"Zhao Ang?"
Xia Weiwei looked at the ID card that Gao Ang threw at her, then looked up at Gao Ang again, carefully comparing the ID photo with his actual appearance.
Finally, she realized that this was just a person.
Aside from the different hairstyles.
"The person who was speaking to you just now was your old friend Gao Ang. The person speaking to you now is Zhao Ang from the XX Department of the XX Ministry. I now possess military immunity, judicial immunity, and diplomatic immunity."
Upon hearing about these exemptions, Xia Weiwei's slightly open mouth widened even further.
These exemptions are enormous rights. Although it's not said that people with these powers can act with impunity, frankly, they really can.
Seeing Xia Weiwei's surprised expression, Gao Ang sighed, "Why bother? We've known each other for a long time. I wouldn't harm you. Don't forget who stopped you from eating braised pork and made you a nourishing soup when you were on your period? And that time you were kidnapped abroad, did you really think you were lucky to return to China? Do you know who called the police when Lillian left you at the entrance of the Honghe County Public Security Bureau? It was me, it was me and Qian Sui, Miss. I was helping you, not harming you. And what about Xia Yu? Just because he shares your surname? Or did he bewitch you? You let him go? You've seen those materials. He has connections with a certain oligarch in Saudi Arabia. The cultural relics he smuggled from them are worth no less than several billion, maybe even tens of billions. That's all national money! Think about it, which department did you work for before? It was the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau. Do you think you deserved the national emblem above your head?"
"Stop talking!"
Xia Weiwei interrupted Gao Yang's impassioned speech, took a deep breath, and gulped down the rest of her coffee.
She bit her lip hard a few times, as if she had made a great decision, before finally speaking, "Since you've put it that way, I'll tell you the truth..."
Xia Weiwei leaned back slightly, half-reclining on the single sofa, and said as if reminiscing, "My father's influence certainly played a part in my getting this position, but it has nothing to do with Xia Yu. Xia Yu's disappearance... I was indeed involved, but..."
Xia Weiwei was afraid that Gao Feng would misunderstand something, so she quickly explained, "...That's because he has my father's keepsake, and he can accurately recall many of my childhood memories, such as where my parents took me, my favorite toys, and even my favorite cartoons...If it weren't for my closest relatives, they would never know these things!"
I also asked him about those things you mentioned, but he didn't tell me the truth. However, he assured me that he had absolutely not done anything to betray his country, and that those things were all transactions; we gained far more than we lost.
Gao Ang swirled the teacup in his hand and asked, "How can you be so sure what he said is true, just because of the stories he told and certain tokens?"
"I don't believe him, I believe my parents."
"But have you considered the possibility that Xia Yu might be a backup plan arranged by one of the five survivors?"
Gao Ang was referring to that cowardly bastard who was hiding in Luoshan City, Shanguo.
"He knows your father very well; they're practically best friends. It wouldn't be difficult for him to know anything about you, would it? Just a token and a few stories are enough to fool you..."
Ang Gao shook his head. A little girl is just a little girl. She's so naive and doesn't know how dangerous this world can be.
Xia Weiwei was conflicted. Xia Yu's points were indeed very convincing to her; but Gao Ang's words also made sense...
"Okay, I promise you I won't harm a single hair on Xia Yu's head. Can you tell me where he is? If it's true or false, we can confront each other face to face, right?"
"Sigh, I don't know where he is either!"
Xia Weiwei scratched her hair in frustration. She had thought she was quite decisive, but after Gao Ang's persuasion, she suddenly lost her composure.
"Didn't he tell you where he was going?"
"Why would he tell me? I just told him some things, and he said he knew. Then he disappeared. And then I got to this position. I've told you everything I know, and I've told you the truth. If I had known where he went, I definitely wouldn't have kept it from you."
At this point, Xia Weiwei already regarded Gao Ang as someone above her, and her tone showed some apprehension.
She was originally a member of the system, and she still had a habit of habitually following certain rules.
In her view, someone of high status is superior to her, and she has to comply.
Gao Ang looked at her intently for a few moments, and only after confirming that the woman was not lying did he pick up the documents on the table and put them in his pocket.
"Notify me immediately if you hear any news about Xia Yu. I suppose... you haven't let go of your feelings for your parents yet?"
"Did you discover anything?"
Upon hearing information about her parents, Xia Weiwei immediately became nervous.
"No, but I think Xia Yu, or the Xiamen behind him, might know something we don't. That information could probably uncover the truth behind your parents' accident. So, for both personal and professional reasons, you can no longer hide Xia Yu's whereabouts, understand?"
