Chapter 1439: Opening Treasure Chests!
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
When Tony heard that Xia Fan wanted to go to the high-cla.s.s black market, he smiled and said, “That’s quite the coincidence. On the 1st and 15th of every month is treasure-chest-opening day, and today just so happens to be the 1st. If you’re interested, we can go over and take a look.”
“Opening treasure chests?” Traveling Buddha immediately became interested, inquiring curiously, “It sounds very tempting, but how exactly are these treasure chests opened?”
Tony explained, “There are two top-cla.s.s shopkeepers in the market. One is called Di Long, and the other is called Jiang Chunyun.
“They’re actually both from the Inner Territories, but they primarily do business in the Char Star Region.
“In addition, the Di Clan and Jiang Clan are traveling merchants who buy goods in the Inner Territories and sell them in the Outer Frontier. The people from these two families were very smart and also very lucky. Over time, their businesses expanded, and they slowly became the largest trading companies in the Char Star Region.
!!
“And I’m not just bragging. The Jiang Clan’s and Di Clan’s trading companies could even rank in the prosperous Inner Territories. After all, the profits from legal businesses can’t compare to the profits from illegal business. A cruise missile produced in the Inner Territories can sell for several dozen times the price in the Outer Frontier if it can be smuggled out. The profits are simply eye-popping!
“Where do you think the pirates, warlords, and illegal armed organizations of the Outer Frontier get their weapons from? They were all smuggled out from the Inner Territories!
“In short, the Jiang Clan and Di Clan operate primarily in the smuggling business. Of course, now that they’ve expanded, in addition to smuggling they also operate in the drug and slave trades, and any other trade that can make them money.
“This treasure-chest-opening activity is a thing that these two families came up with.
“It was Jiang Chunyun’s idea at first. He put items of different value into a chest and had everyone bid over them. n.o.body knew what was inside the chest, and the contents one received depended completely on luck.
“Not too long ago, a guy I know, a guide just like me, took some people to open treasure chests. He spent ten gold coins to buy a small chest for himself, and when he opened it up, he found a Bone-Melting Vine inside!”
Xia Fan was startled by that, saying, “A Bone-Melting Vine? You mean that extremely poisonous plant, the one that, when ground to a powder and consumed, will cause the cells to dissolve and will turn anyone, whether animal or human, into a puddle of water, leaving behind no trace? The plant known as the king of poisons!?”
Tony was shocked and nodded hastily, “Yes, that thing! You actually know about it?!”
Xia Fan replied, “I heard Chef Grandpa talk about it. But I recall that the Bone-Melting Vine is already extinct?”
Tony smiled. “It’s only extinct in the Inner Territories. Don’t forget that our Outer Frontier might lack in everything else, but we have plenty of bad people and weirdos.
“The laws of the Inner Territories are too strict, with professions like poisoners having basically vanished. But in the Outer Frontier, these eccentrics are still living perfectly well! Not only does no one arrest them, they’re even respected!
“In the Outer Frontier, whether it’s a skill that helps others or kills others, so long as you have a skill, you can live as you please.
“That Bone-Melting Vine might have been cultivated by some poison master. In any case, the two great trading companies got their hands on one and put it in a treasure chest.
“That friend of mine was ecstatic when he found the Bone-Melting Vine in his chest!
“Can you guess what happened next? Right at the grounds of the treasure chest opening, there was a businessman from the Inner Territories who immediately offered him ten million gold coins for that king of poisons!
“Ten million gold coins!
“Buying a chest for ten gold coins and making one million times the profit!”
“Heavens! When can I get this sort of luck?”
Traveling Buddha’s eyes glowed green with greed as he hastily asked, “What next? What happened next?”
Tony replied, “My friend naturally retired. With ten million gold coins, who would go through all the trouble of acting as a guide for others? Better to buy a mansion, take a few wives, have a bunch of kids, and live life like a G.o.d. It’s not like taking multiple wives is illegal in the Outer Frontier. It’s fine so long as you have the money.”
Traveling Buddha was in disbelief. He stroked his chin and frowned. “The two trading companies just let your friend walk away with ten million gold coins? Given the lousy nature of the underworld, shouldn’t he have been quietly killed?”
“You can’t say it like that,” Tony said righteously. “When you get to the level of business those two families are at, it’s no longer just the underworld. They make money both aboveground and underground.
“Moreover, those two trading companies care a lot about their face. If someone found that they were silently eliminating the people who opened treasure chests, their reputation would suffer, and that isn’t something that some gold coins could fix.
“Not only did they not hurt my friend, they even gave him bodyguards, afraid that someone might hurt him. For them, face and reputation are more important than anything else.”
Traveling Buddha was enlightened and he nodded, “I understand a little now.”
Xia Fan inquired, “How could those treasure chests have such valuable things? Aren’t the two trading companies afraid of suffering a loss?”
Tony waved his hands and said, “You’ll understand once we arrive at the site. There are tens of thousands of treasure chests put out, and their total cost is astounding. A minority are profitable, while most people don’t even break even. To tell the truth, it’s just gambling.
“And you have to realize, the two great trading companies have been competing for some time. For the sake of their reputations, they’ve been buying up priceless treasures to stuff in those chests.
“One might put up a treasure worth ten million gold coins, and then the other might put in a treasure worth twenty million coins. This treasure-chest-opening activity is essentially a commercial compet.i.tion between the two companies.
