Chapter 1274 — Auctioning a Kiss
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"Two thousand!" The reserve price was one thousand, and within moments someone had bid it up to two thousand.
"Three thousand!" After that the price climbed steadily all the way to eight thousand, where it was won by an entrepreneur.
Of course, eight thousand was more than enough to satisfy Ding Binggong. His works generally fetched around five thousand; eight thousand was already top dollar.
The items that followed included some of the birthday gifts Gu Mengyao had received, fine artisan pieces Gu Pengzhan had given her, along with several contributed by Shen Yushu; donations from ordinary students and teachers were represented as well, though most brought in very little, a thousand or eight hundred already counting as a good price.
Only a root carving by a celebrated master, put up by Gu Mengyao, and an inkstone donated by Gu Pengzhan fetched a high price. Evidently the celebrities in the audience knew their goods; what was fine and what was valuable, they could tell at a glance.
"The next item to be auctioned is the final lot of this auction!" Tang Zhi picked up the auction list and read from it: "The final lot is a kiss, contributed by Gu Mengyao... ah?"
The instant she finished reading the list, Tang Zhi visibly froze, and the young lady standing beside her froze as well.
Auction off her own kiss? Who had slipped that in? What kind of absurd joke was this?
But catching sight of Xiaoshu off to the side, where the lots were being displayed, winking and grimacing at her, Gu Mengyao more or less understood. Xiaoshu and Xiaoxiao had been in charge of compiling the list all along, and since the auction was hardly a formal affair, nobody had previewed it; neither Gu Mengyao nor Tang Zhi had looked it over or rehearsed a run-through beforehand, so it had simply been brought out and read aloud.
By now the words were out, and backing down would be too much even for Gu Mengyao to manage. It touched her reputation, true, but an auction was an auction; to declare now that it had all been a joke, who would believe her? And even if someone did believe it, Gu Mengyao had no intention of making a fool of herself.
Glaring at Xiaoshu and her endless making of faces, Gu Mengyao wished she could march over there and give her a beating. This Xiaoshu who was forever asking for a thrashing, what sort of mess had she stirred up this time?
But before Gu Mengyao could get a word out, Shen Yushu had already come scampering over, snatched the microphone from Tang Zhi's hand, and called out: "The Blossom Guardian Gu Mengyao's kiss! The auction is on! Reserve price, ten thousand! Bidding starts now!"
Gu Mengyao was furious beyond words, glaring at Shen Yushu, unable to fathom what the girl was after. Was this the sort of thing one joked about?
Yet Gu Mengyao was no fool either, and in the next instant a possibility occurred to her: could it be that Shen Yushu had arranged this deliberately for Wei Zhao, so that Wei Zhao might win one of her kisses? Judging by how Xiaoshu usually carried on, the guess had real plausibility to it.
At this thought Gu Mengyao felt both shamed and enraged, yet somewhere inside she grew quietly reassured. If Wei Zhao won it, then so be it; but if someone else did, Gu Mengyao would rather be dead.
Gu Mengyao's reasoning, sound as it was, had overlooked one thing: among today's guests there was a wildly fervent admirer of hers, and that man was An Liwen.