Chapter 4835 — The First Session Ends
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
The first four Lightning Profound Pills had all found their owners, leaving only the last. The one who spoke was still Box Three: "Twelve million!"
Clearly, Box Three was determined to have it. Though everyone could see that twelve million was her limit, to be honest, by this stage there were precious few heavyweight buyers left who could outbid her.
Box Four was utterly spent, while Box One and Box Two, with perfect understanding, said not a word. As for the other buyers, scraping together twelve million spirit jade at short notice was truly no easy matter.
Yet just as everyone thought the matter settled, someone in the floor area below suddenly rose to his feet and called out in a ringing voice: "Twenty-four million!"
The crowd went wild at once, every gaze snapping to this man. Even the top-ranked guest boxes had raised the price by a few million at most; this fellow, by contrast, had doubled it outright at the first call!
This time even Wei Zhao was astonished. He looked the man up and down from a distance. He had assumed that all the truly capable top figures were in the guest boxes—never had he imagined that such a hidden tycoon lurked here in the plaza.
"Who is that man?" Wei Zhao could not help asking curiously.
"The steward of the Central Chamber of Commerce's Morning Star branch—Zhao Donglai," Chai Laoshi introduced.
"The Central Chamber of Commerce? No wonder!" Wei Zhao understood at once. If one spoke of tycoons, the Central Chamber of Commerce was the true tycoon of tycoons, rolling in wealth. Bring up a few low-end technological trinkets from the mundane world and one could rake in vast piles of spirit jade—what in this world could be more profitable than that?
Twenty-four million spirit jade—this was an astronomical figure among astronomical figures. Everyone, high and low, could only fall silent. The last Lightning Profound Pill fell to Zhao Donglai beyond all doubt. This was truly the tycoon's way: spend as one pleases.
"Heh heh, twenty-four million spirit jade—old Zhao Donglai really has the guts!" Chai Laoshi's eyes shone, and then he added: "Still, it's only because this is the Morning Star Auction Gala. At any other auction, however much spirit jade he had on hand, I reckon he wouldn't dare bid openly before the crowd."
"Why not?" Wei Zhao asked.
"Anywhere else, showing off like that would be asking for trouble outright. But here everything is presided over by the Academy—no fear of offending anyone. And the top guest boxes are all Academy bigwigs; even for the sake of appearances, they couldn't single him out for trouble unless they had no shame at all," Chai Laoshi analyzed.
That was indeed the way of it. Everyone understood that wealth should not be flaunted, and making enemies over it would be an even poorer bargain. It was precisely for this reason that Zhao Donglai dared to bid—he had the Central Chamber of Commerce at his back and feared no petty schemer, so naturally he bid as he pleased.
And so the Morning Star Auction Gala's first session—the Chamber of Commerce auction—drew to a complete close! (To be continued.)