Secondhand Goods Auction

The next day, Saturday morning, Ferral returned to the Warehouse District, bringing with him some items needed for setting up the exhibition.

Some large promotional posters, and others that linked the auction to the City Hall and the mayor's policies.

Even more surprisingly, the local newspapers' coverage of this secondhand goods auction has been entirely filled with content related to the mayor. For example, the auction was reportedly organized and hosted by Lin Qi and others under the mayor's impetus.

It may seem like just a few sentences, but in reality, the mayor has already taken all the credit that was due, and even laid a backup plan, namely Lin Qi and others. Besides Lin Qi, there are other people involved, but it is unclear who they are.

There might be three or five other people, or maybe only Lin Qi. Of course, this is also a necessary process to get Lin Qi subsidies or some policy support.

The seemingly outdated system is actually surprisingly transparent; some things simply cannot be hidden. Since they cannot be hidden, then it must be made to appear more in line with the rules.

"Next Tuesday at noon, the mayor has forty minutes, and you can have lunch together," Ferral said to Lin Qi as he watched the City Hall workers arranging the posters and banners.

He glanced at Lin Qi, but didn't see any displeasure or negative emotions on Lin Qi's face.

In the Bayer Federation, dinner is the most important meal of the day. Most of the time, people try to shorten the time spent on breakfast and lunch, reducing the amount of food they eat, so that they can save time to do other things.

This gives dinner a more special meaning, such as formality, solemnity, abundance, and so on...

In short, if the meeting is based on the pretext of having a meal together, choosing lunch might make the other person feel that they are taking the meeting lightly.

Ferral thought Lin Qi would be unhappy and feel looked down upon.

He understood this feeling very well. Most young people, especially outstanding ones, had hardly encountered any setbacks. Apart from those uncontrollable natural factors, any failure caused by human intervention would make them angry.

The more successful a young person is, the angrier they will be in this situation. He didn't know whether Lin Qi was hiding his anger with deep cunning or he was really as calm as he appeared.

As a bridge between Lin Qi and the mayor, Ferral dutifully explained, "The mayor originally planned to arrange a dinner meeting with you, but the schedule has been postponed to more than a month later, so..."

He shrugged, hoping Lin Qi could understand how packed the schedules of politicians at the mayor's level are and how complicated it is to change them.

"I understand," Lin Qi nodded. He didn't explain that he really didn't care about having lunch with a "small fry" like a mayor.

Before he transmigrated, most of the people he ate with every day represented an era, a mayor of another world... well, he respected the mayor, but he didn't revere him.

Lin Qi was unwilling to say more, Ferral naturally wouldn't either; he began to habitually immerse himself in his new identity.

To be honest, he had all sorts of dissatisfaction, confusion, and self-blame before leaving get off work yesterday.

But when he saw the bank transfer five thousand dollars into his account this morning, he suddenly felt relieved. Five thousand dollars was not a small amount of money, even for someone like Ferral.

It may not be comparable to the 75,000 dollars that were transferred into the mayor's Political Donation account at the same time, but this money, this 5,000 dollars, belongs to him personally, not to the office, not to the mayor.

Once Ferrar accepted this identity and the convenience it brought, Ferral felt that Lin Qi was a good young man, perhaps the first small capitalist to extend a hand of friendship to him, and he was also considering whether to become "closer" to Lin Qi.

Mayoral staff like Ferral come into contact with many capitalists on a regular basis. They become conduits for communication between power and wealth, but they themselves do not possess power and find it difficult to acquire wealth.

Those capitalists only invest their money precisely in those who wield power; people like Ferral at most gain some insignificant extra income from their lives and work.

Don't capitalists worry that by failing to properly cultivate relationships with their advisors, they might offend them and cause them to speak ill of them to those in power, thus ruining their plans?

Actually, no, because there is a special group of "channels" here, and their name is "Broker".

Most of these people come from the upper class of society; they are social celebrities and former political figures. They have very deep connections in the political and financial circles. When capitalists need to persuade certain people, they do not need to go through their advisors; they will have professional political Broker handle all the people they need to persuade.

This is another drawback of the Ferral's role as Attendant Official; their glory and power are merely illusions displayed to the public. Once the decision is made by those behind them, their opinions and ideas become insignificant.

Only those who perform exceptionally well, or those who serve politicians who are already in the upper-middle or even top tier of the Federal government, are unlikely to attract significant investment from capitalists.

As a mayor, Ferral is not yet considered to be in the Upper Class of the Federal power structure, so far he has only become acquainted with local businessmen.

He needed help too! These people quickly rearranged the venue in less than forty minutes. They were highly professional; they knew how to make it look more suitable for the mayor's needs.

On either side of the platform stood two large posters. The mayor was in the middle of the posters, flashing a bright smile and giving two thumbs up. Around him were various goods and discounts. The scene seemed familiar.

It's a bit exaggerated, but it effectively shows people the role the mayor plays here. For those at the bottom of society, they won't interpret anything that has more meaning. The simplest way to make them understand that eggs are laid by chickens is to let them see a chicken lay an egg, rather than just describing it.

"Alright, let everyone get ready..." Lin Qi nodded and waved for people to watch the men in Blue Vests carry the goods out of the warehouse.

Things often go missing from the Warehouse District, so we need to keep an eye on these people. It's undeniable that the vast majority of the Blue Vests are good, but there are always a few individuals who drag down the image of the whole group.

Ferral did not return immediately, but planned to wait here until the auction was over before going back. He wanted to get firsthand information to analyze with his other staff and then determine whether more time and energy should be invested in Lin Qi.

The two ate a quick lunch, and before 2 p. m., a little after 1:30 p. m., people had already arrived at the scene.

These people were holding posters and immediately started asking around if they could exchange the posters for a belt. It was clear that Lin Qi's strategy was very successful. No one had ever done this free giveaway before, and society had not yet developed any resistance.

The staff, mainly Richard and his group, immediately went up to them and then divided up the guests who had come to participate in the auction.

In fact, each poster is different. If someone pays close attention, they will notice a distinct color block in the upper left corner of the back of the poster. Some are red, some are yellow, some are purple, some are blue, and there are many colors.

These colored blocks represent the different "salespeople" they come from. For example, Richard's poster has a gold foil stamp on the upper left corner of the back, which he paid extra to have printed himself, in order to show that he is different from others.

These individuals will be assigned to their own seats, and their transaction amounts at the auction will be calculated separately to ensure the accuracy of the sales staff's earnings to the greatest extent possible.

This also allows these people to have a more intuitive understanding that sometimes it's not enough to just bring in more people than others; they also need to have spending power!