Jade mining is a very tedious task, and for Zhuang Rui, having a cheat device but no cheat materials makes it even more boring. After hearing Zhang Dazhi's shout, Zhuang Rui, on the way back, simply let his spiritual energy sink underground and look into the depths.
"Huh?"
Zhuang Rui's unintentional action immediately surprised him, because he discovered that a large rock on the ground was shimmering with seven-colored light, and the spiritual energy emanating from it indicated that the quality of the jade stone should be quite good.
Zhuang Rui was quite knowledgeable about jade, but he had never heard of seven-colored jade before. He walked over to the large rock, estimated its size, and felt he could move it. Without calling Zhang Dazhi and the others, he pushed the rock away with all his might.
The stone that appeared in front of Zhuang Rui was about the size of a football. Even without using his spiritual energy, it could be seen to have a faint fluorescence in the night. Zhuang Rui picked it up and found that there was a thin layer of colored skin on the outside of the stone. What Zhuang Rui found strange the most was that the colors of this skin were very mixed, just like the ones he had seen before, with all kinds of colors.
Zhang Dazhi was calling to Zhuang Rui again. Without looking closely, Zhuang Rui put the jade into the basket and continued walking forward. This time, having learned from experience, he would look several meters deeper into the ground when using his spiritual energy. Sure enough, he found several more pieces of jade that were not buried very deep, and their quality was quite good.
When Zhuang Rui returned to the campfire, there were thirteen more jade stones in the basket behind him, two of which were the size of footballs, and the basket was already full.
"Brother Zhuang, did you find all of this?"
When Zhuang Rui dumped a basket of jade on the ground, Tie Zi and the others were stunned. They had been busy for most of the day but hadn't been able to find a single piece of jade. They never expected that Zhuang Rui would find so much jade so quietly.
"Yes, I first found this jade under a rock, and then I specifically dug through rocks to look for more, and that's how I found so many. Take a look, everyone, the quality of this jade is quite good..."
Actually, there are far more than just these dozen or so jade stones underground. Some are buried too deep for Zhuang Rui to retrieve, and others are of poor quality, which Zhuang Rui is too lazy to pick up. These dozen or so stones are all of good quality. They are naturally not as good as Mengzi's stone, but together they are worth about 500,000 to 600,000 yuan.
"Oh dear, we're so stupid, why didn't we think of digging through some rocks to look for it?"
After hearing Zhuang Rui's words, Tiezi slapped himself hard on the head.
As a veteran jade miner, Tiezi knows that riverbeds like this at mountain passes have been eroded by mountains and rivers for thousands or even tens of thousands of years. Countless stones washed down from the mountains have accumulated beneath them, and the same is true for the riverbanks. The jade on the surface may have been picked up by others, but there may still be some good things left underneath.
"Dazhi, Wang Fei, let's go back..."
Having figured this out, Tiezi jumped up from the ground, grabbed the basket, and ran towards the riverbank, not wanting to waste a single moment. Zhang Dazhi and Wang Fei exchanged a glance, then stood up and followed behind Tiezi towards the riverbank.
Actually, all three of them felt a little embarrassed. There were five of them going into the mountains this time. Mengzi was a given; if they hadn't been carrying too many supplies, they definitely wouldn't have brought him along. Zhuang Rui was a jade appraisal expert but didn't know how to mine jade. However, these two laymen who were completely unfamiliar with jade mining had already mined jade worth nearly two million.
This made Tiezi, Zhang Dazhi, and others, who considered themselves veteran jade miners, feel somewhat ashamed. As a result, the three of them were the ones who got paid for doing no work.
Zhuang Rui saw through their thoughts but didn't say much. He wasn't too concerned about the hundred thousand or so. His purpose in going into the mountains was to experience the joy of jade mining, and he felt that the experiences he had along the way were already very worthwhile.
With nothing else to do, Zhuang Rui picked up the seven-colored jade stone that he hadn't examined closely earlier and began to observe it carefully. The outer skin of this jade was very thin, only a few millimeters thick, and the inside was all jade flesh.
The quality of the jade pieces was quite good, and the spiritual energy they contained was only slightly inferior to the piece of mutton fat jade that Zhuang Rui had seen. However, the jade pieces were of different colors and shades, and they were intertwined, making it difficult to separate them.
However, this was the first piece of jade that Zhuang Rui had picked up himself. He wanted to keep it for himself and show it to Grandpa Gu so he could see what kind of ornament he could carve out. But since they had all gone to collect jade, Zhuang Rui had to wait for them to come back and discuss it before making a decision, since they had agreed beforehand that all the jade they collected would be divided equally.
Zhuang Rui glanced at Mengzi, who was fast asleep beside the campfire, but he was wide awake. Feeling a bit cold sitting on the ground, Zhuang Rui simply stood up and walked towards the entrance of the river.
