Yang Hongtao followed Xin Yue into the crowd, pretending to examine the color and patterns of each piece of semi-rough jadeite, while he had already released his soul power to see through each piece of jadeite rough displayed on the shelf.
After examining six or seven pieces, not a trace of green could be seen. The semi-rough stones did show some green patterns in the windows, but once the green penetrated into the stone, it turned out to be a grayish-white color, basically just ordinary stones.
Then I looked at the starting prices marked next to these stones... Goodness, the cheapest stone had a starting price of 800,000, while the one the size of a watermelon was marked at a high price of 3.6 million.
Now Yang Hongtao has truly witnessed what it means to lose nine out of ten times in gambling. No one else has his ability to see through things. Once he spends 3.6 million to bid for this rough stone, he will immediately lose everything!
Just as he was marveling at it, someone actually took a liking to the watermelon-sized rough stone and immediately called over staff to help carry it to the front auction stage.
Although jadeite rough stone merchants will mark a reserve price on each piece of semi-rough jadeite, if you take a liking to this piece, it's not that you can just pay the reserve price to buy it, nor is it that whoever takes a liking to it first gets to own it.
According to the rules, if someone wants it, they have to take it to the front for auction.
The first person to show interest is essentially the one who offers the reserve price. If no one else follows suit, then the person can buy the rough stone at the reserve price indicated above.
However, if other people also take a liking to it, they can bid, and whoever bids the highest will naturally own the raw material.
The person who took a liking to the stone was a jewelry company owner surnamed Zhong. Xin Yue explained that Mr. Zhong runs six chain jewelry stores. Although the scale is not very large, they have always followed the mid-to-high-end route, so the demand for jadeite rough stones is also very large.
Moreover, this Mr. Zhong is a well-known expert in the jade gambling industry. It is said that he made more than 40 million yuan from a single stone when he gambled on a rare piece of imperial green jade in Tengchong. That's when he opened a jewelry store and officially entered the industry.
In the past two years, Mr. Zhong has had good luck, winning several high-quality jadeite rough stones in his gambles. He can be considered a well-known winner in the jadeite gambling world. His accurate eye for rough stones and his rich experience have always been highly praised.
Hearing Xin Yue say this, Yang Hongtao could only sigh inwardly.
Thinking to himself... it seems that gambling on stones is mostly about luck. Mr. Zhong, no matter how experienced or discerning you are, you can still make mistakes. At least this time, Yang Hongtao knew that Mr. Zhong had really misjudged the situation. If Mr. Zhong ended up buying the stone, no matter how much money he spent, it would all be for nothing!
As soon as someone put the rough stone on the auction stage, a large crowd immediately surrounded it.
There's a lot to learn about gambling on rough stones. Most beginners don't know how to distinguish between good and bad rough stones, and it takes more than three to five years for someone to go from a complete novice to mastering this advanced knowledge.
However, they also have their own tricks. It doesn't matter if they can't judge the quality of the raw stones themselves, they can bid against those who can.
Since someone chose this rough stone for bidding, there must be a reason for it; they must have seen that there might be jadeite inside.
So what if we lack foresight? As long as we have money, that's all that matters!
Of course... these people aren't completely blindly following others. They'll also check who selected the rough stone first. For example, if someone like Boss Zhong, who is an expert in gambling on stones and is known as a perennial winner, selects the rough stone, then naturally there will be more people bidding.
However, if this rough stone is chosen by an unknown young man, then these gamblers who know nothing about stone appraisal will naturally have to treat it with caution.
Sure enough, as soon as the auctioneer announced the start of the bidding, several people who were optimistic about Mr. Zhong immediately started bidding.
In no time, the jadeite rough stone, with a starting price of 3.6 million, was bid up to a sky-high price of over 5 million.
As for Mr. Zhong, who initially took a liking to this rough stone, he only bid twice before decisively giving up when the price exceeded four million. However, the other bidders competed fiercely, and in the end, a middle-aged Hong Kong businessman won the bid for this watermelon-sized broken stone for five million two hundred thousand.
