However, after more than a month and spending tens of millions of yuan, although a lot of jade was mined, it was all ordinary jade material, which could not offset his huge expenses. Helpless, the merchant had to end the jade mining operation, ending in a loss.
The Wenzhou businessman was unwilling to give up. After finishing his work, he went back to the mining site and saw a local Uyghur worker stand up after finishing his cigarette. He casually kicked aside a stone and picked up a fist-sized piece of jade from underneath. After appraisal, it was identified as top-grade mutton fat jade, worth tens of millions of yuan. This made the Wenzhou businessman so angry that he almost vomited blood and left Xinjiang overnight.
This principle is similar to spending millions to gamble on a piece of jade from a piece of garbage. Having money alone is not enough; you also need luck. Clearly, that Wenzhou businessman was not very lucky.
After resting for more than three hours, Zhuang Rui and the others also began mining jade. Mengzi took out four flat, folded baskets from his backpack. These baskets were woven with very strong silk threads, and the folds were made of alloy steel strips. They had straps sewn onto the back so that they could be carried on one's back and the jade they had mined could be thrown inside.
Each of them carried a basket on their back and walked towards the riverbed, which was somewhat dazzling under the sunlight. Zhang Dazhi and the others all had hopeful expressions on their faces. For them, a good piece of jade could change their lives.
The so-called jade mining involves finding jade among the tens of millions of stones of all sizes along the riverbanks. It's no exaggeration to say that it's like sifting sand from a vast ocean. In ancient China, jade mining involved setting up large nets along the riverbanks to sift through the stones, but sometimes, even after a whole day, not a single piece of jade could be found.
After being washed by snowmelt for thousands of years, the stones of all sizes on both sides of the river have become very smooth. The group simply took off their shoes and walked barefoot on the warm pebbles that were slightly hot from the sun. The sound of the gurgling water in their ears had a unique charm.
Although this place is located deep in the mountains, tens of thousands of jade miners have come here over the centuries. Finding jade from the riverbank is not an easy task. After walking four or five hundred meters along the river, the group found nothing.
Zhuang Rui originally wanted to try to distinguish the stones on the riverbank himself, but after only three to five minutes, the densely packed pebbles covering both sides of the river made him dizzy and lightheaded.
On the surface, it is impossible to tell the difference between these stones. They are almost identical in size, shape and color. It is difficult to distinguish them without bending down to examine them carefully. You may have just looked at one stone, but when you turn around to look again, you will not be able to find the stone you were looking at.
Looking up at Tiezi and the others, Zhuang Rui noticed that they were all squatting on the ground, moving forward step by step. Even Mengzi, who was so tall, was doing the same. Zhuang Rui tried to squat on the ground like them for a while, but in less than ten minutes, the soreness in his waist and legs made him unable to bear it, so he had to stand up.
Zhuang Rui now stands on the riverbank holding the hiking stick given to him by Uncle Tian, which looks somewhat out of place.
"Dazhi, do you think the Jade Prince might be trying to scam us? This guy is standing there so openly mining jade, how can we tell the difference?"
Tiezi and Zhang Dazhi were not far apart, talking in hushed tones. It wasn't that he didn't believe Tian Bo's words, but Zhuang Rui's behavior was really unreliable.
"Don't talk nonsense. When has the Jade Prince ever misjudged anything? Brother Zhuang may not be familiar with jade mining, but he can identify jade. This will save us from bringing back some junk."
Dazhi picked up Zhuang Rui and Grandpa Gu from the airport. Knowing how much Prince Yu valued them, he naturally thought highly of Zhuang Rui as well. In addition, with Prince Yu's instructions, he took extra care of Zhuang Rui along the way.
Zhuang Rui was thirty or forty meters away from them, so naturally he couldn't hear Da Zhi and the others' conversation. He was currently using the spiritual energy in his eyes, like using a plow to sift through the soil, little by little.
Because the daytime light was very bright, and nearly half of these stones were in water, they reflected dazzling light everywhere. Zhuang Rui encountered a problem when using his spiritual energy for the first time. Several times he saw the color inside the stones, but after picking them up with his hiking stick, he found that it was just the reflection of the sun.
"I've got it! I found a piece of jade, Brother Tiezi, come quick and take a look..."
Just as Zhuang Rui was having a headache, Mengzi shouted from behind him. Zhuang Rui turned around and saw that the kid had plunged into the river, his clothes were completely soaked, and he was holding a rock with both hands, climbing up the riverbed.
