Ninth In the World

“The bid has reached 50 billion. The three jade slips must be hiding an earthshaking secret. This bidder has offered 50 billion, so if no one raises the bid, the secret will become his!” Dai He yelled to the best of her ability. Di Jiu suddenly understood why that man had asked her to shut up earlier. The woman was indeed hateful.

Di Jiu was puzzled when the person who had kept raising the bid unyieldingly suddenly stopped doing so. He now suspected that they had been a pawn of the auction house.

“50 billion going once…” Dai He had waited a long time, but no one had raised the bid. Hence, she had no choice but to shout the last three calls.

After the three calls, Di Jiu finally obtained the three jade slips at the price of 50 billion alliance dollars.

Shortly thereafter, the doorbell to his private theater box rang. Di Jiu opened the door. A young lady was standing outside, carrying a box. Behind her were two bodyguards.

“Sir, your item has arrived. Please pay the exact amount that you bid.” The young lady walked into the room and placed the box in front of Di Jiu as the burly man behind her handed her a credit card machine.

The amount of 50 billion alliance dollars had already been entered into the machine.

Di Jiu felt once again grateful for the Heavenly Immortal Casino. If it hadn’t been for it, he would not have possessed the money to purchase the three jade slips.

He quickly checked the items inside the box and swiped the card. Then, he waited for the young lady to leave before he locked the door and took out the three jade slips.

Dai He did not wait for Di Jiu to observe the jade slips. She immediately started to shout on the stage, “The three mysterious jade slips from the Fairy Planet were just sold for 50 billion. If you and I do not know anything about an item, that does not mean that the other guests don’t either. The next item is a ring obtained from the same location as the three jade slips.”

Di Jiu had originally planned on checking out the jade slips, yet when he heard that the ring had come from the exact same place, he unconsciously started to pay attention to the auction again.

Meanwhile, Dai He was saying, “In the cave abode where the three jade slips were found was also a skeleton of unknown age. The ring was found on that skeleton. You will find this strange, but although the skeleton turned to dust as soon as the ring was removed, the ring remained intact.”

“I don’t know what kind of treasure this ring is, but based on the fact that it remained unscathed despite the passage of time, we could deduce that it’s not ordinary. Its starting price is five billion. The price will be raised in minimum increments of 50 million. The bidding may start now.”

Although the original starting price of the ring had been 1.5 billion and the minimum bidding increment had been 10 million, the three jade slips had been sold at a high price, so Dai He had decided to raise the ring’s bidding price three times over.

As the auctioneer, she possessed the authority to increase the price of any auction item.

Di Jiu was not interested in the ring. Although he still had quite some money on his body, he did not want to purchase items that would be useless to him. The ring was also gray in color, so it looked kind of ugly.

He believed that paying five billion alliance dollars for a ring just because it had come from the Fairy Planet was a rip-off. Even if he wanted a ring, he could use any one of the two diamonds he had to make an even more beautiful one.

“5.1 billion!” someone called out as soon as Dai He finished her speech. When Di Jiu glanced at the serial number of the bidder, he realized that it was the same person who had competed with him over those jade slips earlier.

This time, Di Jiu did not participate in the bidding. He had originally wanted to irritate this fella by raising the price, but he did not do so, as he needed to urgently analyze the jade slips.

“10 billion!” Di Jiu had not expected that someone else would raise the bid by an even larger margin. This was only the second bid, yet the price of the ring had already reached 10 billion.

“20 billion!” The first bidder increased the bid by 10 billion this time, showing everyone his determination to obtain the ring.

Di Jiu stopped his research on the jade slips. It seemed like that ring was not ordinary. How extraordinary could a ring be? Was it not a decorative item?

“30 billion!” The price kept rising.

Some people who wanted to participate in the bidding immediately changed their minds when they saw the bids rise.

Bidding competitions with bids that increased by dozens of billions of alliance dollars were a rare sight, yet this had happened more than once today.

The bidding for the three jade slips had felt quite surreal, but if one watched the current bidding, they would think that alliance dollars were a commodity one could get anywhere.

Di Jiu began to suspect that the ring contained some kind of secret he was not aware of, so he decisively raised the bid to 50 billion.

He had acquired this money so he could join in the bidding, so it would be meaningless to keep it.

The guests suddenly started talking loudly. Raising the bid by 10 billion each time was scary enough, but this was completely unprecedented. The new bidder had raised the price to 50 billion.

By this point, even though she wanted to, Dai He was not able to suppress the volume and uproar at the auction venue.

To be honest, she could no longer control the crowd. She had no way of interrupting the guests. Plus, the bidding price had been raised from five to 50 billion, so she didn’t need to intervene or promote the ring anymore.

“The price has already reached 50 billion. The price of this ring has reached 50…”

Before Dai He could finish her sentence, the bidding price jumped to 60 billion.

Di Jiu noticed that the guest who had bid 60 billion was the same person who had competed with him over the three jade slips. The bidder obviously had more than 50 billion, yet they had not kept bidding on the jade slips when the bidding price had reached 50 billion. This meant that, in their eyes, the ring was worth more than the three jade slips.

Di Jiu decided to keep bidding. However, before he could bid again, the bidding price on the wide screen soared up to 100 billion.

This bid was higher than Di Jiu’s, which would have been 80 billion. Di Jiu drew in a breath. The new bidder was indeed impressive. They had raised the bid by 40 billion without a pause.

In a theater box not far from Di Jiu’s, a man wearing Dao headgear frowned. The young man beside him said cautiously, “Master, I predict that it will be hard to obtain this ring at less than 200 billion. That side has yet to make a move. The two bidders who have made a move have mysterious backgrounds. The big bearded man who occupies Trustworthy’s box is definitely not Trustworthy, and the person in the cloak has been hiding his face. We are still not sure about the background of the new bidder that raised the bid to 100 billion.”

The man with the Dao headgear waved his hand. “Forget about Trustworthy. He does not have the qualifications to bid for treasures of this caliber. As for that side, they have been unable to attend the event. They entrusted the Heavenly Immortal Casino to help them bid for this ring, yet the casino representatives were expelled by someone on their way here. The bearded man who occupies Trustworthy’s theater box is most likely the very person who expelled them. I believe that he is wearing a disguise.”

“Master, this man spent dozens of billions earlier to purchase the three blank jade slips. Should we take note of him?” the young man asked, his voice betraying his excitement.

The man with the Dao headgear, who understood what he meant, glanced at the young man with a sigh. “Xue Ping, Master took me in when I was very young. I have been cultivating at the Spirit Harmony Temple for 60 years. Master taught me to be upright in both conduct and behavior. If it was not for the Fairy Planet, I would still be at the Spirit Harmony Temple and not here. Just like me, you were also orphaned at a young age. However, your personality is more active. The Spirit Harmony Temple has always had to endure the temptations of the surrounding mundane world. I hope that you will be able to feel gratitude and not anger. I hope you won’t steal things that do not belong to you.”

“Yes, Master. This disciple understands.” The young man bowed quickly with a terrified expression.

The man with the Dao headgear nodded. After a short while, he said, “Bid all our money. If we cannot obtain it, then this item was not meant to belong to us. Dao is very particular about fate. We should not insist on obtaining things that do not belong to us.”

“Yes,” the young man called Xue Ping acknowledged before immediately placing a bid of 180 billion. This was all the money they had prepared for this auction.

Xue Ping did not really care if the ring was obtained. His Master did not even know the use of the ring. He had just prophesied that it was going to be the most valuable item at this auction.

Fortune-telling was kind of insubstantial and unpredictable though. On the other hand, he had taken to heart that Di Jiu had obtained the three jade slips instead of them.