Chapter 412: 412 Mechanical Watch_1
Lewis Leocadia was gasping with fury, and had Julius Reed and the others not been right beside him, he likely would have gone up and given Julius Reed a severe beating!
Even though his watch was a high-quality imitation, it still cost him several thousand!
Unless it was someone quite professional who opened and disassembled the watch, you simply couldn’t tell it was a high imitation A-good.
But now, thanks to this loser, who threw it into the water, it’s probably finished.
“Julius Reed, what are you doing!”
Knox Ridge slammed the table and, with hands on hips, yelled, “Let me tell you, you ruined someone’s watch today and I’m not paying for it! However much the watch is, you get out there and earn it yourself, and don’t even think about using a penny from our family or from Quella Radcliffe!”
Originally, when Julius Reed threw the ring into the water, she had felt quite satisfied, even deciding to yell at him less today.
But now, he’d gone and brought trouble on them!
Seventy to eighty thousand, no small sum!
Now, with Quella Radcliffe’s company facing bankruptcy, and neither she nor Burl Radcliffe having any source of income…
In the past, they managed to take ten or twenty thousand out of the company every month, but with the company closed, the old couple had to start dipping into their savings.
If Bryson Ridge asked them to compensate seventy to eighty thousand, it would cost Knox Ridge her life.
So, she immediately distanced herself.
Resolved to make a clear distinction between herself and Julius Reed.
However, at this moment, the person himself, as if he hadn’t heard any of these words, remained focused intently on the watch in the cup.
“Don’t play dumb there! Did you hear what I said? You break it, you pay for it, we’re not covering for you!”
Knox Ridge was shaking all over with fury to see Julius Reed show no reaction at all!
“Look, the watch seems to have stopped.”
Julius Reed pointed to the watch in the cup which had indeed stopped moving.
“Damn, you useless sack of s***, you ruined my watch!”
Lewis Leocadia glanced at the watch and realized it truly had stopped.
Water must have gotten inside, the interior mechanisms damaged, and even for a repair, it was going to cost a pretty penny.
With Lewis Leocadia shouting like this, everybody crowded around to look, and the color drained from Knox Ridge’s face.
They were really in trouble now!
“Julius Reed, you good-for-nothing, you’re only capable of screwing things up! We should never have asked you to come today, now you—you say… say what we should do!”
Knox Ridge raised her hand to strike Julius Reed but was held back by Quella Radcliffe.
“Mom! There must be a reason why Reed did this, can’t you just wait a moment!”
“I… I’m so angry I could die!”
Knox Ridge turned her face away, that was seventy to eighty thousand, after all!
“You pauper, I want to see how you’ll compensate! Don’t think that just because you’re my nephew, I won’t hold you accountable. You have to pay me the full amount, not a penny less!”
Lewis Leocadia took out his phone to call the police, but was stopped by Bryson Ridge.
“What are you squabbling with this loser for? Just wait for him to pay up. We’re all relatives here, it would look bad if word got out.”
Bryson Ridge cast a glance at Julius Reed and sneered, “Tell us, what are you going to do? Considering you’re my sister’s son-in-law, I won’t call the police just yet.”
Just a moment ago, she found it hard to save face over the ring incident, and now this good-for-nothing had gone and thrown the watch in as well.
Now was the perfect chance to ridicule him and let off some steam.
“I’ll compensate!”
Julius Reed fished the watch out of the water, shook it, and found it completely dead.
“Compensate? With what are you going to compensate? With that old second-hand electric scooter of yours? How much do you even make in a month delivering takeout? Don’t talk big!”
Bryson Ridge taunted him with a sneer, not believing for a second that Julius Reed could afford it.
A loser son-in-law who came begging at the door, where was he going to get seventy to eighty thousand?
“Exactly! Looking at this broke-ass appearance of yours, you must be insane! It’s such bad luck!”
Though Lewis Leocadia seemed angry on the surface, inside his heart was bursting with joy.
This imitation watch had cost just over two thousand, but now it purportedly needed seventy to eighty thousand.
“`
If Julius Reed simply compensated for it, he would be netting seventy to eighty thousand!
It’s about making a killing!
But on the surface, he still had to pretend to be angry to avoid suspicion.
However, thinking about such a country bumpkin, how could they possibly recognize the real from the fake?
“Honey, look up this watch model for me, help me see if it’s waterproof.”
Julius Reed flipped the watch over, pointing to a string of numbers on the back of the dial.
“Sure!”
Quella Radcliffe took out her phone, searched briefly, and soon found the information online.
“It’s water-resistant up to 200 meters. It’s a new mechanical model from this year. How could it possibly get water damage? It stopped working just from being in a cup?”
In the era of the Internet, a lot of information can just be searched online, becoming clear at a glance.
“Really, let me see!”
Knox Ridge snatched the phone and scrutinized the information displayed.
She might be overbearing, but she wasn’t stupid at all.
How could a watch worth seventy to eighty thousand not be waterproof?
The watch’s promotional advertising on the webpage showed it being thrown into a swimming pool, claiming sports-level water resistance.
“This couldn’t be a fake, could it?”
After reading the information, Knox Ridge eyed Lewis Leocadia with a peculiar look.
Having gone through the fake ring incident earlier, she had reason to maintain her skepticism.
“Who said that! Anything can happen, not a single product can guarantee one hundred percent quality. Maybe this one just happened to, at the moment of…”
Click!
Before Lewis Leocadia could finish speaking, Julius Reed directly crushed the watch!
The steel bezel cracked open on the press!
Then, under everyone’s gaze, Julius Reed pulled out a quartz movement from inside the watch…
The battery on top was still wet…
“Mechanical watch… shouldn’t it have a bunch of gears?”
Knox Ridge, though certainly a shrew, was nonetheless a member of the Radcliffe Clan, and the Ridge Family wasn’t poor; naturally, she had some knowledge.
Besides, even mechanical watches can be cheap; the one Burl Radcliffe wore was mechanical.
“This…”
Lewis Leocadia felt a burning embarrassment on his face, and internally he cursed the dealer who sold him the watch mercilessly!
A rotten quartz piece, and he paid more than two thousand for it!
Not being waterproof was bad enough, but at least it should have been mechanical!
“Lewis, I told you not to trust your friend, insisting it was from the boutique, and sold it to you for seventy to eighty thousand. You got screwed over, didn’t you?”
Bryson Ridge blinked her eyes and kicked Lewis Leocadia.
“Ouch!”
Lewis Leocadia immediately reacted; he smacked his forehead forcefully and said annoyed, “More than ten years of friendship, and I’m too busy with business to go to the boutique myself, so I asked him to buy it for me. That bastard actually scammed me out of seventy to eighty thousand!”
After speaking, he quickly grabbed Julius Reed’s hand. “Thank you! If it weren’t for you today, who knows how long I would have been deceived!”
Although he was cursing Julius Reed in his heart, he still had to say this thank you out loud.
“Don’t mention it; we’re all friends here, right!”
Julius Reed whispered, “So… does that mean I don’t have to compensate?”
“No need! No need at all!”
Lewis Leocadia hurriedly waved his hands. “I should be thanking you! I really didn’t see it coming; you, this spineless… son-in-law, have such an eye for things! You’re even better than a rich guy like me. It really is the poor who understand life!”
He couldn’t resist sneering at Julius Reed even now.
“Good evening, everyone. I’m the service staff of the hotel. Following our boss’s instructions, I’ve brought you a bottle of red wine.”
Just then, a waiter pushed open the door of the private room and walked in with a smile.