Gao Mingyuan was overjoyed and chuckled. Then, he dove upside down into the water and pulled Zhou Xuan up. This time, Zhou Xuan knew that the women had all lost, so he floated to the surface as Gao Mingyuan pulled him. To everyone's surprise, Zhou Xuan pretended to be panting heavily.
Yang Tiancheng was both amused and surprised. He was amused because he thought Zhou Xuan wanted these women to make some money so he could spend it, but the result was the opposite, which greatly surprised him. He was surprised because Zhou Xuan's ability was too amazing. He guessed this was the so-called magical internal energy. People who practiced qigong were indeed miraculous and unbelievable. In his memory, he had never seen such an extraordinary person in reality. How was a person who could stay underwater for so long any different from a fish?
The bodyguard next to him who was keeping track of the time pressed the timer when Zhou Xuan emerged from the water. The timer announced that it took Zhou Xuan fourteen minutes and fifteen seconds from the moment he went underwater until he came out.
Yang Tiancheng smiled, growing more and more fond of Zhou Xuan the more he looked at him. Such a talent was not only useful at the gambling table, but also a top talent in other tasks. Just think, dozens of people plus two guns were helpless against Zhou Xuan, and they were all injured. That was only because Zhou Xuan let them go. If he wanted to deal with them and kill them, it would be a piece of cake. Such a person is a guarantee of life in critical moments!
Having grown up in the brutal underworld, Yang Tiancheng knows what strength means. Strength means survival, money and beauty, wealth, and the fear and respect of others. This Zhou Xuan is a natural-born talent to be a top-notch underworld enforcer!
Of course, Yang Tiancheng also knew that the more capable a person was, the harder it was to control them. However, he was confident in dealing with Zhou Xuan because he had made Zhou Xuan addicted to drugs. No matter how strong a person's willpower was, he had never seen anyone who could resist the invasion and temptation of drugs!
The more capable Zhou Xuan was, the happier Yang Tiancheng became, and the more he wanted to win Zhou Xuan over to his side. Looking at the group of bodyguards around him, compared to Zhou Xuan, they were simply incomparable. Spending so much money to hire so many people, yet they were not as capable as Zhou Xuan alone. He couldn't help but mutter, "What a fucking waste!"
Those around him didn't know what Yang Tiancheng was cursing, but his expression didn't seem angry, leaving them all puzzled.
In the swimming pool, the ten women and Gao Mingyuan each had a different expression. The women were all sullen, on the one hand wondering how Zhou Xuan could stay underwater for so long, and on the other hand angry at Zhou Xuan for not even being a man. If he were a man, how could he not know how to cherish women and please them?
Logically speaking, Zhou Xuan is a rich man, so he shouldn't be so petty towards them. Besides, even if they win, they'll be winning Yang Tiancheng's money. Why is Zhou Xuan being so petty?
But in reality, Zhou Xuan won, and they lost. A loss is a loss. Not only did they not get the 10,000 yuan bonus each, but the additional 200,000 yuan bonus for winning against Zhou Xuan was also gone!
Only Gao Mingyuan was grinning from ear to ear, looking at the mermaid-like beauties in front of him, their breasts, arms, lips... everything was extremely tempting!
Zhou Xuan smiled faintly, finally having managed to deal with these ten women. He swam to the edge of the pool, grabbed the railing, and climbed ashore. Yang Tiancheng's bodyguard quickly handed him a large bath towel.
Zhou Xuan wiped the water droplets off his body, and Yang Tiancheng pulled out a cool chair next to him and said, "Come, come, sit down!"
Zhou Xuan slowly walked over, his gaze sweeping across the area. He saw a beautiful artificial rockery in front of the swimming pool, and his supernatural ability followed his gaze. Suddenly, he froze!
Volume 1, Chapter 615: Insects
Mr. Yang, your artificial hill is quite beautiful!
Zhou Xuan looked at the artificial mountain and praised Yang Tiancheng. The artificial mountain was in the middle of a small circular pond, which was about 20 square meters in size. The artificial mountain was composed of countless stones of various kinds, including stalagmites, weathered stones, and colorful stones.
"This?" Hehehe..." Zhou Xuan suddenly mentioned this, which startled Yang Tiancheng. He was thinking about how to talk to Zhou Xuan, how to find an excuse to bring it up, and also how Zhou Xuan might react if he knew that he had been poisoned and was addicted. He had to consider all of these things, but Zhou Xuan's words jumped out of all of this, and he didn't react for a moment before he remembered.
"I put in a lot of effort to get these stones back last year. There are rocks, weathered stones, stalagmites from caves, and rocks that were brought back from Myanmar."
