Beauty and the Bodyguard

By the time Lin Yi seated himself on the sofa, Fatty Lai had regained his composure and was pulling out an album from his office bag, a smile on his face as he handed it to Lin Yi. “Boss, take a look at this!”

Lin Yi took the album and started flipping through it.

“Auction?” Lin Yi saw that it was an album introducing the auction. The location was Yanjing.

“Correct!” Fatty Lai nodded. “But this auction isn’t just any auction! It’s an auction where the top tier houses attend, a large-scale super auction hosted every year!”

“Oh?” Lin Yi blinked, not expecting such influence from this auction. It seemed that Fatty Lai wasn’t just a nobody if he could get his hands on an album to this kind of auctionauction.

“Fatty Lai’s right. I know of this auction as well. They send me an invitation every year, but I’ve never attended,” Xuemin said humbly.

Xuemin’s position in this day and age was something very coveted by these houses. A miracle doctor’s value, after all, was worth far more than a beneficial business partner! What use was money when one was dead?

So, in order to emphasize the value those houses placed on Xuemin, they’d always send Xuemin an invitation, and not just one invitation either.

The thing was, Xuemin was more of a plain and honest person. He wouldn’t set exorbitant clinical fees, and he naturally wouldn’t attend some auction.

“But you need to go this time, Professor Guan!” Fatty Lai said with a smile. “I wouldn’t have had to go through so much trouble getting an invitation if I knew about all the invitation letters you had for people you could bring along!”

“Ha…” Lin Yi smiled. Fatty Lai might’ve wanted to show off his invitation a little bit, but it turned out that Xuemin had a couple of them. There wasn’t any point of showing off anymore.

“This auction, there’ll mostly be some rare treasures, things that only the powerful houses can afford with their vast wealth,” Fatty Lai said. “Of course, there’ll also be some newcomers to the realm of entrepreneurs, other than just the regular veteran figures. These newcomers are people with a lot of potential themselves.”

“So you’re saying that this auction is the one we’ve chosen for the Pill of Life Extension and Toxin Cleansing?” Lin Yi said, understanding what Fatty Lai was saying.

“That’s right. The people attending this auction will be exclusively rich people. As long as there’s demand from them, it’ll be hard for our company products to fail!” Fatty Lai said.

“Alright, you make the decisions.” Lin Yi nodded. Now that he’d let Fatty Lai take charge, the decisions should be left to him as long as he said it’d work.

“It’s really is nice to follow you, Boss!” Fatty Lai almost started crying again as the joy got to him. Lin Yi wasn’t involving himself at all and leaving everything to him! It took him quite a bit of willpower to hold the tears back. “Boss, I booked three plane tickets for tonight. We’ll be flying to Yanjing in just a bit.”

“That fast?” Lin Yi blinked. “Doesn’t it say here that the auction starts three days later?”

“That’s the time for the attendants. If we’re just going to buy an item, it’s fine even if we’re one or two days late,” Fatty Lai said. “But we’re going there as sellers, so we need to arrive earlier and go through the registration process.”

“I see!” Lin Yi nodded and agreed to Fatty Lai’s plans.

Lin Yi informed Pengzhan and the Miss, texting them that he had something to do for a couple of days and needed to be on leave. Pengzhan didn’t mind, naturally, but Mengyao sent a text warning Lin Yi, “Remember who you are, and don’t mess with any girls.”

“Ha…” Lin Yi shook his head after reading Mengyao’s text. He then dialed Tang Yin’s number. Her phone was turned off, unfortunately.

Lin Yi could only send her a text and explain that there was nothing going on between Xiaoxiao and him, that he needed to rush to an auction in Yanjing and also bring back a gift for her.

***

Miracle Doctor Kang’s house.

Meanwhile, Miracle Doctor Kang himself had, naturally, received an invitation. While the Kangs weren’t considered the bottom of the highest tier houses, they were still a leading titan in the industry. It would only make sense for the auction to invite them.

The Kangs did also put a couple of items of their own on auction every year.

“How come the auction is early this year?” Miracle Doctor Kang looked at the letter in his hand, confused.

“Yeah, father. It’s always in August. Wonder what’s wrong with the Yu house this year.” Guifeng nodded, curious.

“Silence!” Miracle Doctor Kang glared. “Do you think you can just mouth off about the Yus like that?”

“But there’s no outsiders here.” Guifeng knew he’d misspoken, but tried to explain himself anyway.

“No outsiders? We’d be in trouble if there were! You’ll doom the Kang house irreparably with that!” Miracle Doctor Kang harrumphed. “Don’t even think about this kind of thing from now on! The Kang house is an advanced house, so don’t cause any trouble. It may just be us two now, but if you get used to it and let words like that slip outside, it’ll ruin everything.”

“I understand, Father! I was wrong,” Guifeng quickly apologized.

“It doesn’t matter why House Yu’s starting the auction early. The Kangs will still have to attend!” Miracle Doctor Kang harrumphed. “This time I’ll go with you and Zhaolong. We’ll go to the Xiaos for the wedding plans first before heading to the auction.”

“Understood, Father!” Guifeng nodded. “Do we also use last year’s standard for this year’s auction items?”

“Yes, but we’ll prepare an extra portion as a gift for the Xiaos,” Miracle Doctor Kang said. “Get things ready as soon as possible! We’ll have to get moving in the next two days!”

“Don’t worry, Father!” Guifeng nodded.

Miracle Doctor Kang was more at ease when he let Guifeng handle things. His elder son was a lot more reliable than his younger one. Hopefully, they’d be able to get House Xiao’s support during this trip to Yanjing as well as a huge profit from the auction.

The Kangs would always prepare a couple of special, limited edition Golden Creation medicines for the auction every year. These were coveted by the high-class houses, and the bids always skyrocketed!

The profits were so enormous that they were actually a source of the Kangs’ annual income.

But the so-called limited edition Golden Creation was actually just undiluted Golden Creation medicine. Some of the components were also made of more aged reagents.

As a result, the limited edition was naturally different from the regular Golden Creation, and good medicine like it was the ideal target for rich folk who coveted it. Miracle Doctor Kang himself got more popular because of this product.

* * *

In Eastern medicine, some ingredients are better the older they are, like ginseng, for example.