Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
There were six warehouses in the public warehouse auction. That was considered a
small number. Bullet Town was a small place, and when the gold mining industry
declined in the West, the town’s development also began to slow down.
The auction was a low-profile one, and there had been no advertising of it, save for
some notices on the internet. Hence, only a handful of treasure hunters had come to
attend the auction.
Conrad kept his eyes on Princeps when he went to register. He meant to force Princeps
to pair up with him.
According to the guidelines of the warehouse auction, the ownership of the warehouse
would go to the auction winner. The winner would need to have permission to
participate in the auction. Hence, they would have to register with the warehouse
company and get a number to participate.
Conrad was worried that Princeps would shake him off and keep the warehouse for
himself.
Princeps showed Conrad the registration form. Conrad Anthony’s name was printed on
it, so Conrad was qualified to participate in the auction.
The auction began. As there were only a handful of people attending, Conrad spotted
Hans easily.
The two of them caught each other’s eye. Hans looked extremely surprised and asked,
“Hey, young Mr. Anthony, what are you doing here?”
Conrad said with a shrug, “Having fun.”
Hans rubbed his hands and whipped out his phone to make a call.
Keeping his eyes on Hans, Princeps said with a hateful face, “He must be calling that
Chinese dude. I don’t know how much information they have. But we’d better be
prepared for anything, as they are richer.”
Conrad said calmly, “Relax, I have my father’s credit card. At Nogales, I handled
everything, and the card is still with me.”
Princeps said grudgingly, “But we are splitting 50-50, right?”
Conrad put his arm around Princeps and smiled warmly. “Of course, 50-50. We talked
about it and came to an agreement, right?”
Reassured, Princeps turned to leave. As Conrad stared after him, he revealed a
mocking smile. He took a number tag out of his pocket. That was the number tag he
had gotten when he registered himself.
The auction started, and the warehouse with the telescope was the first one. After it was
opened, Conrad recognized the warehouse from the pictures he had seen earlier. The
warehouse was full of boxes. Without a tip-off, there would be no way to guess what
was inside.
The auctioneer called out the bid, and Hans immediately raised his tag, calling out,
“Five hundred dollars.”
Princeps raised his tag as well and shouted, “One thousand dollars!”
“Ten thousand dollars!” Hans raised the bid.
A few treasure hunters were shocked. They were used to bidding in small auctions and
had never seen people fighting for a bid like that. To them, bidding $10,000 for a
warehouse was unheard of.
Princeps showed no weakness, however. “Twenty thousand dollars!”
“Thirty thousand!”
“Fifty thousand!”
“One hundred thousand!”
The bids rose rapidly, and the treasure hunters were stunned. They exchanged looks
with one another and did not know what to say.
The price continued to rise, up to $200,000.
Hearing that number, the treasure hunters found it hard to believe and began to wonder
whether they had heard right. Some of them even pinched themselves, asking, “We are
dreaming, right? This is a hallucination?”
Conrad looked at those people and despised them. He felt that these country bumpkins
from a small town were very pitiful and inexperienced.
The $200,000 price tag deterred Princeps. He turned to look at Conrad, asking, “Should
we continue to raise the bid?”
Conrad said, “Of course. We have already done our research. This telescope can easily
fetch $800,000!”
Hans was under pressure as well. He took out his phone and made another call. Then
he said, “Two hundred and fifty thousand!”
“Two hundred and sixty, ah, no, make it $250,000,” Princeps called out hesitantly.
Conrad gave him a push and took the number tag from Princeps, saying unhappily, “Let
me do it. Since when have you become such a scaredy-cat?”
Taking over Princeps’ number tag, he discreetly made a swipe in his chest pocket. He
then placed his own number tag in front of the one Princeps’ handed over, covering it
up.
Standing behind him, Princeps had no idea what Conrad had just done, and could not
see that he had changed the number tag.
The auctioneer did not read out the numbers on the tags. As there were just a few
people at the auction, he pointed at the bidder instead. Besides, he did not have a
chance to call out the numbers. Hans and Conrad were trying to outbid each other
without missing a beat.
“Three hundred thousand!”
“Three hundred and ten thousand!”
“Three hundred and fifty thousand!”
“Four hundred thousand!”
“Four hundred and fifty thousand!”
“Five hundred thousand!” Conrad howled.
The treasure hunters inhaled, watching Conrad with expressions that varied from
admiration to envy, jealousy, and hatred.
Hans made another call and slowly shook his head. Then he lowered his phone and
retreated.
Conrad smiled and waved. “Hey, Big Fox, thanks for letting me win this round. This
warehouse is mine now!”
Princeps mumbled, “You mean it’s ours!”
Conrad ignored him. Princeps had no use for him now.
The auctioneer was ecstatic. “Five hundred thousand, 500,000! This is an
unprecedented bid! Alright, there are no counter-bids now. Five hundred thousand
once, 500,000 twice, I am now going to announce it – alright, buddy, let us cheer for the
sale of the most expensive warehouse in the entire history of Bullet Town. It belongs to
you now, little guy!”
The remaining five warehouses did not catch Conrad’s eye, so he went to the town
government office to arrange for payment.
Princeps said carefully, “I have $180,000, Conrad, so you just have to fork out another
$320,000.”
Conrad was just about to answer when someone behind him shouted, “Big boss
Princeps, come over, hurry. There’s some problem with our truck!”
Princeps walked off hurriedly after telling Conrad, “You wait for me, wait until I’m back
before handing over the money…”
Once he left, Conrad immediately took out his ATM card and the number tag. The
accountant asked in surprise, “Five hundred thousand? Mister, are you sure this is the
right number?”
“Of course,” Conrad said impatiently. “Hurry, I have no time to waste.”
The accounted repeated, “I have to check with you once more. Did you win the
warehouse at a bid of $500,000? It’s $500,000!”
“That’s right, hurry!” Conrad was getting increasingly impatient. He was worried that
Princeps would return.
The accountant took out the payment terminal and swiped the ATM card. Conrad
entered the passcode, and the transaction was completed.
Very soon, his phone rang, and his father’s nervous voice rang out. “What’s going on?
My card has just been charged $500,000!”
The ATM card was tagged with George Anthony’s phone number. Hence, there would
be an alert on his phone whenever a transaction took place.
Conrad could not contain his excitement any longer and shouted, “Dad, I have a
surprise for you!”
Narrating the entire story, Conrad sounded increasingly agitated as he went on. On the
other hand, George’s heart sank lower as his son told his story. He forced himself to
wait for Conrad to finish talking before raising his voice over the phone, “First, go and
look for Princeps. Where is that dude?”
Conrad raised his head quickly, realizing that Princeps had been gone for a while.
Overwhelmed with excitement, he had forgotten all about him. Seeing that Princeps had
not returned, Conrad started to grow anxious and went to look for him.
Once Conrad looked at the parking lot, he saw that the Tucson gang’s truck was long
gone. His vision went black, and he almost fell to the ground. Then he quickly ran to the
warehouse and opened it up. The familiar boxes were inside. However, when he
opened the boxes, they were all empty.
