A day later, on the first weekend of March, another auction in Flagstaff had a new batch of storage units to sell.
"This batch of storage could be pretty good," Hans said. "Someone saw a gun case in one of the units, an antique one perhaps. If we managed to get an antique gun, we could earn a good deal of money."
Hearing this, Li Du was surprised. "Getting such a dangerous item like a firearm in an auction? Shouldn't this be passed on to the authorities?"
Recently he had been stuffing himself with knowledge on storage auctions. He was not a greenhorn anymore, and there were many things that he could understand now.
America was a country where people went crazy about the arts. Attending art-related events was a day-to-day entertainment for many Americans. Between the parents and the schools, they would always cultivate children's abilities to appreciate art. Even in universities, art history was a compulsory course for many students; artists and professors tended to have a higher social standing.
Because of all this, the art appreciation in American society was very high. From what Li Du had learned, regardless of the size of the city, there would usually be a few art museums around. Even small towns would have these places, and with no lack of visitors.
Due to this background, there were collectors all over America, and they would collect a myriad of things; cars, industrial supplies, toys, wine bottles and even firearms. All of this could be considered art. Of course, the more common art collectibles were items such as paintings, sculptures and other hand crafted pieces.
Regardless of what they collected, there was an unspoken rule amongst collectors that could not be broken: Illegal items must never be collected. This could include prohibited firearms, drugs, products of nature and endangered flora and fauna.
Li Du said all of these things aloud to Hans.
"No," Hans replied, "you're wrong. Only weapons that have not been registered by the authorities are illegal. Otherwise, it's fine. Even a tank, so long as it had been properly registered, can be collected. Cannons and planes work the same way."
Li Du was relieved; if this was the case, there were no problems. It was time to set out.
As the date quickly approached, only two days remained before the start of the auction, leaving the two with little time to spare.
Fortunately, the bug could now fly. With training, the amount of time Li Du could make use of it had increased greatly. He could now use the bug for a good ten minutes with no problems, and fifteen minutes was the limit.
This storage company was called Arizona Classic Storages Co. Ltd. Although its name sounded grandiose, in reality, it only had about 80 units. What was different about it from Smith's Storage Company was that this place work on memberships. The storage owners were either middle aged or elderly. The units that they owned had long histories, so it was almost like buying a house.
These kinds of companies rarely held auctions. They would consolidate the storage units into a single batch and pick a day to auction them all out at once. Li Du and Hans were lucky to have come across this opportunity.
Once they reached Arizona Classic Storages Co. Ltd., Li Du nodded his head in approval.
They really deserved to hunt at a membership-based storage company. The inside was much more magnificent than others, and the security was impeccable. Even when they were outside, there were guards keeping an eye on them.
The storage units were sealed off very tightly. Hans went to pester the guards, and Li Du went to release his bug.
According to their information, there were four units to be auctioned. These included unit 4, unit 7, unit 26 and unit 50. From what Hans had heard, the gun box was in unit 7.
Li Du first let the bug into storage unit 7. The things inside were organized neatly, the boxes were lined up and arranged in order. These were the storage units that treasure hunters hated the most because they would not be able to see anything valuable, just stacks of boxes.
These were the kind that Li Du liked, as these were the places that the bug could maximize its potential.
In this storage there were quite a few valuables. In some boxes were electronics like brand new sound systems and LCD computers. After some further exploring, he found the antique gun box.
He burrowed into the gun box and looked. Inside was an old pistol that looked like the German Ruger P08. This type of gun was about a century old, and it was invaluable. Leaving storage unit 7, he went to quickly sweep through unit 4.
The items in this storage were neatly arranged as well. Instead of boxes, however, lots of wooden shelves were used, with the items all sitting on the shelves.
Although it was orderly, there were not many valuable items. Most of them were cheap things like benches, kitchenware and defective sofa cushions.
When the bug flew onto the last wooden shelf, a small box that was carefully wrapped in plastic appeared in his vision.
As he flew in to look, Li Du found a handphone that was of the size of a young girl's palm. Black screen, silver casing, and at the back stamped an image of an apple that had a bite taken out of it.
This bitten apple icon was extremely popular in recent years all over the world. This was the iPhone. Li Du, however, had never seen this model.
