Only from a higher vantage point can one see farther and wider! The enterprise he was building at Wei Zhao's side was far, far greater than that electronics industrial park!

Wei Zhao leafed through the auction catalogue in his hand. Most of the lots were curios, carvings, famous paintings, calligraphy and the like—along with a few oddities such as dates with celebrities. Only, the stars on the second day were clearly far more famous than those on the first.

"By the way, that big star—Xu Shilan—is there a date with her up for auction?" Wei Zhao glanced over the names of the celebrities on the list, not one of whom he recognized. After thinking for a long while, the only name he had ever heard was Xu Shilan's.

"Er..." Fatty Lai was briefly stunned, then smiled bitterly. "Boss, you like Xu Shilan?"

"No." Wei Zhao shook his head. "A friend of mine does. If there's one up for auction, I'll buy it and let them meet her."

Wei Zhao knew that both the Young Miss and Xiaoshu were fans of Xu Shilan, so if such an opportunity really did exist at the auction, he would not mind bidding once on their behalf. After all, the Young Miss and Xiaoshu had always treated him well.

"I see! And here I thought you were the one who liked her, Boss!" Fatty Lai shook his head again. "Though that's right too—if you were a fan of hers, Boss, you'd have known."

"Known what?" Wei Zhao asked.

"Xu Shilan's background! Since her debut she's had no scandals at all, yet nobody knows the first thing about where she comes from. But the people who've had designs on her—most of them vanished..." Fatty Lai said in a low voice.

"Vanished?" Wei Zhao frowned. It seemed Xu Shilan really did have formidable backing. In that case he could not be bothered to provoke her; he had troubles enough already. Stir up one more ferocious girl to come hunting him, and he would have no time for anything else.

"Vanished, yes. Maybe they were threatened and ran off, or maybe they simply disappeared from the face of the earth." Fatty Lai said, "It's no secret in high society."

"Then forget it. I'm not interested in her anyway." With that, Wei Zhao went back to flipping through the auction catalogue.

Seeing that Wei Zhao truly had no interest, Fatty Lai said no more—otherwise he would certainly have added a few warnings; formidable as the Boss was, Xu Shilan was not someone to be trifled with either.

Suddenly, Wei Zhao's eyes came to rest on one page of the catalogue: the thousand-year snow lotus Fatty Lai had mentioned earlier.

But it was not the thousand-year snow lotus that caught his attention—it was the box that held it.

Seeing Wei Zhao's gaze linger on the snow lotus, Fatty Lai assumed he was somewhat interested and explained, "This was found in a cave. It's been around for some years now. Rumor has it that some herbs and a few medical texts were discovered along with it, but this thousand-year snow lotus was one of the most precious items."

"Starting price of five million?" Wei Zhao glanced at the catalogue. "What will it go for?"

"Yes, the starting price is five million, but the final price is hard to estimate." Fatty Lai shook his head. "This sort of thing is rather special. If someone happens to need it, it will fetch a very high price; but if nobody wants it, it won't go for much at all."

"Oh?" Wei Zhao nodded. "Then buy it tomorrow."

"Boss, didn't you say earlier that this thing was useless?" Fatty Lai nodded, though he was still somewhat puzzled.

"Heh. The snow lotus is useless; I want the box." Wei Zhao pointed at the box holding the snow lotus in the catalogue.

"The box?" Fatty Lai was even more taken aback, but he asked no further questions, only nodded. "All right, I'll do my best."

"If it goes over a hundred million, forget it," Wei Zhao said.

The box was probably made from the trunk of a tree called myriad-year springwood. Once medicinal materials were placed inside, their potency would remain unchanged for ten thousand years; what was more, it could hasten the ripening and purification of certain drugs.

But Wei Zhao had only ever read about it in an ancient text belonging to the old man at home. The things described in that text were almost all herbs out of myth—things he had never even heard of, things that simply did not exist in the modern world.

At the time, Wei Zhao had merely flipped through it the way one flips through an entertainment magazine, never imagining that one day he would encounter something described in its pages. Even so, his memory of it was only vague; he felt the photo of the box in the auction catalogue bore some resemblance to the myriad-year springwood described in the ancient text, but he could not be certain they were one and the same.

Besides, the text was mostly descriptive, devoting only a few words to each item; its accounts of their uses and methods were distressingly vague. So now that Wei Zhao had come across such a thing, it was mere curiosity that prompted him to have Fatty Lai place a bid.

As for whether he could win it, he did not much care. Even if he did, he would not know whether it was of any use, let alone how to use it. It was only a game—if the price was low, he would take it and study it.

"Right! I'll try!" Fatty Lai nodded, committing Wei Zhao's request to memory.

As for the other lots, Wei Zhao had little interest. After one pass through the catalogue he set it aside. "Divine Doctor Kang's Golden Wound Salve—the deluxe edition—goes up for auction tomorrow?"

"Yes, their salve is on tomorrow's block!" Fatty Lai nodded, then chuckled. "Barring accidents, it'll be snatched up in no time! How about we put a deluxe edition of our own wound salve up for auction tomorrow too? Give them a little grief?"

"Forget it, leave them alone." Wei Zhao waved a hand. Such small change would not do the Kang family any real harm, and he had no interest in competing with them anyway.

"Then we'll leave them be. Boss, come on—let's drink!" Seeing that Wei Zhao had finished with the catalogue and the dumplings, Fatty Lai poured him a glass and raised his own. "Boss, to you! We drink till we drop—here's to our company's triumphant first campaign!"

"Heh..." Wei Zhao picked up his glass with a smile. When it came to drinking, there was probably no one who could match him; but seeing how happy Fatty Lai and Guan Xuemin were, he naturally said nothing about being unable to get drunk.

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