40.5 Downhill

At this point though, the first manager barged in, head down, out of breath, not seeing the sheer amount of people in the room.

"Zi Manager! The real jewels that we swapped out have been stolen from me by-By a cat!"

The whole room went silent.

"What? Yu Manager, I did no such thing! Look, let's sort this out. All of you don't tell anybody, okay? As for you..." A confused Zi manager turned to Xuanmei.

"We'll repay you with an item from the storage of the auction house and these gems... You can have them. Just keep quiet about this. Come back two days later during the next auction."

"You! You took half the gems!"

"I didn't! I swear!"

Xuanmei silently walked out of the room, seemingly angry.

"Well, it's a pity that they really resulted to fraud. I would've considered sparing their last auction house."

"Meow."

[I know you don't do things without reason. Why did you attack this specific chain of auction houses?]

"Well..."

"What? No! Impossible! How-!"

A plump, rather sunken looking man from behind an oakwood desk stood up, flustered. Slamming his hands on his desk, the attendee watched as his papers and contracts fluttered to the ground.

Hurriedly picking up after the scattered papers, the black market bought slaves at the side, mostly comprising of males who looked more useful in work comprising of brawns and working manual work or women who were more suitable for housework, had their eyes slightly closed in anticipation.

For what? They were all in fear of a beating from their angry master, of course. Each slave picked a piece of document gently, and as a male slave accidentally crumpled the edge of a piece of paper slightly, the attendee glared at him, kicking him down.

The male came forward, kneeled down in front of the attendee, placing the papers back onto the desk before slumping and retreating to their original position as the attendee, who was of a higher position, kicked and stepped on a woman who accidentally stepped on a piece of paper.

"Now that I have cleared the way of those scum, ah! This- Ah... Chief executive officer, what do we do?"

"How did they know!"

"Erm, may I know what you talking about when you said something about someone knowing something, chief executive officer?"

"A-Ai, never mind. It's just that, well, to take this auction house to a higher standing, I had once stolen my own and everyone else's items from an auction house, demanded a refund and stole all their land. That's why we have so many luxurious items and deeds but we do not have much money."

The chief executive officer gasped in sudden realisation eyes widening as he suddenly ordered out, "Ask all auction houses to double check all stocks and make sure they all do not sell fakes! Quickly!"

The attendee ran out as the chief executive officer slumped back into his chair both hands supporting his forehead anxiously.

"Everything is going downhill..."