“Look. There are clearly fewer people walking around the market today, and many of the stores didn’t even open. It’s because everyone has gone to open treasure chests!”
Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha were both extremely interested in this activity, and Traveling Buddha insisted that Tony take them there. Thus, Tony had Joe drive the car over, and the four of them took the car outside the city.
…
The treasure-chest-opening activity was held in the Red Fort to the south of the city.
The Red Fort belonged to Jiang Chunyun’s family, while the White Fort in the north belonged to Di Long’s family. The two companies didn’t compete only with their businesses. They even competed in buildings, one in the north and one in the south, one red and one white, like two hegemons facing off.
Not long after the hovercar left the city, they could see an ancient red fortress looming out of a forest, with red bricks and red roof tiles, surrounded by a garden. In the impoverished Outer Frontier, the majestic structure stood out like a sore thumb.
Tony told Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha that the Red Fort was where the Jiang Clan did business, not the actual base of the clan.
With their immense wealth, the two families kept their true bases a secret. Outsiders would never learn where it was.
Xia Fan was shocked. A place to accept customers was built on such a grand scale? The Red Fort had to cover an area of more than one hundred thousand square meters, while the total area of the estate had to be several hundred hectares. It included a chestnut forest, two small rivers, a manmade lake, and a pasture for raising horses.
From that, one could see that the level of business the two clans had achieved was at a jaw-dropping level.
—
The hovercar parked outside of the Red Fort. The Jiang Clan had made it a rule that cars couldn’t wait outside the Red Fort, so Joe left immediately after dropping them off. Tony would call him later that night to pick them up.
It was only early morning, but many people had already gathered outside the Red Fort. They were waiting in line to receive a numbered signaller.
Tony said to Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha, “This signaller is the item used for making bids. After choosing a treasure chest, you input your price into the signaller. If someone has bid more than you, you’ll receive a notification.”
Xia Fan asked, “Does the device require a deposit?”
“No.”
“Then what if someone bids up the price and then doesn’t pay?”
Tony gave Xia Fan a look. “Impossible. Remember where we are. Anyone who dares to make an enemy of the Jiang Clan wouldn’t live to see the sun rise tomorrow. I would bet on that.”
Xia Fan felt that he was right. When strength reached a certain level, one would be able to do whatever one wanted. After all, this was the lawless Outer Frontier!
The devices were distributed quickly, and it was soon the turn of Xia Fan’s group.
The process was very simple. One let the camera take a picture of their face so that the system would remember the appearance of the person who took the signaller, and then a reception lady would respectfully present to them a numbered device.
The signaller was a little like a mobile phone, with a screen about five inches in length. It was very easy to put in one’s pocket.
Upon entering the Red Fort, there was a large lobby with thousands of racks. Each rack had three shelves, upon which were metal chests of varying sizes.
The chests were all black, with nothing special about them apparent from the outside. All of the metal had been through special processing so that they were immune to infrared, longwave, shortwave, and high-frequency wave scanners. It was basically impossible to learn what was inside them.
The bidding had already started, and everyone was lined up to take a look at each chest.
When someone saw a chest they liked, they would take out their signaller and scan the chest. The chest’s data would instantly be stored.
Then came the bidding. That would stop at 4 PM, when the chests were awarded to the highest bidder.
Besides the lobby, there was a second floor, third floor, and fourth floor, all of them for displaying chests. The number of the chests was in the tens of thousands!
Traveling Buddha’s eyes were dazzled. He rushed into the lobby and began to randomly scan treasure chests. In his eyes, all of the chests could contain treasure.
Tony began to explain the secrets of opening treasure chests to Xia Fan and Traveling Buddha.
For example, the real treasure might be hidden in some secluded corner, or like how the chests on the third floor had a better chance, and so on.
There were even people selling treasure hunt guides, which recorded the serial number of the chests which had contained treasure in past events, where they were, the chance of opening a treasure for each floor, and also lucky numbers.
Xia Fan felt like this was no different from buying lottery tickets, with the same kind of number distribution, probability calculations, and vague algorithms. It all seemed very scientific, but it was just to fool people.
If these people selling treasure hunt guides actually knew which chests had treasure, they would have bought them themselves.
But there were many idiots who fell for it. Tony bought two treasure hunt guides for one silver coin, and Traveling Buddha also bought one. The two of them happily went off on a treasure hunt, and were soon gone without a trace.
Xia Fan shook his head. This was a cla.s.sic case of survivors.h.i.+p bias. Of ten thousand people, only one would be very lucky, but the remaining 9,999 thought that they were each the one with the greatest chance of survival.
Unable to find Traveling Buddha and Tony, Xia Fan began to slowly walk among the countless racks.
Treasure hunting wasn’t about probability, but about strength!
As he walked, Xia Fan activated his Scent special ability.
Like a wave, information from countless scents instantly entered his nostrils. He knew with precise accuracy what sort of toothpaste a particular person had used today, who had alcohol last night, what kind they had, how much, and what food they had eaten with it. All these details and more were obvious using Xia Fan’s supersmell.
Suddenly, Xia Fan sniffed twice. Among the countless odors, he had detected a very special scent from the lobby.
Xia Fan focused and followed the scent.
‘What a strange odor. What is it?,’ Xia Fan wondered to himself as he walked along.