A middle-aged man standing next to the stone-cutting machine said that he still held a sliver of hope that if a few kilograms of glass-type jadeite could be found in this piece, he could make back his investment.
"OK……"
Master Wu agreed and instructed the two men to move the rough stone onto the stone-cutting machine. He placed a thick layer of material under the surface from which the jadeite would be extracted, to prevent damage to the jadeite that had already appeared during the cutting process.
Master Wu observed carefully for a while longer, and then drew a slanted line with white chalk next to the crack in the rough stone, dividing the entire piece of rough stone into two halves. By cutting the rough stone along this line, it would be immediately clear whether it would expand or collapse.
Holding the cold handle of the stone-cutting machine, Master Wu was filled with anxiety. He had bought this rough stone on his strong recommendation, and if it turned out to be a bad gamble, he would have no face to continue working at Jixiang Company, and in front of so many colleagues, he would have a hard time making a living in the jade gambling circle in the future.
After the power switch was pressed, the huge alloy gear began to spin rapidly. The morning sunlight shone on it, reflecting streaks of white light that dazzled everyone's eyes.
Chapter 455 Clearly marked (12)
"Click...click click..."
Master Wu's sweaty palms finally pressed down, and pieces of stone, each about the size of a palm, fell off the original rock.
The huge alloy gear, gleaming with a cold light, slashed fiercely into the raw stone reinforced in the stone-cutting machine. Although Master Wu was nervous, his hands were very steady. Following the white line drawn on the surface, he split the more than 100-kilogram raw stone in two without the slightest deviation.
"well……"
The sighs from the crowd told the whole story. Although the half of the rough stone that revealed green was still more than ten centimeters thick, if it were all jade, more than thirty kilograms could still be extracted, so there would be no loss.
However, anyone standing close enough can clearly see with the naked eye that there is a distinct crack on the smooth cut surface. Anyone with even a little knowledge of jade gambling knows that this rough stone is a gamble that will fail.
Master Wu stood blankly beside the stone-cutting machine. His face was ashen, and his lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but no one could understand what he was saying. The smooth cut surface of the rough stone was so dazzling under the sunlight, and the crack that ran almost through the entire piece seemed like a laughing mouth, mocking everyone in the room.
"Master Wu, keep cutting. Take out as much jade as you can..."
Although the head of Jixiang Jewelry also looked very unhappy, he couldn't lose face, so he maintained his composure in front of thousands of colleagues and insisted on finishing the jade gambling.
However, in his heart, he hated the Myanmar organizing committee. Spending 50 million to gamble and losing was not a big deal in itself. With the strength of Jixiang Jewelry, it wouldn't be a serious problem. But losing in front of so many other jewelry companies was a big problem. He couldn't rule out the possibility that these people would take advantage of his misfortune and seize Jixiang Jewelry's market share.
As the saying goes, competitors are enemies, and this is especially true in the jewelry industry. You'll often see several other jewelry stores vying for dominance right next to a single jewelry company in various cities.
While such concentration can attract more consumers' attention, it also intensifies competition. If one company runs out of stock, other jewelry stores will immediately lower their prices to secure the other company's market share before adjusting their prices. This is a common practice among businesses.
After Jixiang Jewelry's gamble on this rough jadeite failed, it is very likely that it will be short of raw jadeite materials. There are also many of Jixiang Jewelry's direct competitors present, who are already thinking about whether to lower the price of their jadeite jewelry, drag Jixiang Jewelry into a price war, and kick them out of the jadeite market after they have exhausted their inventory.
The business world is like a battlefield, including the capital market. Although there's no smoke of gunpowder, the clashes and bloodshed are no less intense than real battles. Didn't you see all the people crying and struggling to climb to the top of buildings to jump after the stock market crash?
Indeed, after Jixiang Jewelry's defeat in Myanmar, several jewelry companies in Zhonghai seemed to have joined forces to launch a promotional campaign for jadeite jewelry, sparking a major battle in the Zhonghai jadeite market. Although Jixiang Jewelry managed to hold on for a few months thanks to the raw materials it had accumulated over the years, it eventually ran out of steam and lost a portion of its market share. Of course, that's another story.
