Chapter 333: The National Treasure of National Treasures

"Oh my God!" William, sitting on the couch watching the news, suddenly heard Ambrosio exclaim. A few seconds later, she hurried over to him, holding an invitation in her hand. Hugging his arm excitedly, she said, "Darling, this is an invitation to the reopening gala of the White Palace! The invitation was personally written by Benjamin Arthur, and he even invited me! Oh my God, I can go to the White Palace?"

"No, we're not going," William rejected without a second thought. He had no desire to go to the White Palace, which had nearly been reduced to ruins not too long ago. During the incident, over 200 people had died there. Who would want to visit such a haunted place? Plus, William had no interest in political matters, and going would only waste his time while forcing him to pretend to be happy and put on a fake smile.

"Nothing good will come of it. Either charities will be asking me for donations, or big corporations will want to buy shares in my new company. Only an idiot would give those blood-sucking corporations a chance to get into my business."

"Alright then," Ambrosio sighed in disappointment, resting her head on William's chest. But after a few minutes, she asked in a sweet, coaxing tone, "Darling, could I ask for a set of those new suits for my parents?"

William glanced down at his cautious girlfriend. "You know, some parts of Brazil aren't exactly safe, and now the whole world knows I'm your boyfriend. I'm worried something might happen to my parents," Ambrosio said softly.

"Of course. I'll have four suits sent to Brazil for your parents—one for each of them. Just tell Sunday their sizes and preferences, and I'll make two for you as well."

Ambrosio kissed William excitedly. "Six suits at once! Isn't that too extravagant?"

"The bulletproof material is made by me, so the manufacturing cost isn't actually that high. The reason the suits are so expensive is because of the high development costs and because most companies in this industry already charge exorbitant prices. My product is better, so if I sold it too cheap, I'd be a fool. In a few years, maybe a decade, the price of bulletproof suits will likely drop several times over, possibly even tenfold. I'm already regretting not doing enough research on the market before I started. My product is at least ten years ahead of its time, and that's going to cost me a lot of potential profit."

"Stop," Ambrosio tapped William on the chest. "God, I don't want to hear any more talk about money. We've spent the last few days stuck at home, and I've heard nothing but news about money on TV and in the papers. No matter how much you have, it's not mine! Poor me, your official girlfriend, only gets a monthly allowance of $500,000."

Just as Ambrosio was enjoying her little speech, William playfully smacked her on the backside with a loud "smack."

"You jerk, William!" Ambrosio pouted, rubbing the spot where she'd been hit.

William rolled his eyes. "Alright, out with it. What jewelry, car, or house do you have your eye on?"

Giggling, Ambrosio kissed William's cheek a few times and said, "I want to buy a house for my parents in a safe neighborhood near Ipanema Beach in Rio, so I don't have to worry about anything happening to them. But it seems I don't have enough money."

"How much are you short?" William asked, not concerned. In his mind, taking care of parents was a duty, so he had no intention of refusing. However, he needed to know the price first. If this girl was thinking about buying a mansion worth tens of millions, William would quickly teach her a lesson about frugality.

"I've got $1.7 million from my savings and the allowance you gave me, but I need to keep $100,000 for emergencies this month. So, I'm about $400,000 short."

Hearing that the total cost was only $2 million, William happily said, "Alright, you don't need to worry about this. I'll have someone help you find a house. Your only task is to check out the properties. Don't worry about anything else." He kissed her cheek. "If you're buying a house, buy a good one. Save your money to hire a decent security company. I don't want to hear about anything happening to your parents just because you're my girlfriend."

"That's wonderful!" Ambrosio gave William a big kiss on the cheek before excitedly running off to call her parents. The fact that Benjamin Arthur had invited her to the White Palace was forgotten in an instant. Or perhaps she was pretending to forget, knowing William had no interest in attending. After all, she knew that as a model who hadn't quite hit the big leagues yet, she would never have the opportunity to attend an event at the White Palace. Even if she became famous, without a special reason, models simply weren't invited to such prestigious galas.

William had Sunday call to decline the White Palace invitation. He also phoned Felix, his personal manager at the Swiss National Bank, to have him start searching for properties in Rio. Having handled all that, William, who had been stuck at his New York home for two days, decided it was time to head back to his castle. He was fed up with all the invitations and galas. Returning to the castle would give him a chance to check on the preparations for his mother's birthday party being handled by Eleven Madison Park. Plus, he needed to attend the 2,930-meter St. Leger Stakes race on the 21st, where his horse, Chitu, was set to compete.

This would be the first official race for his horse, and there was no way he could miss such a high-profile event. If Chitu won the championship and the owner wasn't there, he'd be ridiculed.

Additionally, Abigail, who had been helping him authenticate Chinese antiques from Grand Duke Devon and others, had called him no less than five times in the past two days, urging him to return to London to buy the antiques.

Abigail and the five Chinese antique experts she had invited had preliminarily authenticated the first batch of over a thousand pieces. The results showed that the collection had immense value. Even the cheapest pieces were worth at least tens of thousands of pounds. Given that the pound was worth 11 to 12 yuan at the time, any antique valued at over 100,000 yuan in 2000 was definitely worth collecting.

However, there were so many items that it was hard to tell when they'd be done authenticating them all. In three days, they had only managed to carefully examine around 300 pieces, but among those were several that could be considered national treasures.

The most urgent reason the five Chinese experts were eagerly awaiting William's return to England was an encounter Abigail had two days prior. A baron named Daniel Cabore approached Abigail, handed her a folder containing photocopies of about a dozen documents, and left with only a request to meet with William.

After looking over the documents, Abigail excitedly passed them to the Chinese experts. Upon seeing the photocopies, the five experts became so flustered they could barely speak coherently. The documents appeared to be related to the *Yongle Encyclopedia*, and judging by the pages, they likely included four consecutively numbered volumes of the encyclopedia.

This was nothing less than a national treasure among national treasures.

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