LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 216 I Didn't Plan to Spend Money
"Okay, I got it," Zhang Menglong hung up the phone, took a couple of deep breaths, and regained his composure.
"Mr. Zhang, I think you might have access to much more assets than we do?" Lu Fei wasn't just complimenting Zhang Menglong; he was also trying to probe how much money Zhang actually had.
"This time I've prepared five hundred million Euros, I believe both Mr. Ma's must have brought more money than me, right?" Li Hong volunteered.
"I've prepared eight hundred million Euros!" Ma Yun laughed.
"Same here!"
"Wow, is this a flaunting wealth contest?" Zhang Menglong thought to himself, but in his eyes, both Ma Hua and Ma Yun were merely little brothers.
"That's weird, could this auction item really be worth so much?" Zhang Menglong also voiced the biggest doubt in his mind, "As far as I recall, the largest sum paid at an auction in the world was only 730 million US Dollars, and you guys are bringing so much money, it's like you're buying out the venue."
"No, Mr. Zhang, you are mistaken there," Ma Hua said, "Ten years ago, when we first came to this auction, we thought the same. I only brought fifty million US Dollars at the time, thinking I could buy quite a few good items, but in the end, I didn't bring back a single thing!"
"Really? That's exaggerated," Zhang Menglong was somewhat surprised. At world-class auctions, the most common high-ticket items are artworks or precious treasures like the Heart of the Ocean, but those prices are typically only in the tens of millions of US Dollars, and they're usually the highlight items.
Ordinary auction items only go for about a million dollars at most; fifty million US Dollars and you get nothing—doesn't that sound ridiculous?
"That's where you are uninformed," Ma Hua said, "The auction is indeed hosted by the Royal Auction House of Frankfurt, but they are just the middlemen, the actual sellers are a very mysterious organization."
"Oh? How mysterious can it be?" Zhang Menglong was indeed piqued with curiosity.
"Very mysterious. It's said that it includes all sorts of people, such as artists, archaeologists, chemists, even arms dealers. They search globally for valuable items through various means, and even some of the items have quite dubious origins!" Ma Hua said this in a lowered voice.
"Wow, no wonder the items they auction are so wildly sourced, one moment selling planes, tanks, destroyers, and the next even our Huaxia's Tai'a Sword."
"Was Mr. Zhang at the auction ten years ago?" Ma Hua asked in surprise. This organization's auctions were never publicized and always circulated within a very small top-tier circle only. Unless you were at the venue participating in the bidding or were a relative of one of the participants, you wouldn't know what items were sold.
Clearly, the items Zhang Menglong just mentioned were the highlight of the last auction, but in his memory, there hadn't been a Huaxia kid barely over ten years old there, had there?
"I didn't go, my dad did," Zhang Menglong said, "Those planes, tanks, destroyers, and that Tai'a Sword, my dad bought them all!"
"That was your father?!" Ma Hua and Li Hong exchanged glances. They had been at the venue, and that man had sat in a very private VIP box. Back then they had only heard that man's voice.
That man was so wealthy, they still remembered him vividly to this day; anything he took a liking to, there was nothing he couldn't buy, even if the price was increased tenfold, he showed no emotional ripples, as if a few hundred million dollars was just a number to him.
"No wonder!" If Zhang Menglong was his son, then everything made sense.
Ma Hua continued, "It's also because these people are extraordinary, the items sold here are the finale pieces of typical world-class auctions, I remember that last time a total of 97 collectibles were auctioned, none were passed over, starting bids were at zero, but the total final price exceeded thirty billion US Dollars; in other words, the average price for each auctioned item was over three hundred million US Dollars!"
"Wow, no wonder each of you brought so much money," Zhang Menglong finally understood a bit.
"This time, according to our understanding, some of Huaxia's long-lost national treasures will appear. In fact, we have also been commissioned by the National Cultural Heritage Administration to recover some of the lost treasures, even if it's just one or two items."
"You guys seem to have some sense of social responsibility," Zhang Menglong said with a smile.
"However, this is not an easy task," Ma Hua's expression grew serious, "It seems that because they know how the Huaxia people feel about these cultural relics, in recent years, whenever Huaxia's relics appear at auctions worldwide, both the starting and final prices are astonishingly high!"
"How so?"
"Take last year's Christie's auction, for example. An original copy of the 'Inner Canon of Huangdi' appeared. Do you know what the final price was?"
Zhang Menglong shook his head.
"A whole 230 million US dollars! It was bought anonymously by a wealthy businessman from Hong Kong and is now stored in the National History and Cultural Relics Museum. This price, for an incomplete copy, has far exceeded its historical and artistic value! But they bet that we, the people of Huaxia, regardless of the cost, will want to bring these items back, so they crazily raise the prices!"
"Taking advantage of the fire?" Zhang Menglong said in a cold tone.
"Exactly, taking advantage of the fire!" Ma Yun said, "So, if there really are Huaxia's relics appearing, the money we've brought might not be enough to buy even a few."
"Since I've come, then let me take over this task.
"How much money did Mr. Zhang bring?" Lu Fei asked excitedly, seeing how prepared Zhang Menglong seemed to be.
"A few thousand times more than you guys," Zhang Menglong said lightly.
"What?" Ma Hua and others almost cried out loud.
Although that time Zhang Menglong used 500 billion US dollars to heavily slam both Ma Hua and Li Hong, that money was most likely the property of Zhang Menglong's company.
Just like Ma Hua and Ma Yun, they are all worth several billions of US dollars, but most of the money belongs to their companies, and they can't possibly use the company's funds to participate in an auction.
So, it may seem absurd that people worth hundreds of billions only bring a few billion to an auction, but in fact, that was almost all the personal liquid assets they could mobilize.
They believed that even if Zhang Menglong was wealthier, he could probably bring only a few billion euros at most.
As for being a few thousand times theirs? That would be in the trillions of dollars, how could that be possible? Could it be that Zhang Menglong's company, which is entirely his own, also had several hundred billion euros in liquid assets? That's impossible!
Even for Unicorn Technology, with just a few billions of dollars in market value, even if sold and then multiplied by ten, it couldn't possibly reach a trillion!
Zhang Menglong shook his head and chuckled, "Don't be surprised; this is all basic operations. It's just that your poverty limits your imagination."
Then Zhang Menglong let out a cold laugh, "Moreover, I didn't say I plan to spend money to buy those cultural relics!"