"Here you are, here you are! Those who bought in earlier don't need to come over. Those who bought in earlier but lost money are all here..."
An untimely voice suddenly rang out in the room. No wonder people say Dai Jun is not a gentleman. Someone had just lost more than 50 million in gambling, and his shout was like rubbing salt into their wounds. The head of Jixiang Jewelry was spitting fire in his eyes, wishing he could go up and strangle this kid.
This wasn't in China, and the Burmese police didn't interfere with these foreigners gambling. The man could only watch helplessly, while Big D was beaming with excitement. Whether there was jade inside the stone was none of his business. However, once the rough stone was cut open, its value wouldn't reach the more than 5 million euros it cost to buy. But Big D's betting odds were already cashed out.
The odds were 1 to 2. Sixty-five people bet on the winning numbers. After losing all his money, Big D actually made a profit of 80,000 yuan. He was now grinning from ear to ear, constantly bragging to the people around him: "If anyone ever tells me that I always lose when I gamble, I'll get mad at them."
However, few people could hear him now, because when he cashed out his bet, Master Wu made another cut. With this cut, the entire rough stone was completely ruined. Following the initial cut, it took Master Wu nearly an hour to extract more than ten kilograms of icy jade.
Fortunately, the quality of these icy jade pieces is quite good, and the color is also very pure. They can be polished into some mid-to-high-end bracelets, but their value will not exceed five million. Compared to the more than fifty million they spent, it's a complete loss.
After the mystery was revealed, the crowd lost their appetite for watching the spectacle and shook their heads as they left. Although they hadn't lost their bets, they all felt a heavy weight in their hearts. Apart from a few of Jixiang Jewelry's direct competitors, not many people were gloating. The reason was simple: they were afraid that the rough stones they had bid on would also end up like this.
To mitigate the impact of this failed jade gambling event, the Myanmar jade auction organizing committee opened the venue ahead of schedule, allowing buyers from around the world to enter early.
The time allotted for observing the sealed bids was already limited, and the organizing committee's decision quickly dispersed the crowd at the stone-cutting site, who then gathered at the entrance of the venue to wait for their entry passes to be checked before entering.
This rough stone, which had been analyzed by numerous jade gambling experts in Myanmar and given a high probability of being a winning bid, ultimately failed to deliver, once again proving the saying "even a god cannot judge the value of a piece of jade."
"Zhuang Rui, let's go. What are you still looking at?"
After getting his winnings back from Big D, Fatty Ma saw Zhuang Rui still watching the people from Jixiang Company cut stones, so he pulled him along.
"Waiting a while won't hurt. There are a lot of people coming in now, so I'm not going to join the crowd..."
Zhuang Rui glanced at the crowd queuing to enter the Myanmar National Jade Exchange Center and replied casually. Actually, he wanted to wait until these people finished cutting the stones to see if he could buy the half of the stone that had been ruined.
Although this rough stone was a gamble that failed, that's only in a relative sense. Compared to the price of over 50 million yuan that bought it, it was certainly a failure. However, the jadeite contained in this piece was not just the ten-odd kilograms. In the other half of the rough stone, there were two or three kilograms of high-ice jadeite, only slightly larger than a fist, curled up at the edge of the crack in the waste material. If Master Wu's knife had been slightly to the right and up, he might have been able to cut that piece out.
Although two or three kilograms of material only cost a few hundred thousand yuan, even a small mosquito is still meat. Rather than leaving it here as garbage, it's better to spend some money to buy it later. Zhuang Rui is holding back his energy to find a bargain.
"Good lad, you have a really good eye. Uncle Qin is truly impressed..."
The expressions on the faces of the people standing around Zhuang Rui were varied. The jade gambling masters hired by Qin's Jewelry did not look good. They had strongly advocated bidding for this rough stone, but they were slapped in the face. If Fang Yi had spent money to bid for it, her fate would have been just like that of the people from Jixiang Jewelry, who were devastated.
