"Oh, I saw a Tiffany perfume recently. It smells amazing! And there's a special promotion going on—buy one and get one free. If you buy a bottle of perfume, they give you a bottle of cleansing water for free. Super worth it!"
"Wait, it's a buy-one-get-one-free deal?" Qiqi asked in a quiet voice. "I thought I bought one perfume and accidentally got another one. Huh, this is such a good deal!"
She asked her Sister Zhen to send her the link, and right after that, she completed the payment.
Ding-dong—
It was almost instant. The link was sent straight to her via WeChat.
Qiqi tapped the link to check it out. The price for one bottle was 4,888 yuan. She didn't hesitate at all and paid for it right away.
After that, since she had nothing else to do while sitting in the car, she started browsing more things—new fragrances, makeup, clothes...
And just like that, she was completely pulled in, unable to stop scrolling.
Meanwhile, inside a large conference hall at the Hilton Hotel, Jason Liu had just returned to his room to change clothes. Once ready, he showed his digital invitation to the Guardian Auction staff at the entrance.
A staff member guided him to his assigned seat.
Jason looked around at the setup. At the front was the auction stage, and behind it were rows and rows of seats—hundreds of them.
Near the front row, there were a few tables with matching chairs. These were obviously arranged for VIP guests—people with serious money and high status.
Despite being a billionaire with a lot of liquid cash, Jason Liu was only given a seat in the 17th row, fifth from the left.
This auction was clearly a top-tier event hosted by Guardian Auctions in celebration of National Day. From the looks of it, anyone in that hall was worth at least 10 million yuan. If not, they wouldn't have even gotten an invite.
By now, almost every seat in the hall was taken.
Jason glanced around but didn't recognize anyone. Still, people were friendly. They smiled, nodded, introduced themselves, and exchanged business cards.
Jason took out his own business card—it had been prepared by the HR department at his office and looked quite sleek.
Even though he didn't really know anyone nearby, and he wasn't much of a talker when it came to strangers, he still exchanged cards politely before sitting back down to wait for the auction to begin.
At 8 p.m. sharp, just before the auction started, the front row VIP tables finally filled up.
Jason looked up out of curiosity.
To his surprise, he spotted a few familiar faces—well, familiar to him, not the other way around.
Once these top guests had arrived, the auction finally kicked off.
A well-dressed, middle-aged auctioneer stepped onto the stage in a neat suit and tie.
"Welcome, honored guests, and thank you for attending this special National Day auction organized by Guardian Auctions," he said warmly.
"Tonight, we're bringing you some of the most precious collectibles. You won't be disappointed."
The auctioneer was relaxed and friendly, even cracking a few jokes to help ease the atmosphere. Within a few minutes, the introductions were over, and the first item was revealed.
"This next piece is from one of the most respected painters of the Ming Dynasty, Wen Zhengming. He's considered one of the 'Four Masters of the Ming' alongside Shen Zhou, Tang Yin, and Qiu Ying," the auctioneer explained.
"Tonight, we present his masterpiece, Fog at the Beginning of the River."
As he finished speaking, a graceful lady wheeled a glass display case up to the stage, showing off the artwork inside.
The crowd was surprised. Starting with such a valuable piece made everyone even more curious about what was to come.
Even though Jason didn't care much for antiques or old paintings, he still listened patiently.
This artwork, measuring 198 cm by 22.4 cm, had a starting price of 22 million yuan.
There's a saying: "Gold during chaotic times, antiques during peaceful ones."
In recent years, collecting old paintings and calligraphy had become extremely popular, and the prices of historic works like this one had only gone up.
But Jason wasn't interested. No way would he ever pay that much for a scroll.
Still, the crowd went wild.
"23 million!""26 million!""30 million!"
The bids kept climbing, and in no time, the price reached 47 million—more than double the starting point.
Eventually, a wealthy man sitting in the second row won the painting with a final bid of 49 million yuan.
Jason was left speechless. Are antique paintings really that popular these days?
The auction continued with other items like ancient seals, old swords, jade pieces, carved stones, and calligraphy books. None of them caught Jason's interest.
Finally, it was time for Jason's own items to be auctioned off—his collection of gold.
There were nine pieces of dog head gold, weighing:1.35kg, 1.62kg, 2.37kg, 2.81kg, 4.11kg, 4.39kg, 4.77kg, 5.02kg, and 6.35kg.
The first piece, at 1.35kg, started at 1.5 million yuan, with a minimum increase of 10,000 yuan per bid.
Maybe because it was rare, people started bidding right away.
It sold for 1.97 million yuan.
But since everyone knew there were even bigger gold bars coming up, the competition for the first one wasn't that fierce.
Jason thought about placing a bid himself to drive the price up, but decided against it. It would've been too embarrassing if he accidentally ended up winning his own gold.
So he just stayed in his seat and watched.
The second piece went for 3 million. The third for 4.35 million. The fourth, 5.2 million.
The fifth gold bar sold for 8.38 million, then came 9.45 million, 11.75 million, and 13.2 million.
Finally, the largest one started at 8 million yuan and was sold at a whopping 18.3 million yuan!
Jason was thrilled to see all nine of his gold bars sell for such high prices.
After doing the math, the total earnings from the nine gold pieces came to 75.6 million yuan.
After subtracting Guardian's 5% handling fee of 3.78 million yuan and the 3% personal income tax of around 2.15 million yuan, Jason checked his bank account.
He had received 69.66 million yuan.
Adding that to the 30 million he already had, he now had nearly 100 million yuan in cash again.
Once the backstage paperwork was done, Vice President Daniel invited Jason to an after-party, but Jason politely declined.
He just wanted to go back to his room and rest.
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