Later in the evening, Lynch arrived at Mr. Wardrick’s house. Severa heard that he was returning to the Federation and had booked this dinner well in advance.
"Good evening, Mr. Wardrick, madam, and Severa!" Lynch stood outside the door, holding a nice bottle of red wine, reportedly found from a merchant ship that sank about a hundred years ago.
Altogether, over a hundred cases, each bottle priced between five thousand to seven thousand dollars, and it’s not easy to buy.
After all, there are too many wealthy people in the Federation. As long as there’s no problem and it’s genuinely good, people don’t mind spending some money to taste the flavor of time.
Wealthy people aren’t uninterested in the world; they are more curious about the world than ordinary people. But the curiosity of wealthy individuals quickly turns into awareness under the influence of their money, unlike ordinary people’s curiosity, which might remain curiosity for a lifetime.
In Bupen, there’s a group dedicated to satisfying the curiosities of wealthy individuals. As long as the money is in place, they can even take a bite of fresh feces and detail the taste, texture, and other aspects to satisfy the wealthy’s curiosity about "what feces actually tastes like" and "what the texture is like."
Lynch is a standout among the wealthy; he doesn’t need these special people to help him. Golden Exchange Bank quickly found him a collector willing to sell, allowing Lynch to get this bottle as soon as he arrived in Bupen.
The joy of wealthy people is unimaginable to ordinary folks.
"I thought you would arrive a little later..." Mr. Wardrick, as the head of the household, was the first to speak to Lynch and took the gift he brought.
"Oh, it’s that bottle of wine again..." Mr. Wardrick couldn’t help but laugh. He handed the wine bottle to the butler, who then passed it to the servant.
The servant would immediately open it and place it on the dining table, ready for the hosts and guests to enjoy.
Mr. Wardrick turned back to shake hands with Lynch, welcomed him, and invited him inside.
Severa wanted to come forward, but due to Mr. Wardrick’s status and authority in the family, she hesitated and ultimately chose to stay with her mother.
"Is there something wrong with this bottle of wine?" Lynch didn’t know much about red wine. He didn’t know what’s good or what’s bad, nor did he understand the details on the labels of bottles.
But Mr. Wardrick seemed to have a good grasp of all this. He thought he had bought a fake bottle, though he didn’t feel embarrassed. If the bottle was fake, the bank would be responsible.
Fortunately, Mr. Wardrick shook his head in time, thwarting Lynch’s idea of challenging the bank, "No, it’s genuine, but not quite genuine. There’s a little story behind it..."
Lynch was a bit curious, "Can I know about it?"
Then Mr. Wardrick told the story he knew. Actually, the wine labels on these bottles are new. The people salvaging the sunken ship and these wines didn’t have a problem. The issue was someone planning to exploit this batch of aged wines.
They brought newer labels and stuck them on these bottles, making an unknown winery quickly become internationally known due to the high-quality red wine.
The winery owner was the mastermind behind the whole incident. Some say those red wines sunk in the sea were salvaged long ago, and it was all to create a suitable hype and then put the wines back and salvage them again.
Apart from these wines, there was also a movie and three novels released shortly after the salvage, making this wine series increase from a few hundred dollars a bottle to nearly ten thousand dollars now.
The increase seems frightening, but it isn’t. The truly scary part is the commercialization of the winery, from less than two hundred thousand in valuation to nearly a million now, which was their actual goal.
The prices of some alcoholic beverages currently available in the winery have also doubled or tripled.
The wine is good wine, the story is a good story, but the people in the story are slightly complicated.
Before dinner started, there was still a little time. Lynch unexpectedly found himself sitting next to Severa; he thought Mr. Wardrick would arrange him alone on one side.
While waiting to start dining, Severa apologized softly to Lynch. She initially planned to participate in the filming of "Lynch’s Adventure 2," to play a role, preferably a female role sparking chemistry with Lynch.
But unexpectedly, Nagariel’s unrest suddenly erupted, leaving her with no chance to go there. Even though most city unrests have settled now, Mr. Wardrick still doesn’t allow her to go to such a dangerous place.
This also made her perfectly miss all the filming. She felt a bit discouraged, but she also understood that Mr. Wardrick did this to prevent her from getting hurt.
