Reborn Rich: Prices Dropped, My Savings Didn't novel Chapter 141

Chapter 141: Chapter 139: A Bloodless Battle

The blatant sexual innuendo made even Cecilia Sterling’s cheeks flush. With a bashful glare, she pushed him away. "Go on, get back to work!"

Saul Thorne was quite satisfied by Cecilia Sterling’s reaction. That’s what she got for always trying to tease him. He’d already told her he only *pretended* to be proper.

After Saul Thorne left, it was soon time to enter. Cecilia Sterling followed the crowd into a spacious hall and found her seat according to the number on her paddle.

She had expected to be seated in the back or a corner, being an individual bidder with no corporate backing. To her surprise, her seat, number 47, was in the third row of the hall, where each row had twenty-two seats. Seating arrangements had nothing to do with a bidder’s status; it was simply determined by the order of registration.

’Just what you’d expect from an official government auction,’ she thought. ’Even the seating is this fair and transparent.’

However, when representatives from other corporations sat down on either side of her, Cecilia Sterling realized there was one difference between her and them: the color of her paddle.

The corporations participating in the auction all held red paddles.

As an individual bidder, hers was blue.

She instinctively glanced around and saw that she was the only one holding a blue paddle. That explained why everyone had been staring at her in the lobby earlier.

’So that was the reason.’

’And here I thought it was because I was just too dazzlingly beautiful!’

’How embarrassing. Tee hee.’

People continued to trickle into the hall and take their seats until the entire venue was full. Police officers in standard uniforms were stationed around the perimeter to maintain security. Cecilia Sterling scanned the room casually, but she couldn’t find Saul Thorne.

At ten o’clock, the auction began right on schedule.

A suit-clad auctioneer walked onto the stage from the side. He tapped the microphone lightly to check the equipment. Seeing that everything was in order, he smiled, scanned the crowd, and began to speak slowly. "Welcome, everyone, to today’s auction. This event is jointly hosted by the Sunstone District Government of the City of Lorcain and the District Real Estate Exchange. All properties for sale are owned by the City of Lorcain government."

"This auction will be completely transparent and conducted in accordance with the principles of openness, fairness, and justice. The entire process will be legally and properly supervised by notaries from the Sunstone District Notary Office of the City of Lorcain. I now declare today’s auction officially open!"

As the auctioneer finished speaking, a round of uniform applause filled the hall.

The next moment, the lights dimmed, and the large screen in the hall lit up, displaying aerial footage of an enormous plot of land.

"What you are all seeing now is Lot Number One of today’s auction. This parcel is located in the Sunstone District..."

The auctioneer continued on, eloquently describing the details and advantages of the property. Although Cecilia Sterling had come with a specific goal and had no intention of bidding on parcels she hadn’t researched, she still listened attentively.

Soon, the introductory video for Lot Number One concluded. The auctioneer announced the starting bid and the minimum increment, and people immediately began raising their paddles to bid.

The atmosphere was just as Cecilia Sterling had expected. The competition between the corporations was always fierce, and small- to medium-sized companies simply couldn’t qualify to compete for such prime real estate.

A single bid from real estate giants like the Jennings Group, the Myers Group, or the Lane Group could effortlessly crush any smaller company.

However, since the passage of the Cathay Anti-Monopoly Act a few years ago, which prohibited monopolistic practices by large conglomerates, each corporation was limited to winning a maximum of two lots in a government auction.

In other words, with six parcels up for auction today, even the most powerful corporation could only win two. Once they hit that limit, they were automatically out of the running for the remaining lots.

Therefore, before the auction, the major corporations would meet to select their two highest-priority parcels. They would also determine backup choices and even a third contingency plan.

In short, they needed foolproof strategies to avoid coming away empty-handed.

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