Chapter 848: No Inquiries
Translator: Nomyummi Editor: Nomyummi
For Team Everlasting, everyone was clear on what they had to do in this clearance. Those who were responsible for internal affairs, those who were responsible for external affairs, those who were responsible for the inventory, and those who were responsible for settlements did as they were supposed to.
As for contacting Happy, it should be the responsibility of the manager He An, but since it was Happy, He An wasn’t the most pleased. After some consideration, Everlasting’s boss let this task fall on Wu Chen’s shoulders.
Having been a part of the team for so long, Wu Chen had his boss’ explicit trust. Actually, if it weren’t for the fact that Wu Chen wanted to focus on the competition, he would be the manager instead of He An. He An was very competent, but he still lacked the Pro League experience that Wu Chen had. Wu Chen’s professionalism was something that He An needed more of.
Wu Chen accepted the task silently, not commenting on it.
There were things that he had used before in the clearance sale and things he had managed to personally obtain from the online game. Yet, now, he had to personally give these things over to another party. Wu Chen wasn’t sure if this counted as a commemoration.
By the time he returned to his room, his laptop had automatically gone into sleep mode. After moving his mouse to revive it, he saw that the chat window with Ye Xiu was still open. Wu Chen directly sent a message over, giving an even more straightforward reply than the one Ye Xiu had sent him, "How much money are you prepared offer?" Wu Chen, of course, didn’t expect the other to answer his question directly. This was a test of the other side’s attitude, looking at what tone and words they used to answer. In reality, such an important negotiation shouldn’t be conducted online, though this was still the preliminary negotiations.
Yet, just the preliminary negotiations between these two were a little too blunt; they immediately started out with the ultimate questions of "how much money are you offering" and "how much money do you want?"
Just as Wu Chen expected, Ye Xiu was still next to his laptop and quickly sent a reply, "We’ll have to see what you have to offer first."
"If it’s to your liking, are you prepared to buy it out?" Wu Chen asked. For them, they definitely hoped that they could sell everything all in one go, but this sort of situation was actually very rare. From what they knew of previous relegated teams, each of them turned into a supermarket. Everyone would come and have a look and buy whatever they needed, ignoring what they didn’t. So in the end, the good stuff was all picked off, and the not so good stuff was left with them to rot. In the end, they could only sell that stuff at a disgusting price to those offices.
"Of course not, we’re really poor!" Ye Xiu replied.
Wu Chen was speechless. It was hard to tell if this was the case or not, but it was clear that they weren’t going for a buyout. If that was the case, there was no need to get in too deep with Happy right now. Everlasting still wanted to wait and see if there was anyone willing to buy them out.
"Can we have a look at what you have to offer first?" Ye Xiu then asked.
"We’re still taking inventory, so maybe later...." Wu Chen was already beginning to stall for time. In reality, the information on the more valuable items had been given to him long ago and there was no need to take inventory anymore. Those that still needed it were the items that were many and unorganized. Anything that they could collect a lot of was, naturally, low in value.
Everyone wanted something good from them, but what Everlasting hoped for was that these buyers would also take a few things that were hard to sell with them too. In truth, this was a good idea, but was much hard to achieve than in theory. With their current circumstances, Team Everlasting didn’t really have much power.
"To be honest, we won’t ask for much," Ye Xiu responded, "You’ve probably already realized, the overlapping classes on our teams aren’t many in number."
"Not many? Launcher, Warlock, that’s already two!" Wu Chen said.
"We don’t need any Launcher equipment," Ye Xiu responded.
Wu Chen paused. The launcher Chasing Haze Happy had sent out on that day was rather noobish; was she really just a bench-warmer?
In such an important match of the Challenger League, they actually dared to send up a bench-warmer. Wu Chen couldn’t help but think of the match they had just finished. The Summoner they had sent up also seemed like a fill-in without any particularly striking abilities.
Could it be that Happy was stronger than they had thought, so they actually had nothing to fear from Everlasting? Wu Chen couldn’t help but wonder.
"So, for Silver equipment, we mainly want your Warlock’s equipment. However, there are a total of seven pieces of Silver equipment on that Warlock; I don’t know the specific stats for each, but they don’t seem like top quality goods overall. For the individual pieces, I’ll have to see the stats before offering a price," Ye Xiu informed him.
"You don’t want it all? If I’m remembering correctly, your Warlock Windward Formation has a total of three pieces of Silver equipment, including his weapon?" Wu Chen said.
"We do want it all, but we’re too poor! We have to be careful with where we spend our money and what we buy," Ye Xiu replied. He’s still saying they’re poor! Yet, Wu Chen still couldn’t tell if it was honest or not. However, he had already figured out Happy’s intentions. No wonder a team with only the backing of an internet cafe dared to come and negotiate with them about buying their assets. They weren’t really here to make any big purchases; they were treating them like a convenience store, preparing to buy some soy sauce and leave. They had no money, but wanted to buy quality goods.
