Unlike Apple Inc.'s executives, who were caught between agony and delight, every company that received an invitation and believed it had even a little financial muscle excitedly began making preparations.
An auction was all about who had the most money.
So raising funds was the first order of business.
You couldn't exactly ask to buy on credit at the auction, could you? You'd get beaten up for that.
Raising funds was far more than a matter of saying the word. From the moment Huaxia's Department of Commerce began making its notification calls, fluctuations started appearing in the account balances of major banks.
The banks' data monitoring centers detected those fluctuations immediately, and their staff were baffled. What was going on? Was global capital gearing up to fleece some country? With money moving on that scale, they could probably strip a layer off even Huaxia's or the Americans' stock markets.
It wasn't that these people were easily shocked. For one thing, as financial companies, they hadn't received invitations from Huaxia's Department of Commerce. For another, the sums being moved this time were enormous...
Soon, the banks, normally the ones calling the shots over entrepreneurs, had no choice but to take an interest. They began calling their major clients to ask why the funds were moving—not because they cared whether those companies were planning to fleece anyone, but because they feared losing major clients.
The companies' finance departments made no attempt to conceal the truth and told them the reason outright.
They were moving funds purely to attend an auction in Huaxia—an auction of new technology, an auction of Phantom Immortal Technology's new technology.
Only then did the banks relax. At least they didn't have to worry about those clients leaving.
But while the banks' hearts settled down, hearts around the world