Having thought of this, everyone instantly went into a commotion. “I want the gorilla, Running Dog. State your price, I will buy it at any cost! I don’t need to give any consideration for any price below a million yuan, just state your price!”
“I want the monkey, I prefer that one!”
“I want that grey wolf, that’s perfect for guarding the house at night!”
Even the five magnates were tempted. Wen Jianan rubbed his hands and carefully asked, “Running Dog, that… Is Dali selling these animals? I want to buy a tiger to keep my granddaughter company, she really likes animals…”
“I am very sorry, Sir.” Running Dog shook his head like a real human, said, “Young Master didn’t say the prices for these animals, so I am not sure how much they should be sold for.”
Since Hong Dali didn’t say the price, then without question, an auction was the best choice. Instantly, someone bid: “One million for the gorilla!”
Once he said this, almost instantly another person said, “Just one million for a gorilla that can lit cigarettes for visitors, are you dreaming? I bid for two million!”
“I bid for 2.5 million!”
“Three million!”
Hong Weiguo, Liu Yihui, and Mu Tie looked at one another. This little prodigal Hong Dali only spent four or five million to make this World of Pets, but now people were already willing to pay three million just for one gorilla!?
And this was just the gorilla. Once the auction for the king of the beasts, the tigers, started, wouldn’t the price be…
As Hong Weiguo and the other two were wondering how much these animals would be worth in total, very quickly, they heard a shocking price.
“10 million for the gorilla.”
10 million! Someone actually bid 10 million for a high intelligence gorilla that Hong Dali groomed!
Instantly, everyone looked at the location where the voice came from. That was a middle-aged man about 40-plus-years-old, ordinary-looking and looked very gentlemanly. He wore a deep grey suit and glasses, and he looked nervously at Running Dog right now.
He was seated in the outer circle members area, which meant his net worth was between two billion to ten billion.
Then, someone who recognized him said, “Isn’t this Phaeton Industrial’s director Zhang Tianming? Why did he bid such a high price?”
A gorilla was indeed a very good pet—just its looks and its human-like smoking behavior would ensure that bringing it out would be extremely cool and attention-grabbing. However, that wasn’t worth such a high price. After all, even to this group of people, 10 million definitely wasn’t a small sum.
This middle-aged man looked at Running Dog and, in a nervous voice, asked, “Running Dog… Sir, may I ask if I bid 10 million, can you sell me this gorilla?”
The others could tell from his expression that he really wanted to buy this gorilla. Also, 10 million was indeed already a very high price, so naturally no one fought with him.
The people here could guess that there must be a reason for him to bid such a high price, but the problem was that Running Dog was a robot, he didn’t really understand things such as emotions. He only politely said, “I am very sorry, Sir. As for price, I am not too sure. I need to ask the Young Master.”
“Ah, OK, OK! Mr. Running Dog, please ask Dali now, I really want the gorilla.” Zhang Tianming nervously said, “I really need it. Really, really need it!”
“OK, Sir, please hold on a moment.” Running Dog said so and contacted Hong Dali. Hong Dali was quite smart in sending Running Dog here—Running Dog was connected to the other Running Dog number 2 to number N on the aircraft carrier via the Internet, so Running Dog could directly speak to Hong Dali if needed.
As expected, just about 10 seconds later, Hong Dali’s voice came from Running Dog’s stereo sound system: “Ah, who wants to buy my house’s gorilla?”
“Is this Dali?” Zhang Tianming was very nervous. “My name is Zhang Tianming, I can pay 10 million for the gorilla that knows how to smoke. Please sell it to me!”
“Huh? 10 million? Such a high price?” Hong Dali felt surprised and asked, “Uncle Zhang, you really want that gorilla? I did indeed spent some effort in grooming it last time, but I wasn’t going to sell it. I am keeping it to play with me.”
“Young Master Dali, it’s like this.” Hearing that Hong Dali wasn’t planning to sell it, Zhang Tianming panicked and said, “I know that 10 million is nothing to you, but this gorilla, please sell it to me no matter what. Because, my house’s Xiao Nan, she got very serious depression. I… I want to buy the gorilla to cheer her up…”
So that’s the case.
Now, everyone finally understood why Zhang Tianming was so anxious to buy the gorilla.
Thinking about it, it was indeed true. This gorilla that Hong Dali groomed was already very interesting just looking at it, any casual action it made could cause people to laugh. If he asked it to accompany his depressed child, they believed it would really be effective.
To be honest, for these people who all had net worths of at least two billion and above, they definitely wouldn’t move an eyebrow even at using 10 million to treat their child’s illness.
“I see.” Hong Dali thought for a while, then said, “Then, I shall give the gorilla to you, Uncle Zhang. Remember to treat it nicely, it’s very picky with its food, it needs to drink milk every day and eat bananas. Also, apples, peaches, and such needs to be washed cleanly, cut into pieces, and stuck with toothpicks…”
Everyone listened in bewilderment.
