Chapter 259 Her Original Bid
Darlene's eyes narrowed when she heard the staff's words, and she suddenly felt her legs go weak with anxiety. "No way. I know I put it in the box myself," she insisted. "Did you guys screw up and lose our bid? Now you're saying we didn't submit it right?"
The staff, ready for this kind of drama, stayed cool. "This ain't on us. We got surveillance footage of your bid submission," he said, pulling out his phone. "If you don't believe me, check it out yourself. Everyone here can see it too."
He projected the video onto the hall's big screen, and everyone turned to watch.
In the video, after Darlene finished writing her bid, she just shoved it into the box without double-checking and walked away. Little did she know, the bid was sticking out. A few moments later, some random person's sleeve brushed against the box, yanking the bid out and dropping it on the floor. The clueless passerby left, and people kept stepping on the bid until a janitor swept it away.
After watching the video, everyone thought Darlene was super unlucky. On any other day, even if it wasn't fully inserted, the next person would've pushed it in. Who knew it would get yanked out by someone accidentally, then stepped on, and finally taken away by the janitor?
But it was also Darlene's fault. If she had pushed it in properly or checked carefully, this wouldn't have happened.
Darlene's face went pale after watching. She had felt the backlash before. Her Generational Blessings were slowly fading. But she never thought it would make her this unlucky.
Darlene wanted to fix the mess. So she looked at the staff and demanded, "Your janitor took my bid. You gotta help me find it."
Since their janitor didn't notice and took the bid as trash, they were willing to take some responsibility. So, they gave Darlene another chance to submit.
Darlene, however, was pissed. She declared, "This is too time-consuming. To rewrite it, I gotta re-examine the raw stones. I don't have the energy for that. I want the one I wrote before. Or you help me find it, and I'll copy it again. Even if it's dirty, the words should still be readable."
She thought, 'The bid was written with a carbon fiber pen. It shouldn't be smudged.'
Darlene insisted on her original bid. The staff had no choice but to ask the janitor to try to find the bid. Luckily, today's trash hadn't been sent to the dump yet, and the janitor finally retrieved the filthy and greasy bid. The onlookers, seeing this string of bad luck, couldn't help but sigh at Darlene's misfortune.
Darlene rushed forward, not caring about the dirt, and grabbed the bid. Using tissues, she tried to wipe away as much grime as possible. It was a lost cause. Some of the writing was still legible, but a lot of the numbers were smudged beyond recognition. To Darlene's horror, every line of numbers seemed to have issues—an ironic and damning testament to her string of bad luck.
This jewelry market was the biggest in years, with the most raw stones. There were over ten thousand raw stones in the bid, so the numbers were five digits long. All the numbers Darlene wrote had one or two unreadable digits. For example, one line of numbers had the second-to-last digit completely obscured by dirt and grease.
"She's having a rough day with her luck," someone murmured.
"Maybe she already used all her good luck," another whispered.
The crowd buzzed with gossip about Darlene's apparent misfortune. Some pointed out her domineering ways in the past, monopolizing opportunities at previous auctions.
"Karma," one person suggested. "She was always overbearing and left nothing for the rest of us. When she was at a jewelry market or private auction, others might as well not have shown up."
"She's so capable. Even if the numbers are unclear, she can just re-examine and fill them in, right?" someone said.
Another chimed in, "True, it's just a bit unlucky. It won't stop her from winning the bid."
Elizabeth heard these comments. Darlene's current troubles were her own doing, a backlash from cheating with stolen Generational Blessings. Elizabeth had only sparked the beginning of this backlash; its ongoing severity was natural. The accumulated benefits Darlene had taken from Nicole and others had to balance out eventually.
The staff looked at Darlene sympathetically but firmly handed her a new bid form. "Please confirm the numbers and fill out a new bid," he said.
Darlene felt like she could scream. Under the pressure and realizing she had no other choice, she reluctantly took the new bid. "Fine!" she snapped, handing it to a gem appraiser behind her. She hoped to use the same trick to bypass this ordeal.
Elizabeth spoke up, "The original bid can't be used, Ms. Spellscroll. Are you going to let your company's appraiser practice again? If that's the case, can you still live up to the harsh words you said to us this morning?"
She couldn't let Darlene get away with it. She wanted Darlene to be exposed again. This would ruin Darlene's popularity in the gem appraisal circle, further weakening her Generational Blessings.
The more Darlene failed, the worse it would be for the person behind her.
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