First, at the Subi Auction House, the staff had no choice but to close doors firmly, rejecting journalists from various parties who came for interviews. Then, the executive reception of Subi Auction House started receiving countless inquiry calls every day, asking about auction items, asking about prices, and asking various kinds of miscellaneous questions.
Then, Su Qingzhang also began to receive calls, first from clients in various cities who had some relations with the Su Family, then from officials who had dealt with Su Qingzhang, and finally even some potential customers started calling. Besides inquiring about auction items, the most frequent question they asked was another one: "Are there still any invitations left?"
"Where exactly are the invitations?" Su Qingzhang had asked Chang Chi this question several times. Wasn’t it Chang Chi’s responsibility to help distribute the relevant invitations?
"I did receive the invitations, but there were only five hundred sixty pieces, and they have all been distributed," Chang Chi defended.
"If they are all distributed then print more, right?" Chang Mei couldn’t remember how many calls about tickets she had received recently, those ladies and misses who usually didn’t have much interaction with her, were all indirectly asking her for tickets.
"But, we can’t print more," Chang Chi suddenly became the target of blame, Su Ziceng had refused to use the regular invitations from Subi Auction House that she used last time, thus only 560 pieces were provided, and once distributed, there were no more. Beforehand, she even found it strange; the invitations Su Ziceng used were not made of paper, but were sewn from a square-shaped fabric, with gold patterns pressed on them, which looked well-made but were uncommon on the market. Thus, as Subi Auction House being wholly owned by Su Family and Su Qingzhang as the chairman of Su Family, not even one extra invitation card could be obtained.
"I won’t make a losing deal," Su Ziceng, after busying with the arrangement of Subi Auction House, did not idle around; following Su Qingzhang silently lifted his "house arrest", Su Ziceng immediately dashed to "Admiration," then directed Sister Mu to move out all the scraps of fabric from the store. The long-awaited invitation of Subi Auction House was indeed the fabric left from Sister Mu’s regular clothing orders.
On Friday morning, Su Ziceng received a new batch of invitations, each invitation had "Sky-high Auction" flamboyantly written on it. On Friday afternoon, an ad the size of tofu cubes appeared on the Mo City Evening News: "I have several spare Subi Auction House invitations available for transfer, buy urgently if interested, can inspect on the spot."
By around five in the afternoon, all the invitations had been snatched up, and Zhou Dagen, the publisher of that tofu cubes advertisement, could hardly believe what he experienced that afternoon. His cell phone was too busy to handle, some people even directly ran to the news department of Mo City Evening News, demanding to meet him in person only.
Five hundred tickets, all sold out, totaling 4.9 million yuan, with each ticket sold for nearly ten thousand yuan. Zhou Dagen had initially advised against setting the ticket price at ten thousand yuan when he first learned of Su Ziceng’s pricing, yet now, they were all sold out.
"Deducting an advertising cost of 1.5 million, management expenses of 2 million, employee bonuses and travel funds were all settled," Su Ziceng quickly reported the figures, looking at her account balance swelling by millions in just a few days, Sister Mu nearly spat blood. This girl, who used to make mistakes even calculating simple clothing prices when she first came to "Admiration", now learned to disguise her "illegal income" under "management expenses", and truly, as the saying goes, see one anew after three days absence.
"So, what else do we need to prepare next?" Zhou Dagen, who had been startled by Su Ziceng several times, still found it hard to believe that all affairs of the auction were simply resolved . He had lived most of his life in difficulty, and now that things suddenly started flowing smoothly, he was actually feeling unaccustomed.
"No need to prepare anymore, later on, you go and check if the auction items are properly arranged at the auction house. Afterwards, you can just go back and rest well. Tomorrow early morning, we will go to the airport to welcome Director Luo and his group; the rest just wait for tomorrow night’s auction gala," Su Ziceng found that getting things done ahead was indeed good, at least there’s no need to worry about any major issues arising later. Su Ziceng initially wanted to invite Sister Mu as well, but considering that the Wen family’s elder and Wen Maixue were also among the invitees, Sister Mu might not want to see them, so he had no choice but to give up the idea.
Zhou Dagen followed the instructions, made a final inspection in Subi Auction House, making sure everything was in order, and then left the auction house. The security personnel, after locking up the auction hall, also left. Everything had been well prepared, just waiting for the start of the auction.
In the well-prepared auction hall, all the exhibits were covered with a layer of red silk cloth, like a bride waiting to be married, waiting for the affectionate groom to lift the veil. The quiet lasted till the late night; only the sound of unlocking from outside was heard, as several figures moved in. After a while, the figures stealthily left.
After daylight, Su Ziceng vigorously pulled open the curtains, outside was a clear sky, the March sun slowly getting warmer, warming people up. It’s another day, belonging solely to Subi Auction House, a brand new day. (To be continued. If you work, welcome to Qidian (qidian.com) to cast your recommendation ticket and monthly ticket. Your support is my greatest motivation.)