Shin finally arrived seconds before his timer ran out, only to come face to face with the beaming smile of Silver.
"What's got you so happy?" asked Shin.
"Guess we'll just have to wait and see!" replied Silver.
"I guess so. Bossman Bobby, we have two requests for you," Shin shouted, slamming on the front desk.
"Quieten down, young lad, I'm coming," replied a grizzly voice from the back of the shop.
Out from behind the curtain emerged a large man—imposing in both stature and build. He bore a hefty beard; in fact, facial hair in general seemed to be his speciality. He wore a shirt you'd expect to find on a lumberjack, and his hands were almost the size of the two books the teens had brought to show him. While his physique wasn't what you'd expect from the owner of a contemporary literature store, his mannerisms certainly were.
"So, you two adolescents want me to compare these books and tell you which one is worth more?"
"Yep!" the two teens replied in unison, nodding their heads.
"Alright, give me around five minutes in the back, and I should be done appraising them."
"Sounds great!" replied Shin.
The burly shopkeeper slowly made his way out back once again.
"So, did you use any special strategy, Shin?"
"Nah, not really. I just asked those college students over there where the most popular books were and overheard some lovey-dovey couple saying that the 18th Don was big around here, so I decided to grab that one."
"Oh, that's interesting. Would that happen to be that brown-haired boy over there and his blonde partner?" asked Silver as she pointed towards the couple still standing by the autobiography section.
"Yeah, it was. How'd you know?"
"Oh, it was nothing really. You know, I just asked them to come up with a fake story that would inflate the value of the book in your mind—nothing much."
"WHAT!?" exclaimed Shin, proudly embarrassing himself in front of the other customers.
"I'm back, kids—and I come with good news. There was a clear and decisive winner to the competition. Truly a landslide victory."
"Just say my name already," muttered Silver to herself.
"He doesn't know your name, idiot," added Shin.
"The more valuable book out of these two, on average, is..."
The shopkeeper paused for dramatic effect.
"The autobiography of the 33rd Don!"
"Yes! Yes! I win!" proclaimed the victorious Silver.
"Shit, how did I lose?" asked the saddened Shin through an out-of-place smile.
"However," added the owner, "that metric is only on average. Here at Bobby's Bookstore, we look carefully into the condition the books are in—and in this case, there was an issue with your copy, ma'am."
Bobby flipped to page 197 out of 230, and Silver let out an audible gasp.
The whole page was covered in red scribbles, doodles, and out-of-place drawings.
"Unfortunately, madam, this single page makes your book worthless. If it were in similar condition, then yes, your book would have been far more valuable than the one belonging to the man to your left. I'm sorry."
"What are the odds I picked up the only vandalised one?" said Silver, staring straight into Shin's eyes.
"Well, that's a shame. Who knew vandalism was still at large, even in this day and age? Thank you, Bobby. Let me just pay for these two books, then we'll be on our way," said Shin.
The two left the bookstore, feeling quite the opposite of each other.
"Oh yeah! My plan worked like a charm! Right after the college boys mentioned the autobiography section, I ran off and headed to the table. Luckily for me, at that time, you were too busy checking the spines of the fiction books on the other side of the store. I quickly made a gamble that, based on the fact that there were way more books of the 18th Don than the 33rd Don, the 33rd Don's book was much more valuable. However, knowing you, I knew that you would come to the same conclusion. That's why I quickly scribbled on a random page before returning to the students and going through the motions once more—acting like I was oblivious to the values of the books. I double-checked that you had picked the correct, sabotaged book right before I left by checking page 197 on the top copy and—as planned—it was unchanged. Thank God the owner didn't see me—I would've been banned from this place," explained Shin.
"What? How? That doesn't make any sense. How could I be outsmarted by you, of all people? My strategy made perfect sense—there were no gaps...
"Shit. I took my eyes off you in those two minutes when I was reading every spine. Damn it! If I had just paid attention to what you were doing, I could have easily picked the other book in the pile."
"Yeah, unfortunately, you were simply outplayed...
Now, about that question."