Auction – Part 1

Chapter 83 – Auction – Part 1

The auction continued for the entire morning. All items in the morning were all paintings from famous painters, gorgeous pottery, golden and silver wares, sculptures and antiques from the warring state era.

Although the items were useless in daily lives, the total amount of the gold they received from the participants reached 400,000 taels of gold, which was higher than the initial estimation of 300,000.

Because people in this era did not understand the concept of banking or saving for the retirement, they turned all of their extra money into valuable objects as their collections and bragging right assets. Therefore, these items served as their status indicator as they could flaunt the rare arts with their peers to show their superiority.

At noon, the auction was paused for an hour, so the participants could have a lunch break. They would continue again at 1 PM.

Tong arrived at the auction house at noon. He came to prepare for the latter part of his advertisement plan and another business dealing.

…

Afternoon, the auction resumed. However, Hua Shi stepped down from the limelight and let Tong on the stage instead. She was too tired from the constant speech and from keeping tracks of the biddings, so she wanted to rest.

Tong walked up the stage with all eyes fixated on him. As the only son of the City Governor and the heroic commander in the battle of Anping, he was also a celebrity in this city.

"My apologies for taking away your eye candy. Well, I have to replace her before someone here starts bidding for her again."

The crowd burst into laughter and glanced at the youth who had bid on Hua Shi in the morning. The youth glared at Tong in anger and embarrassment, but he could do nothing to retort or fight back. Afterward, he looked around to search for Hua Shi. The eyes of his still glittered with desire and lust.

By standing on the stage, Tong could see everybody's reaction and faces. As a result, he noticed the youth's behavior. Tong glanced at the boy with hostile intent.

'You knew that Sunday is my woman and you still have the guts to ogle her? I commend for your bravery, but you have to face a consequence! … ZA W*RUDO!'

[Time Stop has been activated.]

[For activating this skill with the secret chant, you have ... ]

[Error! Irregularity has been detected! Your soul has been infected with ...]

[Error! The skill level is not ... ]

[Error! The secret condition is not met. The skill requires ...]

*WINK*

*SCREECH*

A ringing sound alarmed inside Tong's mind, which gave him sharp pain within his brain. He felt like his body suddenly was about to split into two or something was about to eject from his body, and his eyes were burning as if they were being fried.

He had not felt this sensation for a long time since the day that the merchants rioted. After Hua Shi moved into his room, the pain in his head disappeared.

Because of the pain, Tong snapped back to his sense. Then he realized that he got angered by a random youth. However, he did not pay attention to the system messages. As a result, he did not pay attention to the vital information messages about his [Time Stop] skill.

'This is odd. Why did I just activate my skill for a trivial matter like this? This is not like me at all!'

Tong was baffled by his own action. Just before he came here, he was in a merry mood. He did not understand why he suddenly had that crazy thought and activated his time stop skill, and he chanted those chuunibyou words to boot.

'Was I jealous? No, that's impossible. I've seen many people that came to pursue her, but I felt nothing. Err … Maybe not. I probably felt annoyed a bit. But how did I lose my temper for such a thing?'

Tong tilted his head in confusion. He did not do anything to the boy while the time stop clock was ticking. He allowed it to run out and resumed the time flow. Tong pretended that nothing happened and resumed his duty as a host.

"Unlike the morning when we auctioned for the treasures, in this afternoon, we will begin auctioning several of our city unique products, recipes, and even the concession contract by the city government itself!"

The crowd murmured in excitement. Some of them already heard about the afternoon auction from one of the five merchant representatives which had visited Tong before, so they came prepared. A few rookie traders had not readied for this, so they were frustrated as they saw an opportunity but they could not grasp it.

…

…

Meanwhile, Te Langpu, who did not care about Tong's advertisement, showed a deep frown on his face. His thought was on something else.

'I cast my [Heart Devil] skill on him but he isn't affected by it one bit. Such a strong mentality is too scary! I heard about his past deeds and I thought he was just a war-junkie simpleton. I underestimated him!'

