Chapter 1144 Big Surprise (1/2)
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