The other merchants were quite surprised. Although Zhou Xuan was young, he clearly had a big appetite for business. In the case of colored rough stones, gamblers usually don't gamble in large quantities, since there might be flaws or cracks inside. It's all unknown, and the element of gambling is huge. They usually gamble on one or two pieces, but no one gambles on seven, eight, or even ten pieces at once, let alone like Zhou Xuan, who picked out thirty or forty pieces at once.
They gamble on rough stones, usually only betting large quantities on the grayish-white stones without any green color found in the plaza outside. While the color is poor, the price is cheap. At Lin Shitu's place, it's about 100,000 yuan per ton, four or five times more expensive than Zhou Bo's. However, because Lin Shitu's material comes from the authentic old mines of the Myitkyina vein in Myanmar, some jadeite can usually be extracted from those greenless rough stones, and the profit from the extracted jadeite far exceeds the cost of the rough stone. Of course, most of the time it's a wasted effort; that's gambling on rough stones. Everyone knows that nine out of ten gamblers lose, and losing all ten is quite common.
However, if even once out of ten attempts, a good piece of jade is found, the profit can be ten or even a hundred times greater, because the quantity of rough jade is large. This gamble is very high, which is why the jade gambling industry always keeps these merchants entertained. But the most exciting part is still finding those good pieces with green jade in the factory.
All jade gamblers know that rough stones with green inclusions have a much higher chance of yielding jadeite than those without green. Therefore, their focus remains on rough stones from the mines, hoping to win one or two pieces with good color at a time. This is pure gambling; winning can lead to great wealth, while losing brings regret. Some even borrow money from various sources to gamble, but such people usually only end up with one outcome: financial ruin and even death!
In the world of jade gambling, how many joys and sorrows have been played out?
After Zhou Xuan finished selecting the rough stones, he returned to the bidding platform with Lin Shitu. The platform and the area below it were filled with his stones. Zhou Xuan smiled and said to Lin Shitu, "Mr. Lin, it's your turn to place a bid now!"
Lin Shitu was following Zhou Xuan, and he could see clearly every piece of rough jade that Zhou Xuan picked. The surface of the rough jade had very little green, and other obvious jade-like features were almost non-existent. According to the eyes of an experienced jade gambler, the rough jade that Zhou Xuan picked was the lowest of the low and had little investment value.
Lin Shitu intended to curry favor with Zhou Xuan, hoping to offer him some good materials at a low price. However, Zhou Xuan didn't even glance at those rough stones with excellent color and texture, and was too embarrassed to make it too obvious, so he had to give up.
After Zhou Xuan asked him to name his price, Lin Shitu hesitated for a moment before saying, "Well, Mr. Zhou, let me be frank with you, none of these materials are good!"
Jade gambling bosses would never say something like that. No matter how bad the material is, they'll describe it as potentially containing top-quality jadeite. They would never say "it's not good material." Lin Shitu's words were clearly meant to make things clear to Zhou Xuan. The materials you've picked are the worst, worthless, and have the highest probability of not yielding any good jade.
Zhou Xuan smiled and nodded, saying, "Mr. Lin, I'm just playing around. Didn't I just make tens of millions? Consider it a little less. It's no big deal. Name your price!"
Of all those present, only Zhou Xuan understood. Only he realized that these dozens of rough stones had practically wiped out all the jadeite-containing rough stones in Lin Shitu's factory; who else but him knew if they had any value?
From these experiences gambling on jade, Zhou Xuan learned a crucial truth: experience is important, but the most important thing is to avoid gambling altogether. Looking at the best pieces of jade rough he gambled on, most were grayish-white stones with no green on the surface. Experts would consider such stones worthless, but Zhou Xuan detected and identified them using his special ability. However, Zhou Xuan understood that without his ice-energy ability, he would have been ruined long ago. Even the most experienced veterans, if they continued gambling, would lose seven or eight times out of ten, usually on very important rough stones. Losing once is devastating, let alone gambling again.
Lin Shitu no longer needed to examine the quality of the raw materials. He already knew. The female worker had already entered the serial numbers of the raw materials into the computer, obtaining his total price. She secretly glanced at the computer screen; the total was less than three million, and most of the raw materials...