Yang Tiancheng became interested when he mentioned these stones, and explained their origins to Zhou Xuan with a smile. Zhou Xuan stood up, went to the side, and carefully examined them.
Yang Tiancheng also stood up and went to the edge of the artificial hill, pointing to the stones and explaining to Zhou Xuan, "This one was quarried from a karst cave in Guangxi, and it cost 100,000 yuan..."
"This piece of rock was transported back from Sichuan. Experts have determined through testing that it is 200 million years old..."
“This piece of weathered stone, although it’s not cheap, it cost quite a bit, tens of thousands of yuan…” Zhou Xuan listened to him introduce a pile of stones, but none of them mentioned the one he was interested in. He smiled and pointed to a colorful stone, asking, “Where did this one come from? It’s so colorful, really beautiful!” “This one?” Yang Tiancheng smiled and replied, “This one was picked up from the sand and gravel on the riverbank downstream of the waterfall in Guizhou. I didn’t pay for it, only a few thousand yuan for shipping. I brought it back from my trip to Huangguoshu Waterfall.”
"Mr. Yang, you've really put some thought into this!" Zhou Xuan smiled and praised, then pointed to another stone and said, "What about this one? This stone looks like it's crawling with insects!" Yang Tiancheng smiled and said, "This one was bought from Myanmar for not much money. I heard it's a weathered stone, very old. There are many insects on this rock. My friend told me that this is a very peculiar thing. Usually, insects and small animals decompose and turn to dust after they die, leaving no trace. But the peculiarity of this stone is that my friend guessed that when these insects were on the rock, suddenly something strange happened, the earth collapsed, a volcano erupted, and lava instantly engulfed the earth. This rock with insects was also included in it, and then after countless ages and the erosion of time, it has become what it is today!"
Zhou Xuan chuckled, but inwardly he was unconvinced. Yang Tiancheng's friend was definitely an ignorant fellow, spouting nonsense out of self-righteousness. Yang Tiancheng was clearly unfamiliar with rocks. He could easily imagine the extreme temperature of volcanic lava. If it were rock or something containing insects or small creatures, wouldn't they immediately turn into vapor and vanish into nothingness?
His supernatural ability detected that the object wasn't large, about fifty centimeters in diameter. The insects on the surface extended into the center of the stone, where a piece of jade, about thirty centimeters in diameter, was located. This jade was peculiar; its texture was excellent, a standard glassy quality, yet it contained countless insects within. Due to its high transparency, the insects were clearly visible, their lifelike forms visible—standing, crawling, in various poses, all vividly alive. Even the colors on the insects seemed to be alive. Zhou Xuan's supernatural ability even detected the tiny hairs on the insects' bodies—"this situation" was like a piece of amber, perfectly preserving the insects!
Zhou Xuan had gambled on jade countless times and was quite familiar with it, but he had never seen jade like this before. Generally speaking, the value of a piece of jade is determined by its size, transparency, color, clarity, and absence of impurities. The jade in this stone is top-notch in terms of transparency, clarity, and color. If there were no insects mixed in, this piece of jade, with its size, would definitely be worth more than 50 million. This is only the price of the rough stone. If we consider the price of the finished product after processing, it would definitely be over 100 million.
The problem is that this jade contains so many insects, which is equivalent to impurities in the jade. Jade containing impurities will drop in value by more than 190 percent, or even more. Of course, if the impurities in the jade are only on the edges or in a certain part, that part can be trimmed and removed, and the remaining pure part can still be sold at a high price.
But the key point is that the worms in the jadeite that Zhou Xuan is seeing now are everywhere. There are eleven silkworm-like worms in the round jadeite with a diameter of more than 30 centimeters. If the worm part is cut off, the jadeite will be cut into pieces, and its value will also drop from the sky to the ground.
Such a piece of jade is truly peculiar. Zhou Xuan couldn't estimate what value a piece of jade containing insect impurities could possibly have, but out of curiosity, he still wanted to get his hands on it.
"What? Brother, you're knowledgeable about jade gambling, do you also have a fondness for these ornamental stones?" Yang Tiancheng asked in surprise when he saw Zhou Xuan staring at the stone in deep thought.
"Mr. Yang!" Zhou Xuan looked up at Yang Tiancheng and smiled, "I really like this stone. I wonder if you would be willing to part with it and transfer it to me?"
