“Here,” she says, softly, holding out the bag of coins to me.

I take it and count. Slowly. Carefully. Meticulously.

I finish and count again. Just to make sure she’s not cheating me.

She looks up at me, almost hesitantly. Her grey eyes seem to have a thousand words hidden under it, a thousand things she wants to say.

“Money can’t buy everything,” she finally speaks up, and then walks away.

A feeling of amusement settles in, and I smile at her retreating figure. She’ll pay for what she said later, but for now, there’s the next person in line with a bag full of money.

They think me greedy, avaricious, always on a search for wealth.

Even if I’m the ruler of this kingdom, I know what they say about me. But I don’t let myself believe that I can make everyone happy——in fact, I don’t try to make everyone happy. Whatever they think, I don’t really care at all.

Money can’t buy everything, they say. Like friendship or love.

Actually, it can. Friendship and love: those things are intangible, not really true. Just a feeling.

It can still buy them, though. As long as you don’t care that it’s not real.