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By that point, Konnor's livestream chat had completely lost its mind.
"Who is that? She's absolutely stunning!"
"Konnor, you actually got the contact of a girl that pretty? You've really outdone yourself!"
"Hey, don't switch the camera away! I wasn't done looking!"
"You call that looking? I can't even say it with a straight face..."
"Brothers, I think I'm in trouble..."
"What's the point? Didn't you see her turn the camera to a guy?"
Konnor was frowning at his screen with clear dismay. He tried to keep his voice steady as he asked, "And who might this gentleman be?"
He was hoping for something along the lines of brother, cousin, or any other word that kept the door open. As long as there was a plausible family explanation, all was not lost.
Aresdra answered immediately.
"He's my boyfriend."
Konnor looked as though the ground had caved in beneath him. He let out a long, pained groan.
"How do you have a boyfriend? How is that even possible? You're way too young for this! I'm going to report you to your school!"
Aresdra tried not to laugh. She was not above a little mischief, so she decided to let Nova make things worse.
"Nova, stop watching TV. Come say hello to our new friend."
Nova turned his head with a mildly suffering expression. "Why are you pointing the camera at me? You're much better looking."
Then he got a proper look at Konnor's face on the screen and concluded that the man must be streaming through some kind of illness. Nobody who felt fine made that expression.
"Hello. Thank you for agreeing to help us with the jewelry."
To his credit, Konnor had genuine professional standards. Even while visibly suffering, he kept his tone polite with Nova and held himself together in front of his audience.
The chat, however, showed no such restraint.
"Konnor is going to crack a tooth if he keeps clenching his jaw like that."
"Can't blame him. I'd be doing the same."
"Does anyone know if that girl streams? What channel? Which room?"
"No idea. Konnor probably doesn't know either. Wait until Jacinth goes live tonight and ask her. That girl is a friend of Jacinth's!"
"I watch Jacinth's stream. That girl has shown up there before. She studies at the Performing Arts school in Harmony City!"
"Performing Arts? Makes sense. Once she enters the Contest circuit, I'll actually go out to support her in person!"
While the chat continued discussing Aresdra, Konnor had already moved on to the actual task.
Aresdra held up a jadeite bracelet first. The moment Konnor saw it, he practically yelped.
"Oh, that's the real thing, no question. Look at that color, that translucency. That piece had to cost at least a hundred thousand, wouldn't you say?"
Aresdra genuinely had no idea what it had cost, so she looked over at Nova with an expression that asked him to fill in the gap.
Nova had nothing useful to offer either. He had acquired everything from Taylor at no personal cost, and he could hardly say that out loud.
Aresdra moved on.
"If I wanted to sell this bracelet, what would be a fair price?"
Konnor made a show of thinking it over and offered a figure of one hundred and thirty thousand.
"That's the general market rate, though. If it's a piece you've actually worn yourself, I could go as high as a hundred and seventy or eighty thousand. For the right seller, I make it work."
Aresdra gave a small smile and slid the bracelet onto her wrist.
It was a touch too large for her. It settled loosely on her slender wrist, not quite fitting.
"So now it's worth a hundred and seventy thousand?"
Before Konnor could get a word in, the chat had already answered for him.
"I'll offer 180,000!"
"Quiet, everyone. 200,000. Don't even try."
"Beauty, 230,000. Can we be friends?"
"Friends? Come on. 250,000. Nobody touch this."
Nova watched the bidding war unfold in the chat with an expression caught somewhere between amazement and resignation. He already knew perfectly well how Aresdra looked to other people, but seeing it play out at this scale still surprised him a little.
Aresdra moved on to a ruby pendant. Konnor, never fully in control of himself, requested that she hold it against her leg so he could see the color clearly.
Aresdra was not interested in entertaining that. Instead, on a sudden impulse, she reached over and placed the pendant directly on Nova's thigh.
Nova immediately broke into a cold sweat.
What are you doing?
Before he could do anything about it, Aresdra pressed her elbow lightly against his chest, which was surprisingly effective at keeping him from moving.
Nova had not, in any of his expectations, anticipated being pinned down by his girlfriend's elbow.
On the screen, Konnor was already tilting his head at the image with a look of deep appreciation.
"This pendant... the contrast is really something. So pale, so..."
It was not entirely Konnor's fault. Nova's build ran lean, and Aresdra had once pointed out, in a tone that suggested she found it funny, that he could probably wear her clothes without anyone noticing. Nova had firmly declined to test that theory.
He was equally opposed to having a stranger appreciate his leg on a livestream.
He managed to pull free, grabbed the phone, and turned it toward himself. "If you want a closer look, this leg belongs to me."
The somewhat complicated expression that crossed Konnor's face was not the response Nova had expected.
"That's fine with me. Same difference."
The chat erupted.
"Honestly, the boyfriend is pretty easy on the eyes too."
"The person above me is truly desperate."
"Someone is in trouble now."
"You two should just let me join the household. Three is a perfectly reasonable arrangement."
The stream that followed was, from Nova's perspective, one of the more surreal experiences he had been part of. The viewers, apparently, loved every second of it.
After it ended, Konnor closed his stream and sent a message to both of them.
"My apologies to you both. That was all for the stream. I never meant any real offense. Please don't hold it against me."
There was not much to be done about it. The streaming world ran on entertainment, and the audience expected a certain kind of performance from their streamers. Without it, the gifts stopped coming.
But Konnor's message was not only an apology. He made it clear that he genuinely wanted to purchase the pieces Aresdra had shown him, and that he was prepared to pay twenty percent above market rate for any of them she was willing to part with.
Aresdra turned to Nova.
"Nova, what do you think? Should we sell?"
Nova had already worked out what Konnor was after. He had watched the chat bid against itself over Aresdra's bracelet. Konnor intended to act as a middleman, selling the pieces on to eager viewers at a margin that covered his premium and then some.