Chapter 83 Auction – Part 1 (1/2)

Chapter 83 – Auction – Part 1

The auction continued for the entire morning. All items in the morning were all paintings from famous painters, gorgeous pottery, golden and silver wares, sculptures and antiques from the warring state era.

Although the items were useless in daily lives, the total amount of the gold they received from the participants reached 400,000 taels of gold, which was higher than the initial estimation of 300,000.

Because people in this era did not understand the concept of banking or saving for the retirement, they turned all of their extra money into valuable objects as their collections and bragging right assets. Therefore, these items served as their status indicator as they could flaunt the rare arts with their peers to show their superiority.

At noon, the auction was paused for an hour, so the participants could have a lunch break. They would continue again at 1 PM.

Tong arrived at the auction house at noon. He came to prepare for the latter part of his advertisement plan and another business dealing.

…

Afternoon, the auction resumed. However, Hua Shi stepped down from the limelight and let Tong on the stage instead. She was too tired from the constant speech and from keeping tracks of the biddings, so she wanted to rest.

Tong walked up the stage with all eyes fixated on him. As the only son of the City Governor and the heroic commander in the battle of Anping, he was also a celebrity in this city.

”My apologies for taking away your eye candy. Well, I have to replace her before someone here starts bidding for her again.”

The crowd burst into laughter and glanced at the youth who had bid on Hua Shi in the morning. The youth glared at Tong in anger and embarrassment, but he could do nothing to retort or fight back. Afterward, he looked around to search for Hua Shi. The eyes of his still glittered with desire and lust.

By standing on the stage, Tong could see everybody's reaction and faces. As a result, he noticed the youth's behavior. Tong glanced at the boy with hostile intent.

'You knew that Sunday is my woman and you still have the guts to ogle her? I commend for your bravery, but you have to face a consequence! … ZA W*RUDO!'

[Time Stop has been activated.]

[For activating this skill with the secret chant, you have ... ]

[Error! Irregularity has been detected! Your soul has been infected with ...]

[Error! The skill level is not ... ]

[Error! The secret condition is not met. The skill requires ...]

*WINK*

*SCREECH*

A ringing sound alarmed inside Tong's mind, which gave him sharp pain within his brain. He felt like his body suddenly was about to split into two or something was about to eject from his body, and his eyes were burning as if they were being fried.

He had not felt this sensation for a long time since the day that the merchants rioted. After Hua Shi moved into his room, the pain in his head disappeared.

Because of the pain, Tong snapped back to his sense. Then he realized that he got angered by a random youth. However, he did not pay attention to the system messages. As a result, he did not pay attention to the vital information messages about his [Time Stop] skill.

'This is odd. Why did I just activate my skill for a trivial matter like this? This is not like me at all!'

Tong was baffled by his own action. Just before he came here, he was in a merry mood. He did not understand why he suddenly had that crazy thought and activated his time stop skill, and he chanted those chuunibyou words to boot.

'Was I jealous? No, that's impossible. I've seen many people that came to pursue her, but I felt nothing. Err … Maybe not. I probably felt annoyed a bit. But how did I lose my temper for such a thing?'

Tong tilted his head in confusion. He did not do anything to the boy while the time stop clock was ticking. He allowed it to run out and resumed the time flow. Tong pretended that nothing happened and resumed his duty as a host.

”Unlike the morning when we auctioned for the treasures, in this afternoon, we will begin auctioning several of our city unique products, recipes, and even the concession contract by the city government itself!”

The crowd murmured in excitement. Some of them already heard about the afternoon auction from one of the five merchant representatives which had visited Tong before, so they came prepared. A few rookie traders had not readied for this, so they were frustrated as they saw an opportunity but they could not grasp it.

…

…

Meanwhile, Te Langpu, who did not care about Tong's advertisement, showed a deep frown on his face. His thought was on something else.

'I cast my [Heart Devil] skill on him but he isn't affected by it one bit. Such a strong mentality is too scary! I heard about his past deeds and I thought he was just a war-junkie simpleton. I underestimated him!'

*******************************

[Heart Devil] LV. 7 (1,858/6,400)

- Make a target reveal his inner self.

- The emotion of the target becomes vulnerable to external influences.

- Target will act according to his temperament and instinct for a period of time.

- The host can control the heart devil within the target for 7 minutes.