Movie variety show soul travels between two worlds to become a rich man

Chapter 498 The Sky Lantern Horror - Finding the Way

In less than ten minutes, Wu Xie and Fatty Wang arrived at the private room where Gao Dongxu was.

Upon meeting, Wu Xie covered his swollen forehead and complained to Gao Dongxu with a wronged expression, "Young Master Gao, if you wanted to find me, you could have just called. Why did you have to tease me?"

"Teasing you?" Gao Dongxu looked at Wu Xie, who was playing the victim, and Wang Pangzi, who was smirking beside him, and sneered, saying, "You don't know anything. If I hadn't stopped you in time, you would have dragged the entire Wu family down with you."

"Huh?!" Wu Xie looked incredulous, and Fatty Wang stared wide-eyed, looking completely bewildered.

"Young Master Gao, what do you mean? Is there something wrong with that seat?!" Although Wu Xie was naive, he wasn't stupid. He immediately thought of the details that had been overlooked before.

"You're not completely stupid, kid. Didn't you see that seat was specially cordoned off? That seat isn't one you can just sit in whenever you want. If you sit there, all the wealth your Wu family has accumulated over three generations will be burned up in one go today, and that won't even be enough—" Gao Dongxu said with a sneer.

"It can't be that serious, can it?!" Fatty Wang chuckled awkwardly, swallowed hard, and asked with lingering doubt.

"It can't be that bad?" Gao Dongxu sneered at the two of them, "Have you ever heard of lighting a sky lantern?"

Having read Wu Laogou's notes, Wu Xie stared with his innocent eyes and hurriedly nodded. At this moment, his face had turned pale, and he looked terrified.

Fatty Wang wasn't much better off. He had never seen the auction house's "sky lantern" (a type of lantern), but he had heard many people boast about it.

In an auction, lighting a lantern means booking the entire venue. In a private box, there are two main seats on the left and right. The seat on the right is the lantern-lighting seat. When someone sits in the right seat of any private box, it means that no matter what is being sold in this round or how much it costs, they automatically add a vote. It's like they're determined to have this item no matter what others do.

Of course, if someone tries to burn down a sky lantern, meaning they can't afford the price, they'll have to pay a terrible price for their actions, such as losing an organ. So, burning a sky lantern isn't something you can just do if you have money.

"Your seat is not just the one for lighting the lanterns. As far as I know, back then, Zhang Dafoye of your Nine Gates lit three sky lanterns in the Lotus Hall's private room, creating a legend."

However, Zhang Dafoye almost went bankrupt because of these three sky lanterns.

"What? You want to recreate Zhang Dafoye's feat of lighting three sky lanterns?" Gao Dongxu looked at Wu Xie, who was sweating profusely, pale-faced, and chuckling dryly, bowing to him repeatedly in gratitude.

"Young Master Gao, I am deeply grateful for your timely help. Otherwise, I would have been in real trouble today, and the Wu family would have been ruined as well." Wu Xie smiled bitterly with lingering fear, bowing repeatedly to Gao Dongxu in gratitude.

"That's right, Naïve, you really have to thank Young Master Gao, otherwise we would have been in real trouble today." Fatty Wang said, still feeling lingering fear.

"Alright, after all, we've been through life and death together, so of course I won't just watch you jump into the fire. Sit down, both of you, and wait here for the auction to end." Gao Dongxu was worried that if he let the two out, they might cause some trouble and ruin today's event, so he simply detained them.

"Hehe, that's great." Fatty Wang chuckled and sat down without any ceremony. He picked up the teapot and fawned over Gao Dongxu and Huang Yanyan, who had been watching them with a smile.

Wu Xie smiled wryly, hesitated to speak, and finally sat down obediently.

"Yanyan, let me introduce you to Wu Xie, the third young master of the Wu family of the Nine Gates, nicknamed Little Innocent—"

"Pfft-"

"Hahaha..." Wang Pangzi was the first to break down, bursting into laughter. He patted Wu Xie's shoulder, who had a wry smile on his face and looked extremely embarrassed, and said with a laugh, "Tianzhen, you've got that nickname for sure."

Gao Dongxu smiled and pointed at the fat man, continuing, "Wang Pangzi, real name Wang Yueban, makes a living on your Five Families' territory, calling himself a tomb raider. Well, he does have a bit of a connection to tomb raiders. He's extremely greedy. Hmm, he doesn't have many good points. He's a bit more skilled than the average person, humorous, optimistic, and you could say he's loyal and righteous..."

Hearing Gao Dongxu's positive assessment of him, Fatty Wang was overjoyed. He stood up with a broad smile, picked up the teapot again to refill Gao Dongxu's tea, and said with his large, fat face, "Young Master Gao, you have such a good eye for talent! I only have a few good points, and you've discovered them all. You're a true talent scout!"

"Hehe..." Huang Yanyan was amused by Wang Pangzi's talent scout and laughed heartily.

"Huang Yanyan, my girlfriend, the future head of the Huang family of the Five Families," Gao Dongxu introduced the two.

"Hello, Ms. Huang!"

"Hello, Ms. Huang—"

Wu Xie and Fatty Wang greeted Huang Yanyan with polite smiles.

Huang Yanyan smiled and nodded, "Hello, it's a pleasure to meet you both."

Gao Dongxu picked up his teacup, smiled as he sipped his tea, and looked toward the Huo family's private room, where his eyes met Huo Xiuxiu's.

Huo Xiuxiu smiled and nodded in acknowledgment, and Gao Dongxu also smiled and nodded in acknowledgment, then looked at Wu Xie and asked, "You came to the capital to cause trouble for the Huo family?"