Those mobs, when committing atrocities, don’t care who the person opposite them is or whether they have any prominent status. From a young age, Severa was taught not to foolishly take great risks to do something even more risky.
So she didn’t go, and she felt somewhat guilty.
"You don’t need to apologize; your safety is what’s most important, and I didn’t participate in the filming either...," Lynch reassured Severa’s guilty feelings. "Maybe we’ll have another chance to cooperate in the future."
Their quiet exchange quickly caught Mr. Wardrick’s attention, "What are you talking about? Maybe you’d be willing to include this old fellow as well."
His wife laughed and added, "You’re not old at all, dear."
Mr. Wardrick laughed heartily. He held his wife’s hand and brought it to his lips for a kiss, "Darling, is that what you think too?"
The word "too" was used magically, but it showed that they had a good relationship, and the whole family was harmonious. Severa started talking about what they were discussing—about the unrest in Nagariel.
During the turmoil in Nagariel, Mr. Wardrick and these people were not in Nagariel at all, nor did they consider going there.
People of their status often no longer have the privilege to do something at their own discretion because every decision they make could impact the corporation’s stock price.
Imagine if someone reported an article like "Mr. Wardrick Suspected of Losing Contact During Nagariel Turmoil," even if the article content was false and Mr. Wardrick immediately came forward to clarify, the stock price would still drop, and funds in the tens of thousands would evaporate. The loss would be unimaginable.
So at their level, they lose initiative and freedom in many things, which is why they often lament how good it would be if they were born into an ordinary family.
It’s just lamentation, like how ordinary people lament "how great it would be if I were rich," originating from lamentation and ending with lamentation. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ 𝚗𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚕·𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚎·𝚗𝚎𝚝
Their understanding of the situation in Nagariel came mostly through other people’s accounts and written materials. Mr. Wardrick was very curious about this, "Before dinner, tell us about what happened back then..."
Lynch organized his thoughts and began talking about some things that happened during the unrest, including the active destruction by lower-class people in Nagariel of the upper-middle-class privileges in society.
"...Many wealthy merchants, officials, and their families were attacked, and some families lost all their members in this disaster."
Lynch finished speaking and sighed, "What impressed me most was a young man under twenty whose father died in front of him to protect him. Now he has to strongly take on his responsibilities, caring for his mother and family business."
"There were too many human tragedies during this turmoil..."
"After hearing what you said, I feel a bit troubled in my heart...," Severa’s mood was a bit low, "I want to do something, can I money?"
Lynch glanced at Mr. Wardrick, who happened to be looking at him as well. Their eyes met in the air, conveying some information that outsiders could not understand.
Actually, Mr. Wardrick knew that Lynch was the mastermind behind all this, and the turmoil first erupted from the Mengwu Province. In fact, when the turmoil could only be described as a disturbance, it could have been controlled, but Lynch did nothing and allowed the disturbances to expand and grow, ultimately making the situation irreparable.
If the natives were the knives that took lives during the turmoil, Lynch was the one who threw the knife.
Seeing the serious and slightly sympathetic look on Lynch’s face now, Mr. Wardrick felt like laughing. This guy truly is a genius!
Lynch slightly raised an eyebrow, making a small retaliation.
The places firmly occupied by the consortium behind Mr. Wardrick were also affected by the turmoil; they equally chose to remain indifferent, watching as the unrest brought irreparable damage to society as a whole.
Everyone actually knows that without this turmoil, the conquerors and new rulers from the Federation would spend more time battling with the local privileged class and ruling class.
They needed such a turmoil to completely shatter the already solidified local ruling class. Perhaps every federate was silently promoting the occurrence of these things, to the point that some even personally got involved!
Now, all the federates have become beneficiaries. The new batch of rulers they’ve supported ascends to the stage, everything goes in their favor, and the most dangerous individuals had also emerged during the turmoil, with most of the dangers resolved completely by this unrest.
The initiator of all these things, the shareholder of the United Development Company, Mr. Lynch, nodded with an expression of benevolence, "Of course, you can give the money to me, and I’ll guarantee it will be used in the most appropriate way!"