Two million eight hundred thousand, that's the total number.
Lin Shitu hesitated for a moment, then said to Zhou Xuan, "Mr. Zhou, how about this, the total price is one million!"
Zhou Xuan was somewhat surprised. To be honest, he had expected Lin Shitu to show him goodwill, but he hadn't expected Lin Shitu to offer such a low price of only one million. Although the total value of this large pile of rough stones might not even be as much as the one he sold, there were still dozens of rough stones. Therefore, their value could not be calculated based on the true value that Zhou Xuan measured with his ice energy.
However, there is one piece of rough jadeite that is even more valuable than the top-quality jadeite that was sold. If these dozens of rough jadeite pieces are taken back, the jadeite they are cut into should be worth over 100 million yuan. Zhou Bo also has a truckload of rough jadeite, which should be worth 10 to 20 million yuan.
Some of the merchants nearby could tell that Lin Shitu was intentionally selling to this young man at a low price. However, the quality of this batch of raw jade was poor, and they had no intention of competing with Zhou Xuan, so no one made a bid. This suited Lin Shitu's wishes perfectly. Normally, a seller would hope for a bidder, as it would increase their profits, but this time was an exception.
Zhou Xuan extracted all the valuable rough stones from the factory, which was worth a million. However, Lin Shitu himself didn't suffer any loss; it's all gambling on stones. Who knows if there's jade inside? Even if all the stones are hollow, they're still money in his hands, and plenty of people will still come to buy them at high prices.
Just as Zhou Xuan was about to sign the check, an employee said to Lin Shitu, "Boss, there are two truckloads of raw materials in the square whose payments haven't arrived yet. Should we stop them?"
Zhou Xuan was taken aback, then remembered that Lin Shitu had even more rough jade outside, which would be cheaper if picked out. Nobody complains about having too much money, right? This time, he came to try to pick out as much jade as possible. If he had the chance, why wouldn't he take it?
He immediately smiled and said to Lin Shitu, "Mr. Lin, do you still have some raw materials outside? Let me take another look?"
"This..." Lin Shitu hesitated for a moment. It wasn't that he was unwilling, but the chances of finding jade from rough stones outside were even lower. Zhou Xuan had already picked out so many extremely poor-quality rough stones at the factory. If he were to pick out even worse rough stones outside and end up with nothing, he wouldn't lose much money, but he would definitely be upset. "Let's leave it at that. I'll go back and pick some more!" Seeing Lin Shitu's hesitation, Zhou Xuan walked ahead and headed outside.
Lin Shitu had no choice but to comply, and then instructed his employees to use trailers to haul all the raw materials out and load them onto trucks.
In the square, Zhou Xuan smiled and said to Lin Shitu, "Boss Lin, could you please find me a piece of raw material and a small bucket of paint? I'll take one piece for each item I select. Also, could you please have a few more workers follow me and help me carry out what I select?"
Lin Shitu naturally wouldn't object, and Zhou Xuan was also unconcerned. He picked out the rough stones, and although every piece contained jade, he wouldn't cut them here. He would take them all back to Beijing. Here, no one would suspect anything, and back home, it would be even easier. He could build his own stone-cutting factory, hire workers, and no one would know about these things. Only Zhao Lao Er saw it, but Zhao Lao Er didn't even notice. He was completely dazed, having made a fortune, his mind was a mess, and he couldn't understand anything. At first, he had been lustfully eyeing Zhong Qin, but now he ignored her completely, his hands clutching the pockets of his clothes, inside which was a check for over twenty million yuan.
Zhou Xuan channeled his icy energy to probe the piles of rough jade stones in the square. He went back and forth six or seven times before finally finishing. This time, he selected over a hundred rough stones. However, there wasn't a single top-grade jadeite rough stone left, but there were six pieces of icy jadeite, over a dozen pieces of violet jadeite, dozens of pieces of translucent jadeite, and several dozen pieces each of lower-grade flower-green and white-based green jadeite. The total value of these was almost several hundred thousand.
Ten thousand.
Zhou Xuan naturally didn't understand that the jadeite extracted from these batches of rough stones could account for nearly one-tenth of the total output from Tengchong—a truly enormous number.
