Chapter 489 — Straight to a Hundred Million

Only, one sentence had been added to the introduction — something Lai the Fatso had specifically requested beforehand. Sellers' requests, so long as they were not too troublesome, were as a rule honored by the auction's organizers.

"The next lot consists of three Life-Extending Detox Pills, provided by Dr. Guan Pharmaceuticals. The reserve on each is one million yuan, and the three will be auctioned separately, in three rounds!" Here the auctioneer paused, for the hall had erupted in an uproar.

Of this Life-Extending Detox Pill, scarcely anyone present had ever heard — and Dr. Guan Pharmaceuticals was likewise a name they were hearing for the first time. Just what sort of company was Dr. Guan Pharmaceuticals? Just what sort of pill was this Life-Extending Detox Pill?

Everyone in the hall was a person who treasured life and knew a great deal about health supplements. If such a wonder as a life-extending elixir truly existed, there was no way they would not have heard of it. And yet this thing that had appeared at the auction — of it they truly knew nothing.

And a reserve of one million — was that not a bit too high? And that for a single pill? Would anyone buy? Though money was no object to anyone present, none was willing to throw it away on a bad bargain.

Especially for something so inexplicable — who would be the one to try it?

The silence that followed the uproar seemed to be well within the auctioneer's expectations; every year at the auction, something of the sort occurred, and so the auctioneer was unsurprised. He went on with his description: "This Life-Extending Detox Pill is capable of expelling impurities from the body. As everyone knows, people eat the five grains and all manner of foods, and some toxins are bound to accumulate within the body. Some have already been excreted, but some remain. The longer they remain, the more they accumulate. The Life-Extending Detox Pill can achieve the effect of washing the marrow and renewing the bone, driving the toxins from the body, and so attaining the goal of lengthening life and remaking the whole person!"

When the auctioneer finished, even he did not quite believe the pill's description. It was like one of those miracle pills peddled by quacks in the back streets, praised as though divine. If the pill really had such effects, then a million was genuinely not expensive. But could it?

"The first Life-Extending Detox Pill, reserve one million. Your bids, please!" The auctioneer was already prepared for the lot to go unsold. So long as no one bid on the first, then no one would bid on the second or the third either, and they could simply be withdrawn so that the auction might move on to the next item.

Because an antique vase had earlier taken up some time with heated bidding, the auction could not possibly finish within the time planned, and so the auctioneer was saving time wherever he could.

This Life-Extending Detox Pill — others might not understand it, but there were those present who did. Liu Tianyi understood it. Divine Doctor Kang understood it.

Only, Divine Doctor Kang could not be certain whether this Life-Extending Detox Pill was the same as the one Kang Xiaobo had brought him before, or something someone had cooked up to swindle people.

"Hey, they've even come up with a Dr. Guan — isn't that plainly copying your own trademark, Elder Kang?" said Xiao Ji, sitting not far from Divine Doctor Kang, with a note of mockery. "I say this is certainly a swindle."

He and Xiao Ben had received their invitation only today. Every year the invitation sent to his father had been gold; this year the one that arrived was red. The three invitations allotted were still provided in full, but it was plain that the Xiao family was regarded with far less importance than before.

There was nothing to be done about it. Though Xiao Ji and Xiao Ben were furious, they had at least received invitations at all — what more could they demand? The more it was so, the more keenly Xiao Ji and Xiao Ben felt that they must ally themselves with the Kang family, and only thus preserve the standing of a great house.

Divine Doctor Kang, however, frowned slightly, as though something had occurred to him, and yet he could not be sure. Dr. Guan... this Dr. Guan — could it be Guan Xuemin? He recalled that the man at Kang Xiaobo's side had seemed on good terms with Guan Xuemin. Could the true owner of that Life-Extending Detox Pill be Guan Xuemin?

While Divine Doctor Kang was still hesitating, someone had already stood up and called a bid.

"One hundred million!" Lai the Fatso raised the paddle in his hand.

"Gah?" The whole hall was in an uproar, the auctioneer included, all staring dumbly at Lai the Fatso. He had been the Yu family's auctioneer for ten years, and never once in that time had he encountered a situation like today's. There actually existed someone who bid like that? A lot with a reserve of one million, bid up to one hundred million on the very first round? How was that possible?

"Would the gentleman with paddle number one hundred eighty-three please repeat his bid? I did not quite hear it clearly..." Though it was a humiliating thing for an auctioneer not to hear a bidder's offer clearly, the auctioneer no longer cared. The situation was simply too preposterous. He truly found it hard to believe Lai the Fatso would bid a hundred million; he felt certain he must have misheard.

The auctioneer was bewildered, but Yu Haitian, who had been sitting below in the bidders' seats, knit his brows slightly. Though the Yu family were the hosts, they too took part in the auction, and at this moment Yu Haitian was seated beside a middle-aged man. If one looked closely, the middle-aged man wore an earpiece.

The auctioneer did not know, but Yu Haitian was quite clear on the matter: this Life-Extending Detox Pill had been provided by Lai the Fatso himself.

Buying his own pill, the very one he had provided? Or was it to drive the price up? At auctions there were indeed people who, to inflate the price of their own consigned goods, joined in with sham bidding. The organizers of the auction knew this well, and to prevent such things they took their fee as a percentage cut; at the Yu family's auction the cut was as high as twenty percent.

In this way, even someone who wished to inflate a price had to bear a substantial risk. If the inflation succeeded, everyone was happy — the organizers lost nothing on their cut, and the seller got the price he wanted. But if it failed, the seller would have to buy his own lot, which is to say he would still have to pay the organizers their twenty percent cut.

Of course, having won the bid, one could refuse to buy — but then one owed the organizers twenty percent all the same. So either way that twenty percent was a dead loss, and ordinary people did not inflate bids on a whim.

But for someone like Lai the Fatso to suddenly call out a price of one hundred million was simply a joke. And so, though Yu Haitian was puzzled, he said nothing.

Fastest updates; for pop-up-free reading, please.