*******************************

[Heart Devil] LV. 7 (1,858/6,400)

- Make a target reveal his inner self.

- The emotion of the target becomes vulnerable to external influences.

- Target will act according to his temperament and instinct for a period of time.

- The host can control the heart devil within the target for 7 minutes.

- Duration of the skill may fluctuate depending on the mental strength of both caster and the target.

Skill Cost: 5 Lifespans.

Skill Restriction:

- Can only be cast on the target within 100 meters range.

- Can only affect the target with weaker mental strength than the host.

*******************************

Te Langpu cast [Heart Devil] on Tong in secret. He hoped to force Tong onto revealing his true self to the public and ruined his reputation in the process. After that, Te Langpu could exploit this weakness of Tong in the future when he expanded his businesses in other cities.

However, Tong's reaction betrayed Te Langpu's expectation. From the look of his face and body movements, he did not seem to be affected by it at all.

'I can't use mental magic on him. Even though I still have my [Midas Touch], I don't think I should take the risk and fight him head-on. I should avoid the confrontation, settle my business elsewhere and live peacefully. War and conflicts are stupid anyway.'

Te Langpu made up his mind. He would not pick a fight with Tong in this city. After this auction was over, he would leave as soon as possible.

…

…

The auction continued. The first item to the tenth item was a batch of 1,000 soap, which was auctioned for 30,000 gold in average each. Ten groups of merchants won these soap as they did not take part in provision trade with Tong.

Two servants brought in a cart which carried five oak barrels on the stage. Meanwhile, the staffs started serving a cup of the mysterious cold brown liquor. It gave out an attractive aroma to the attendees.

"What's this?"

"This is … wine?"

"What kind of wine is this?"

"Could it be …?"

The merchants were amazed by the fragrance of the liquor. They had tasted countless wine, but they never caught a scent of this exquisite wine in the cup in front of them.

Tong clapped his hands twice to get the attention of the audience and spoke out.

"This wine is not actually wine, but I call it "whiskey". A special liquor that you wouldn't be able to find it anywhere but here in Julu City."

The crowd was listening to Tong. They could not understand what Tong tried to convey to them. A wine is a wine. Why did he call it a whiskey? And why Tong declared that it could not be found in other cities?

"Well, even if I describe it for a whole day, you wouldn't be able to understand what's the difference between wine and my whiskey. I have ordered my staffs to serve you a cup of "whiskey". Please try it, and you will be enlightened."

Te Langpu glared at Tong in shock. He knew about this whiskey. He also knew how hard it was to distill a barrel of these, yet Tong had brought it in front of him.

'What in the world!? He has a distillery here!? Did he buy it from the shop, or did he construct it himself!? Damn it, he is too far ahead. I can't fight him in the commerce field too?'

On the contrary to Te Langpu's frustrated look, the other merchants drank the content within the cup in front of them and cried out in admiration.

"Such aroma!"

"This … this is the smelling of oak!"

"It leaves the aftertaste!"

"I … I … I'm glad I've been born. *sniff*"

"Hey, don't cry!"

"You haven't drink it yet? Give me your cup and I'll stop crying!"

"What!? No way in hell I'll fall for your scam. I'm drinking it!"

"Unbelievable …"

"I'm glad this is called 'whiskey'. If this is called 'wine' then all wine I had drunk was nothing but trash!"

A commotion broke out in the crowd. They were captivated by the taste and the smell of the whiskey. Twenty of them stood up and asked the staffs if they could get more. The smarter merchants noticed the oak barrels on the stage and understood Tong's intention immediately.

Tong clapped his hands again to calm down the people below.

"I'm sure that everybody likes my whiskey. What we have served you were part of the content within this barrel. I have to warn you one thing. This whiskey is not easy to come by. I have consulted with the makers of these liquor. They can only make one barrel a year because of its complication brewing process! So once these barrels were sold out, there will not be another one any time soon."