’m absolutely certain it’s his."
Hearing Xu Ke rattle everything off so clearly, Xiao Keyi suddenly felt like his brain wasn’t enough to process it all.
He couldn’t help feeling that Xu Ke seemed so familiar with this Qiao En, yet his rational mind told him there shouldn’t be any connection between the two.
As for this Max Jone, Xiao Keyi did at least know of him; after all, the master was just too famous internationally.
Royal families and nobles from many countries, along with all kinds of upper‑class figures, all wanted this master to design an outfit for them. But the master had a very eccentric temper—unless it was someone he recognized, or someone who had helped him in the past...
Other than that, he wouldn’t design clothes for anyone.
And for the past two years, for reasons unknown, this master had stopped creating new works.
Xiao Keyi had once paid special attention to Jone’s works; now that Xu Ke mentioned it, he immediately recalled the characteristics of this designer’s style.
In an instant, he linked the few items in front of him with what he’d seen before.
The more Xiao Keyi looked, the more he felt these pieces were incredibly similar. If nothing unexpected was going on, then these things really were from the hand of the same designer.
It never occurred to him that just randomly walking into a store, he would stumble upon works by a world‑renowned master designer.
Even though this was an early piece of his, out on the market it would be one of those "worth a fortune but impossible to find" items.
Only now did Xiao Keyi finally understand why Xu Ke had been so stubborn about buying it for him.
Looks like he’d already recognized whose work it was back then, and he’d already seen that the value of this pair of shoes went far beyond 800,000.
At the same time, Xiao Keyi was very curious about when Xu Ke had learned so much.
In his memory, Xu Ke had never seemed to pay any attention to this Max Jone.
As each second ticked by, the questions in Xiao Keyi’s heart only grew.
His anger had long since faded, replaced by a huge surge of curiosity.
What his boyfriend was showing him now was far, far beyond anything he’d expected.
Xiao Keyi really wanted to figure out what had happened to Xu Ke in the past—why did he seem so mysterious?
"Xu Ke, tell me why you know so much about this master. As far as I remember, after we got together you never cared about these things at all, and you never mentioned them to me."
Hearing Xiao Keyi ask this question, Xu Ke froze for a moment. To be honest, he didn’t even know where to start; all of it had happened a long time ago.
"Keyi, why are you suddenly asking about this? I told you, my eye for things is never wrong—the value of this pair of shoes is way more than that."
Xu Ke deliberately tried to change the subject; he didn’t want his girlfriend to keep digging.
Xiao Keyi saw right through that little ploy of Xu Ke’s in an instant.
"Like I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours. I’m not forcing you to do anything—I just want to know what happened to you before. I’m sure you must have had some connection with this master, otherwise you wouldn’t understand him this well."
From those few images just now, Xiao Keyi could already tell that the angles were very tricky; one look and you knew they were snapped live, on the spot.
And judging by the timestamps on Xu Ke’s phone, those photos had all been taken five years ago.
All signs pointed to the fact that his boyfriend must have gone through a lot.
Even though they’d been together for so long, Xiao Keyi was realizing he actually knew very little about Xu Ke.
Xu Ke hadn’t expected that just going out to stroll around the mall today would lead to all this.
In fact, he really didn’t want to talk about these things; they weren’t exactly pleasant memories.
But seeing how determined Xiao Keyi was, Xu Ke knew he couldn’t hide it anymore.
Anyway, he would have to tell Xiao Keyi sooner or later; the only reason he’d kept quiet was because he could never get past that hurdle in his own heart.
After all, that stretch of memory wasn’t particularly beautiful for him; he’d only gone abroad back then because he’d been forced to.
Now that it had come to this, Xu Ke decided he might as well lay everything out honestly.
The two of them were definitely going to be together for the long haul; if that was the case, then they had to be completely honest with each other.
"Keyi, I know you really want to understand my past, and I’m more than willing to tell you. But can you promise me that no matter what you hear, or what I say, you won’t get worked up?"
Seeing Xu Ke suddenly get so serious, Xiao Keyi’s expression turned solemn as well.
"I promise you, no matter what, I won’t get worked up."
Xiao Keyi had a feeling that whatever Xu Ke was about to tell him would be extremely complicated.
Some parts might even go beyond what he could imagine.
But even so, he still wanted to know. After all, being together meant getting to know each other and being honest with each other.
Once Xu Ke had steeled himself, he began to recount what had happened to him.
It was about seven years ago; Xu Ke was in another city at the time. Back then, for various reasons, he’d temporarily cut off contact with the Xu Family. And just his luck, he managed to offend the local gang Boss.
You have to understand, Xu Ke back then was nowhere near as capable as he was now; he hadn’t officially taken over the Xu Family yet.
To stay alive, and to make a living, he had no choice but to flee to the United States.
After arriving in the US, through a friend’s introduction, he joined a fashion design company.
As fate would have it, the owner of that company was none other than Jone.
Because Xu Ke did an outstanding job, he quickly won Jone’s appreciation.
Xu Ke soon rose from a bottom‑rung employee to a senior executive at the company.
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