“Antique? What antique?” I withdraw my hands embarrassedly from Frances Louis's neck, pretending
to know nothing.
But I feel very guilty in my heart.
“Jane Noyes, don’t challenge my patience.”
Frances Louis’s eyes darken and he looks at me with a cold face.
The air in the room is extremely tense.
I know, if I kept hiding the truth, Frances Louis would definitely be mad.
I clear my throat and look at him confidently, “I bought an antique, so what? You forced me to receive
your card to buy something I like. You can’t be regret now because I spent too much money, right? In
that case, I'll give you back your card.”
Then, I get up from Frances Louis and prepare to take the card out of my purse and return it to him.
But he forces me down to sit back on his laps, his arms holding my waist tightly.
The man’s breath sprays in my ear slightly.
“I heard that you broke my vase, so you went to the antique store trying to buy a new one, and then
you broke another vase. Finally, you bought a similar one, right?”
I gasp and look at Frances Louis in surprise, “How do you know?”
Betty betrayed me? It can’t be her. I didn't tell her about breaking the vase in the antique store.
Was I being watched by his subordinates?
“What a coincidence. That antique store you went just happens to be mine.”
It turns out that the so-called boss is just a store manager.
Damn it! I really can’t get out of the claw of Frances Louis!
“You know it and still make me to pay the money! That’s too much!”
I say angrily.
“Even brothers keep careful accounts. I gave you money to buy things you like, not to consume in my
stores.”
Frances Louis says lightly.
I already have a bad feeling.
“I have said that’s because I like antiques.”
“All right.” Frances Louis nods smilingly.
I am relieved that he is not so bad as I thought. But the next second, he sends me to hell again.
“Finally, you bought the vase to pay me back. I will get over your breaking the vase. The two vases are
3.2 million, plus the nine hundred thousand you owe me before, that's 4.1 million. You are a regular
customer, and I will not count the small change, then, it’s four million.”
Every word shows that he is a profiteer.
Suddenly, I want to strangle Frances Louis.
I bought that vase for avoiding to pay him one million dollars. Who knows why all of a sudden, I am in
debt for four million dollars? Does he, a rich person, know what four million means to a common wage
earner?
“Frances Louis, you want to force me to die, don’t you? You are not lack of money, why you haggle
over every once with me? Besides, the original price of your vase must not be so much money. You
wouldn’t run an antique shop if that sells at a loss!” I argue with Frances Louis in the hope that he
suddenly show some mercy and spare me, a poor woman.
Yet I seem to have underestimated the relentlessness of capitalism.
Frances Louis smiles lightly and says to me, “all businessmen are profiteers. I won’t do a losing
business. Considering your hard work on bed, I won’t charge you interest, are you not satisfied?”
I push the man away whom I am clinging to. I stand up and go back a little, glaring at him and saying,
“No! I am not satisfied! Do you know what four million is? I won't pay you off until I die!”
Just thinking about that huge amount of money makes me hopeless. I have dreamed of one day
earning nine hundred thousand to leave Frances Louis. But the debt is like a bottomless pit, which can
never be filled.
Today I broke his vase and tomorrow I don't know what I will break. Stay with him, there are a million
ways to vanish my hope in escaping.
What should I do?
The man doesn’t get mad. He stands up and approaches me step by step.
“You can pay me off. You can pay me ten thousand dollars every month, and you will pay twelve
thousand a year. Then you can pay me off with only thirty- three years.”
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