Yang Hongtao was truly amazed. In such a short time, a worthless rock had been bought for over five million... Looking at the Hong Kong businessman's smug expression, I wonder if he'll be so angry that he'll jump off a building when he cuts it open and sees that he spent over five million to buy such a plain rock!
When Yang Hongtao looked back at Boss Zhong and saw that he still looked calm and composed, he couldn't help but admire him. He thought to himself that it must have been quite a stroke of luck for this man to make such a name for himself in the world of jade gambling.
Seeing that he only made two token bids before giving up, Yang Hongtao even suspected that this guy had already figured out that there was no way that jade could be found in that rough stone, so he deliberately brought it up to bid.
After all, given his reputation in the jade gambling world, it would be quite a headache if every time he took a fancy to a rough stone, so many people would follow suit and bid against him. A rough stone that could be bought for one million might end up costing two or three million if those people all started bidding against it.
So he might deliberately set a trap, letting those who blindly follow the crowd fall into it, and intentionally pick a broken stone for them to fight over.
For example, if the Hong Kong businessman who won the bid for this stone had cut it open on the spot and shown everyone that he had spent more than five million to snatch such a broken stone, then next time Mr. Zhong selects a rough stone, there certainly wouldn't be as many hot-headed people joining in the commotion!
However, Hong Kong businessmen are generally quite superstitious. After spending so much money to buy a stone, they certainly won't just cut it open on the spot. They will most likely take it home, fast and bathe for a few days, and then choose an auspicious day to cut it open.
So if Mr. Zhong did it on purpose, then this only harmed that Hong Kong businessman, and it won't have the effect of making an example of him.
After witnessing a live auction, Yang Hongtao ignored everyone else and began to unleash his soul power, examining the semi-rough jade stones displayed on the shelf one by one.
After examining seven or eight more jadeite rough stones that were entirely stones, Yang Hongtao finally spotted real jadeite inside a stone the size of a football…
Volume 1 The Rebirth of a Prodigy Chapter 69 Even Stones Go Crazy (Part 3)
Upon seeing that there was jade inside the rough stone, Yang Hongtao immediately perked up. He then used his soul power to carefully scan the inside of the stone and discovered that it was actually a piece of yellow jade.
Generally speaking, the most common color of jadeite is green, but there are also red, yellow, purple, and even colorless jadeite.
Among multicolored jadeite, yellow jadeite is relatively less valuable.
Moreover, the quality of the yellow jadeite in this rough stone is not very good, and to make matters worse, it contains some granular impurities, which greatly reduces the value of this jadeite.
Based on Yang Hongtao's experience inherited from that jade carver, the yellow jade in this rough stone is probably worth around two million.
Yang Hongtao took another look at the starting price of the rough stone. It wasn't that expensive. This rough stone was only priced at 1.2 million, which was much better than that broken stone that was priced at 3.6 million.
Yang Hongtao thought about it for a moment. His current net worth was only a little over 1.3 million yuan. If no one bid against him for this rough stone, he could afford to buy it at the reserve price.
After he cuts open the raw stone, he should be able to earn around a million.
The problem is that although the yellow jade in this rough stone is theoretically worth more than two million, yellow jade has never been highly valued in the jewelry industry, and ordinary consumers do not really recognize jewelry pendants made of yellow jade. So it is hard to say whether anyone will be willing to spend more than two million to buy this semi-finished jade after the rough stone is cut open.
If he couldn't sell this piece of yellow jade, he wouldn't have any funds left to gamble on other rough stones! So, after a slight hesitation, Yang Hongtao decided to temporarily abandon this rough stone and continue looking at others. Meanwhile, several more semi-rough stones were selected and brought to the auction stage for bidding.
Whenever a rough stone is placed on the auction stage, Yang Hongtao will take the time to get close and scan it with his soul power.
Sure enough, when the fourth piece of rough jade was put up for auction, Yang Hongtao scanned it with his soul power and found a bowl-sized piece of icy, high-green jadeite inside.
In jadeite raw materials, those with a transparency level of icy jadeite are considered high-quality. As for the best glassy jadeite, it may take several years to mine a piece. Therefore, many merchants sell icy jadeite as glassy jadeite. Ordinary consumers naturally cannot tell the difference. As for experts... since everyone does it, no one will say anything.
