Chapter 21: The Villa Secured! A Sea of Bougainvillea!

Chapter 21: The Villa Secured! A Sea of Bougainvillea!

Qin Lin first turned his attention to the light screen in his mind.

With his game character having leveled up again, he received a notification that he could develop another six plots of Level 1 land and upgrade one plot to Level 3. Level 3 land allowed for the cultivation of higher-value crops. Naturally, upgrading land required in-game gold coins. Since he had been selling all his in-game crops in reality, he had zero coins left in the game. Fortunately, he had kept all the fish he had caught over the past few days. He immediately sold them all, though he carefully set aside the Quality 2 wild crucian carp, grass carp, and black carp. These prime catches were valuable, so he kept them.

Even after selling all the fish he had caught recently, the amount of in-game gold was still insufficient to cover the cost of upgrading to Level 3 land. It seemed that the higher the land level, the significantly higher the cost. Qin Lin simply took control of his character, grabbed the tools, and set to work developing the six newly opened Level 1 plots. After some time spent weeding, clearing stones, and chopping stumps, he planted new okra seeds in the six plots. He did not plan to sell these in reality; he intended to sell them all within the game to save up for upgrading that Level 3 plot. Moving forward, he decided he would always reserve a portion of his land specifically for in-game sales to ensure he had enough currency for future development.

Time passed. By 2:00 PM, Qin Lin received a notification that the judicial auction had begun. With the development of the digital age, traditional judicial auctions were becoming increasingly rare, and the courts had kept pace by launching online platforms. Qin Lin logged into the local judicial auction website, where he had already received his bidder number. The items seized by the tax bureau were already up for bidding.

Soon, the Fu-Hai Villa auction commenced. As he had anticipated, others had their eyes on the property as well. As soon as the bidding started, three people began taking turns, raising the price from the starting bid of 600,000 by increments of 10,000—610,000, 620,000, 630,000... eventually reaching 700,000. These three bidders were acting cautiously, clearly hoping to secure the property at the lowest possible price, likely constrained by limited budgets.

Qin Lin pondered this. With a budget of just over 1.28 million, he didn't know how much the others had. He couldn't afford to grind it out with these three, increment by increment. Such bidders often operated on the hope that if they just added 10,000 more, the other party might give up. Since 10,000 didn't impose much pressure, they could keep at it for a long time. However, if he were to raise the bid by 100,000 at once, the pressure would be entirely different, signaling a "must-win" determination.

Just as he was about to submit a bid 100,000 higher, a fourth bidder joined, immediately placing a bid of 800,000. It seemed someone else had the same idea. True enough, the three "grinders" fell silent and stopped bidding. A 100,000-yuan jump was indeed intimidating to them, confirming they were just looking for a bargain.

Qin Lin felt a sense of frustration. He had encountered a real opponent, and he had no idea what their budget was. "Forget it, all in. Whether it works out or not is up to fate," he muttered, submitting a bid of 1.2 million—doubling the starting price. If it was about intimidation, he would see who scared whom. After all, this money was essentially free capital. If the other party still insisted on fighting, he would simply accept that it wasn't meant to be.

Meanwhile, in a room elsewhere, three young men were watching their computer screen with smug expressions. One of them laughed, "I told you, a single jump of 100,000 would definitely scare those slowpokes off. If we had grinded 10,000 at a time, it might have cost us more than 100,000 in the end." The three of them, former tourism planners in the city who had returned home to start a business, were full of ambition. They believed the Fu-Hai Villa had great potential and had pooled their money to acquire it. They were delighted to see their aggressive bidding strategy work.

"Bidder Q43 has bid 1.2 million!" the computer announced.

"What the hell? A spoiler?" one of the young men exclaimed in annoyance. 1.2 million? The three of them were stunned. A 400,000-yuan jump?

"Is this guy crazy?"
"What a stubborn jerk!"

The three complained. They didn't know if this person was bluffing, but they knew their own 100,000-yuan jump definitely was. They had scared off the others, but now they had run into someone even more ruthless.

"Should we... follow?" one asked. The other two hesitated; this was far beyond their budget. One sighed, "Maybe we should let it go. We're still young; there will be other opportunities."
"Let's wait and see," another said.
"Wait it is," the third agreed.

...

"Congratulations to Bidder Q43 for successfully winning the Fu-Hai Villa. Please follow the instructions received in your account to make the payment and complete the relevant procedures at the court."

Qin Lin exhaled in relief. It seemed the other party had been bluffing, and his own move had successfully called their bluff. With the villa secured, Qin Lin didn't want to delay. He headed out to the court to settle the paperwork and pay the 1.2 million. Such large-scale judicial auction procedures were cumbersome, requiring not only the confirmation of the ruling and receipts from the court but also assistance in enforcement letters for relevant departments. These formalities and the review process would take at least a few days. However, once the 1.2 million was paid and he had the documents in hand, the rest would follow in due time. Since this was a tax-seizure auction, no department would intentionally obstruct him; doing so would only damage the credibility of the authorities.

That evening, Qin Lin harvested the ripe strawberries and okra and sent them to RT-Mart. His daily income was credited, and his bank balance rose from the remaining 80,000 to over 120,000. Afterward, he rode his small electric scooter to the tax bureau to pick up Zhao Moqing, eager to share the good news about the villa.

Zhao Moqing walked out with a radiant smile. "Moqing, sounds like something good happened today?" Qin Lin asked with a laugh.

Zhao Moqing beamed. "I'm happy because I'll be getting a bit more of a bonus this month. The results of the judicial auction for the items our tax bureau put up were excellent—everything went for more than the estimated value. Especially the Fu-Hai Villa; some wealthy tycoon seemed to have his eye on it and bid 1.2 million right off the bat—double the starting price! It exceeded all our estimates. Everyone was saying that the others were scared off. If someone had pushed back just once or twice more, that 'money-is-no-object' sucker would probably have paid even more."

"..." Qin Lin.

A wealthy tycoon? A "money-is-no-object" sucker? Was she talking about him? Suddenly, he didn't feel like sharing his joy anymore. He was determined to make this villa a roaring success and give her a massive surprise later.

Zhao Moqing added, "Still, to spend that much on the Fu-Hai Villa, the buyer must be planning to develop it seriously, right? Honestly, there's so much wasteland at the villa—if they could plant a magnificent sea of bougainvillea, it would definitely attract a lot of people."

Qin Lin silently took her words to heart. A sea of bougainvillea must be on the agenda.