"How could that be, Young Master Gao? You think too highly of me. How could I dare to cause trouble for the Huo family? I came to the capital to find out about the snake-browed bronze fish you threw at me," Wu Xie said with a wry smile.

"Oh? Your third uncle didn't tell you?" Gao Dongxu asked, looking puzzled.

"No matter how much I pleaded and begged, he just wouldn't tell me. He only left one sentence: 'Perhaps the person who knows the Snake-Eyebrow Bronze Fish best in this world is Huo Xiangu,' and then he disappeared," Wu Xie said with a wry smile. "He didn't disappear. As far as I know, he used my intelligence to trade with Jude Kao for a ship and a team, and ran off to the Xisha Islands," Gao Dongxu sneered.

"Huh?!" Wu Xie and Fatty Wang were shocked.

Wu Xie carefully observed Gao Dongxu's expression, worried that the other party would blame him for his uncle's mistake and take his anger out on him.

"Don't worry, everyone has their own grievances and debts, I wouldn't hold a grudge against you." Gao Dongxu glanced at the guilty Wu Xie and said irritably.

"Hehe, I knew Young Master Gao had a broad mind and a high level of vision..."

"Alright, stop flattering me. Giving you the Snake-Eyebrow Bronze Fish was indeed intended to get you information from your third uncle and encourage you to continue your investigation... Never mind, I'll tell you all about it after the auction; it's not convenient here." Gao Dongxu frowned as he saw Sheng Sheng Man and Yin Nanfeng on the first floor.

"Inconvenient? Young Master Gao, are you saying the walls have ears?" the fat man asked, his eyes immediately lighting up.

"One of the most famous things about the Crescent Moon Hotel is its 'listening slaves' and 'stick slaves.' One has first-class hearing, and the other has first-class martial arts. The one downstairs in the white cheongsam is a contemporary listening slave named Sheng Sheng Man. Her hearing is already superb," ​​Gao Dongxu introduced to the group casually.

Huang Yanyan, Fatty Wang, and Wu Xie looked downstairs in shock and curiosity. Fatty Wang kept muttering, "Is it true or not?"

Just then, Sheng Sheng Man looked up at the three of them, and the three of them immediately looked astonished.

"Holy crap, I can actually hear it—" Fatty Wang cursed.

"The beautiful woman in front of her is Yin Nanfeng, the current head of the Crescent Hotel," Gao Dongxu continued to introduce to the three of them.

At this moment, Sheng Sheng whispered in Yin Nanfeng's ear from downstairs. Wearing a purple cheongsam and a white fox fur shawl, Yin Nanfeng closed the folding fan with the character "Feng" in her hand, looked up at the private room where Gao Dongxu was, and nodded with a smile.

Gao Dongxu smiled condescendingly and nodded to Yin Nanfeng.

At this moment, Huang Yanyan and the other two no longer doubted Sheng Shengman's ability to hear the wind, and they were all amazed and impressed.

Just then, an auction stage and display stands were set up on the stage. A staff member went on stage and started adjusting a microphone, while others were adjusting the lights.

"The auction is about to begin—" Gao Dongxu said with some anticipation.

"I still feel like this isn't an auction, it's more like a play about to start," Huang Yanyan said with a slight frown.

“I’ve looked into it; the auctions at the Crescent Hotel are different from traditional auctions. They’re quite special.”

Here, experts and scholars are irrelevant; it's all about having a keen eye and connections. Most of the things auctioned here are priceless, and some have never even been seen before. There's no benchmark for how much you offer. You might think something can sell for five million, but the other party has connections that can find someone willing to pay ten million, and there's nothing you can do about it.

To put it another way, if you want to play here, first you need to know what you're photographing, and then you need to know how much it's worth before you can speak up. That requires you to react in a very short time. So, you could say this is a place where you play with your heart.

Moreover, the scariest thing is that you can also buy counterfeit goods here. You have to be a connoisseur with a keen eye, because the counterfeit goods that can get into this place may have gone beyond the category of counterfeit goods.

Do you know what "original order goods" are? They are genuine products manufactured by the same factory, but instead of being shipped directly to the official brand, the factory bypasses the brand owner and sells them themselves. This results in items that are exactly the same quality and details as the genuine product, yet are not authentic.

Of course, by "original order" I don't mean leftover stock from old factories, but rather items that counterfeiters now use extremely advanced technology to completely replicate, making them exactly the same as the genuine articles. These are definitely fakes, but you can't find any flaws in them through any authentication process. For example, the Zhu-style imitations.

To be honest, it's almost impossible for the average person to distinguish such a fake; the only way is to rely on intuition.

One is your intuition about the seller—whether their demeanor and the details they reveal are suspicious—and the other is your sixth sense about antiques.

Remember, when appraising antiques, you must train and trust your own intuition. This is much more reliable than relying on rote knowledge.

In addition, one can also judge by some artistic details. For example, blue and white porcelain may be perfect, but it is not without flaws. For example, look for problems in the brushstrokes of the blue and white decoration.

It should be noted that the skill and charm of ancient porcelain masters in applying blue and white glaze is something that modern fine brushwork masters cannot imitate.

However, such questions are often difficult to use as evidence, because the quality of a work of art is subjective.

In short, the auctions here are top-notch, truly eye-opening events. Anything can happen, and anything can appear. Watch carefully and learn a lot.

Gao Dongxu picked up his teacup, took a sip, put it down, and watched as Fatty Wang poured tea for them with great enthusiasm, explaining the science to the three of them.

"I've learned a lot, thank you for your guidance, Young Master Gao."

After listening attentively, Wu Xie and Fatty Wang both bowed deeply to Gao Dongxu with serious expressions, expressing their gratitude.

(End of this chapter)