Chapter 588: Go, Las Vegas
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
"How big is the scale of the auction?" Li Du asked.
He did not receive any answer. Hans just left him with a simple response: "You'll know when you go."
Although Li Du did not think that he could earn as much in the auction as he could finding fire opals here, he still decided to participate.
The reason being he needed the rest.
Indeed, it might be ironic that in the past when his job was in storage unit auctions, coming to the national park to see the Petrified Forest was considered a break. Now, it was the other way around.
The search for fire opals was too tiring. Of course, he could make it less tiring by curbing his ambition and slowing down the search.
However, he was unable to do so knowing that there were countless US dollars under his feet. He could not stand the temptation and always wanted to quickly dig out the opals.
As such, after the past few days, he was utterly exhausted and needed a short break away from the national park.
Furthermore, he needed to deal with the fire opals in his possession and Winslow was not suitable to do so. He could sell 30 plus gemstones to Owen at once without any problem, but he could not continuously sell him that many gemstones.
Winslow was a very small place with a poor market for gemstones. As such, Owen was regrettably already short on cash. Moreover, at the rate Li Du was selling fire opals, there may be unforeseen problems that he would encounter once the news was out.
It was also time for Sophie to go home and prepare for her father's birthday, which he needed to prepare for as well.
Counting according to days, his schedule would be very tight as it was the old man's birthday right after the Las Vegas auction.
They returned to Flagstaff. Hans was leisurely playing video games at camp, with Lu Guan and Chen Haonan next to him. The three of them took turns furiously moving the joystick while watching the huge television.
After staring for a moment, Li Du said, "Wow. 'Call of Duty?' Well done."
Hans casually turned his head to look and said in astonishment, "Oh bro, aren't you supposed to be on vacation? Could it be that you and Sophie had a honeymoon while you were there? Singing through the night?"
"P*ss off," Li Du said darkly. "What nonsense are you saying?"
After Hans cast aside the joystick, Big Quinn took over as he liked playing this kind of game.
"Look at yourself. Look at yourself! Why are you so haggard?"
Li Du, who also knew how haggard he looked, touched his face. Truth be told, he looked very haggard, so he could not have continued staying at the national park. Otherwise, after a long period of time there, he might lose all of his energy and die abruptly.
He went to wash his face and said, "All right, tell me about the situation of this auction."
Hans hesitantly said, "How about we don't go. You probably need to rest. D*mn it, I have never seen you this tired!"
Li Du smiled. "I know my own condition. I'm fine. Tell me, what's this auction's situation?"
"The situation is unclear," Hans replied. "All I know is that there's a cash storage unit auction in Las Vegas. I don't think we should miss this opportunity. I would like to go take a look."
He went into the house, opened the safe, and took out a receipt. It was the sales slip of the celebrity signed sports equipment, which listed the price that each piece of equipment had been sold at.
Hans hadn't lied. The batch of sports equipment had indeed been sold for an astonishing total price of 1,660,000 dollars.
The most valuable item was the signed Yankees pitching machine, which sold for 580,000 dollars!
An ordinary pitching machine was not valuable and only cost at most six thousand dollars to ten thousand dollars.
However, the pitching machine they had found was a professional pitching machine, which was custom made by the manufacturer. This kind of pitching machine was unique and worth more than 100,000 dollars.
Furthermore, with the autographs of all the Yankees player in the last ten plus years, the pitching machine had a great collector's value.
"Do you know who I sold these items to?" Hans asked.
Li Du scrutinized the receipt and replied, "Isn't the customer's name written on this? 'Pastorife Potter'—that name sounds familiar. Where have I seen it before?"
Hans placed his palm against his forehead and said, "Oh, you really are too tired. Is your brain so broken down that you can't even remember this? It happened only recently. Let me give you a hint: Beverly Hills, Los Angeles."
Li Du then realized. "I remember now. It's that nerdy boy who liked to giggle, right? Doesn't that guy collect comics? Why is he also collecting sports equipment?
Hans shrugged. "Who knows? It seems like he was wooing a lady who's infatuated with sports."
Li Du licked his lips. As expected from someone born with a silver spoon. Spending 1,660,000 dollars just to woo a lady? That's outrageous.
Hans was also shocked by it. When he'd heard the news, he hurried over to Los Angeles to carry out the trade even though he had intended to organize a sports equipment auction.
Although 830,000 dollars was a lot and Li Du had yet to earn that much from participating in auctions, Li Du did not think highly of the money.
He could earn much more in a day at the national park. The fire opals currently in his possession were already worthed at least 3,000,000 dollars.
His wealth had dramatically increased with the appearance of the fire opal mine. He was already considering an occupation change to another type of gemstone, such as digging for diamonds in a diamond mine!
After a short recuperation at Flagstaff, they began to head to Las Vegas.
As they started driving, Hans pumped his fist into the air and shouted, "Go, Las Vegas!"
Las Vegas was located to the northwest of Flagstaff. The distance between the two was short and only required a five-hour drive.
As everyone knew, the city of Las Vegas was one of the four biggest gambling cities in the world and had been depicted in a lot of movies and television dramas.
Truth be told, Las Vegas was not seen as a place for gambling in the eyes of Americans. It was instead a collection of tourist sites such as shopping centers, resorts, entertainment, and so on, blended into a single city.
According to the statistics from the United States Travel and Tourism Advisory Board, there was an average of 38,900,000 tourists who visited Las Vegas every year. They were mainly there to shop and enjoy delicious food, while only a small number of them came specifically to gamble.
There was a popular saying in America: "If you are so poor that you can only afford bread, going to Las Vegas may make you rich. If you are rich enough to buy cities, going to Las Vegas may let you experience the carefree nature of homelessness."
That was how Las Vegas was. One part of it was hell and the other part was heaven.
This was also the perception of Las Vegas in the eyes of treasure hunters: one part was hell, one was heaven.
Las Vegas was a world-renowned tourist attraction and had possibly close to 40,000,000 tourists every year. Besides bringing along and purchasing large amounts of items, they would also lose large amounts of items.
As such, there were rows upon rows of storage unit companies here. With such large amounts of items, there were always bound to be extremely valuable items inside.
Many treasure hunter would spend a few hundred dollars to bid for a storage unit and yet earned dozens, hundreds of thousands, or even millions, making a huge profit.
Despite all of that, Las Vegas was also a city of gangs with every street under their control. As America had a powerful police force, the gangs would not dare go too far but were still able to easily manage a few businesses.
The storage unit auction business in Las Vegas was under the control of gangs.