Chapter 165 This bag... is fake.

Ling Yue was speechless and took a step back.

Shen Qingxue stood up, excitedly and carefully picking up a bag from the cabinet, "Oh my, oh my~~ Which little bag wants to come home with me?"

"This one is nice, I like this one too~"

She began to choose carefully, trying on every single bag.

"Huh?" When she touched one of the bags, she suddenly paused.

Ling Yue thought she had finally made a choice, "Do you like that one? Then take it."

"No." Shen Qingxue hesitated for a moment, then turned back and said, "This bag of yours..."

Ling Yue blinked, her expression seemingly asking, 'What's wrong with the bag?'

Shen Qingxue stroked the leather texture again, then finally opened the bag to check the inner lining, almost certain now, "This bag is fake."

"Fake?" Ling Yue was full of question marks.

Shen Qingxue took down both the real and fake bags to compare them, her tone serious: "I've bought Chanel bags before. No matter how much a fake bag resembles a real one, the texture of the leather is always different."

"Look at the real bag from this collection; when you touch it, you can clearly feel the smoothness of the leather, and the outer skin is soft and delicate."

"Look at this fake bag; the leather feels coarse to the touch, and the exterior is a bit stiff."

"Now let's look at the metal clasp of the real bag; it uses sand gold, giving it a vintage yet very natural feel."

"Whereas the fake bag's metal clasp is much brighter and yellower, which gives it a cheap look."

After saying this, she weighed it in her hand and added:

"A real bag feels heavy in the hand, while a fake bag feels light."

"Besides that, the fake bag is a very good imitation; at the very least, it's a high-quality replica."

"Without a careful comparison, you wouldn't be able to tell anything was wrong, and at a glance, you wouldn't notice any issues."

"Only by focusing on the details can you distinguish the real from the fake."

Ling Yue held both bags in her hands, looking left and right. With Shen Qingxue pointing it out, Ling Yue could see the difference at a glance this time.

"I bought it from the boutique and it has been kept here ever since," Ling Yue murmured. "At what point did something go wrong?"

"How long ago did you buy this bag?" Shen Qingxue asked.

Ling Yue recalled, "About... four months."

"That long!" Shen Qingxue frowned. "It's been four months since it left the boutique, so it's hard to say what happened in between. Think carefully—did you notice any issues when you used this bag before?"

Ling Yue gave a sheepish smile. "I bought it, but I haven't used it yet."

Shen Qingxue: "..."

Fine, wealthy people buy bags not to carry, but to look at and collect.

"However, all my expensive items are recorded by designated personnel, so perhaps I can find the answer in the inventory records." Ling Yue dialed Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha's number.

The call was answered quickly.

"Come to Yujing No. 1 immediately, and don't tell anyone else."

Upon receiving this instruction, Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha was quite puzzled, but hearing Ling Yue's second half, 'don't tell anyone else,' she guessed that something might have happened.

Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha dared not delay and immediately set off for the city center.

*

After the meal, Shen Qingxue took a taxi to the company first.

Ling Yue also had Wang Junqi return to Bamboo Forest Residence first.

Only she, Song Xinyao, and Zang Lanyi remained at Yujing No. 1.

Song Xinyao was just about to ask if they were staying at Yujing No. 1 for the night.

When she heard a knock at the door.

She opened it to check.

"Housekeeper Shi?" Song Xinyao quickly stepped aside to let Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha into the house.

Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha nodded at Song Xinyao as a greeting. "Xinyao, where is the Miss?"

"She's playing games in the living room," Song Xinyao replied casually.

Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha changed her shoes at the entryway and hurried to the living room.

Ling Yue was playing a single-player game with a controller; seeing Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha run over, she pressed pause.

"Miss, did you need me for something?" Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha asked, her breathing slightly rapid from rushing over.

Ling Yue didn't give her a chance to react, asking directly: "Just now in the walk-in closet, I discovered that one of the bags on the shelf had been replaced with a fake one."

Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha was so nervous she nearly choked on her own saliva. "A fake bag?! Miss, I..."

"Don't panic." Ling Yue raised a hand to interrupt her. She stood up and said, "I'm not suspecting you. I remember Housekeeper Cheng registered all my items. After you started, she transferred the access rights for that file to you."

"I called you here because I want you to confirm that file with me."

"Yes, yes!" Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha hurriedly took out her tablet from her bag to pull up the file.

Damn it!

She had clearly checked everything when she delivered clothes to Yujing No. 1 before and hadn't found any fakes, but... but the Miss had so many things; what if she had overlooked one or two items...

The more Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha thought about it, the more panicked she became. Inventory management was her responsibility. Being docked pay for a mistake was minor, but being sent back to the company would be a huge stain on her career!

Stay calm, don't panic.

Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha secretly took a deep breath.

She opened the file quickly.

Ling Yue took the tablet and walked toward the walk-in closet, with Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha and Song Xinyao following behind, both looking worried.

Ling Yue took the fake bag off the shelf and handed it to Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha, then found the data sheet for 'Chanel' in the tablet file.

Based on the bag's code, she looked up the corresponding record.

The record contained pictures of the bag; Ling Yue opened them to take a look, and the details matched the fake bag perfectly.

Could it be... that the boutique had intentionally sold her a fake bag?

Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha was also a frequent luxury goods customer; the moment she held the fake Chanel, she noticed something was wrong.

"Miss, this bag must have been switched by someone." Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha formed a judgment in her mind. "When Housekeeper Cheng handed over the work to me, I checked all your registered items."

"My memory tells me that when I last handled this bag, it didn't feel like this."

Ling Yue raised the tablet. "But the records here match the fake bag perfectly. Could someone have intentionally modified them?"

Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha looked up sharply and pointed at the tablet. "I am the database administrator; I can query the modification history via the backend. Apart from that, others only have read-write access and cannot see modification information!"

Ling Yue handed the tablet to Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha.

After a flurry of operations.

"Found it!" Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha handed the tablet to Ling Yue. "On May 28th, Zhao Fang modified it!"

During that time, Ling Yue happened to be in Guang Province.

Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha restored the modified content. The code, style, color, and size in the original picture were the same as the fake bag, but looking at the detail photos, they didn't match the fake bag at all!

Obviously.

Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha: "The real bag was swapped by Zhao Fang."

Ling Yue raised her hand, looking puzzled. "Wait, who is this Zhao Fang?"

"...She is your life assistant." Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha realized something and quickly explained, "She was originally your life assistant, but since your daily life was taken care of by Housekeeper Cheng and Qu Shu, her workload was reduced significantly. She approached me hoping to take on more work, so I assigned the inventory management task to her."

"She doesn't appear in front of you often, so you may have forgotten her."

Ling Yue remembered.

But she didn't really have much of an impression of her. She only remembered that once, early in the morning, she came into her room to squeeze toothpaste for her or something, and Ling Yue, feeling very uncomfortable, had sent her away.

Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha's face darkened. "Miss, I will call the police right now."

"She took the real bag and intentionally bought a fake one to confuse matters. Either she took the real bag for herself, or she sold it."

"If she kept it to carry, we'll definitely find the bag at her home. If she sold it, there will definitely be a transaction record."

"Then call the police," Ling Yue said without hesitation.

"I'm sorry, Miss, it was my error in judgment..."

Ling Yue raised a hand to interrupt her. "I've bought too many things recently, and it's very hard work for you to register them one by one. The lack of strict supervision wasn't intentional, so I won't pursue it for now. But I don't want there to be a next time, or rather, if something like this happens again, I hope you are the one to discover it first." Ling Yue handed the tablet back to Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha.

"I understand, thank you, Miss!" Housekeeper Shi Xiaosha bowed deeply, secretly relieved that she wasn't being held accountable.

She dared not delay and immediately contacted the police.