These three paintings were all personally painted by Ye Qiu, and only Liu Lingxiu knew that; of course, when it came to Ye Qiu’s talent with oil painting, Liu Lingxiu knew even better.

What Young Master Zhou and the others didn’t expect was that Ye Qiu would be so generous; the combined value of those three ink paintings was definitely around twenty or thirty million.

However, the most valuable one had actually been stolen.

"Bought it at a street stall? Doctor Ye, don’t tell me you got it from Panjiayuan." Young Master Li asked in disbelief.

Panjiayuan was a famous antique market in the Capital City, a must-visit place for tourists, but among the antiques there, ninety‑nine out of ten were fakes; that pretty much meant the so‑called antiques there were almost all counterfeit.

If you really wanted to find something genuine there, it wasn’t impossible, just extremely difficult, basically like panning for gold in a river.

"No, I bought it at a night stall."

There were stalls like that all over the Capital City—on pedestrian overpasses, under the overpasses, even outside park entrances.

All kinds of "antiques" could be found.

Hearing Ye Qiu say that, Young Master Zhou and the others felt it had to be true; only Liu Lingxiu knew the real situation, and the three girls—Cao Ling and the others—were a bit puzzled as to when Ye Qiu had gone to a stall to buy them.

After finishing afternoon tea here, Ye Qiu planned to hang around the Capital City a bit longer, because that thing that had called him a dog bastard hadn’t died yet, so there was no need for him to rush back to Jinling.

"Young Master Cao, where else is fun in the Capital City? I want to look around."

"Fun places? I’d say Shidu."

The Capital City was an ancient capital as well as the national capital, so most tourist spots were centered on ancient architecture—like the Imperial Palace Museum and the Great Wall. Ye Qiu had already been to those, so that really only left Shidu.

As for Fragrant Hills Park, it was actually pretty nice too, but the maples there only turned red in autumn; right now it was still summer, and the maple leaves hadn’t started to redden yet. Going now, there wasn’t much to see.

As for the Shidu that Cao Long mentioned, that place was warm in winter and cool in summer, originally a naturally formed scenic area; after some man‑made development, the environment there was actually quite good.

"Then let’s go to Shidu."

Ye Qiu planned to take Liu Lingxiu and the others over for a look.

Coming down from the teahouse and getting into the car, Cao Ling looked at Ye Qiu curiously and asked, "Ye Qiu, when did you go out to a stall to buy those three paintings?"

"Cao Ling, you’re not suspecting I lied to them, are you?"

"Not suspecting—assuming. I’ve been with you most of the time; I just don’t believe you had the chance to go out to a stall and buy them."

The "most of the time" that Cao Ling mentioned naturally included those late‑night hours.

Seeing Lin Xiang and the other two girls looking over, Cao Ling added, "I mean I’m with you in the daytime, and you couldn’t have gone out alone at night either, so that’s why I think you were fooling Young Master Zhou and the others."

On this point, Liu Lingxiu knew Cao Ling was right, because those paintings were simply done by Ye Qiu himself.

So now Liu Lingxiu actually found it a bit funny. Clearly he was such an amazing person—why did he have to pretend to be so low‑key in front of others?

Liu Lingxiu couldn’t quite figure it out, but she was growing more and more in love with Ye Qiu now, and that naturally included his talent.

However, from Cao Ling’s point of view, Ye Qiu had already saved her Third Great‑Grandfather’s life, and she hadn’t expected him to give three valuable oil paintings as birthday gifts on top of that. It made her feel that Ye Qiu was being a bit too good to the Cao Family.

"Ye Qiu, you could have just given my Third Great‑Grandfather some ordinary birthday present, that would have been fine. Now you gave such expensive gifts, and on top of that one painting got lost. I’m afraid the Cao Family won’t even know what to give you in return in the future."

As for the so‑called reciprocity of gifts, Cao Ling understood that very well.

"That’s naturally for your sake. If it were someone else, I couldn’t be bothered."

"Me?"

Hearing that it was because of her, Cao Ling’s face flushed with shyness and excitement. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Seeing the look in Ye Qiu’s eyes, Cao Ling didn’t dare say anything more.

Ye Qiu followed the navigation on his phone and drove straight in the direction of the Shidu Scenic Area.

Because they had to take the expressway, Cao Long and Young Master Zhou’s group definitely wouldn’t be able to keep up.

By the time Ye Qiu drove over there, more than two hours had passed; it was now almost twelve noon. When they arrived, they found the parking lot full of cars; the scenic area was really quite crowded.

After getting out of the car and having Cao Ling call Cao Long, the others arrived shortly afterward.

Since that was the case, they just waited here.

The Shidu Scenic Area was located in the Southwest of Fangshan District and was the only large‑scale karst landform in northern Huaxia.

The Shidu Scenic Area was a river valley formed by the Juma River, a tributary of the Daqing River, cutting through the northern end of the Taihang Mountains, with a total length of about 20 kilometers. Historically, there had been ten ferry crossings over the Juma River along the valley, and hence the name "Shidu"—Ten Crossings.

Now that a highway had been built into the valley, those ten ferry crossings had long since been turned into low‑water bridges, with no real ferries anymore, but the name Shidu had been retained to this day.

Ye Qiu and Cao Ling’s group waited at the entrance for about fifteen minutes before finally seeing Cao Long and Young Master Zhou’s cars pull up.

They had certainly been to this spot before, but not very often. Generally speaking, they spent their time at various clubs in the Capital City.

Now that they were here, they realized this place was actually quite comfortable.

If they were outside in the city right now, the temperature would be close to forty degrees Celsius, but here it was only around twenty degrees; it could really be called cool and refreshing.

It was probably thanks to the terrain here, the abundance of trees and water, and the absence of an urban heat‑island effect.

After Cao Long went over and bought a set of tickets, they were able to go in.

Once inside, Ye Qiu felt the place really did have a bit of that southern "green hills and clear waters" vibe. For a northern climate to have scenery like this, it was indeed particularly precious.

"Let’s go rent a boat and drive it ourselves."

The so‑called Shidu referred to ten river bends, all related to water, so of course the most pleasant way was to ride a boat and enjoy the scenery on both sides.

And this stretch was nearly twenty kilometers long; rowing a boat would certainly take a long time, but they could drift downstream with the current.

After Cao Long and the others went to look for boats, Ye Qiu planned to rent one just for himself and the four beauties.

When Cao Long came back with two wooden boats, the price—whatever it was—was definitely not cheap.

As Ye Qiu and the four girls, including Cao Ling, stepped onto one of the wooden boats, Cao Long and the others got onto the other.

As soon as Ye Qiu dipped his hand in the water, he felt a bit of icy chill; it had to be spring water flowing down from the mountains.

"Sit tight, all of you."

All the other tourists were required to wear life jackets; naturally, the scenic area was afraid that visitors might fall into the water while boating and drown, and they wouldn’t be able to afford the compensation.

However, Ye Qiu and Cao Ling’s group weren’t wearing life jackets now, because those things were really uncomfortable to wear.