Xia Weiwei nodded heavily; she had already begun to lean towards Gao Ang's side.
...
Back on Changying Island, Qian Sui gave Gao Gao a basic overview of the auction to be held the next day.
"Got it. You can make the arrangements. Our auction has only one core objective: to disgust those bastards. Do whatever makes them disgusting."
Gao Ang never considered himself a person who could easily let go of things. Some things didn't matter, but some humiliations were etched into his bones, and he had to retaliate no matter what.
He carefully recalled every detail of his conversation with Xia Weiwei and came to a general conclusion in his mind.
Xia Weiwei is probably just a puppet, or rather, an agent pushed up by Xia Yu or Xiamen.
He didn't know her motives; it could be some kind of conspiracy, or she might genuinely want to hand over Bureau 303 to her.
If it's the former, Gao Feng will definitely not sit idly by, because judging from all indications, this 303rd Bureau seems to be quite important.
If it's the latter, he might even help this woman out, since they've been through thick and thin together.
We've lived and eaten together, solved cases together...
"That's a wonderful memory!"
Unfortunately, those days will never come back; they're gone forever!
The following day, which was Singles' Day, Christie's Singles' Day Special Auction officially began.
For certain reasons, this auction could only be held online.
Chisui had already set up the network and obtained the relevant account permissions.
Through this account, he can log in to the auction backend.
Through this backend, he can see the real-time price of each bidder.
Of course, neither he nor anyone else could see any information about the others; everyone only had a code name.
The auction felt incredibly expensive, almost like watching a movie.
It's not the kind of live cinema viewing, but an online cloud experience... what's commonly known as watching movies on video websites.
There was video, audio, and an audience present.
Most of these attendees were Christie's own employees, while others were reliable individuals who had undergone nucleic acid testing or received vaccinations.
Due to the special circumstances, the opening ceremony was not as grand as usual.
Christie's East Asian representative, as usual, launched into a tirade of praise, talking about global friendship and so on, before the auction began.
No one, including Gao Feng, knew what would be auctioned this time.
This is also a publicity stunt by Christie's; if the outside world finds out, it could cause some trouble.
For example, a few years ago, at an auction in England, they released advance notice that there was an artifact from the East...
Ultimately, Christie's had no choice but to sell the artifact in order to avoid affecting its interests in the East.
Having learned its lesson, Christie's became smarter and began to obscure all auction items.
Furthermore, a rule was established that all items participating in the auction must be free of disputes.
Of course, these are all just formalities. As long as there are no problems during the auction process, the public relations department will handle the aftermath.
To be honest, there are certain risks involved in the things that Gao Ang has brought out this time.
Just like those artifacts from the Eastern Kingdom back then, these are also artifacts from Western countries.
However, Christie's East Asian branch was in charge of this auction, and they only needed to comply with East Asian laws.
As for Western laws, their headquarters will handle the communication.
As luck would have it, the first item was provided by Gao Gao: the crown of Queen Sheralina of the Ho Kingdom in the 16th century.
To make a comparison, it's similar to the phoenix crown worn by Empress Ma of the Ming Dynasty.
The host provided detailed information about the crown:
"The crown of Queen Sheralina of the Kingdom of Ho in the 16th century... weighing 132.65 grams... set with 22 sapphires... with a certificate of authenticity from the chief appraisal expert of the Palace Museum... starting bid: 1 yuan!"
As soon as the auctioneer finished speaking, the viewers watching the online auction erupted in chaos.
"How many?"
"piece?"
Is it a Bitcoin?
"One Bitcoin isn't right, is it? It's only a few hundred thousand Dongguo currency, which is only ten or twenty thousand in gold. Is there a mistake in the price?"
Because the price was so abrupt, many participants were unsure and repeatedly communicated with Christie's officials.
The result was that the price was correct; it was indeed one dollar...
Christie's is also having a headache; they certainly know that this price is unreasonable.
However, this is the price the client offered them; if they don't agree, the auction will not proceed.
No auction?
That won't do!
Their auction house survives on the commissions collected from successful auctions. If this crown is successfully auctioned, they will reap a considerable profit.
They also firmly believe that the price will definitely be driven up.
So, after weighing the options, they agreed to the seemingly ridiculous starting bid.
People from the East would only find this price laughable.
Those who participate in the auction may find it funny, but they may also be secretly pleased, wondering if they might be able to snag a bargain.
But those people from He country were unhappy.
