Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Li Du visited the warehouse first. He had a hunch that there would not be anything valuable in the office. Naturally, the worthy items in the office must have been cleared out before the owners declared bankruptcy.
Perhaps the warehouse of the studio has undergone a round of clean-up too. However, it has been used as a storage space for half a century. There would inevitably be some valuable items left.
In all those years, the studio had only moved once. Hence, most of the items in the warehouse were in good condition.
The warehouse lot was located not far from the insurance company building. The area encompassed less than 500 meters and the place was old. It looked neglected and one could tell that it must have been there for some time.
Li Du did a quick scan and found that there were many warehouses, at least one hundred of them.
Lu Guan said, “The warehouse that belongs to the studio is number 24. The rest of the warehouses belong to other companies.”
Perhaps due to the confusion surrounding the ownership of the warehouses, there was no wall barrier like in other warehouse companies. The place adopted an open-space concept, making it easy for Li Du to enter.
Looking at the warehouse map that Lu Guan had given him, Li Du managed to find the warehouse lot belonging to the studio. It included one small warehouse, four other mid-sized warehouses, and two big ones.
The little bug first entered the big warehouse. There were some desks, chairs and office furniture. The items were placed randomly, which gave Li Du some strong hopes.
In a bankruptcy auction, bumping into neat warehouses was a bad thing. That would be a sign that someone had already tidied up the place and it would be unlikely that anything worth taking was left behind.
However, a messy warehouse didn’t guarantee any valuable finds either. The two little bugs made their rounds inside, one of the left and one on the right. From time to time, they would cross paths.
In the end, after expending so much effort, Li Du found nothing.
“What a waste of time,” he shook his head.
However, he did not hold high hopes for this auction, to begin with. It was just that he felt bored on vacation and decided to find something to do.
The second big-sized warehouse was just as messy. The things inside were similar – chairs, tables, photography racks and other tools. One could tell that in half a century’s time, the office had eliminated quite a lot of tools.
The old furniture was all pretty valuable. In America, vintage furniture was gaining popularity. However, the furniture in the warehouse was not in perfect condition and did not come in sets. It would have to be fixed, lowering its overall value. Li Du did not want to spend so much effort to earn such a small amount of money.
As he did not make any discoveries in the big-sized warehouses, his expectations from the mid-sized warehouses dipped as well. The little bug entered for a look and Li Du was afraid he’s just wasting time and energy.
There were some cameras and other discarded tools. Unfortunately, they were all damaged beyond repair. There would be no way to fix them.
Seeing that the warehouse was filled with such rubbish, Li Du scowled. D*mn, is that a studio warehouse or a rubbish dump? How could the things there all be in such a bad condition?
Besides, none of those items had much time capability. That was strange because those cameras must have been used a lot in their time and were supposed to possess some time capability.
However, there was nothing interesting inside. The little bugs found nothing to attract them.
Li Du thought about it for a moment. Perhaps only art pieces could retain time capability. Things like cameras and old tables and chairs belonged to the category of tools. Hence, the little bugs were uninterested.
Li Du was not sure how precise this was. It was only his guess.
There were some valuable items in one of the mid-sized warehouses. However, Li Du deduced that he would not be able to make money from them. That was because the warehouse was uncovered. Everything in the warehouse was exposed and anyone could see it. While bidding, everyone would see exactly what they were set out to gain and the profit margin would not be high.
The little bug flew into the small-sized warehouse, which contained some serialized racks with boxes of various sizes.
Seeing that, Li Du was even more vexed. This warehouse was not messy like the mid-seized and big-sized warehouses. It was neatly organized. The bankrupt people from the studio must have already removed the more valuable items.
Through the little bugs, Li Du could take a look into the boxes. Those were film roll boxes and he had no expectations from them.
Indeed, when the little bug entered the boxes, they turned out to contain old film rolls.
There was some value in the warehouse but similar to previous ones, it would be hard to make a profit from it. There were some unused film rolls and tapes inside. Some of the more traditional photographers would be interested in them.
However, the boxes were in good condition. Everyone would be able to deduce their worth. As it was a fair bidding system, Li Du would not have a chance to get the warehouse cheaply.
He did have a way to land those films. All he needed to do was to let the little bug absorb the Time Capacity of the boxes so that they would look rotten.
However, he would be unethical to do that. In addition, it would expend a lot of effort. Most importantly, he would not be able to make much money from that anyway. Hence, Li Du did not bother to do that.
He entered another small-sized warehouse and it seemed like the little bugs were suddenly attracted by something. They flew towards the rack in a corner.
Li Du perked up. As the little bugs scanned the area, he saw a few boxes that looked unusual.
These boxes were carved from redwood, about the size of a Bible, with some patterns on the outside. They looked beautiful.
Those boxes were the source of attraction for the little bugs. Li Du was just wondering what could be inside them when the little bug flew in for a look and saw that it contained nothing but rolls of film.
However, there were also a couple of photographs in the boxes. Those were black-and-white vintage photos. Due to oxidation, they had turned yellowish.
The little bugs possessed very good vision and as he scanned the photographs, Li Du could see what was written on one of them. Treasure of Kochena Tribe and Alisina Chief.
Li Du froze. Did he lay his hands on a treasure again? It seemed almost too good to be true.
This time around, treasure hunting would not involve going to a place like the Arctic anymore. There was no harm in taking a look to see if he might be able to find anything.
There were few other items inside the box. There were films, old photographs, and half a paper clipping. Other than those, there was nothing else.
The newspaper clipping was an introduction to the Kochena tribe. They were an Indiana tribe who resided deep in the mountains. They had a tradition, that is, a particular way in which the chief of their tribe would be buried.
Whenever a chief passed on, he would be buried together with the jewels and weapons he had collected. To keep tomb-raiders away, every chief would start to look for a spot to construct their tomb after they took up the position.
The location of their burial ground was always well concealed. When they passed on, they would be buried by their most trusted family members and depart to the next world, bringing their jewels along.
That was similar to the way ancient Chinese emperors and aristocrats were buried in the old days. However, in the Kochena tribe, every chief had a different burial spot. They were all well-concealed and hard to discover. Hence, it was not easy to encounter tomb raiding.
That was the thing that the newspaper clipping was reporting on. Other than that, there was no other information.
Seeing that, Li Du lost his interest. He did not want to be a tomb-raider. That was immoral.
However, just as the little bug looked at the other side of the paper, Something else attracted Li Du’s attention– valuable information on the Kochena tribe!
