護花近衛 - 第519章 萬年春木盒 - 清風書屋

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.