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MTL - He Became a Salted Fish After Inheriting Millions of Secret Arts-Chapter 20 Emerging business tools for the 21st century
Miss Madeleine Clearwater dreaded Saturday.
Saturday was the opening day of the Secret Realm Trading House, which meant that she had to accompany Mrs. Boyle back to that dangerous place. Thinking of the unpleasant experience last time, her palms still ached.
The master of the trading house broke her wrist with that strange sword. After returning home, Mrs. Boyle treated her and promised that there would be no sequelae. But Madeleine begged Mrs. Boyle repeatedly not to bring her with her when she went to the trading house, but she refused.
"You're afraid of such a small scene, how can it become a big weapon in the future?" Mrs. Boyle taught, "Besides, there may be something good in the trading house next time. Are we going to miss it?"
Madeleine wanted to cry but had no choice but to agree. She prayed to God and all the vanished forerunners that time would stop and never reach Saturday, but her prayers obviously didn't reach Heaven.
On Saturday, the magic circle going to the secret trading house opened again. Mrs. Boyle carried a small cash box and dragged the reluctant Madeleine into the magic circle.
Madeleine thought that the last brawl would scare most of the customers away, but she didn't expect that once she entered the trading house, there would still be an endless stream of customers. It seemed that the mystic was much bolder than she imagined. The more dangerous the place, the more precious treasures are hidden. Any mystic knows this truth.
What surprised her even more was that the layout of the trading house had changed drastically compared to the last time.
In the middle of the hall where the revolving display cabinets were originally displayed, a pyramid made of many small black boxes was placed. Each box has a number written on it.
This fantastic pyramid of black boxes caught the eyes of all customers, and everyone turned around curiously, wondering what new tricks the trading house owner was playing.
The owner of the trading house wore a weird outfit today. He was wearing a white wig, a gold mask on his face, and a red coat with a scary color. Maybe this person just loves fancy dress. Madeleine thought. Isn't it often said that there is a fine line between a genius and a madman?
"Master of the trading house, we have brought the payment." Mrs. Boyle greeted him.
"It's really unexpected that you are here." The owner of the trading house smiled.
"Did you think we would never return?"
"I just didn't expect you to raise enough money so quickly."
Madeleine thought that the owner of the trading house obviously believed that Mrs. Boyle would run away, and she just said a few good words out of affection.
Mrs. Boyle opened the cash-box and took out some notes and a handful of gold pounds. The owner of the trading house counted them carefully, and after confirming that they were correct, he swept them all into the counter drawer.
"Your shawl—oh, there it is."
The display case with the Phosphor Fox shawl moved over at the sound of the owner of the trading house, and the other display cases made way for it. It stopped beside Mrs. Boyle, just at eye level with the little old lady. The owner of the trading house took out the shawl and handed it to Mrs. Boyle respectfully.
The lady put on her shawl and cast her eyes towards the black box pyramid in the center of the hall, "Master of the trading house, what is that?"
A brilliant smile appeared on the lips of the owner of the trading house.
"That's what I'm going to present to my guests today."
Hearing his voice, all the customers surrounded him enthusiastically.
The owner of the trading house took down a black box from the top of the pyramid and showed the numbers on it to everyone.
"This is a blind box." He explained, "Each box contains a secret art item, but no one knows what it is until the box is opened."
The owner of the trading house took out another stack of leaflets and passed them on to everyone for reading. Madeleine got one too.
"This is a list of the items that can be opened in the blind box. Each blind box costs one pound, and what you can get depends on your own luck. It may be a powerful magic weapon, or it may be just a It is a very common spell-casting material. Of course, it is forbidden to use secret techniques to see through the contents of the box."
He flashed a dangerous smile. Madeleine's spine shivered, she knew that the threat from the owner of the trading house was not a blank promise. What terrible punishment awaits those who violate the rules he has laid down.
Mrs. Boyle whispered the items on the leaflet, "cock snake liver, phoenix tail feather powder, hundred-eyed spider eyeballs... Well, they are all common. To be honest, if only these are offered for a pound, it would be a bit worthless. "
"But you see, Madame, there's something else written here! This 'pot of conversion' is very interesting!" said Madeleine.
