Coiling Dragon

“Can it be that it was carved using a single tool? Impossible, aside from the butterfly chisel, what tool could possibly have been used to carve out such perfect, exquisite details in each protruding scale?” Count Juneau frowned, concentrating fiercely. He had never seen something so queer.

“Milord Count?” Seeing him in a daze, the female attendant couldn’t help but call out to him softly.

Count Juneau’s eyes flickered. He said to himself, “I didn’t expect that I would encounter such a unique work of art in the main hall of the Proulx Gallery. I can’t let others notice it. If I bid a hundred gold coins, some people will take special notice of it. It might cause the price to dramatically increase.”

Count Juneau immediately made his decision.

He would leave these sculptures alone for a few days, and come back later to bid on it during the final two days.

“Help assist me in cancelling my offer.” Count Juneau directly said to the woman next to him.

“Cancel?” The female attendant was startled. Based on their normal rules, once a bid was made, it could not be retracted. But Count Juneau was a very old, longstanding customer of the Proulx Gallery, and so the female attendant very matter-of-factly removed the three bidding stickers.

“Might I ask milord Count why you have retracted your bid?” The female attendant asked.

Count Juneau smiled mysteriously. “No need for you to ask. Oh, right, I want to ask you, how many days have these three sculptures been on display?”

The female attendant flipped through her records, then smiled. “These three sculptures will be on display until June 30th. They were just brought here to the main hall yesterday.”

Count Juneau nodded fractionally.

“Alright, I’ll wander around a bit. You can go ahead and do what you need to do.” Count Juneau smiled.

But in his heart, Count Juneau secretly rejoiced. In his appraisal, the true valuation of these three sculptures should be in the range of three thousand gold pieces. An ordinary sculpture by an expert was worth around a thousand gold pieces, and these three sculptures were all carved in a very unique manner. Just based on that alone, the actual valuation would be doubled.

……

Count Juneau continued to visit the gallery every day. Indeed, just as he had expected, because the Proulx Gallery had so many sculptures, nobody else had managed to discover these three sculptures. Even if someone had, they only felt that the sculptures looked nice, and couldn’t see the true value of these sculptures.

June 10th.

Count Juneau once more arrived at the Proulx Gallery. Casually strolling about the main hall, he browsed through the selections. But once he reached the three sculptures, his face tightened. Next to each of the sculptures, there was a bidding slip.

Three stone sculptures, each one with a bid for three hundred gold coins.

Seeing this bid, Count Juneau inwardly seethed. “Fool! Even if you saw the true value of the sculptures, why would you bid such a high price right off the bat? This will just draw more attention to it.” Count Juneau’s heart was filled with rage, but there was nothing he could do. He didn’t have the authority to retract someone else’s bid.

Everything unfolded just as he predicted and feared.

June 12th. Count Juneau once again reached the three sculptures. By now, the price had changed once again.

“Five hundred gold coins?” Count Juneau’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Seems like there’s quite a few people who know quality when they see it.”