Chapter 283: Starlike Purse

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Hans asked, "Which purse?"

Li Du said, "Let Akkalou tell you. Don’t you know? This purse is very famous. I saw it and decided that I had to get ahold of this storage unit."

The Playboy, who was inspecting the snakeskin purse, was shocked to hear that. "You had seen this purse? You saw it? Where was it?"

Li Du pointed at the cabinet and said, "It was in this cabinet. The door to the cabinet was ajar and if you s.h.i.+ned your flashlight in there, you could see the first half of the purse."

The Playboy was dumbfounded. "D*mn, d*mmit, are you serious? Why is it that I don’t recall this?"

Hans added, "Li has superb sight. Dude, this is how we’ve been making money."

Li Du shrugged. "No big deal. Since childhood, I’ve always been more observant than other people."

The Playboy still found it very unbelievable. Li Du turned on the handheld torchlight and s.h.i.+ned it into the storage unit. He then pointed at a piece of clothing in the corner and said, "There’s a small stool under the clothing, and the side of the stool has been painted with Bavarian lines."

Once he finished speaking, the Playboy went into the corner of the unit to have a look. Indeed, there was a round stool partially covered by clothing. On the side of the stool were some painted lines.

He was not able to see anything clearly when he had looked from the outside—only when he went closer could he see the side of the stool.

When walked back, he was full of admiration for Li Du. "G.o.d, you’re really brilliant—I must give you two thumbs up—you’re really brilliant!"

Hans laughed, "Of course, Li Du’s a rain man, an observant rain man!"

The Playboy pointed at him and said, "Wrong—Li is not a rain man. He’s a regular super-observer, a superhero just like Hawkeye."

Rain Man, which had featured Dustin Hoffman as the lead actor, was an Oscar Best Picture award-winning movie. The name had originated from the main character Raymond whose diction was not clear and often referred to himself as "Ruiman," which literally sounded like "Rain Man" in English.

Later on, "Rain Man" became a phrase with special meaning, often used to describe those that had special abilities but were not able to function normally in their daily lives—also known as idiot savants.

Hans pushed this hand away and said, "Don’t be this way, buddy. No point in being overly fixated on the meaning of the words—you guys know what I mean. So, you heard this purse is very valuable?"

Li Du grinned. "It’s finally my turn to teach you something. This purse is indeed valuable, it is also very famous—you would know if you watched ‘National Geographic.’"

"Valuable? Li, you’re being modest." The Playboy turned the purse around to inspect it, and found a s.h.i.+eld-shaped symbol in it which he reached out to touch.

Hans said, "D*mmit, the two of you can’t keep talking like this. Stop teasing me. Quick, tell me its value and ident.i.ty."

"If this is brand new, it should be worth about 400,000 dollars," Li Du said with a laugh.

Hans was flabbergasted, and cried out, "No way, how can a purse cost so much? If it’s so expensive, why is it that I don’t know of it?"

The Playboy said, "What Li said is true. This is a product from the leather factory under National Geographic. If I remember correctly, it’s a limited edition item—they only produced 16 of them."

"That’s correct," Li Du said.

Dumbfounded, Hans asked, "How do you know that? I had no idea!"

Li Du replied, "Because you don’t read. Do you remember at one auction we had gotten a stack of National Geographic magazines, which I bought? Why did you think I had bought them? For them to be shelved?"

Hans shook his head. "Oh no—I need to read. I need to learn!"

The Playboy sighed, "Knowledge is wealth, buddy. You have given us an impressive lesson! I spent 165,000 dollars on a storage unit but the items in there are not even worth half of this purse’s value."

Hans asked, "This purse is really so costly? Why is it so costly?"

The Playboy explained, "Yes, because this thing is a limited-edition piece. See this snakehead? This is no ordinary snake—it’s a reticulated python."

"I know reticulated pythons are the world’s longest python. They can grow to 30 feet long, and when they reach 30 feet can even gobble up their owners as food."

The Playboy nodded. "That’s right. Once, while filming, National Geographic discovered a dead reticulated python. But before it died, it had laid 52 eggs.

"Through simulated effort, most of these eggs hatched. However, many of them died along the way. The ones that died were made into this.

"You need to know that reticulated pythons are facing extinction. Their young are extremely precious. This purse was made using all of the snakelet’s skin, together with its head.

"So, there’s no reason to be shocked by its high sale price. Besides, look at its eyes, these are red rubies—two pure red rubies. These two gems alone would cost 100,000 dollars."

After the introduction, the Playboy could not resist fiddling with the purse and added on, "In any case, this guy Li really has great foresight—he was born to be in this trade!"

Hans was ecstatic. "Of course, of course. I mean, we’ve hooked a big one this time, bros!"

Actually, the Playboy had not accurately explained why the purse was so costly.

National Geographic did not usually interfere with the life and death of wild animals. The reason why they had incubated these pythons was that the dead mother snake had a rare starlike grain on it.

The back of the reticulated python"s body was generally taupe or tan colored, with a diamond-type dark brown and yellow or light gray reticulated pattern—hence the name.

The starlike grain on the dead female python’s back was even more intricate and enigmatic, and the publication’s staff thought it could have pa.s.sed this pattern on to its young.

After the snakelets had hatched, exquisite starlike grains also appeared on their backs.

This type of purse was not called a "python purse" or an "interlace purse," but a "starlike purse"—a wonderful name.

After the 16 purses had been produced, six were presented as a gift to the National Geographic magazine’s sponsors with significant contributions. The other ten were sent to the Paris Fas.h.i.+on Week for sale—the revenue collected was used for the Reticulated Python Protection Organization.

Because of this, the ten purses carried the astounding 400,000-dollar price tag. What was more beyond belief was the ten purses were snapped up the same day they were put up for sale.

It was said that among the buyers were a wealthy Chinese person, while the other nine people were from the Middle East.