This sort of buyer was the kind that people hated most. Wu Chen and Happy’s preliminary negotiations were more or less finished. After that, they exchanged a few words out of politeness, but didn’t give any hint of how they planned to respond before leaving. Immediately after, Wu Chen went to tell his boss of what he had found out. Hearing this news, Everlasting’s boss was, naturally, rather depressed. He had thought that Happy would be a good choice of buyer and not the clingy brat they had turned out to be. That sort of person wasn’t worth paying attention to so soon! All they had to do was scatter some rice for them if, in the end, they didn’t have anyone willing to buy them out.
After the preliminary negotiations, Everlasting became much colder towards Happy. They were already displeased with Happy, considering how Happy eliminated had been the reason for their disbandment. Even though competition and business were separate, the business they were trying to do between them was negligible; it wouldn’t matter if it never happened.
Team Everlasting hoped that another buyer would appear, but then one, two, three days passed quickly. It was just three days, but Team Everlasting was already very anxious. It had been three days and no team had taken the initiative to contact them. Those who did were the workshops that wanted to take advantage of their misfortune. These guys didn’t want to buy anything for themselves, but just to resell, so they were doing their damndest to bargain for a ridiculously low price. Team Everlasting ignored these people who were even more despicable than Happy. Yet they began to feel uneasy: would their stuff all end up in the hands of these workshops? Why weren’t there any buyers apart from Happy? Were they doing this on purpose to mess with them?
There was only Happy, whose enthusiasm had not waned in three days. Lord Grim would come and chat with Wu Chen every now and then. They really did seem quite sincere. It was just that they didn’t have much financial power, so Everlasting didn’t think they were really worth it!
Today, Wu Chen saw that Lord Grim had sent another message to him upon opening QQ, and had managed to guess their situation in one. "How are things; has anyone come over as a buyer?" "Of course." Wu Chen wouldn’t dare admit the truth. "Are you serious?" The smiley face Lord Grim sent made his confidence apparent. How was he so certain?
"Look." In the end, he didn’t even had to ask since the other had already started analyzing their circumstance, "Powerhouses wouldn’t need your assets, you admit that right?"
"Yeah," Wu Chen said.
"As for the teams that are of similar strength to you, their needs aren’t so urgent, so they can wait for you to give up and organize a clearance sale. Do they have a need to contact you so early in the game?" Ye Xiu asked.
"..." Wu Chen was speechless. This was similar to their own thoughts. Those clubs didn’t need anything of theirs urgently, so they weren’t going to be impatient, but instead just purposefully wait until Everlasting gave out.
"So those who do need what you’re offering and are sincere about it, would be those teams with bad foundations, especially those who want to fortify themselves as soon as possible," Ye Xiu explained.
"Yeah…" Wu Chen had to agree.
"These kinds of teams, to be honest, are more common in the Challenger League," Ye Xiu continued.
"The Challenger League… Normal teams wouldn’t have the backing to buy anything," Wu Chen said.
"Even if they did, they wouldn’t," Ye Xiu replied.
"Why?" Wu Chen was shocked.
"Because of Excellent Era," Ye Xiu answered.
Wu Chen was shocked again, but then came to a sudden realization.
Excellent Era, it was because of Excellent Era again. With Excellent Era being relegated, it caused a lot of people trouble. For example, the Challenger League had suddenly become rather meaningless. Under these circumstances, there was no point in using money to try and strengthen their teams this year. In front of Excellent Era, spending money wouldn’t do anything to change the result; they were still powerless.
In comparison, those like Happy who were also in the Challenger League but willing to spend money on strengthening their team seemed to have far more dignity and spirit.
"I think you guys can give up on a buyout. You should probably spend your efforts on taking a look into the pro teams that are willing to become your transaction partners, and start advertising what you have!" Ye Xiu suggested.
"..." Wu Chen was still speechless.
"But before that, can’t you guys treasure the teams that came to you to buy your equipment, like us?" Ye Xiu immediately added.
"As for now, you’re seen as the team that dealt the blow which landed us in this situation in the first place," Wu Chen replied with honesty. Though his boss had him contact Happy, it wasn’t possible that his boss had no negative feelings when it came to dealing with Happy. Upon seeing that Happy didn’t prepare to buy much and saw them as a supermarket they could browse, his boss immediately decided to give Happy the cold shoulder. This was probably because of that grudge.
"Is this really necessary…" Ye Xiu said.
"But after all your hints, I suddenly thought of another team that has a high chance of becoming a buyer!" Wu chen said.
"Are you talking about Team Heavenly Swords?" Ye Xiu asked.
"That’s right," Wu Chen replied. It wasn’t surprising that the other had managed to guess this. Anyone with some experience in the Pro circle would know that a team that had just applied to join the Alliance would be a good choice of buyer. Team Heavenly Swords wasn’t, as Wu Chen implied, a team he had just managed to think of. In reality this was the primary target they had been keeping an eye on.
"Team Heavenly Sword… Not bad!" In the reply, there was another smiley face. Wu Chen immediately sensed the other’s confidence. What was this guy smiling about this time?