Jiang Li was a professional. He knew a "master" like his soul-client was paid a large sum per session and the pay was directly proportional to how high the expected performance from him was. This was why no matter what garbage was presented to him for on-the-spot appraisal, he didn"t hesitate to give a smile and exaggerate the worth of the item. There was only one goal, to make its price reach sky high. He was helping both parties this way. The auction house earns more, and he too would get a large commission, while the rich bidders" wallets would thin down, ridding them of the headache of worrying where to spend their surplus money.
It greatly helped that "Master Yue" had a dependable reputation hence as long as he gasped, widened his eyes, and acted surprised or amaze, people downstage would fall for it and think whatever the auctioneer presented was awesome.
Of course, from time to time, he spoke and offered his insight.
"Look! This is a product from Gilette!" He held up a safety razor, his gaze s.h.i.+ning like that of a fanatic.
With his discerning eyes, he naturally grasped that it was an imitation. After all, without factoring the rusty edge and the fading coloration, the spelling was just incorrect. Most likely its bundle price a thousand years ago was not even two dollars.
Still, Jiang Li looked at it, so absorbed, as if it was a rare treasure. In fact, he even described it to everyone like it was a precious gem.
"In my opinion, collectors of genuine antique should not pa.s.s on this item! It is as precious as the previous item, that hair-dryer once owned by Princess IU of South Korea! Because a splendid company produced it," said Jiang Li sincerely.
Inwardly though, he was snickering. Everyone in the venue had access to the internet yet none bothered confirming whether what he said he was true. Even if there was really nothing that could be found online, would it hurt check even once? Were they really thinking auction houses were all ran by honest people? How careless.
"Let"s hope the fellows in the battlefield are not as moronic."
"Alright, start the bidding," said the auctioneer in a booming voice, drowning the collective noises from the crowd.
In just ten minutes, the heated bidding battle ended and the worthless item got sold for 1.46 million federal dollars, an amount that could have afforded a large amount of food, weapons, armors, and medicine. The others were sold off around that price too. Jiang Li, who was reminded of his time in the military got more p.i.s.sed.
So he spoke more and more.
"I"m very sure of it! This antique was what abbots of the 21st century used to hold their candles when conducting important ceremonies!"
Even a cracked saucer fetched a high price after he pointed out the random Chinese characters below and said that it was a logo of a ceramic manufacturer exclusively supplying for huge temples all over the world.
When the auction ended, he could see satisfied smiles from the faces of those who had successfully purchased something.
Jiang Li reverted to his calm and mature bearing, waiting patiently for the client to lead him away. Since the other party seemed to value him quite well, an employee was immediately sent to him, guiding him to a break room with a room full of dishes. The other party"s att.i.tude to him was similar to the first guy who guided him on stage.
"Mr. Yue!" The moment he entered, a middle-aged whose face was full of smile greeted him. He was the manager of the auction house, surnamed Gao, and he looked extremely pleased because of the success of the auction earlier. As a regular collaborator of Jiang Li"s soul-client, he was familiar with him and could have noticed Jiang Li"s strange att.i.tude towards the items if he was not drunk in exhilaration.
"Please take a seat, Sir." Manager Gao personally pulled a chair open for the middle-aged appraiser. "You have really done us good this time. I can"t thank you enough for your contribution today. We have prepared great dishes especially for you to sample."
Jiang Li shrugged and sat down. He was not polite when he began to gorge himself.
After engaging in some pleasantries, he demanded his pay and asked to be escorted to a secure hotel where he immersed himself in the plotline once done marveling at the grandness of a high-tech room.
"Now, what do we have here…"
After locking the automatic door by pressing a b.u.t.ton by its side, he frowned for a while at his slightly aged appearance in the mirror.
"I look like someone with a family. But in reality, I"m still single because the personality of my soul-client is not that agreeable." He shook his head, then laughed.
He ordered the robot to bring him something to drink, then he sat comfortably on the sofa.
Finally, the actual plotline of this world played like a slide show.
Contrary to what one would usually a.s.sume after learning the world"s background, the female and male leads were not actually humans.
Why? Simple. Because there was a more beautiful species existing! The Faes! More beautiful. More powerful. More intriguing.
Moreover, that thing that he was calling the plot was the world"s consciousness which was obviously sentient. Even if it was not as highly advanced in IQ as humans, it knew how to judge who treated it nicely and not. In other words, the world"s consciousness did not choose the two Fae only for the aforementioned reasons. But because compared to humans, the Fae race hadn"t done great damage to it when they were still ruling the world.
So just like that, the race of the two leads was decided.
And actually, the Fae race naturally have a reason to go back, no matter how ruined Earth had become.
Also, on their part, they only wanted to control humans to stop them from further destroying the planet. The members of the Fae race only looked haughty and without regards to human life because of their natural endowments and prideful bearings, but they did not really intend to wipe out humanity. In their opinion, the latter was only being too much paranoid.
"Sigh. If only those stupid creatures would spy on the domed cities that are already captured, they would see that humans are not treated that badly."
"Humans still have rights. And are only punished when they crossed the line or violate our laws."
