Bring Your A Game, Mr

Tom gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "Relax. We should believe in Miss Murray's skills."

Upon hearing this, Frostine pursed her lips and looked away impassively.

"I do believe in Frostine, of course, but today's really gonna be a contest among the best designers in

the field. See the woman dressed in fur who has just gone over there?" Tina jutted her chin toward the

person ahead of them on the left. "That's Fiona Shepherd, the winner of last year's jewelry design

competition. All her designs in the past year have been featured on Diamond Weekly's covers."

"Diamond Weekly, you say? That's just a third-rate magazine published by some self-proclaimed media

outlet to draw public attention. I can get you featured on their covers if you like," Tom joked.

Tina responded by giving him a dirty look.

The pair had a jolly time exchanging glances with one another, making Frostine seem all the more

lonely by comparison.

Back when the four of them were still at the entrance, Elise had noticed that Frostine looked low-

spirited like a zombie. She thought about it for a moment, but just as she was about to speak to

Frostine, the latter's eyes suddenly lit up, and she anxiously shifted her gaze in a particular direction as

if to search for something. "Are you alright?" Elise asked.

Frostine's brows furrowed. After a long time, she said hesitantly, "I-I think I just saw Clemence go over

there…"

"What? Clemence is here?!" Elise instinctively followed Frostine's gaze, only to see no sign of the

woman. Well, it's not like I've held out much hope for that, anyway. How could someone who had gone

missing for several years possibly show up all of a sudden? Still, the unexpected little episode made

her somewhat disappointed.

In fact, it was justifiable for Clemence to be present at such an occasion. On the surface, Clemence

was the wife of a physics professor and a meek and virtuous full-time housewife, but in reality, she was

a uniquely gifted jewelry designer with an extraordinary passion for jewelry design.

Frostine was soon discouraged. "I was mistaken. I only sensed that she was nearby, and I hadn't felt

like this for a long time. Perhaps I was just imagining things." With that, the light that had just kindled in

her eyes at last dimmed all at once.

Elise put her arm around Frostine's shoulders, gently patting the latter to comfort her.

Meanwhile, the emcee was urging the contestants to have their entries in the competition put on proper

display as soon as possible.

Although anyone who had produced a work of their own was, in principle, welcome to participate in the

competition for the sake of promoting diversity, in reality, there was a bias toward more well-known

designers, which was shown in the form of where their works were being put on display. The works of

renowned designers were displayed in visible locations, whereas little-known designers could only

draw lots to choose from the rest of the available locations. In reality, though, it made little difference

whether they had drawn lots or not, as no one would go to the secluded corners.

As Tina stood at their booth looking at the works of renowned designers in the distance, she had a

feeling that there was an insurmountable gap between them and these designers that they had no

hope of closing. "We sure got 'lucky' drawing this spot. As long as we manage to make a name for

ourselves, the location of the booth doesn't matter—is that the mindset I'm supposed to have right

now?"

"Alright, let's not give up all hope just yet. Why don't we go see if there's any strong competitors?"

suggested Elise.

Tom and Tina had no objection to it, but Frostine was uninterested. "I'll pass. Someone's got to keep

watch over the booth, anyway."

Elise didn't force her to join them either. "Suit yourself. You're the one who designed the products,

anyway, so no one understands them better than you do," she said, before leaving with Tom and Tina

right away.

The jewelry design competition's rules weren't complicated. Participants would exhibit their works

during the first half of the competition in order to get qualified to participate in the second half of the

competition. Finally, the best design would be selected by the judges. In other words, the exhibition in

the morning was an open audition, where each admission ticket counted as a vote; only ten entries that

received the highest votes by twelve noon would be able to enter the second half of the competition.

Apart from the professional designer judges, most of the votes ended up going directly to the more

well-known designers. By judging from the onlooking crowd surrounding each of the entries, one could

basically estimate the number of votes received by all entries in less than half an hour into the first half

of the competition. Essentially, the most popular entries were all the works of relatively well-known

designers, whereas the newcomers had few people around their display booths, resulting in a clear

boundary between the well-known designers and the rest.

The display booth featuring the work with the highest votes was surrounded by crowds of spectators.

Gasps of admiration broke out from the crowd one after another, making Elise's heart itch. "Come on,

let's go and see what kind of design it is!" She picked her feet up and headed in that direction.

"Hold on a minute, Miss Sinclair!" Tom stopped her. "That's Fiona's work. She's signed up with the

Saunders Family, so she's our rival now."

"So what if we're rivals?" Elise was amused. "Since they could plagiarize our works, why can't we learn

from them?"

Tom was struck dumb with astonishment. Wouldn't that be outright shameless?

It wasn't easy to get into the circle of jewelers. Some pompous money worshippers aside, most

jewelers had high principles and thus had nothing but disdain for copycats and knockoffs, which was

why Tom had never thought of giving the Saunderses a taste of their own medicine, even though

Saunders Corporation had previously driven Shaw's Jewelry Co. to the verge of bankruptcy by

despicable means. In his heart of hearts, he felt he couldn't sink to Saunders Corporation's level.