Chapter 91: Outbidding
April paused, tilting her head back slightly to glance over her shoulder. Why does the protagonist want the dog? She didn’t possess the system; she couldn’t see that it was a divine creature.
Liora likely just felt a soft, naive wave of pity for the lonely, caged animal and wanted to ’rescue’ it.
Well, I don’t care, April thought coldly, turning her face back to the stage. The protagonist’s luck ends where my inventory begins.
"Six hundred thousand," someone else placed their bid, also interested in the dog, but April could not be beaten.
"Seven hundred thousand." She rang out and just like that, the bidding escalated rapidly even as it crossed a million dollars.
The men by her side thought April just wanted to have a dog and Nat even proposed getting her a good hound dog, one that could sniff out the best hiding spots to hide corpses, but she didn’t budge.
If it wasn’t this dog, then she didn’t want it.
"One point one million!" April called.
Wanting to completely crush April’s momentum and regain her aristocratic pride, Madam Morgan aggressively snatched the paddle out of her daughter’s hesitating hand and held it high.
"One point seven million!" Madam Morgan called out loudly, her voice dripping with arrogance as she stared at April’s back. She truly believed a runaway maid would have to quit now under the weight of real wealth but April didn’t even blink.
She smoothly lifted her paddle without a single millisecond of hesitation. "Two point seven million."
Before lowering her paddle, April deliberately turned her head around, looking directly into Madam Morgan’s pale, furious face. Her lips curled into a wide, devastatingly wicked grin.
"Right now, there are a lot of things I lack in this world, Madam," April murmured, her low, smooth voice easily cutting through the surrounding rows so the matriarch could hear every single word. "But money... is definitely not one of them."
Madam Morgan’s face flushed an ugly, violent red. She raised the paddle again, but Liora was already frantically tugging at her arm, her eyes wide with panic. "Mother, please, let’s just give it up! I only thought the dog looked lonely, but I don’t want to cost the family this much capital!"
"Nonsense, Liora!" Madam Morgan hissed back, her ego completely blinded by rage. "My daughter deserves only the absolute best, and whatever you want, you will get it! I will not be outbidden by trash!"
Seeing the interaction turn chaotic, Xavier’s eyes went freezing cold. Deciding it was time to put an end to the squawking, he calmly lifted his paddle. "Four million."
"Six million," Alexander Greels immediately chimed in, throwing his family’s weight into the ring to defend April’s honor.
"Eight million," Nat Collins rumbled, slamming his paddle up with an unhinged, delighted chuckle, thoroughly enjoying the sudden, astronomical inflation of a dog’s value. "I don’t know what you see in that puppy, but if you want it, sweetheart, you got it."
The entire auction hall erupted into a flurry of shocked, frantic whispers. The three titans were suddenly turning a standard canine bid into a multi-million-dollar corporate war.
April’s jaw tightened. She looked at the three men sitting beside her, her brow furrowing in deep irritation. They were aggressively driving up the price of her asset out of a ridiculous desire to curry favor.
Before they could raise the numbers any further, April held her own paddle straight up into the air, her voice dropping into a sharp chill.
"Ten million dollars," she stated flatly.
She lowered the paddle, cutting an icy, warning glare across Xavier, Alexander, and Nat. "I really do not appreciate you guys raising the bid for my asset this much," she hissed under her breath.
The three men immediately froze, their imposing statures subtly deflating.
Xavier looked away, clearing his throat with a rare hint of awkwardness; Alexander nervously adjusted his collar, staring down at his lap; and Nat merely snickered, rubbing the back of his neck with a sheepish, lopsided grin.
They looked entirely like reprimanded schoolboys, hoping to do better next time.
April sighed. Seriously.
Madam Morgan saw the interaction and realized with sudden terror that if she raised her paddle again, those three men wouldn’t hesitate to double or triple the amount instantly, utterly humiliating her in the process.
Her knuckles turned white as she gripped her paddle, her chest heaving with a scream she was forced to swallow.
"Ten million dollars, going once... going twice..." The auctioneer’s gavel slammed down with a resounding crack. "Sold! To the phenomenal lady in the midnight-black dress!"
The surrounding elites immediately began whispering frantically among themselves.
"Ten million dollars for a German Shepherd? Is she insane?"
"The titans are clearly funding her. Who exactly is she?"
"Their shared woman, perhaps? Didn’t you see how fiercely they stepped up to shield her before?"
April frowned deeply as the murmurs reached her ears. She wasn’t taking a single dime of their money to fund her hoarding. Well, technically, she was using the millions she had rightfully extracted from them through her business insights, but the high-society sheep would only ever see what their narrow minds wanted to see.
April ignored the gossip entirely, handing her black card to Samuel and tracking the handlers as they began wheeling the divine beast toward the secure backstage terminal.
Samuel headed there right away, coordinating the acquisition under her name and she sighed.
Well, I guess now I have to start hoarding for dog food as well. She thought, dropping her gaze down to her phone to continue playing her game. A lifetime supply of em.
The auction continued smoothly through the subsequent corporate lots, the atmosphere growing increasingly tense as the clock ticked closer to midnight.
Finally, the stage lights shifted into a deep, intense blue.
"Moving on to Lot Number Thirteen," the auctioneer announced, and Xavier Reed’s posture instantly locked into a state of absolute concentration.
The primary architecture he had been pursuing all night was finally on the board.
April casually slid her phone back into her purse, her heart giving a sudden, violent throb against her ribs as she prepared for what came after thirteen. Number thirteen was Xavier’s prize and fourteen was her haven.
Xavier Reed went for the bid with a bang. The start price was over a hundred million dollars and he went on to start his bid with two hundred, making sure his competitors knew exactly what they were dealing with.
There were still some who decided they wanted to challenge this tycoon and he ended up doubling the price again to five hundred million.
This architecture was one he was going to have, and no one else would have it.
And thus, Xavier Reed won the bid with over five hundred million dollars. He wasn’t afraid to spend money if it was something he wanted and he made sure they were all aware of that.