The river, formed from the melting snow on the mountain, becomes extremely rapid as it rushes down the mountain, carving a trench seven or eight meters wide on both sides of the riverbed as if it had been cleaved by a sharp axe. As the stream flows down, it splashes up droplets of water mist like pearls and jade.
Zhuang Rui stood at the mouth of the river, trying to find a few more pieces of jade with his spiritual energy, but to no avail.
Zhuang Rui was stunned when he glanced at the rock wall that resembled a gate guarding the mountain. He saw that, five or six meters deep in the rock wall, several huge jade stones were encased within rocks that looked like layers of magma.
"Jade Vein?"
A word came to Zhuang Rui's mind.
Chapter 269 Jade Vein
"Jade Vein?"
Zhuang Rui could hardly believe his eyes. He took a few quick steps forward, almost pressing his face against the rock wall, and used all his spiritual energy to look into it. Instantly, a large amount of spiritual energy surged into the rock wall.
The rock wall was peeled away layer by layer by spiritual energy, and the scene within ten meters in depth was fully revealed to Zhuang Rui. The jade stones encased in the magma-formed tremolite granite were clearly visible to Zhuang Rui.
At a depth of just ten meters, there are five jade stones as large as millstones, each weighing more than a ton. Moreover, by observing the tremolite rock, Zhuang Rui can determine that the rock extends inward, which means that this is indeed a jade vein.
The existence of jade veins in the Kunlun Mountains has been proven thousands of years ago. In the Kunlun Mountains near Hotan, there are hundreds of jade mines of varying sizes, and these mines are all located within jade veins.
However, even the Jade King wouldn't dare to definitively say the pattern of jade vein distribution. He could only make a rough judgment based on on-site surveys and the jade found in the surrounding area.
The jade veins in the Kunlun Mountains are completely unpredictable. Some extend hundreds of meters deep into the rocks, while others are just above ground and can be found by digging down three to five meters. This has led to the creation of many wealthy jade miners. For example, the mining site in Yeniu Gully was discovered by a man from Zhejiang by chance in a shallow rock face halfway up the mountain.
The rock wall that Zhuang Rui is seeing now is also where the jade vein is located, and it is in a better position and is much easier to mine. Jade veins located on mountains are very difficult to mine because it is very troublesome to bring machinery up the mountain. Every year, many jade miners lose their lives in the mine.
Zhuang Rui could only see within ten meters of the rock wall, but within those ten meters, there were as many as five or six tons of jade. Judging from this, this jade vein should be a large mine, and conservatively estimated, it should be more than a hundred tons.
Judging from the quality of the jade, it is a slightly inferior type of greenish-white jade, which is also the mainstay of the nephrite jade jewelry market. In recent years, greenish-white jade carvings have become very popular, and many people have bought and collected them at home.
It's important to know that the price of nephrite is also rising steadily. Although it's not as outrageous as jadeite, its total sales volume is huge, and it definitely occupies the leading position in the jade market. A hundred tons of jade mine means billions of dollars, and this temptation is hard for Zhuang Rui to resist.
"what to do?"
Zhuang Rui felt a sense of unease. The initial excitement of discovering the jade vein had gradually faded, leaving him somewhat at a loss. Giving up this jade vein was something Zhuang Rui was absolutely unwilling to do. With the wave of jade mining in Kunlun growing ever stronger, this jade vein would inevitably be discovered by someone else sooner or later. If he didn't mine it, he would only be letting someone else benefit from it.
However, given Zhuang Rui's current situation, it would be very difficult for him to mine this jade mine independently.
In terms of funding, it's not a problem. The key issue is that he has no connections in Xinjiang. Once the news of this jade mine leaks out, many forces will likely get involved, and what Zhuang Rui might get in return is disaster, not money.
"Prince Jade!"
The name came to Zhuang Rui's mind. In fact, Zhuang Rui had thought of him a long time ago. However, it was not easy to make a decision on a matter involving billions of dollars. Even with Zhuang Rui's relatively calm personality, he hesitated for a long time before finally deciding to cooperate with Prince Yu.
Zhuang Rui was wise enough to know the saying, "You can make money but not live to enjoy it." If he were to mine independently, he probably wouldn't be able to handle all the major and minor forces in Xinjiang. But by cooperating with the Jade King, these things would be no problem. The Jade King himself was the largest force in the Xinjiang jade industry.
Zhuang Rui squatted down by the river, washed his face with the cool stream water, shook his head vigorously, glanced longingly at the rock wall, and turned back to the campfire. Now, what he needed to consider was how to cooperate with the Jade Prince and find an excuse to discover the jade vein.