Although there weren't many people from Heguo, there were still a few watching the auction.
"Damn it, our national treasure is only worth one yuan?"
"No, you're wrong. That's a coin of Eastern currency. If you calculate it according to the exchange rate, it's not even worth 0.2 gold!"
Goodness, that really hit home!
"What? Less than 0.2g of arnica?"
"What a bastard! That's our national treasure! That's a precious ornament that the Empress wore on her head!"
"Who, who stole our national treasure?"
"Kill him!"
"Kill his whole family!"
"Go to Christie's headquarters website to protest and strongly demand the cancellation of this auction. At the very least, we must return our national treasures to their rightful owners!"
"Yes, go protest!"
"Go and condemn it!"
...
"Sir, those troublemakers from He Kingdom have started causing trouble."
The thousand-year-old who possessed the Skynet reported the local events that had occurred in He Kingdom to Gao Ang.
"Let them be. I want to see what this auction house will do."
Disgusting those Westerners was only the first step; another aspect was that he also wanted to disgust Christie's.
This auction house, controlled by Western capital, always has ulterior motives and likes to apply double standards.
You like to play double standards, don't you? I'll see how you play it this time.
Despite the protests in that country, the auction here will continue.
Those who participate in the auction are all profit-driven and capital-seeking individuals; they don't care about national treasures or anything like that.
As long as it can be sold at a profit or has collectible value, then it's worth doing.
The crown of the former queen of the Kingdom of Ho, dating back to the 16th century, is a very important artifact in the history of the Kingdom of Ho.
The starting bid was only one dollar...
"100,000!"
"500,000!"
"One million!"
Christie's has its own set of procedures. For example, the starting price for this crown jewel is only one dollar. According to their rules, each bid must be at least 10% higher than the starting price. However, since one dollar is so low, each bid must be at least one dollar higher...
This is unprecedented in Christie's auction history; the last time, they opted for a failed sale because of an Eastern artifact.
If they knew that Gao Ang was from the East, they would probably say from the bottom of their hearts: Christie's and the East are incompatible!
Ultimately, the He Guo crown was sold for 26.75 million, and Gao Feng didn't care who the buyer was.
What bothered him was that the handling fee was ridiculously expensive.
A 25% fee is charged on transactions up to $75,000; 20% on transactions between $75,001 and $1,500,000; and 12% on transactions exceeding that amount.
This is just like collecting taxes, and it's tiered.
"No wonder smuggling cultural relics is so profitable; the commission alone reduces expenses significantly!"
Shaking his head, Gao Ang continued to look at the next items up for auction.
He didn't let Chisai retrieve the list of auction items, otherwise it would have taken away a lot of the surprise and fun.
This auction will feature a total of 20 items, while an offline auction would have a maximum of 10 items.
Because offline procedures involve many complicated steps, requiring this and that.
Who knows, some minor issues might cause small conflicts among the participants.
Online auctions are different; everyone is transparent, and you just need to click the mouse to increase the bid, which greatly improves auction efficiency.
And it also saves on venue fees... Thinking about it this way, the advantages of online auctions are undoubtedly much greater than those of offline auctions.
"Next up is the fifth item for auction, from..."
The auction continued smoothly, and the country also received the relevant news.
Therefore, the Ho Kingdom's royal family communicated directly with Christie's headquarters, and Christie's headquarters also sent their opinions to the East Asian branch.
As the head of Christie's East China branch, Liu Qiming is a native of East China.
"What do you mean by disclosing the information of all the crown's owners to the He royal family?"
Looking at the email from headquarters, Liu Qiming felt a deep sense of shame.
You weren't this enthusiastic when the Dongguo artifacts were auctioned off.
This time, nobody reported it or said anything. It was just a few ordinary people's protest that brought you all out into the spotlight.
Goodness, the auction has only been going on for a few minutes, and it's already taken so long to get from the Ho royal family to Christie's headquarters. When did Westerners become so efficient?
And what's with this whole thing about disclosing someone's information to the Ho family?
What about personal privacy?
What about the human rights that you Western world have been clamoring about?
I didn't know there's a rule in auctions that the information of the auction item's owner must be kept confidential?
Liu Qiming was so angry that he deleted the email and then gave those bastards at headquarters a good beating.
But when he thought about how hard it was to find a job this year and how much pressure he was under, he sighed helplessly.
Walking to the window, lighting a cigarette, and looking at the bleak autumn and winter scenery outside, Liu Qiming made a decision in his heart.
...
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