Other merchants, after cutting stones, usually only obtain a very small amount of jade, unlike Zhou Xuan. Every single piece contains jade, and the quality is all above average. Even the largest semi-finished jade merchants would need to make many trips to acquire such a large quantity!
These hundred or so pieces of raw material filled two trucks. According to Lin Shitu's selling price, one truck costs 300,000 yuan, so two trucks would cost 600,000 yuan.
However, Zhou Xuan had selected these rough stones. If calculated the same way as Zhou Bo, these hundred or so rough stones would cost at least twice as much. But no matter how it was calculated, Zhou Xuan didn't care, because it was far less than the true value of the jade inside.
However, Lin Shitu didn't follow Zhou Bo's calculation method. He directly calculated two truckloads, then discounted it to a round number of 500,000, plus the raw materials selected by the factory. He ended up with three truckloads, totaling only 1.5 million.
Zhou Xuan wrote the check and said with a smile to Lin Shitu, "Mr. Lin, I'm very satisfied with doing business with you. Tomorrow, you pick a place, and I'll treat you to a meal to express my gratitude!"
Lin Shitu replied with a smile, "Sure, it doesn't matter where it is or what we eat. The important thing is to make a friend like Mr. Zhou!"
For people like them, a meal might cost tens of thousands of yuan, and who pays is irrelevant. But Lin Shitu simply wanted to be friends with Zhou Xuan. Of course, Lin Shitu wouldn't ask Zhou Xuan to pay, but he also wouldn't bring it up here to argue, lest he appear petty.
After parting ways with Lin Shitu, Zhou Xuan returned to the Tengchong Hotel with Zhao Lao Er, Zheng Bing, and a few others. The goods were naturally left with Lin Shitu, who immediately had his employees change the lock on the truck's cargo box, lock it again, and then handed the key to Zhou Xuan.
Zhou Xuan casually declined, but Lin Shitu insisted. So Zhou Xuan accepted it; it was better for him to keep it. It wasn't that he was stingy, but if Lin Shitu or his employees secretly cut open his rough stones, it would cause a big problem, since every piece of rough stone contained jade!
Back in Tengchong, we ate at the shop and took a shower. It got dark, and Zhou Xuan came out again to call Zhao Lao Er and Zheng Bing, saying we were going to stroll around the night market. Zhong Qin wouldn't be coming that night, so we could just wander around on our own without a guide. It was just a stroll, not going anywhere far, so it didn't matter.
In addition to several well-known commercial streets, Yefu in Tengchong also has a jade market street that specializes in selling jade items. A group of people wandered around and ended up here.
These are all similar to street stalls, with a few wooden frames. A wooden board is laid out, and a silk cloth is placed on top of the board, on which jade artifacts of all kinds are displayed. Some stalls even have oilcloth awnings. Electric lights are hung. Under the lights, the jade artifacts look especially beautiful and attractive.
Zhao Lao Er was stunned. He rushed over, grabbed a jade piece, and examined it against the light, saying, "It's so beautiful!"
Volume One: The First Budding Talents, Chapter 169: Corundum
The jadeite in the middle of the year shone with an extremely beautiful iridescent light under the lamp, and Zhao Lao Er was completely captivated!
Looking at the stall again, there were jade pendants, Guanyin Bodhisattva statues, ornaments, jade pendants, all kinds of them, a wide variety. In the last two rows, there were unfinished jade pieces that had not yet been carved. Judging from the color and transparency alone, the color was a bright green, and under the light, it was clear that the transparency was very high.
Generally, the quality of jadeite is judged by its color, transparency, presence of impurities, size, etc. Once these standards are met, it can be considered an excellent piece.
But looking out from this roadside stall, there are at least a hundred stalls, and they sell top-quality jadeite. And there's a considerable amount, believe it or not.
Zhou Xuan, of course, didn't believe it. From the outside, these jadeite pieces were all treasures in every respect. But if they were treasures, how could there be so many? Each piece was worth tens of millions. Could they be displayed so casually?
Zhou Xuan didn't use ice energy, so it's good to have this opportunity to practice his basic knowledge.