However, Qin Haoran's excited appearance puzzled everyone. There was no direct conflict between Jixiang Jewelry and Qin's Jewelry in Hong Kong. It seemed unnecessary to be so excited when someone else lost the bet. Only Zhuang Rui and Fang Yi understood that Qin Haoran was not happy about someone else losing the bet, but about Zhuang Rui's foresight.
After hearing Zhuang Rui's words yesterday, Qin Haoran had some doubts. After all, based on just one sentence from Zhuang Rui, he was willing to spend tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan on that giant red jadeite rough. Qin Haoran was still a little hesitant. However, after seeing what happened today, his confidence in Zhuang Rui immediately increased. At the same time, he decided not to look at that rough with flaws, so as not to attract anyone's attention.
"Hey buddy, I'm getting a stone cut open, anyone want to come watch?"
Zhuang Rui was chatting with Qin Haoran when a loud shout suddenly came from beside the stone-cutting machine. Zhuang Rui looked in the direction of the sound and his expression changed. He was filled with regret: "Damn it, I was distracted while I was talking. How did that rough stone end up in that kid Da D's hands?"
"Brother Ma, what's going on? Isn't he running a gambling den? Why is he asking to cut stones again?"
Zhuang Rui asked the fat man next to him.
"Hey, that kid's a bit of a troublemaker. He got a little too excited after winning 80,000 yuan. He said he'd tried all sorts of gambling, but never stones, so he wanted to buy a piece of scrap to cut and play with. But someone teased him, so he spent 80,000 yuan on that half-piece of broken stone..."
Fatty Ma laughed as he spoke, his fat body trembling with each laugh, a gloating expression on his face. Big D still couldn't escape his fate of losing every time he gambled; he had just won back 80,000, and now he'd given it all away again.
"Damn it, this kid is really lucky..."
Zhuang Rui looked at Da D, who didn't even know how to operate a stone cutting machine, and was speechless for a moment. The people from Jixiang Jewelry weren't stupid. They cut that half piece of waste material into three sections, but still didn't find any green. They only sold it to Da D for 80,000 yuan. However, they didn't know that they had given away hundreds of thousands of yuan. But even if they knew, the people from Jixiang Jewelry didn't care. More than 50 million yuan had already gone down the drain, so what did it matter if they lost a little bit?
"Huh, what's this thing? Why is it a bit dark?"
After arrogantly slicing the rough stone in half on the stone-cutting machine, Big D stared blankly at the cut surface. Under the sunlight, the green color turned a bit darker, and at first glance, it looked somewhat like black.
Chapter 456 Clearly marked (13)
"Damn, you're really lucky..."
After hearing what Da D said, Fatty Ma went over to take a look. Although he was also a novice when it came to gambling on jade, his knowledge was much better than Da D's. He could tell at a glance that the cut jade was of good quality and should be worth far more than 80,000 yuan.
The group from Jixiang Jewelry, who had just left and hadn't gone far, stumbled upon hearing Fatty Ma's words. However, none of them looked back. The scrap they were about to throw away had actually been found to contain jade, which was another slap in the face to Master Wu. Now, Master Wu's face was deathly pale, without a trace of color.
For Jixiang Jewelry, this Myanmar jade auction was a complete nightmare. They not only lost money but also face. Although the Myanmar jade auction is not over yet, the jewelry industry in China is already in turmoil, and a major battle is imminent.
"Let's go in..."
Zhuang Rui was too lazy to look at what he was about to grab, as that kid had snatched it away. Besides, there were still tens of thousands of yuan worth of rough jadeite in the bidding area waiting for him to look at. With the price of jadeite soaring, Zhuang Rui wouldn't complain about having too much rough jadeite. At this rate of price increase, investing in jadeite rough was more worthwhile than investing in real estate.
