The boss, who had been happily rummaging through a pile of watches, subconsciously looked over upon hearing these words.
When he saw that gold Rolex, his eyes instantly widened, but Wang An noticed that his pupils were practically glowing red.
Yes, red light—bright, vivid red.
Clearly, this boss knew his stuff.
Immediately following this, the boss let out an exclamation of disbelief
"Holy shit, it's actually a fucking gold Rolex!"
After his outburst, the boss grabbed the "gold Rolex" in his hand and began to examine it closely.
After a good while, the boss finally spoke
"Are the two metal bracelets and the watch pins still here?"
Wang An shook his head and said quite bluntly
"Nope. Just the watch. Why don't you give me a price?"
For watches this expensive, they usually come with more than just a single bracelet and pins when purchased. However, since Wang An had stolen these from other thieves, there was no way he had the corresponding accessories.
After studying it for a long time, the boss shook his head with a look of regret
"If there were spare bracelets and pins, I could give you 30,000—no, I could give you 40,000. Without them... sigh... I can't even give you 20,000."
Wang An said with an indifferent expression
"Just name a price. If it's right, I'll sell it to you. I'm a straightforward guy."
The boss didn't name a price. Instead, he put down the Rolex, picked up the Patek Philippe, and looked at it. But after checking it, he shook his head and picked up the next one, a Rado.
Seeing this, Wang An took out all twenty-four watches for the boss to inspect one by one.
Even after finishing all twenty-four, the boss continued to shake his head, wearing an expression of great pity, regret, and heartache.
It was obvious that he highly valued these watches; he was simply lamenting the bracelets and pins that were likely still in the hands of the original owners.
Wang An watched the boss quietly without pressing further, waiting for the man to initiate the price.
After pondering for a while, the boss smacked his lips and opened one hand, as if making a momentous decision, and said in a heavy voice
"50,000. For all these watches, 50,000 yuan in total."
Hearing this price, Wang An immediately frowned. Although he didn't understand the market price for second-hand luxury watches, he did know the approximate retail prices of these watches when new.
The gap was simply too vast.
Just as Wang An shook his head to speak, the boss explained
"There are only a few of these watches in all of China. I'll be taking a huge risk by selling them. Besides, none of the original accessories are here..."
And so, the boss rattled off a long list of reasons and faults.
It had to be admitted that everything the boss said was correct and made perfect sense, but Wang An didn't even listen. He reached out, crossing his two index fingers, and said
"100,000. I won't sell for less than 100,000."
While he said 100,000, Wang An's internal target was anywhere between 90,000 and 100,000. If he really couldn't sell them, even something in the 80,000s wouldn't be unacceptable.
After all, these were stolen goods; for Wang An, converting them into cash was the safest move.
However, the total retail price of these watches exceeded 400,000. Even second-hand, they should be worth at least 200,000!
Furthermore, although they were stolen and lacked accessories, they were all in perfect condition.
The fact that they were undamaged was particularly important.
One must realize that while luxury watches are expensive, aside from the price, it's hard to find any other faults with them.
Despite being soaked in water for so long, watches costing a hundred or two hundred—or even three or four hundred yuan—had stopped ticking. Yet these luxury watches not only kept time normally, but their appearance remained virtually unaffected.
Therefore, Wang An would absolutely not accept 50,000 yuan.
Hearing this, the boss shook his head frantically
"Impossible, that's absolutely impossible. I'll give you 55,000 at most."
Seeing that the boss had no sincerity, Wang An stopped arguing. He simply nodded with a smile and began putting the twenty-four watches back into the cloth bag one by one. Once he had packed them all, Wang An said cheerfully
"Then we shall... meet again some other time, hehehehe..."
As he spoke, Wang An turned to leave.
Seeing Wang An leaving, the boss suddenly panicked and hurriedly said
"Hey, hey, hey! Don't be in such a rush to leave! You can counter-offer! In business, you don't just settle on the first price, right?"
Wang An stopped in his tracks and said without any courtesy
"If these watches were bought new, they'd cost at least 400,000 combined, right?"
Before the boss could speak, Wang An continued
"Second-hand cuts the price in half—that's the rule of your trade, nothing wrong with that. Since the origin of these watches is unclear, let's cut it in half again. That brings it down to 100,000, which is the ceiling. You offer me 55,000—what exactly is that supposed to mean?"
Truth be told, Wang An wasn't very good at the Tianjin dialect; after speaking so much, his accent was starting to drift back toward his Northeastern roots.
Fortunately, Wang An realized it in time and forced it back.
After Wang An finished speaking, the boss's face turned red and then pale; he clearly had no way to refute him.
But if these watches were in his hands, the boss could indeed make a fortune. He would just need to buy some accessories and touch up the appearance slightly—who would know the watches came from an illicit source?
After all, in this era, the watches circulating among ordinary people didn't have gimmicks like "global limited editions" yet; there were only certain specific models of certain brands that were produced in small quantities.
Seeing the boss remain silent, Wang An added
"I only want 100,000. Whether you sell them for 200,000, 250,000, or even 300,000 or 400,000—that's your skill. You absolutely won't lose out on this deal."
Unexpectedly, after Wang An finished, a sudden change occurred.
The boss's expression darkened, and he spoke in a highly threatening tone
"60,000. I'll give you 60,000 at most. Otherwise... hmph... you won't be able to leave the Haiwang Village area. Mark my words."
It was clear that the boss was very confident when saying this; he was definitely not joking.
However, as a hunter from the deep mountains, how could Wang An be afraid of such a threat?
If things got ugly, he'd just kill a few people and disappear into the deep mountains. With Wang An's skills, he could live a carefree life in the wilderness.
Thus, Wang An smiled slightly and pulled out a Type 54 pistol. He racked the slide to chamber a round, pointed it at the boss, and said
"Why don't you guess whether the bullet in this toy gun of mine can kill you? Hehehehe..."
A standard-issue pistol like the Type 54 was very rare among civilians, even in the mountains or grasslands, unless held by the security departments of official units.
As for in the big cities, it was an extremely scarce item. Aside from official police and some front-line defense personnel, ordinary defense members or militia basically didn't have them.
Inevitably, because these things were easy to hide and too dangerous, they were subject to extremely strict control.
The watch shop boss, seeing the dark muzzle of the gun pointed at him, immediately shut up. He swallowed hard several times, then forced a sliver of a smile and said
"Brother, I was joking, I was just joking, heh, hehe, hehehe."