Therefore, judging from the current market conditions, this piece of icy, high-green jadeite is already considered a very rare and excellent piece of jadeite. If Yang Hongtao were to price the jadeite inside this rough stone, it would be worth at least 25 to 30 million.
Of course... this price only refers to the unfinished, semi-finished raw material. If a jewelry company buys this raw material and a jade carver makes several bracelets from it, and then uses the remaining scraps to make various pendants, ring faces, etc., the final value of the finished product carved from this jade material would be at least 50 million.
However, no matter how good this jadeite rough was, it was all meaningless to Yang Hongtao, because the starting price of this rough was only 2.1 million yuan. While Yang Hongtao was still estimating the value of the jadeite inside, the price had already been raised to more than 4 million yuan.
Although Yang Hongtao knew that even if he bought this rough stone for a sky-high price of 20 million, it would still be a huge profit, he was short of money and could only watch from the sidelines.
Yang Hongtao then discovered that this semi-rough jadeite was once again favored by Boss Zhong. Moreover, this time Boss Zhong did not give up after bidding twice like before, but instead raised the price all the way up and finally won the jadeite rough at a high price of 6.5 million.
As a result, Yang Hongtao admired Boss Zhong even more.
What makes someone a master... This guy is a master! He knows when to give up and when to act! He owns his own jewelry company, so he'll maximize the value of this rough stone. He'll make at least 40 million net profit from this one stone!
Yang Hongtao was starting to wonder if this guy also possessed the special ability to see through the inside of stones, just like himself. Otherwise... how could he be so accurate?
Seeing how fast others were making money made Yang Hongtao extremely envious, but there was nothing he could do, since he had very little to offer at the moment.
If he already had tens of millions in assets, how could that piece of rough jade have escaped his grasp?
Frustrated, Yang Hongtao decided to stop looking at the rough stones that had been selected and put up for auction. Regardless of whether they contained valuable jade or not, once they were placed on the platform for bidding, none of them would sell for less than 1.5 million! So even if the jade inside a rough stone was of the highest quality, Yang Hongtao could only see it but not have it, so he might as well just ignore it!
It seems that what Mr. Zheng Minghui said was right. With his million-plus yuan, he could only buy one or two fist-sized rough stones at most.
Yang Hongtao had just looked at those fist-sized pieces of semi-rough jade here. The prices weren't high; the cheapest one was only 180,000 yuan, and the most expensive one didn't exceed 800,000 yuan.
The problem is that only two of these semi-rough stones contain jadeite, and not only is the quality of the jadeite poor, but its size is also pitifully small. Even the best piece, once the jadeite is removed, would probably only sell for around one million.
Such a meager profit naturally failed to arouse Yang Hongtao's interest in the slightest.
Yang Hongtao had no time to examine the remaining dozens of semi-rough stones closely. He quickened his pace, glancing over the stones with his released soul power. Although he saw several stones that contained jadeite and were of decent quality, their prices were not low, so Yang Hongtao did not stop to examine them closely.
Yang Hongtao thought about it for a moment and realized that with his current financial situation, it was impossible for him to buy these semi-gambled rough stones. So he planned to take a quick look at them here and then go to the fully gambled rough stones over there.
Although, as Xin Yue said, the chance of finding jadeite in a rough stone is less than one in ten thousand, isn't there still a roughly one in ten thousand chance? Anyway, Yang Hongtao can use his soul power to see through all the rough stones. If there isn't any, so be it. But if there really is one or two rough stones that can contain jadeite, wouldn't he be able to buy them at a bargain price?
If he can find a piece of rough jadeite that is completely free of jade, even if he earns a few million, he can then use that money to bid on other rough jadeite pieces that contain jade!
As Yang Hongtao hurriedly walked from one end to the other, finally having seen all one hundred-plus semi-gambled rough stones, he was about to turn around to look at the fully gambled rough stones when his body suddenly trembled slightly.