June is the time when the ice on the snow-capped mountains gradually melts. Although the river is not very wide, the current is particularly rapid. Even though Mengzi was holding onto a large rock, his body was still swept downstream for seven or eight meters, just a short distance from Zhuang Rui.
Seeing that Mengzi was still clutching the rock tightly in his arms and couldn't free his hands to climb ashore, Zhuang Rui quickly said, "Mengzi, how did you fall into the water? Throw the rock away and climb up quickly."
Mengzi didn't reply. He struggled to stand up in the water, threw the stone into the river with both hands, and it landed right next to Zhuang Rui's feet. Then he reached out and grabbed the trekking pole that Zhuang Rui had extended, and climbed back to the shore.
Zhuang Rui pulled and tugged Mengzi up. Although it was June, the temperature difference between day and night was huge due to the high altitude. At night, the temperature would drop to around ten degrees Celsius. Although Mengzi was very strong, he might still get sick.
"Mengzi, take off your clothes and put them on the ground. Go and change into some dry clothes..."
Zhang Dazhi, Tiezi, and Wang Fei also ran over when they heard the noise. Seeing Mengzi's soaking wet appearance, Zhang Dazhi frowned. If this big guy was sick, no one could carry him.
"It's alright, Brother Tie, come and take a look, this stone contains jade, right?"
Mengzi grinned foolishly, not taking it seriously at all, and pulled Tiezi to the rock he had thrown up.
"Mengzi, go change your clothes first, I'll take my time looking at it..."
Tiezi glared at Mengzi. He was an old jade miner and knew that getting sick in the mountains without medical care and medicine would be very troublesome.
"Okay, I'll go change it right away."
Mengzi quickly stripped off his clothes and threw them onto the rocks by the river. Then, naked, he ran to where he had left his backpack, took out his clothes, put them on, and impatiently ran back.
The stone is flat, about the size of a washbasin, and about 20 to 30 centimeters thick. The whole stone is light yellow with a slightly whitish tint.
Tiezi tried to hug it and estimated it to weigh forty or fifty pounds. It was quite impressive that Mengzi was able to throw it ashore. On one side of the rock, a palm-sized piece of milky white jade was exposed. It could be determined that this was a piece of jade, and of fairly high quality.
"Hey bro, how's it going?"
Mengzi, who usually seems a bit dull, was so excited that his face turned bright red.
"As for this piece of material, let Mr. Zhuang take a look first. I'm afraid I won't be able to give a good opinion."
When Tiezi saw the jade, he had already guessed the answer pretty accurately. He was very happy, since the harvest was for everyone. However, he still wanted to test Zhuang Rui to see if he was truly skilled or just a figurehead.
Zhuang Rui asked casually, "Mengzi, how did you find this piece of material?"
The jade was right at Zhuang Rui's feet. He didn't refuse and squatted down to examine it. Judging from the exposed jade, it was a piece of white jade, and of high quality. Even this palm-sized piece of jade could sell for forty or fifty thousand yuan.
Chapter 268 The Mineral Vein (Part 2)
After hearing Zhuang Rui's words, Mengzi scratched his head somewhat embarrassedly and said, "I saw a fish in the river just now, so I thought I'd get a basket to scoop it up. But I lost my footing and fell in. When I fell, my eyes happened to see this rock, so I pulled it out..."
Mengzi's words left everyone speechless and looking at each other. They had searched for a long time but hadn't found a single piece of jade the size of a thumb. Yet, Mengzi had fallen into the river and actually managed to retrieve a piece of jade. His luck made everyone feel a little ashamed.
"Brother Zhuang, you still haven't said whether this is jade or not."
After Mengzi finished answering, he pressed Zhuang Rui for answers. He was an honest man with only brute strength and knew nothing about identifying jade. If he hadn't just happened to see the exposed jade, he probably wouldn't have known it was a piece of jade.
Mengzi was honest and straightforward. He followed Tiezi and the others into the mountains, knowing that he could only help carry some things and wouldn't be of much use. So when they found this piece of jade, he was extremely excited, feeling that he could finally make a contribution to the team.
"It's jade. Look at the color of this jade; it's pure white, the texture is clean and delicate, and it has a lustrous sheen. It can be considered a high-quality variety of Hetian jade. This palm-sized piece is worth at least forty or fifty thousand yuan..."
Zhuang Rui pointed to the exposed jade and explained it to Mengzi. He wasn't using his spiritual energy to see inside, but rather making his judgment based on the jade's external appearance.
"Ah! Really? That's great, Dazhi, Tiezi, we made money..."
