Chapter 405: Make An Example Part II
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
September 12th was a historic day.
On September 12th, 1943, n.a.z.i Germany launched a Gran Sa.s.so raid aimed at rescuing Mussolini, which, unfortunately, succeeded.
On September 12th, 1948, the Battle of Liaohsi started, and the Chinese nation marked the beginning of the most powerful chapter for unification in modern history.
On September 12th, 1959, Luna 2 was the first man-made object to land on another celestial body; it landed successfully on the moon. This meant that the people on Earth had the ability to send things to another planet in the galaxy!
Hans was soaking his feet in the ditch as he recited all this information, showing off to Li Du and others.
"On September 12th, 1985, UNCTAD called for the cancellation of trade deficits of the underdeveloped countries, which was a great proposal. What’s most remarkable is that on September 12th of 1980, a child was born ..."
As he said this, he looked at the crowd and then fixed his gaze on Li Du. "Li, you know who this is, right? Tell everyone in your loudest voice."
Li Du sighed, "An evil man was born. His arrival in Flagstaff caused the entire United States to become a mess. His name is... Hans Fox!"
"Wrong. It’s Yao Ming, Yao from China! NBA Yao Ming!" Hans laughed. "The great Big Fox was born in 1981—haha!"
Li Du gave him the middle finger. The rogue had tricked him!
Soon a delivery truck pulled onto the site. Hannah ran over to pick up an enormous cake. Stephen helped her carry it. The cake was big and smelled good even though the box had it fully covered up. Li Du breathed in the delicious aroma.
Ah Meow and Crispy Noodles licked their mouths and sat beside Li Du, putting on their best behavior as they waited for some cake to be given to them.
Big Quinn was preparing the barbecue. He dug a large pit in the camp to make a mud oven. This was a common way of barbecue in Central and Southern America.
The skewered meat rotated in the large pit within the hot fire; the oil of the skewered meat dripped onto the pit, making sizzling sounds.
G.o.dzilla took a bottle of beer and handed it to him; the two muscular men, with their intense auras, sat together and drank their beer.
Hannah had bought only one single crab from the supermarket. But everyone said "Wow!" when she took the crab out. It was enormous and daunting—it had to be at least 10 or 11 pounds.
Li Du was surprised at how large it was. "What kind of crab is this?"
"It’s the Tasmanian king crab," said a gleeful Hannah. "I bought the biggest one in all of Flagstaff."
"How much does it cost?" Big Quinn asked. His kids had been asking to eat some crab, but he hadn’t yet bought any for them.
Although Arizona was close to California, which was rich in seafood, the seafood in Flagstaff was very costly. The reason was that Flagstaff was situated near the center of Arizona, which was rather far away from the coastal areas. In addition, it was not easy to preserve the seafood, as one needed to pa.s.s through the large areas of desert in order to get to Flagstaff.
Hannah said, "Well, it’s definitely expensive. That crab cost me 1,400 dollars."
Li Du exclaimed, "Tisk, tisk, tisk—now the young lady’s willing to spend money."
He knew that Hannah was all along a thrifty girl. When he’d rented the room from Hannah for six months, he never saw Hannah spend more than 100 dollars on groceries.
Hannah giggled, "Money’s just a number to me now."
Li Du gave Hannah a thumbs-up. "Cool."
Hans was exasperated and retorted, "Cool, my foot! I gave her the money!"
Generally, when Hans got the proceeds from the sales of the valuable items, he would give half of his earnings to the Welfare home. One quarter would go to Hannah, and the remaining quarter was for himself.
Hannah was not like Hans; she was not a big spender, so she saved up most of the money that Hans would give her. And for the past few months she had saved up quite a large amount. Now she had around 200,000 to 300,000 dollars in cash on hand.
"How should we eat the king crab?" Stephen asked. He had never eaten such a crab before.
The United States was rich in crabs, such as in Maine and Alaska; especially Alaska, which its own kind of king crab.
But that was not what Hannah had bought. She had bought the Tasmanian king crab from Australia, which further explained why it was so expensive.
Stephen came from an ordinary family, and had never tried food that cost so much. Therefore, he didn’t know how to eat it in a way that would bring out its flavor, and not waste it.
Hannah answered curtly, "Roast it!"
Li Du rolled his eyes. "You guys only think of roast or barbecue all the time. This needs to be steamed and needs a good dipping sauce. Come, I’ll take care of the king crab."
Li was about to start working on the crab when Hans’s phone rang. After talking for a while, Hans stood up and said to him, "Li, something’s cropped up."
"What happened?" Li Du asked calmly.
"It’s Turis, Olly and the others," said Hans. "They went to Derta and walked right into a trap. They’ve suffered huge losses!"
Li Du asked, "How bad is it? They’re veterans—they shouldn’t have fallen into a trap?"
The storage auction business had pitfalls and risks, but it also had traps. Some were planned by the storage company, and some were created by the tenants.
Just like how Li Du had gotten back at Andrew, Reginald, and Rambis by deliberately finding some storage units, stuffing some imitation goods in them, and tricking them into bidding.
There were two types of storage auctions, the most commonly seen was the storage company’s auction. Another one was the tenant authorizing the storage company to sell their belongings in the unit. The latter was often a trap laid by the tenant. Through this method, the tenant could get quite a sum of money made from the auction.
Hans had once told Li Du that there was a time in history when such traps were so rampant in auctions that the storage auction industry had almost collapsed.
Later on, together with market reorganization, the storage companies jointly collaborated and no longer accepted requests for such auctions. With such measures, the industry was brought back to prosperity.
People of the state of Arizona were deemed very tough. For the past few years, there had been hardly any cases of authorized auctions that ended up being frauds. This was because some treasure hunters were hot-tempered, and would seek revenge when they found out they were being fooled; this dissuaded people from putting up fake auctions.
Hans talked for a while on the phone. Li Du"s phone rang as well. He saw that the caller was Olly, puffed a sigh, and picked up the phone.
He knew the purpose of the call, which was to ask for help to settle the matter.
But at that point, Li felt that the matter was not his problem and he need not extend his help at all. Especially because that day was Hans’s birthday celebration, and he didn’t want this matter to ruin the mood.
However, he had to pick up the call. If it were within his ability, he had to help.
When the call was picked up, Li Du could hear Olly’s cussing over at the other end of the phone, "That son of a b*tch, d*mn Californians! D*mmit, d*mmit! Li, we’ve been scammed. Frank and York laid a trap for us!"
Li Du said, "Don’t rush, what did they do?"
Olly was incoherent, but Li Du finally learned what had happened after a while.
Frank and York had leased the units from the storage company and had then loaded them with trash and imitated goods. Then they had authorized the storage company to help them auction off the units. The treasure hunters were caught unawares and paid a high price for the units.
He ended the call and noticed that Hans was changing. "Why are you changing?"
Hans replied, "Let’s go. Here goes my birthday this year."
"There’s no need to," Li Du tried to persuade him. "We’ll celebrate your birthday first. This incident—"
"This incident is targeted at you!" Hans interrupted. "We need to go take a look."
Yes, Li Du knew that the incident was targeted at him.
Frank and York were making an example of the treasure hunters to warn Li Du. Turis, Olly, and rest of treasure hunters had gotten caught up in the grudge between the two parties.