Oh my, was this buying a pet or buying an ancestor? Apples and peaches weren’t expensive, but the crucial thing was that they still had to wash and cut it and even had to stick them with toothpicks?
Then, what Hong Dali said next caused everyone to collapse…
Hong Dali continued, “Oh right, I forgot to say. Actually, it’s fine even if you don’t have all these. You can just give it money and it will go and buy the stuff itself. When it buys the items back itself, it will normally settle the stuff itself, too…”
What the heck! A gorilla that knew how to buy fruits by itself, and after that could still wash, cut, and stick them with toothpicks…
This was definitely a godly weapon in treating depression! They reckoned that when the child saw the gorilla washing fruits, the child’s expression would definitely be very interesting…
Everyone in the International Convention Center was shocked. “How… how is this possible? A gorilla that can buy fruits by itself and knows to wash them before eating? This is cheating!” Some people even directly shouted, “Young Master Dali, are you really not lying to us? Is a person acting this gorilla, which gorilla would have such a high intelligence quotient!”
“Exactly, we request to take another detailed look at it!”
“For other issues, you guys can ask Running Dog, it can make the decisions. I am busy right now, if there’s nothing important don’t call me anymore. Even if you called, I will not pick up!” Saying so, he hung up on the call.
They were the richest people in the country, there really wasn’t a lot of people that dared to hang up on them like this. But this Hong Dali hung up directly without any hesitation.
“This little rascal.” Hong Weiguo looked at Liu Yihui and Mu Tie. “He still does things as he wishes, hehe.”
“But his heart is indeed very kind.” Liu Yihui nodded. “Such a good gorilla, I also wish to have one…”
Although Hong Dali didn’t ask for money for this amazing gorilla, and the others also wished to learn from Zhang Tianming and come up with some sad story, they weren’t thick-faced enough to put it to action. Therefore, their only choice was fighting over the other animals with money…
“Three million for the monkey!”
“Four million!”
“Five million!”
Then, Running Dog’s next words caused everyone to feel dispirited.
Running Dog said, “Very sorry, ladies and gentlemen. Young Master said just now that he doesn’t intend to sell these animals…”
This caused everyone to feel vexed.
Zhang Tianming had already gotten a very impressive gorilla, but the rest of them didn’t. The problem now wasn’t that they had no money. To be honest, it wasn’t a problem for these people to spend 10 million or so to buy the animals. The problem was that Hong Dali wasn’t willing to sell them…
Did Hong Dali lack money? He didn’t seem to lack money, that was what caused them a headache—Wen Jianan was still thinking about getting that two tigers. If he brought such an obedient king of the beasts out with him, how impressive would that be? Especially for the current few years, he often did business with foreign investors, if he had a tiger lying at his feet when meeting them…
Therefore, even Liu Yihui and Mu Tie coveted such an animal as well. Liu Yihui softly said, “Weiguo, can you try…”
“Dali doesn’t want to sell them, there’s nothing I can do. This child doesn’t lack money now, even I am not sure how much estates does he actually has now. But 10 million or so is definitely nothing to him.” Hong Weiguo said.
But luckily, quite a lot of people here were still quite clever.
Shouting out the prices for the animals one by one indeed didn’t appear much, but if they bid for all of the animals, the sum would become quite spectacular. Then, if they put in some good words as well, they reckoned Hong Dali would more or less give them some face and sell them the animals.
Thus, someone loudly shouted, “Director Hong, Running Dog, can we do this? Let’s bid the prices for the animals first, even if Young Master Dali doesn’t plan on selling them now, we can pay a deposit first after we are finished with the auction. Then, when he wishes to sell them, we will go and collect them. How about that?”
“This…” Hong Weiguo looked at everyone’s eager eyes, touched his chin, thought for a while, and finally nodded. “Alright, then let’s do the auctioning first. There’s no rush, anyway. If Dali wants to sell them next time, you guys can just come and collect them.” Selling the animals or not was one thing, but the crucial thing was that there were so many members of the Chamber of Commerce here, he couldn’t offend all of them together, right?
Therefore, the entire International Convention Center became an auction venue.
Hong Dali’s World of Pets had a total of 78 species of animals, most of them being dogs and cats, about 200 each. Other types of animals numbered slightly less, and the mammals with high intelligence only had about 100 plus added up. Therefore, the temporary auction was hosted by Running Dog and started to auction the animals one by one…
Now that the Young Master’s father Hong Weiguo had nodded his head, Running Dog naturally had to agree, too.
“Alright, ladies and gentlemen. Since the Old Master has agreed, now it’s the time to witness the time for squandering!”
