Chapter 519 — The Ten-Thousand-Year Spring Wood Box

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

Wei Zhao leafed through the auction catalogue in his hands. Most of the lots were antiques, carvings, famous paintings, calligraphy, and the like—along with a few bizarre offerings such as dates with celebrities. Only, the stars up for auction 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 celebrities listed. He did not recognize a single one of them; after thinking for a long while, the only name he had ever heard was Xu Shilan's.

"Uh..." Fatty Lai was taken aback, then smiled wryly. "Boss, you like Xu Shilan?"

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

Wei Zhao knew that the eldest young lady and Xiaoshu were both fans of Xu Shilan, so if there really was such an opportunity at this auction, he would not mind bidding once on their behalf. After all, the two of them had always treated him well.

"Is that so! I thought you were a fan yourself, boss!" Fatty Lai shook his head again. "Then again, if you were her fan, boss, you'd hardly be in the dark about her!"

"In the dark about what?" Wei Zhao asked.

"Xu Shilan's background! Since she debuted, there's never been a hint of scandal, yet no one knows the first thing about where she comes from. But plenty of people who've tried to move on her have simply... vanished..." Fatty Lai said in a low voice.

"Vanished?" Wei Zhao frowned. It seemed this Xu Shilan truly did have a formidable background. That being the case, he could not be bothered to provoke her. He already had troubles enough; if he stirred up some fierce little woman to come hunting him down, he would have no time left for anything else.

"Vanished, yes! Maybe they were threatened and ran off, but maybe they were erased from the face of the earth outright." Fatty Lai said, "It's no secret at all among 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 more warnings. For all that the boss was capable, Xu Shilan was not someone to be trifled with either.

Suddenly, Wei Zhao's gaze came to rest on a certain page of the catalogue—the thousand-year snow lotus that Fatty Lai had mentioned earlier.

But what drew Wei Zhao's attention was not the thousand-year snow lotus at all, but the box that contained it!

Seeing Wei Zhao's gaze linger on the thousand-year snow lotus, Fatty Lai assumed he had some interest in it and introduced it: "This was found in a mountain cave, and it's been there for quite some years. Word is that some Chinese medicinal herbs and medical texts were discovered alongside it, but this thousand-year snow lotus is among the most precious of them!"

"A reserve of five million?" Wei Zhao glanced at the catalogue and asked, "What will the final price be?"

"Yes, the reserve is five million, but the final price is hard to estimate!" Fatty Lai shook his head. "This sort of thing is a rather special commodity. If someone happens to need it, the price will go very high; but if no one needs it, it won't fetch much at all!"

"Oh?" Wei Zhao nodded. "Then let's buy it tomorrow."

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

"Heh, the snow lotus is useless enough. It's the box I want," Wei Zhao said, pointing at the box holding the snow lotus in the catalogue.

"The box?" Fatty Lai was even more bewildered, but he asked nothing further and simply nodded. "All right, I'll do my best."

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

This box was likely made from the trunk of a tree called Ten-Thousand-Year Spring Wood. Once medicinal herbs were placed inside, their potency could be preserved unchanged for ten thousand years; moreover, it could accelerate the ripening and purify certain medicines.

But this, too, Wei Zhao knew only from an ancient text belonging to the old man at home. The things described in that text were almost all medicines verging on myth, things he had never even heard of—things that simply did not exist in the modern world!

Wei Zhao had originally flipped through it the way one might leaf through an entertainment magazine, never imagining that one day he would actually encounter the things described in those ancient texts. Still, he retained only a vague impression. He thought the box photographed in the auction catalog bore some resemblance to the Ten-Thousand-Year Spring Wood described in the ancient book, but he could not be certain whether the two were in fact the same thing.

Besides, that ancient text was mostly introductory in nature, devoting only a few cursory words to each item, and its descriptions of their uses and methods of application were frustratingly vague. So now that Wei Zhao had stumbled upon one, he was merely acting out of curiosity, asking Fatty Lai to bid on it.

As for whether they could actually win the bid, Wei Zhao did not particularly care. Even if the item came back, he would have no idea whether it was of any use, let alone how to operate it. He was just bidding for the fun of it. If it was cheap enough, he would pick it up for a bit of research.

"Alright! I'll give it a shot!" Fatty Lai nodded, committing Wei Zhao's request to memory.

As for the other auction items, Wei Zhao had little interest in them. He flipped through the catalog once, then set it aside carelessly. "Dr. Kang's deluxe edition wound medicine is going up for auction tomorrow?"

"Yes, their wound medicine is scheduled for tomorrow!" Fatty Lai nodded, then let out a sly chuckle. "If all goes as expected, I'm afraid it'll be snapped up in no time! How about we auction off a deluxe edition of our trauma medicine tomorrow too? Give them a little trouble?"

"Forget it. Leave them alone." Wei Zhao waved his hand dismissively. Such petty sums would not so much as break a bone for the Kang family, and Wei Zhao certainly had no interest in competing with them over this.

"Then we'll leave them be. Boss, come on, let's drink!" Seeing that Wei Zhao had finished with the catalog and polished off his dumplings, Fatty Lai poured him a glass of wine, then raised his own cup. "Boss, I toast you. No one's going home sober tonight! Let's celebrate our company's triumphant debut!"

"Ha..." Wei Zhao smiled as well and picked up his cup. When it came to drinking, he doubted anyone could match him. But seeing Fatty Lai and Guan Xuewen so genuinely happy, Wei Zhao naturally was not about to declare himself immune to the bottle.