Lucky phone number sold
手机靓号拍出225万天价
A cellphone number that ends with five "eights" was offered for 2.25 million yuan ($325,000) at a court-organized online auction on Sunday.
8月16日，在法院组织的一场网络拍卖会上，一部尾号为5个“8”的手机号拍出了225万元高价。
The phone number, which begins with "1890" and ends with five "eights", was issued by China Telecom. It was put up for auction on the Taobao e-commerce platform with a starting price of 2,000 yuan.
这部以“1890”开头、尾号为“88888”的中国电信手机号由北京市朝阳区人民法院委托淘宝电商平台进行拍卖，起拍价为2000元。

A total of 589 people participated in the auction, which was organized by Chaoyang District People's Court in Beijing. 5,051 bids were made, attracting the attention of nearly 70,000 netizens.
本次拍卖共589人参加，共经历5051次出价，吸引近7万网友围观。
Starting 10 am Saturday, the auction was estimated to end 24 hours later.
拍卖自8月15日10时开始，原本预计24小时后结束。
But as people continued to make bids, the deal was not sealed until 11:23 am Sunday, when the lucky phone number fetched a staggering 2.25 million yuan.
但是由于不断有人出价，拍卖延时，直至8月16日11时23分，这个靓号最终以225万元的惊人价格落槌成交。
The figure "8", whose pronunciation resembles "fa" in Mandarin which means fortune, is a lucky number in Chinese culture.
在中国文化中，数字“8”是一个幸运数字，因为它的发音类似于汉语中的“发”，也就是“发财”的意思。