Yang Tiancheng paused for a moment, then said decisively, "What's the problem? It's just a rock, no matter how beautiful it is." He added, "If Brother Zhou just asks, let alone this rock, even this house—I'd give it to you without hesitation!" Zhou Xuan narrowed his eyes. Yang Tiancheng's words were very sincere. He could tell that Yang Tiancheng was absolutely telling the truth. However, when someone like Yang Tiancheng was so generous to him, it meant that he wanted to gain ten or a hundred times more profit from him than what he was giving away. This person was definitely not a good person!
Zhou Xuan tilted his head and thought for a moment, then said, "Mr. Yang, how about this? I'll do something for you as a way of repaying you. I don't like owing favors!"
Yang Tiancheng chuckled and beckoned two bodyguards over: "You two, get this rock out of here right now. And don't damage the surface. If you do, you're fired!" "After you get it out, put it in the car and deliver it to Mr. Zhou's place later!"
Yang Tiancheng neither asked Zhou Xuan to repay him nor offered to exchange the stone for something of equal value. Instead, he simply ordered his men to remove the stone from the artificial mountain.
Zhou Xuan said this to test Yang Tiancheng. He guessed that Yang Tiancheng didn't know there was jade in the stone, and besides, no one knew the value of such jade. He had told Yang Tiancheng that he wanted to do something for him in exchange. If Yang Tiancheng asked him to help bring drugs back to Beijing, that would prove that he had caught them red-handed. It would be good to dig out all the people in their line. Unexpectedly, this time he got lucky and was confident that he could get Fu Yuanshan's matter done.
Yang Tiancheng pondered for a moment. He took Zhou Xuan's words as evidence that Zhou Xuan was indeed someone who disliked owing favors. To be honest, he hadn't paid much for the stone. From buying it to adding to the price, it only cost him around ten thousand yuan. If it were a historian, he might take the fossil back to study it, but if Zhou Xuan wanted to take it back, it would only serve as a decorative feature. It had no other purpose. No matter how valuable the stone was, it wouldn't be worth more than ten thousand yuan. For someone as difficult as Zhou Xuan to deal with to exchange for such a worthless stone was still a very good development, even if it was just for one thing.
If Zhou Xuan were to do something, Yang Tiancheng could make him a lot of money.
It took the two bodyguards a lot of effort to loosen the stone and move it down. The stone wasn't too heavy, weighing no more than 100 pounds, and the two of them easily carried it to the trunk of a car parked in front of the villa.
Looking at the group of dejected girls, Zhou Xuan thought for a moment, then instructed Gao Mingyuan: "Old Gao, give these ladies 500,000 yuan as a small apology!"
Gao Mingyuan chuckled and agreed. The money was a tip from Zhou Xuan, so he didn't have to pay. Yet, he could still build relationships with these beautiful women. Why not?
However, before Gao Mingyuan could move, Yang Tiancheng waved his hand and said, "No need, Brother Zhou. You're my guest here. How you want to have fun is my duty. Don't worry about them. I'll give them a separate reward, another million, to be split equally among them!"
The ten women immediately beamed with joy. This was the news they were most eager to hear. Yang Tiancheng had just said that he would give an additional million as a reward. That meant that in addition to the previous million, each of them would receive two hundred thousand if the money was divided equally. This was a huge sum of money. In the past, it would have taken a lot of effort to earn this amount. How could it be so easy?
They had already assumed Zhou Xuan was a heartless person, and thought he wanted them to make some money. But instead, they ended up losing, and losing inexplicably. No one could have imagined that Zhou Xuan had such amazing diving skills, so amazing that it was almost unbelievable.
But now Zhou Xuan is generously offering them 500,000, which is five times more than the 100,000 reward they would have received after winning. He's not a stingy man; someone who can casually give away 500,000 as a reward without feeling any strain is definitely not someone with only a few million or tens of millions in assets. If you only had millions in assets, would you casually give 500,000 to a group of insignificant people? The answer is definitely no.
From this perspective, Zhou Xuan should be a very wealthy person, most likely a second-generation rich kid.
Then look at Yang Tiancheng. "Yang Tiancheng is an absolutely powerful and extremely wealthy person. They all know that. Since Yang Tiancheng is so eager to please Tong Xuan, it can be seen that Zhou Xuan is also a very extraordinary person. Yang Tiancheng rejected the 500,000 yuan reward that Zhou Xuan wanted to give them, and then immediately withdrew another million yuan." Just think about it and you'll understand!
Yang Tiancheng chuckled and said, "You should thank Mr. Zhou instead. Consider it a reward from him. I've said it before, Mr. Zhou is young and wealthy, not the rich second-generation you imagine. His wealth is beyond your wildest imagination—and he earned it himself!"