Upon hearing Zhuang Rui's words, Mengzi jumped up like a child. In previous years, when he wanted to go into the mountains, there were always people who thought he was stubborn and were unwilling to take him along. So this was his first time going into the mountains, and finding such a piece of rough jade proved Mengzi's worth.
"Mr. Zhuang is right. This piece of jade is of good quality, although the jade material is unlikely to penetrate very deeply. But just based on this one piece, our trip to the mountains was worthwhile..."
Tiezi smiled. An experienced person could tell the quality of this jade at a glance. His judgment was similar to Zhuang Rui's. However, for jade with a sugary skin, the jade meat is usually in the middle. Since the jade meat is on the surface of this piece, the material is probably not very big. It is estimated to be about the size of what we see here.
"It's not that the trip to the mountains was worthwhile, but rather that everyone made a small fortune. Based on my experience, the jade could penetrate at least another fifteen centimeters, and the jade surface would be twice the size of this piece."
As soon as Tiezi finished speaking, Zhuang Rui added that his so-called experience was the spiritual energy he had used in his eyes when Tiezi was speaking.
Through his spiritual energy, Zhuang Rui saw that the exposed jade extended four or five centimeters to the left and right, and penetrated more than ten centimeters downwards, making it a large piece. However, unlike the mutton-fat jade, this piece of jade did not have the effect of nourishing the spiritual energy in his eyes.
Based on the current market price of nephrite jade, this piece of white jade should be worth around one million. If one million is divided into five parts, it seems to be only a small fortune for Zhuang Rui.
"Brother Zhuang, how much money are you talking about, 'small fortune'?"
Mengzi scratched his head. He didn't really understand what Zhuang Rui was saying about the quality of the jade, but he did know what the word "get rich" meant.
"Brother Zhuang, you...you...are you telling the truth?"
Tiezi interrupted Mengzi's question. He had always addressed Zhuang Rui as "Mr." but now he called him "brother." His dark face even glowed red, showing how excited he was.
Tiezi was not like Mengzi, that muddle-headed fellow. He had been in Xinjiang for almost twenty years and had been mining jade in the mountains for more than ten years. He was very knowledgeable about the price of jade materials. He knew that if Zhuang Rui was right, then this piece of jade could sell for an astronomical price.
What Zhuang Rui called making a small fortune was an astronomical sum in the eyes of Tiezi and the others, a sum determined by their financial situation. It's no wonder Tiezi was so excited; even Zhang Dazhi and Wang Fei couldn't hide their joy. Only Mengzi looked at Zhuang Rui with a dazed expression, waiting for his explanation.
"It should be right, Mengzi, bring that grinder over here."
Zhuang Rui nodded affirmatively. Before entering the mountains, he had specifically asked Grandpa Gu to find him a pocket-sized polishing machine with a compressed battery. Zhang Dazhi and the others had some objections to him bringing this thing, but now it came in handy.
"Brother Zhuang, are you sure?"
Seeing that the grinding wheel on the polishing machine had started turning, Tiezi grabbed Zhuang Rui's arm. This time it wasn't that he didn't trust Zhuang Rui, but that this piece of jade was far too precious for them.
It's important to know that nephrite is much more fragile than jadeite. If you're not careful, you might damage the jade inside. As mentioned before, there's a story about jade and stone burning together. Tiezi and the others were afraid that Zhuang Rui would ruin this piece of material.
Jade miners placed great importance on the integrity of the jade material. In ancient times, after finding a relatively large piece of jade in the mountains, to prevent damage, a donkey had to be slaughtered, the jade wrapped in its skin, and tied with multiple ropes before being transported to the capital.
Because fresh donkey hide was used to wrap the jade, the bloodstains would seep into the cracks of the jade. Officials in the capital responsible for purchasing jade would consider any jade with bloodstains to be intact.
However, after this, many jade enthusiasts often wrapped jade pieces in the hides of slaughtered dogs or donkeys. Some even buried them in the ground for years to allow the blood to better penetrate the jade. This is the origin of the practice of faking blood jade.
"Don't worry, it's definitely true. If the jade inside is damaged, I'll compensate everyone for whatever this piece of jade is worth."
Zhuang Rui smiled confidently. What a joke! He had cut open jadeite worth hundreds of millions of yuan, let alone such a small piece of jade. In his heart, Zhuang Rui really didn't take it seriously.
Tiezi felt a little embarrassed by Zhuang Rui's words, so he quickly let go of his hand and said somewhat awkwardly, "Alright, Brother Zhuang, go ahead. Don't worry about compensation, I trust you..."