The cooperation method is easy to discuss, since Zhuang Rui has already decided to share half of the profits. Presumably, the Jade Prince will reciprocate. In that case, everyone can contribute half the funds and split the profits from the mined jade equally. The only problem is that it's hard to come up with an excuse. He can't very well say that he can see through the rock walls and discover the jade vein, can he?
"Brother Zhuang, where did you go? We were just about to look for you..."
A voice interrupted Zhuang Rui's thoughts. When he looked up, he realized that Zhang Dazhi and the others who had gone to Caiyu had already returned. Looking at the time on his watch, Zhuang Rui was startled. He had unknowingly been there for almost two hours.
"It's nothing, I just couldn't sleep, so I went upstream a bit. How was your catch?"
Zhuang Rui changed the subject. He certainly wouldn't tell these people about the jade vein. With their abilities, they couldn't guarantee the vein would belong to them; in fact, they'd likely leak the information. Besides, they were in the mountains to mine jade, not to search for other minerals, so Zhuang Rui's silence was understandable.
"Hey, Brother Zhuang, your idea really works. We also found some jade. Although the quality isn't great, we can still sell it for some money."
Upon hearing Zhuang Rui's words, Zhang Dazhi and the others became excited and knocked over the baskets in front of them. They poured out the jade stones inside, and the three of them collected more than twenty pieces of various sizes. Some of them were still raw jade, which showed a warm luster under the light of the campfire.
Zhuang Rui looked through them and couldn't help but smile bitterly. Of these twenty-odd pieces of jade, at least a dozen were ones he had previously looked down on and hadn't picked up. He never expected that they would still be picked up by the group and that they would have to go through the trouble of carrying them out of the mountain.
Zhuang Rui didn't even consider that although these dozen or so pieces of jade were of average quality, they could still sell for tens of thousands of yuan, which was equivalent to a year's income for Zhang Dazhi and the others.
"Wow, Brother Tiezi, you guys found so much jade again? I can't believe it, I'm going to go find more jade tomorrow..."
Zhang Dazhi's voice startled Mengzi, who was fast asleep. Rubbing his sleepy eyes, Mengzi's eyes widened when he saw the pile of jade on the ground. Little did he know that the value of this pile of jade was less than that of a small piece of jade he had picked up from the river.
"Mengzi, you just need to keep an eye on these jades tomorrow. This mission is very important. If they get lost or stolen, we'll have come all this way for nothing."
Zhang Dazhi half-jokingly told Mengzi that the value of these jade pieces was already over a million, and he really wouldn't feel at ease without a tall and strong guy like Mengzi guarding them.
"Don't worry, Brother Zhang, with Mengzi here, no one can take our jade away."
Upon hearing Zhang Dazhi's words, Mengzi pounded his chest so hard it made a deafening noise.
"Brother Zhuang, are you sleepy? If not, let's categorize the jade..."
Looking at the colorful jade stones, even Mengzi couldn't sleep anymore. They all gathered around the pile of jade stones.
"By the way, Brother Tiezi, look at this piece of jade, why are the colors so flashy?"
Zhuang Rui remembered the piece of jade that was of good quality but had a strange color. He squatted down, picked it out, and handed it to Tiezi.
"The color of this jade is quite nice, so the quality shouldn't be too bad. However, the color is a bit too mixed, making it difficult to coordinate during carving. If it can be well-coordinated, it will be a masterpiece; otherwise, it will be wasted..."
Tiezi, as expected of someone who has been playing with jade for over a decade, could immediately tell the quality of this piece of jade. People who play with jade in Xinjiang value mutton fat white jade the most, followed by white jade, and then top-quality black jade or high-quality monochrome jade. They don't really care about Zhuang Rui's jade with multiple colors.
"Is that so? Brother Tiezi, Dazhi, Wang Fei, how about this? I really like this piece of jade. I'll take it back and have someone carve it. But we agreed that we'd share the jade we find equally. I'll keep this piece, and you can divide the rest among yourselves. My share is considered everyone's."
Zhuang Rui pondered for a moment before saying the above words. In his heart, he still felt that he had taken advantage of the others. After all, the outer skin of this jade had not been removed, and Tie Zi did not know that the jade inside was of a higher quality than the white jade that Meng Zi had picked up.
Many people believe that mutton fat white jade is the best type of nephrite, but this is not the case. Some top-quality black jade and jasper are priced similarly to mutton fat white jade. The rarest and finest yellow jade, due to the homonym of "yellow jade" with "emperor," can be dozens of times more valuable than mutton fat jade.
However, even if Tiezi and his friends knew that the jade was of good quality, they wouldn't care much. Their deeply ingrained belief was that white jade was the best, and that mixed-color jade was difficult to sell.