Some expensive items are specifically marked on the flyer. Under the entry "Pot of Transformation", it is written that the jug has the ability to change the nature of the liquid, pouring clean water can pour out poison, and pouring poison can pour out clean water.
Mrs. Boyle's eyes lit up, "If this thing was sold separately, the price would be more than twenty pounds, right? But isn't the probability of picking one out of so many blind boxes a bit too low?"
The owner of the trading house wandered to her side and said with a smile, "This is the time to test everyone's luck."
Madeleine asked, "Then if you buy more blind boxes, wouldn't your chances of winning be higher?"
"That's natural."
Customers held leaflets, whispered to each other, and their greedy eyes lingered on the blind box pyramid. Everyone understands that this is a gamble. If you lose, you are just exchanging 1 pound for a pile of rubbish, but once you win, the return will be ten times, or even a hundred times...
It would be a lie to say that you are not moved. Everyone is eager to try.
Madeleine and Mrs. Boyle looked at each other.
"One pound is not too expensive, why don't you try it?" Mrs. Boyle shrugged.
"Then I'll buy one too!" Madeleine said excitedly.
They stood in front of the blind box pyramid, looking at the pile of identical small boxes, thinking about which one to choose. Madeleine's birthday is June 3, so she simply chose box number 63. Mrs. Boyle chose the number 7 because 7 is known to be a magic number.
Seeing that she had snatched the best number, the others rushed up, scrambling to buy blind boxes from the owner of the trading house, for fear that other lucky numbers and magic numbers would also be snatched away.
In less than five minutes, the blind box was sold out. Some people were impatient and opened the blind box on the spot. For a while, sighs came and went.
"Sure enough, nothing good can be opened..."
"Hmph, I wouldn't have wasted money if I knew this!"
But there were also people who cried out in ecstasy.
"It's the Pot of Transformation! Hey! I hit it!"
Others cast envious glances at the lucky one, some were so angry that their eyes were red.
Madeleine was not afraid of others being jealous, so she opened the blind box on the spot. Inside the box is a necklace in the shape of an eye. She hurriedly looked for the introduction of this item on the leaflet.
The owner of the trading house came over, "Congratulations, miss, this necklace can help you resist malicious spells. Although it can't resist too advanced curses, it can bounce ordinary small curses back to the caster."
Madeleine couldn't hide her smile, and immediately put on the necklace.
Mrs. Boyle's blind box yielded an unpolished purple spar. She smiled wryly and shook her head, "It turned out to be an energy storage spar. Although the quality is very good, it is not suitable for my physique."
Immediately, a customer came up to Mrs. Boyle and said, "I just need an amethyst, why don't I exchange it with you, madam?"
What he opened out of the blind box was a fine ivory comb. Mrs. Boyle readily agreed.
The other guests also followed suit and exchanged ideas one after another. Soon, even those guests who were not satisfied with their blind boxes were exchanged for satisfactory items.
This extremely lively trading day soon came to an end. After the last customer left the trading house, only Duan Feizhuo and a boy wearing a mask were left in the trading house.
The boy took off his mask, revealing a sweaty face. Holding an unpretentious black box in his hand, he looked at the center of the empty hall with surprise in his eyes.
"You're amazing, and the blind box idea is brilliant!" Al said.
When the owner of the trading house proposed the idea of blind boxes and entrusted Al's mother to make 150 boxes within a week, Al once doubted him. How can someone in the world be willing to spend money without even knowing what the product they are buying is? If it can't be sold, isn't mother's effort in vain?
But now he is convinced. The owner of the trading house is worthy of being a senior businessman who runs the world's largest esoteric item store. How can his unconstrained and eclectic thinking be inferred by ordinary people?
Duan Feizhuo smiled, "It's not a big deal, it's just taking advantage of people's psychological weaknesses. The so-called blind box generally has two sales methods. The first is to put a very small number of high-priced goods and many low-priced goods, and take advantage of people's psychological weaknesses. The gambling psychology induces consumption. The second is that the value of the items in the blind box is almost the same, but it may not be what you want, so in order to get the item you want, you have to buy the blind box again and again. Even There are also people who take a set of items apart and put them in blind boxes separately, tempting people to keep consuming in order to get the whole set together.”
Al nodded half-understood, feeling more and more unfathomable that the owner of the trading house was unfathomable.