He recalled the bug back to his palm, and went to browse the web for information. He discovered that the phone he saw was an iPhone first generation.
This model was released back in 2007. Steve Jobs used it to break into the market of mobile phones and knocked down the empire that Nokia and Motorola had built up.
What interested Li Du was its value. The phone was nearly a decade old, and this original design was not very successful when it first came out, so not many were sold. It was only after the subsequent generations of iPhone got better that its popularity began to grow. "Kidney Seller" was a term coined for a Chinese man who once sold his kidney for an iPhone.
Li Du recalled a saying: "Loving someone to the point of even loving the crows at their house." This could be used to describe Apple product fanatics who loved everything made by the company. Now that many people wanted to collect this phone model, the iPhone first generation would have a high value due to its low production and age.
Although a first generation iPhone would have originally only cost 600 to 700 dollars, the price went over 10,000 dollars for a used one.
After returning to the storage unit with the bug to take another look, Li Du found that although the packaging was opened, the phone had never been used, so its value would be much higher. Selling it for as high as 20,000 dollars would be possible!
This discovery got him excited. However, as he kept looking through the remaining storage units, he gradually lost interest in them. They had nothing else valuable. Old shoes, expired beer, a bunch of useless clothing—these two units were meant to keep junk.
After ten minutes, and going through all four of them, Li Du felt lethargic, but not exhausted like the last time. From this, he could tell that he had improved a lot.
When they returned home, Kai Wen introduced to them a client who wanted to purchase their furniture. He was a classical furniture lover from Phoenix, but he did not have much on him and asked for 1,500 dollars for the furniture.
Hans politely sent him away, as the price he offered was too low. Li Du felt that it was worth at least 2,500 dollars for the time and effort they had spent on it.
Treasure hunting was a trade that was highly dependent on one’s observational skills and luck. Because people weren’t allowed into the storage units, they could only rely on analyses made from rumors about the contents, as well as observations made in a very short period from outside the storage unit. These things made it very difficult to earn money in this line of work.
"Every storage company has precious treasures. But to receive them, one needs God’s blessing." This was a saying Li Du had learned in the treasure hunting trade. Everyone consoled themselves with it after buying a storage unit.
All the auctions that Li Du had participated in, however, had earned him money. Last month, his income had been very high, coming up to more than 50,000 dollars—even after tax. This made him a true middle-class income earner in America. Li Du knew the he shouldn’t look down on the middle-class. They were the backbone of the United States of America; the strongest country in the world was supported by them.
Hans had, naturally, joined the middle-class along with him.
But Hans was an extravagant spender. Each time he earned money he spent it right away on things like drinking and womanizing. He enjoyed and really lived his life to the fullest.
The bug was what sustained their current lifestyle. Li Du often felt anxious and afraid that the bug would leave him someday.
Luckily, it seemed like he had been worried for nothing. The bug hadn’t left, and had actually grown wings. Li Du felt lost about this; he had no idea how the bug had evolved.
After having his dinner, Ah Meow went out to play. It jumped up onto the windowsill, and down again very nimbly. Seeing this, Li Du hurried over to get a closer look.
Hans asked, "What are you doing?’
Li Du said, "Did you notice that Ah Meow isn’t limping anymore?"
He wasn’t too sure about this since, by all standards, Ah Meow’s leg shouldn’t have recovered so fast.
Doubtful, Li Du called toward the outside, "Ah Meow, come back here first."
"Meow…" Ah Meow turned its head and mewed, a look of bewilderment on its round, cat face. Despite this, it ran back obediently, its movements smooth and graceful.
Hans was amazed. "Yeah. Its leg is back to normal. It really is a beast—no wonder it recovered so fast."
Li Du knew that this wasn’t the reason for the cat’s quick healing. Ah Meow suddenly having strong powers of recovery definitely had something to do with the bug. If this was so, then he had to experiment a little. The bug must have evolved after entering Ah Meow’s brain.
The next day, he went to the park to look for stray cats and dogs.
Before he managed to find any, however, he saw the familiar and beautiful figure of Dr. Sophie.
The lady doctor was wearing a light blue, tight, boat neck dress. She sat on a bench, a large loaf of bread in her lap, tapping a light-hearted rhythm on the ground with the toes of her feet.