The gears on the miniature polishing machine were too small to cut the jade in half, so Zhuang Rui polished away the sugary coating along the part where the jade flesh was exposed. The area of white jade exposed on both sides was exactly as Zhuang Rui had described. Zhang Dazhi, Tiezi, and the others all showed joy on their faces.
After rubbing it horizontally, Zhuang Rui used a polishing machine to cut it deeper bit by bit. The piece of jade was not very big. After more than half an hour, a piece of white jade weighing more than ten kilograms appeared in front of everyone.
This piece of jade is square in shape, with roughly the same width at the top and bottom. The entire piece of jade has a refined and lustrous inner quality, and even under sunlight, it still gives people a feeling of thick texture and warmth. If it weren't for the slight bluish tinge in color, it could almost be called a top-grade white jade.
"Brother Zhuang, I'm totally convinced..."
Seeing that Zhuang Rui had retrieved the jade so perfectly, and that its size, weight, and color were exactly as Zhuang Rui had described, Tie Zi gave him a thumbs up.
Although this piece of jade can be unraveled even if it's taken back, carrying a piece of jade weighing ten or so pounds is completely different from carrying a piece of rough jade weighing forty or fifty pounds. This piece of jade can be carried by one person, but if it can't be unraveled, then two people will need to carry it.
"Mengzi, stop looking for jade. Put this piece of material in your backpack and just watch it here."
Zhang Dazhi's voice trembled slightly with excitement. This piece of jade, if taken back and sold, would bring each person at least 200,000 yuan, something they could never have imagined before.
"Um!"
Mengzi nodded heavily, took out a blanket, wrapped the jade material tightly several times, put it in his backpack, and hugged it tightly to his chest, unwilling to let go for even a moment.
Zhang Dazhi and the others stood up, ready to go look for Yu again, but Tiezi suddenly said to Zhuang Rui, "Brother Zhuang, don't go looking for Yu either, sit here and chat with Mengzi."
Zhang Dazhi and Wang Fei nodded in agreement. Zhuang Rui's role had already been proven, and his previous performance showed that he was indeed not very good at jade mining, which was why Tiezi suggested that Zhuang Rui take a break.
"Alright, if you see any stones you're unsure about, just call me."
Zhuang Rui thought for a moment and nodded in agreement. The reflection of the river was too strong during the day, so he couldn't use his spiritual energy to identify whether there was jade in the stones. It would be better to rest for a while and search slowly at night.
With the incident of Mengzi collecting jade, Tiezi and the others felt much more relaxed. This piece of jade could bring about a huge change in their future lives, so they no longer had the anxiety they had before coming. They happily sifted through the jade stones by the river, and Wang Fei even sang a few lines of Xinjiang folk songs from time to time.
However, the three of them were clearly not as lucky as Mengzi. After working for three or four hours, the baskets on their backs were still empty. Only Tiezi had a piece of green jade the size of a fist in his hand. The jade was of very ordinary quality and was worth at most a thousand or eight hundred yuan.
Zhang Dazhi and Wang Fei both had experience mining jade several times, so they were mentally prepared for this situation. With the jade that Mengzi had mined, they didn't show any signs of frustration. Wang Fei even showed off his shooting skills, shooting a wild goat. After skinning and cleaning it, they lit a campfire and enjoyed a delicious roasted whole goat.
Spending the night in this canyon, the campfire will never go out. After dinner, it will be completely dark. It is already the end of June. Although the night is beautiful, the crescent moon in the sky is like a thin hook, and the visibility in the canyon is not very high.
"Dazhi, what's going on here?"
Zhuang Rui picked up his basket and hiking stick, preparing to go to the riverbank, only to find that Zhang Dazhi and the others were also fully armed, looking like they were going to mine jade.
Seeing Zhuang Rui's strange expression, Zhang Dazhi said with a smile, "Brother Zhuang, jade stones have a faint glow when illuminated by moonlight at night. We're just trying our luck..."
In Xinjiang, many people go to mine jade before dawn or after dusk, a custom that has been passed down for thousands of years. As for whether anyone has managed to mine jade at night, that is unknown.
The group spread out over a hundred meters apart, none of them turning on their flashlights. By the moonlight, they stepped on the warm pebbles along the riverbank, their eyes fixed on the ground. However, they didn't know how many times this method had been used before. They walked for three or four kilometers without finding a single piece of jade.
Zhuang Rui was walking at the front. He spread the spiritual energy in his eyes, covering the area within his sight. Although he found a few pieces of jade that were shimmering with light, the quality of these pieces was too poor, and Zhuang Rui had no interest in picking them up.
"Brother Zhuang, let's call it a day and head back."