Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Ever since I was little, I’ve loved acting rich when I didn’t have a penny to my name.

In elementary school, the birthday presents my parents gave me were cheap little Yiwu trinkets they bought from a street stall.

A classmate pointed at the shoddily made gift and asked, confused, what it was.

Without so much as blushing, I shrugged.

“Oh, this? My daddy brought it back for me from a handmade craft shop when he was on a business trip in England.”

“You know how it is. Handmade art is always a little rougher than something mass-produced by a machine.”

“After all, one has a soul, and the other doesn’t.”

In middle school, during parent-teacher conferences, my father was working out of province and my mother had remarried. My seat was completely empty.

A classmate held her stylish mother’s hand-the woman was wearing sky-high heels and had permed red curls-and asked me why my parents hadn’t come.

I put on an expression that was three parts melancholy, three parts obedient, and four parts nonchalant, then waved it off.

“Oh, them? They’ve been so busy lately, always flying here and there.”

“So I didn’t tell them about the parent-teacher conference. I figured I’d let them worry a little less.”

In high school, the whole class was required to attend extra tutoring. The fee was five thousand yuan.

I rubbed the few worn hundred-yuan bills in my hand, smiled, and walked up to my homeroom teacher.

“Teacher, I won’t be joining the tutoring sessions.”

“My family hired me several private tutors. They said one-on-one targeted tutoring would be better.”

“High school is so time-sensitive. Of course I have to choose the most efficient option.”

After I started university, I began running my own social media account.

I built myself an all-around Young Miss life.

When a friend got married young, I volunteered to be the driver to earn some extra cash.

I drove a rented BMW onto the overpass, and by pure coincidence, there was a Ferrari behind me.

I immediately edited the video, blurred out the license plates, posted it online, and added the caption:

[Grabbed my passport and headed straight for the airport. My fiancé is chasing me like crazy from behind.]

[Stupid man. Let’s see what’s faster-your car or mine.]

Once, I won a first-class ticket in a lucky draw. On the trip, I filmed eight hundred completely different vlogs.

I posted one every week with captions like:

[Grandpa: Once you’ve bought enough in Dubai, hurry back and get engaged. Keep running around and I’ll freeze your card.]

[Me: Mm-hmm, don’t worry, Grandpa. I’m already on the plane.]

While tutoring young masters and young ladies in a wealthy neighborhood, I saw a rich madam throw an almost brand-new mattress out by the roadside.

I immediately called my roommates from our shared apartment, and together we carried the mattress back home.

After applying filters and beauty effects, I casually made sure the mattress logo showed at the end and captioned it:

[Oh, I just picked this mattress at random. Didn’t expect it to be so comfortable.]

An expired black card fell out from under the mattress.

I searched the neighborhood for the rich madam for a week and found nothing.

So I blurred the key information, posted a photo, and captioned it:

[Scammed a black supplementary card off my dad for free. No idea if it works.]

[Let me test the waters for my dad first. Smiley emoji.]

Thanks to my god-tier Photoshop skills and my seemingly casual wealth flaunting, my account suddenly gained a huge number of followers.

A follower commented under one of my videos: “So the blogger is what people call a Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai Young Miss, right?”

I replied at the perfect time: “Haha, you’re seriously so funny. When I was studying in America, none of my Ivy League friends understood memes like this. I still prefer the feeling of being with you guys. Being alone in Beverly Hills is honestly so lonely. It’s so nice to be back in China. But I’m only staying at Harvard for a short while. I still have to go back to Beijing. Even though I have a Shanghai hukou, my parents did buy me a villa in their estate on the East Third Ring Road to live in…”

In a video where I secretly slipped in an ad, a fan asked me what shade my 9.9-yuan lipstick with free shipping was.

I pinned my reply: “Since so many people are asking, I’ll answer everyone here. This lip color comes from mixing two lipsticks: Chanel Velvet Series No. 39 and a certain limited-edition Guerlain series and shade. Also, here’s an essential tip for wearing red lipstick: you have to use lip liner! Heart!”

When you’re out in the world, your identity is whatever you give yourself.