Li Du had seen many women wear boat necks in America, but few could wear it with the charming effect and style of Sophie.
The effect was wholly due to her beautiful figure. Her full breasts pushed the shirt collar forward, making her mildly curved clavicles just vaguely visible, like fluttering butterfly wings. It was an unearthly, sophisticated sense of beauty.
Young men and elderly gentlemen alike slowed their pace as they walked past the lady doctor, gazing at her appreciatively.
Li Du wanted to go and greet her, but the morning rays fell on Sophie and the mottled bench she sat on. The scene it created was a touchingly elegant, peaceful one.
Considering her and the scene that was created, Li Du thought about it for a moment and then just left.
They weren’t close, after all.
"If I had only brought Ah Meow." Li Du shook his head in frustration. "Damn, there’s only a cat between that goddess and myself."
He walked around the garden a bit, and then went back to where Sophie was. Not that he was still thinking of approaching her, but he returned because he had noticed that all of the stray cats and dogs had run towards her.
There were now some other people there other than Sophie. All of them were cradling large loaves of bread which they tore to strips and fed to the cats and dogs.
Li Du looked around, but didn’t see any bakeries nearby.
A voice suddenly rang out from behind him. "Hey, mate. Do you want to buy some bread?"
Li Du jumped in shock. Turning around, he saw a young black man. Laughing in embarrassment, he asked, "How did you get so close to me? I didn’t even notice."
The young man also laughed, showing two rows of pearly white teeth. "I’m a thief. I know the art of stealth. Alright, let’s not waste your time. This bread is fresh from the oven, and the cats and dogs like it. Twenty dollars. Do you want it?"
Li Du was shocked. "This bread, for twenty dollars? It should cost only two dollars!"
Normal sourdough bread like this was very cheap. Such a large loaf would usually only cost two or three dollars, not 20.
The black young man smiled cunningly. "But the chance to approach a beauty is worth at least 20 dollars, isn’t it? This is an honest price for a brother. Are you a tourist? This is the lowest price I’ll give to a tourist."
Li Du understood what he was saying. The young man thought that he was after Sophie.
To him, 20 dollars was now a small sum. He passed it to the young man for the bread. Holding the loaf, he blended into the small crowd feeding the strays.
He truly hadn’t bought it to approach Sophie, but to get near the cats and dogs. He squatted on the ground, tearing the bread into strips and placing them in front of him. When any cats or dogs came close he would let the bug out and try to burrow it into their heads.
Following his instructions, the bug flew over, landed on their heads and did its best to burrow down but failed. The cats and dogs didn’t even realize that it was there.
He tried this with almost all of the cats and dogs. Ten minutes later, Li Du was so exhausted that he was huffing and puffing, but the bug was still flying in the air.
He was confused. Why is it that the bug could burrow into Ah Meow’s brain but not other animals’?
He stood up suddenly; as a result of squatting for a long time and exhaustion, he nearly blacked out, and swayed on his feet.
An old man with a ruddy complexion and eyes that crinkled up like the moon caught him before he could fall. The old man smilingly said, "Young man, the pretty girl is gone."
Only then did Li Du notice that most of the people had left and that Sophie was nowhere to be found.
He smiled bitterly. "You misunderstand, sir. I admit that there was a very beautiful girl here, but I wasn’t here for her. I was here for these little fellows, I swear to God!"
The old man looked at him with interest, nodding. "No need to swear. I believe you. Your gaze is frank and honest. It’s quite obvious that you’re not lying."
After speaking with the old man a little, Li Du felt better and called a cab back.
When he got home there were some people out walking their dogs. He resumed doing his experiments, still to no avail. The bug couldn’t fly into the animals’ heads at all!
Having gained nothing except fatigue, Li Du had to force himself to stay awake until after lunch. Then, unable to resist any longer, he fell into a deep sleep in his bed with Ah Meow.
Ever since obtaining the bug he had been able to sleep soundly, almost undisturbed by dreams, and would wake up feeling fresh and rested.
The sky was bright when Li Du woke up and yelled happily, "Hello to a beautiful day!"
The door opened with a bang and Hans popped his head in. "Yo, you handsome pig! It’s half past eight. We have less than an hour until the auction!"
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