"No, Brother Zhuang, you can keep that jade, but you still have to give the gift money!"
“That’s right, Dazhi is right. Brother Zhuang, since you like this jade, you can keep it. It doesn’t need to be counted in the jade we jointly mined. However, you still have to take your share. Otherwise, we won’t be able to explain to the Jade King when we go back, and we’ll be criticized behind our backs.”
Wang Fei and Mengzi nodded in agreement with Tiezi and Zhang Dazhi's words. Based on the jade stones on the ground, Mengzi was definitely number one in terms of contribution, as his jade stone alone was worth over a million. Next was Zhuang Rui, whose ten or so pieces of jade were worth about 500,000 to 600,000.
As for the jade that Tiezi and his group mined, its value was only tens of thousands of yuan. If they didn't give Zhuang Rui a share of the money just because he took a piece of jade that was insignificant, they would definitely be looked down upon by others when they got back, and probably no one would want to partner with them to mine jade again.
Chapter 270 Cooperation
"We'll talk about that later. Everyone, let's rest first. What I mean is, let's go to the river again tomorrow. If we don't find much, then we'll leave the mountains..."
Zhuang Rui originally came into the mountains to see jade mining, but now that he has achieved his goal and even discovered a jade vein, there is really no need for him to stay in the mountains any longer.
"Should we look for it some more and go back a few days later? The food we brought can last for another half month."
Zhang Dazhi hesitated. He had such a great harvest on his first day. He wondered if he could find some more high-quality jade. He had just discussed with Wang Fei that after selling the jade, they would go back to Sichuan together. Perhaps this was their last time mining jade.
Upon hearing Zhang Dazhi's words, Tiezi shook his head and said, "I agree with Brother Zhuang. Jade mining depends on chance. I've been into the mountains more than ten times and have only earned seventy or eighty thousand yuan. It's not that you can find jade just by staying in the mountains for a long time."
Tiezi was an old jade miner, and his words carried weight. Zhang Dazhi and Wang Fei thought about it and nodded in agreement. After all, the harvest this time was enough for them to go back to their hometown, build a big house, and get married.
Before dawn the next day, Tiezi, Zhang Dazhi, and the others got up and went to the river in the dark to look for jade. Zhuang Rui and Mengzi guarded the jade they found, gathered some dry branches, filled a container with river water, boiled it, and then soaked dried meat and flatbread in it to make breakfast.
Zhuang Rui wasn't very interested in jade mining. After breakfast, he wandered to the entrance of the river and frowned as he looked at the stream flowing down from the towering snow-capped mountains and the trenches that seemed to have been carved out by the hand of nature.
The jade vein has been discovered, but we need to come up with an explanation. The jade vein is hidden inside the mountain, not exposed in the open. The Jade Prince won't believe Zhuang Rui's empty words.
What is that?
Looking at the rushing stream in front of him, Zhuang Rui was suddenly attracted by a rock next to the mountain wall. It was a piece of granodiorite, the same as the rock that encased the jade in the rock wall.
However, there was no jade inside this rock formation. It is possible that jade miners had been there before, as the rock formation clearly showed signs of being excavated. After digging more than a meter deep, it is estimated that those people, after not finding any jade, assumed that this rock formation was washed down from the mountain and did not explore the rock wall next to it.
It's important to understand that, aside from explosives, bringing equipment to open up the mountain here is extremely difficult. This rock face has been eroded by mountain torrents over thousands of years, and the stream has forcibly split it in two. From the cross-section, you can see that it doesn't look like it contains jade, so no one dares to risk using explosives to blast open this mountain pass and river channel.
The formation of nephrite is caused by the contact between granodiorite and dolomite, resulting in a series of contact metamorphic rocks. The dolomite is transformed into dolomitic marble, and nephrite is formed after late-stage hydrothermal fluids from the magma undergo metasomatism along the structural fissures of the dolomitic marble.
In other words, jade veins are often found where granodiorite or dolomite is present. The reason why the granodiorite next to that rock wall was excavated was for this reason. After seeing the excavation marks, the people who came to mine jade later paid less attention to this place.
“Go back and say that you judged that there was once magma flowing underground, forming a jade vein, based on that granite piece.”
Zhuang Rui found a reason for his discovery of the jade vein, although it was somewhat far-fetched. He believed that once the rock wall was dug open, others would only think that he had excellent eyesight and would not have any other thoughts.
Taking out his camera, Zhuang Rui photographed the terrain on both sides of the river and the excavated granite. These photos would serve as evidence to convince the Jade King when he returned. Even if the Jade King still didn't believe him, Zhuang Rui planned to fund the mining himself. Once the jade was extracted, he would then discuss cooperation with the Jade King. However, in that case, Zhuang Rui's share would not be split 50/50.