The Shadow Tycoon
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 122: The Second Saturday Explodes
Another Saturday arrived. William sat in a row of empty tiered seats. Below him were quite a few reporters, far more than had come last time.
Revitalizing the secondhand trade market and reducing unnecessary waste in public consumption had already become a new policy pushed by the mayor. That also meant William’s Secondhand Goods Auction would be promoted statewide in a semi-official form.
If they did well within the state, then the Federation Progressive Party’s territory, and perhaps even the entire Federation, would begin promoting this new goods system.
Publicity was the first step. Last week, the mayor, Ferraler, and the others had not thought William’s idea could create any miracle. They had merely wanted to use the fact that William had gathered so many members of the public to make some positive publicity for the mayor.
But they had not expected the results to be surprisingly good. Added to that, William was willing to cooperate with the mayor’s actions and give all the “credit” to the mayor, which was what brought so many reporters here this time.
At the same time, this was also a test. If this consignment auction lagged badly behind the last one in the suburbs, then William’s plans regarding secondhand trade would have to slow down for the time being.
Large numbers of reporters excitedly discussed the scene and took photographs. Perhaps this was the first time they had ever received extra money for going out on assignment.
It was not much, fifty dollars in cash per person plus a few modest little gifts: a pen, a notebook, and an unopened roll of film. Altogether it came to less than eighty dollars, but it was enough to leave them very satisfied.
Reporters in this period were truly easy to keep alive. A few little things like this could change their position. Later on ... perhaps even eight hundred dollars would not be enough to make them glance twice.
The consignment auction began on time. This time, using the gymnasium added more seats. William also made another decision: those without invitation coupons could not enter.
This was not because he wanted to refuse wealth, but because he wanted to bring it under regulation.
From the very first stage, the atmosphere was heated. Perhaps because of last week’s eruption, people had become very interested in trading secondhand goods. In particular, certain related reports said some people had bought brand-new goods at roughly sixty percent of the original price, which made others marvel.
Among the surrounding crowd were some people who did not actually want to buy anything, but merely wanted to come and look. Yet none of these people could escape the fate of eventually taking out money.
William calmly watched the entire process. Ferraler, on the other hand, sat tensely beside him, constantly asking William how things were going. This auction would determine how the matter developed from here.
Compared with William, the person directly involved, Ferraler was the one who seemed not quite calm enough.
“Relax. Nothing will go wrong.” This was already the umpteenth time William had soothed his emotions. Ferraler could only give a bitter smile and stay quiet for a while. Just a while.
After a while, he could not help asking again. He cared very much about William, about whether William could grow strong and healthy, whether he could become a towering tree, whether he could become his support.
Based on the experience of last week, the consignment auction that should originally have begun sometime after two o’clock was moved forward by more than an hour, starting at one o’clock. Even so, it exceeded the expected schedule and barely ended at seven.
Staff began entering to clean up the aftermath. The young men sat uneasily off to one side, waiting for fate to be pronounced. Vera, with her subordinates, was rapidly calculating the figures.
Around seven-thirty, the final result came out: four hundred eighty thousand dollars. William was too lazy to look at the odd change.
The total was less than ten thousand dollars lower than the previous week. It seemed like a decent result, but in reality it could only be called a barely passing grade, because this auction had been larger in scale. Of course, the reason it was not bad was that there had been no villa auction this time, so it lacked certain explosive selling points.
Overall, it was still satisfactory.
Then Vera gave William another sheet of paper. After reading it, he put it into his pocket without any intention of showing it to anyone else.
This sheet recorded how much he had earned that night: a little over one hundred ten thousand dollars.
Of that, twenty thousand came from the sale of bidder seats. The rest came from guaranteed profit over the profit line and profit-sharing. Overall, he was fairly satisfied, but this sheet could not be seen by anyone else.
Next came the moment of dividing the money. This was also the moment the young men looked forward to most.
“Richard...” William sat behind a table piled with cash and called Richard’s name. Richard immediately stepped forward, grinning so broadly he could barely close his mouth.
William looked at the young man and nodded. “This time, you took first place. Your share is ... four thousand one hundred dollars.” He counted out four thousand one hundred dollars from the table, then shoved it into Richard’s arms.
Richard grinned until he could hardly close his mouth. Behind him, and among the young men standing elsewhere, eyes went red.
Without question, Richard was a bastard, a shameless man, a structural antagonist, a vile little creature.
William had only just learned that Richard had actually targeted lonely old people. But it had to be said, his eye was the best among everyone here. What lonely old people needed most was conversation, even if they had to pay for that conversation.
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