Super Spender

Chapter 280: 274 Prodigal at Its Peak – Part 2

“So what if they get damaged? Aren’t tables made for people to eat at?” Finn Lewis replied, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. What damage was he supposed to be afraid of? Even if he couldn’t bring more tables back from where he got them, he could still keep getting them in the other dimension! These things may not be unlimited, but he had enough to terrify people, no problem about that.

“Alright, I’m starting to have a bit of faith in your approach,” Sarah Wood said, shaking her head in speechless resignation while mentally slapping a giant label on Finn: Prodigal! And not just your ordinary prodigal — these things could probably all be shipped to any museum where they’d be cherished treasures, yet here they were used casually for dining!

Imagine the feelings of those wealthy collectors who can’t help hoarding Huanghuali woodworks, walking into this hall! The treasures they usually treat as such are being used openly here as an offering to visitors?

“Shall we continue looking around?” Finn asked, seeing that Sarah was speechless. He was feeling secretly elated by her reaction; let her keep doubting him — now she would see that once he decided to do something, he did it with full confidence. And above all, he had still not played his trump card!

“Alright then,” an exasperated Sarah agreed, and followed him further into the building. Many of the items hadn’t even been displayed yet – mostly ceramics.

Just as they’d walked beyond a pillar in the hall, Sarah suddenly thought of something, exclaiming, “Wait! She then promptly backtracked two steps and stared at a picture hanging from the side of the pillar. Though she didn’t understand antique artworks, that didn’t mean she couldn’t recognize characters, and instantly noticed what made this piece from a famous artist unique.

“This… Is this a real painting by Mr. Z?” she asked in disbelief, almost gasping at the sight of it.

“Of course,” Finn replied with an amused nod. He had no idea how many paintings Mr. Z had made in his life, but he knew there were more in possession of other scholars from that time. Truth be told, these artworks aren’t worth much in the Western Dynasty, and Glorious Lucas had a way of acquiring these masterpieces.

Actually, the Western Dynasty of that period had a vast number of antiques, most of which ended up out of Flame Nation due to events like the two Opium Wars, the invasion of the Eight-Nation Alliance, the Sino-French War, and the joint British and French incursion.

And this time frame happened to be when opium addiction was at its highest. Numerous prestigious and wealthy families whose members were addicted to opium had to pawn their inherited assets, including large quantities of antiques. In fact, while the English were robbing these antiques, they only took the best pieces leaving the majority of artifacts to be carried away by opium traders.

The Lucas family owned several pawnshops, and for obvious reasons, Finn didn’t want to inquire where these artifacts came from. But he knew that Glorious Lucas wouldn’t waste the opportunity to get in his good graces. After all, such artifacts wouldn’t be much use to the Lucas family. They were merely for the wealthy to play with, and in current times, the Lucas family could hardly be considered wealthy; they were just maintaining appearances.

Sarah Parks was thoroughly dumbfounded now as she had been so preoccupied with the tables, she had failed to notice the calligraphy and artworks decorating the walls. If a random painting hung on a pillar in this hall turned out to be an original work by Mr. Z, it meant that many of the calligraphy pieces and paintings in this hall would also be originals.

The invitees for tonight were all prominent figures in Celeston City or, to put it simply, within the entire Flame Nation. The only reason Matthew Chan, as the branch manager of Celeston City, knew these people was because of his position. If Finn were to extend the invitations himself, he would probably be able to invite Mr. M, at most.

In actuality, the number of invitations was not extensive; only a little over a hundred, which with their partners and family included, would not exceed two or three hundred people. It was already a considerable feat to gather so many people, especially considering Finn only asked Matthew Chan for help. But what Finn didn’t know was, Matthew had to pull many strings to get this to work.

Mr. M, known by players as “M,” had come here specifically from Stratos City. Even though he had never met Finn, Finn once called him about a professional league game — the AC league, under their gaming alliance. They didn’t know each other before this call.

So, Mr. M was quite intrigued by Finn, which is why he accepted the invitation, even though it wasn’t extended directly by Finn. Finn Lewis was under the impression that he wasn’t well-known, but in this stratum, he already had quite a reputation.

Based on Finn’s age, what were his current assets? He owned fifty-seven percent of the shares in /VY. which was now valued at thirty-two billion

Federal coins. Not to mention an epic game that made 380 million Federal coins in just an hour! This was pure profit! That’s $380 million Federal coins in just one hour! Why wouldn’t these rich people pay attention to that? Thus, even though Finn never considered himself famous, the top magnates knew about him, and aside from the ones who were abroad, almost all of them rushed to attend his participation.

For these wealthy individuals, time is of utmost importance, so by 7-30 p, nearly all invitees had arrived. Unlike Finn’s schoolmates, who had gone in directly, these people were lingering outside the entrance to Moon of West Lake, inside a space that was originally a parking lot.

Today was, after all, the first official reopening day, and everyone was willing to show face for the occasion. However, at the moment, Finn wasn’t on stage but amidst his schoolmates, who didn’t know these people and thus didn’t feel as much pressure. Still, there was a vague separation between the two groups, which was natural given the age difference.

When everyone saw Cora Franklin walking in hand-in-hand with Handsome Lucas, the faces of all Finn’s schoolmates changed instantly. They had just heard what was inside the shop. When Cora had been showering Finn with money in school, some thought she might have found a fantastic boyfriend..