Upon entering the jade gambling venue, Zhuang Rui headed straight for the open bidding area. His strategy for this trip to Myanmar was to spend three days examining all the tens of thousands of rough stones in the open bidding area before slowly selecting the stones in the sealed bidding area. After all, open bidding is quick and effective, and only when the rough stones are in his own hands can he feel at ease.
Zhuang Rui didn't even have the idea of buying up all the high-end jadeite in this public auction, because that was unrealistic. With just over 100 million RMB, it was simply not enough. He would be satisfied if he could get a few of the best pieces.
Of course, the raw stones that Zhuang Rui couldn't digest wouldn't be given to others. Qin Haoran - Song Jun - Fatty Ma, in that order, Zhuang Rui would reveal some information to them later, after all, it's better to keep the good stuff in the family.
There were significantly fewer people in the open bidding area today than yesterday. After all, the on-site stone cutting just now led many buyers to believe that the stones in the open bidding area were the leftovers and unlikely to yield green jade. So today, they all turned to the sealed bidding area.
However, this was the result Zhuang Rui liked best. He examined the raw materials too quickly, and with more people around, some people would inevitably become suspicious. Now that there were fewer people and everyone's attention was focused on the raw materials on the ground, no one paid any attention to Zhuang Rui, who seemed to be idly wandering around.
Yesterday, Zhuang Rui had already seen the materials numbered 4000 and above. Today, after entering the open bidding area, he started looking at the rough materials numbered 4000 and above.
Because there were so many raw materials, Zhuang Rui only used his spiritual energy to roughly see through each piece, sensing whether there was any cool spiritual energy inside. After examining so many rough stones, Zhuang Rui could already judge the quality of jadeite based on the strength of the spiritual energy within them. When he encountered slightly lower quality stones, Zhuang Rui didn't stop at all, not even bothering to take notes. Only rough stones of oily green or higher quality, and with abundant spiritual energy, would make Zhuang Rui stop and examine them carefully. He would then write down the amount of jadeite inside and his rough estimate of its value in his notebook. Of course, if he showed those notes to others, they wouldn't understand them.
In one morning, Zhuang Rui saw the rough stones numbered 17,000 and above. By then, his mind was completely blank. If he didn't look at his notebook, he couldn't remember how many rough stones were worth bidding on or which ones were the most valuable.
Zhuang Rui initially thought the open bid was only a little over ten thousand yuan, but he didn't expect that the circled area next to it was also part of the open bid. This was a disaster for him—a whopping twenty thousand yuan!
"Xiao Rui, what's wrong? You look so pale."
Sitting in the canteen of the Myanmar Jade Exchange Center at noon, Fang Yi looked at Zhuang Rui with concern. In just a few hours, Zhuang Rui, who had been rosy-cheeked, was now deathly pale, looking even worse than the people who had lost money gambling on rough jade that morning.
"It's nothing, Aunt Fang. I'm just a little dizzy from looking at so many raw materials..."
Zhuang Rui waved his hand, looking at the food in front of him, unable to eat a single bite. The workload was far too great. He had examined more than 10,000 rough stones in just one morning. Just counting from 1 to 10,000 would take a long time, not to mention that he also had to select the valuable pieces.
Although spiritual energy doesn't consume anything when looking at inanimate objects, the immense mental strain left Zhuang Rui completely exhausted. All he wanted to do was find a place to lie down and get a good night's sleep.
"By the way, Uncle Qin, I've written down a few pieces of material. Please keep an eye out for them when you bid on them in a few days..."
Zhuang Rui listlessly opened his notebook, which was filled with numbers, but it was impossible for others to discern any pattern from it.
Zhuang Rui really had no appetite at the moment, so he moved the boxed lunch aside. But when he saw the numbers on the notebook, his head started spinning. He closed his eyes to rest for a while before turning his attention back to the notebook.
"4179, 5367, 5580, 8751, oh right, and 5426. Okay, that's all I've seen so far. When the bidding starts, Uncle Qin, please pay attention. I've written the prices down. These pieces all seem pretty good to me. Piece 5426 is a little less desirable, so don't bid too high for it. For the rest, try to bid on as many as possible..."