"Of course, they mine the mines, serve their rulers, plow the limited arable fields, raise the livestocks."
"But it"s not that unreasonable, right? They are captives, alive, and basking in the glory of serving the descendants of their deities. Naturally, they have to reciprocate our goodwill."
These words were what the faes would converse with each other when in a high-cla.s.s gathering at opulent mansions taken over from humans. Their mindset was different from the latter since despite being forced by the situation to land back on Earth, they still thought highly of themselves. The Fae race"s concern over the nature was genuine though. This was what drove them into thinking that they had to control the humans.
On the other hand, as shown in the world background, humans didn"t want to be enslaved. No matter how n.o.ble the Fae thought of themselves, for humans, they were merely aliens and butcher. There was no way they would forget how these arrogant creatures led their dinosaurs for a surprise attack at several domed cities and used their weird weapons to annihilate their army. The civilians were spared? So what! Millions of lives were lost and still being lost on the battlefield so the grudge would be impossible to wash away.
Since the hatred was so deep, even though humans were weaker in comparison, they resorted to creating a very potent virus that would be thrown at the cities conquered by Faes.
And this was where the two leads came in.
…
It was troubled times. However, large-scale wars don"t really break out frequently due to many factors such as provisions and troops. Both parties were also reluctant to use high grade war weapon in fear that the nature would be further damaged.
It was by considering all of these and connecting it to the leisureness of the attendees of the auction that Jiang Li deduced that it was a rare moment of peace.
Perhaps, conflicts were taking place somewhere, but the number of people involved should not be large.
Once done with reviewing the new set of memories in his brain, Jiang Li browsed the web to confirm how deep he was into the plot before going to bed. It was a few hours later that he woke up, and the first thing he did after checking out of the hotel, was to throw away his smart.w.a.tch.
"The two Faes will screw humanity in a few days and you want me to obediently become a strange old man who dabbles in useless artifacts all day long?"
"Dream on!"
The emotionless mechanical mode of the system took over to remind him that his soul-client didn"t want to lose his job and wish to become the best in his field. However, Jiang Li disregarded the warning and charged into the nearest battlefield with a completely changed appearance which was a result of donning an awfully expensive high-tech mask.
"Can"t you be helpful for once and add my name to the list of new recruits? Preferably of an expert who"s been promised of a high standing at the get go?" Jiang Li was slightly distressed about how he would he approach the villainess who was one of the high-ranking female tacticians in the army.
Sadly, the system was not a good thing who would do things for free despite the bond they had shared for more than a millennium. On the other hand, Jiang Li was a miser who wanted to conserve as much because of his goal.
When he unmuted the system, it pretended to not hear him asking. The middle-aged guy then rolled his eyes, aware that he could only count on himself.
A day was wasted on researching and executing a plan. But in the end, he legally entered into the tightly guarded headquarters by hypnotizing a recruiter stationed outside and making this person add him as a special soldier.
As abilities exist in this world, every soldier was required to be awakened before they could enlist. But this proved to be of no hindrance to him since Jiang Li was also allowed to use his abilities.
"Your talent is Ice, Sir?" The emotionless soldier holding the data sheets looked up to examine the scholar-like person.
Jiang Li wordlessly nodded. There were other people in the open field where one would be able to smell the odor of metal and gas.
It seemed the other party was a no-nonsense type so no more question was asked. Jiang Li shrugged and joined the others as they received briefing from the veterans in charge of educating them how serious and perilous the battlefield was.
"So where"s that w.a.n.g Yu Yan?"
At the training room where they were guided next, Jiang Li tapped on his smart.w.a.tch and tried to hack the network in the base only to feel annoyed as the whole thing was very tough to invade. Well, what to expect when his skills were limited to 21st century computer tech. Of course, he would only be met with a defeat.
However, Jiang Li was also not one to give up easily so when doing things manually didn"t work, he threw a few points on the system to make it report the villainess" location and current situation. Just kidding. The man knew to only resort to that if all options failed. But that was not yet the case as he was already inside the base and could just search for a non-combatant commander and hypnotize the person. This was precisely what he did.
"Mr. Jiang. Major w.a.n.g Yu Yan is the prized strategist of General w.a.n.g Wei. She"s at this camp too. Her quarter is on the southeast side. If Major w.a.n.g brought her communication device with her, then she"s currently at the periphery, probably patrolling with a squad under her superior," said a logistic officer he had b.u.mped into at the cafeteria.
"Patrolling, huh?" Jiang Li fell into deep thoughts, reminded that today was when that cold woman would encounter the male lead and fall in love with him at first sight.
So far everything coincided with the plot.
"What does she look like, by the way?" he asked. For some reason, the system could not give him any picture of the leads and the villainess and the plot was not as detailed as before. He only knew the general direction of things and the names he had to pay attention to. Yet oddly, he did not have the same problem when accepting the Master Yue"s memories.
"Wait a moment, Sir. Let me share it to you."
Under hypnosis, the old commander projected an image before him. Jiang Li did not wait long for the face of a person to show there.
But upon seeing the girl, Jiang Li was dumbstruck.