Zhuang Rui took Qin Haoran's notebook and wrote down the numbers on it. The worst of the rough stones he wrote down could be cut into golden silk jadeite. The four stones together were worth more than 200 million. As for the 5426 he wrote down later, Zhuang Rui just wrote it down randomly. Not every piece of rough stone he provided could turn out to be green. If that were the case, his title as an expert would probably not be able to stop people from being suspicious. So he just wrote down a piece of stone randomly.
The materials Zhuang Rui provided alone were enough to make Qin's Jewelry a fortune this time, so spending a little extra money was nothing to Zhuang Rui. He thought, "This guy is already showing great integrity."
It wasn't that Zhuang Rui didn't want to take it all; it was just that there were too many rough stones, and most of them were mid-range jadeite. Zhuang Rui simply couldn't handle them all. Originally, Zhuang Rui wanted to give Qin Haoran a few more numbers, but the sheer number of rough stones he had seen that morning was too astonishing, and he was afraid of scaring the two of them.
"This...this, Xiao Rui, you saw more than 8,000 pieces of raw jade?"
Even though Zhuang Rui was very restrained, he still gave Qin Haoran and his wife a big fright. Qin Haoran had been looking at the sealed bids all morning, but he had only looked at a little over 200 yuan. That was after he had skipped over all the bids because he hadn't behaved well. He didn't expect that Zhuang Rui would quietly see more than 8,000 yuan.
"Uncle Qin, many of the materials in the open bidding area aren't even jadeite rough; they're just broken stones. I skipped all of those and only looked at the rough stones that showed promise. It was exhausting..."
Zhuang Rui then realized that the numbers he had given had frightened Qin Haoran and his wife. He quickly explained, and Qin Haoran felt relieved after his explanation. However, when bidding on these rough stones, he raised the prices he had marked Zhuang Rui on, wasting a lot of money. This was all due to Zhuang Rui's comment that he had "performed well".
After lunch, Zhuang Rui did not go directly to the venue to look at the raw materials. Instead, he found a quiet corner in the air-conditioned canteen to rest for a while. He did not reappear in the open bidding area until after 1 p.m.
With his mind clearing up a bit, Zhuang Rui finished looking at all the remaining 3,000-plus rough stones in one go. More than a dozen more numbers appeared in his notebook. Zhuang Rui did not participate in today's open auction because none of the rough stones numbered from 2,000 to 4,000 were of his liking.
When the minibus arrived that evening, Zhuang Rui boarded it immediately and remained silent until they reached the hotel. Qin Haoran and his wife knew that Zhuang Rui was tired that day, so they did not disturb him.
After returning to the hotel, Zhuang Rui ate a bowl of noodles in the restaurant, then went into his room and collapsed onto the bed, falling fast asleep. Qin Haoran, who had wanted to discuss pricing the giant red jadeite with Zhuang Rui, couldn't reach him. Exhausted, Zhuang Rui didn't even hear his phone ring.
Zhuang Rui didn't get out of bed until eight o'clock the next day. He had slept for a full twelve hours, and after this deep sleep, Zhuang Rui's spirits were fully restored.
"Xiao Rui, what price range do you think we should set for that piece of red jadeite rough this afternoon?"
On the minibus were Fatty Ma and several jade gambling consultants. Qin Haoran couldn't discuss this matter with Zhuang Rui. When they arrived at the venue, he didn't bother to look at the rough stones. He grabbed Zhuang Rui and went to a secluded corner to ask him questions.
"Although that piece of jade has some flaws on the back, it's too big. I'm sure many people will be willing to gamble on it. The price can't be set too low, otherwise we probably won't be able to get it..."
Zhuang Rui thought for a moment and said, "I think the price needs to be at least six million euros to secure the deal. How about this, Uncle Qin, let's go in together when the auction starts this afternoon..."
Chapter 457 Secret Bidding (1)