In the last piece of rough jadeite, about the size of a washbasin, he actually scanned it with his soul power and detected a trace of clear and vibrant green... God bless... This... This is a glass-type bright green jadeite!
Volume 1 The Rebirth of a Prodigy Chapter 70 Even Stones Go Crazy (Part 4)
When Yang Hongtao scanned the alluring green color in the half-gambled rough stone with his soul power, his heart couldn't help but pound a few times.
He hurriedly stopped, pretending to look at another half-finished rough stone about the size of a bowl next to him, but his spiritual power had already taken a different turn, carefully scanning the rough stone.
This piece of rough jade, placed at the very end, looks quite ordinary from the outside, with only a few specks of pale green color showing through the window. According to normal stone appraisal experience, the chances of this rough jade yielding jade are very slim, even less than some rough jade only the size of a fist. Therefore, although this piece of rough jade is as big as a washbasin, it is priced at only 880,000 yuan.
Yang Hongtao, however, could see clearly that this unremarkable rough stone not only contained jadeite, but also the finest glass-type jadeite.
Although the color of this jadeite is slightly lacking, barely reaching the level of bright green, glass-type jadeite is extremely rare, and the value of this piece is still quite astonishing.
Based on Yang Hongtao's experience, the value of this piece of jadeite is around 30 million yuan. If it is made into a finished product, its final value can reach around 70 million yuan!
With such a fine piece of material, yet only a starting bid of 880,000, how could Yang Hongtao not be tempted!
Yang Hongtao knew that the appearance of this piece of jade looked bad, and since he was a young and unfamiliar face, he estimated that if he were to bid on this semi-rough jade now, at least those jade gamblers who only knew how to follow the trend and bid wildly would not follow his lead.
Those seasoned experts who truly understand how to judge the quality of rough stones are even less likely to be interested in this piece. Therefore, although Yang Hongtao only has a little over 1.3 million, there is still a high probability that he will win the bid for this semi-rough stone. It is possible that no one else will bid for it except him, and it is not impossible for him to win the bid for this semi-rough stone at the reserve price.
The thought that he could immediately earn a profit of around 30 million yuan simply by placing this half-gambled rough stone on the auction stage made it difficult for Yang Hongtao to remain calm.
However, after careful consideration, Yang Hongtao still didn't dare to act impulsively.
After all, he's currently too poor. 1.3 million isn't enough to guarantee he can win the bid for this rough stone. If someone gets carried away and bids twice, the price of this semi-rough stone could easily be driven up to over 1.3 million. In that case, Yang Hongtao will just be watching the show from the sidelines!
So the safest way is to go and take a look at the rough stones first. If you find a rough stone with jadeite, even if you can only make a million or two, then you will have a much better chance of winning the bid for that glass-type rough stone! Anyway, this glass-type rough stone doesn't look very impressive, and I guess no one will be interested in it for a while.
Thinking of this, Yang Hongtao didn't hesitate any longer. He greeted Xin Yue and said that he was going to take a look at the rough stones and told her to mind her own business. Then he hurriedly went to the exhibition hall where the rough stones were piled up.
Although there were many more fully-gambled rough stones here than partially-gambled ones, they were piled up like small mountains. Moreover, since no one else was watching, Yang Hongtao didn't have to worry about his released soul power hitting anyone, so the scanning speed was much faster.
In less than half an hour, Yang Hongtao had scanned all the rough stones here.
Just as Xin Yue had predicted, the chance of finding jadeite in these rough stones was truly one in ten thousand! It seems these jadeite rough stone merchants have an exceptionally sharp eye!
It's not that there isn't a single trace of green in these five or six hundred pieces of rough jade. Strictly speaking, there are two pieces of rough jade with a tiny bit of green in them. However, the jadeite inside one of them is only the size of a thumb, with poor quality and a crack in the middle.
The jadeite itself was already pitifully small; if it had cracks, it would basically be a piece of waste.
The other piece of rough jadeite with green inside looked quite good, almost reaching the level of icy jadeite, and its color was also a pleasing bright green.
As for the size of this piece of jade... it's not small when put together, but... what left Yang Hongtao speechless was that the two pieces of jade inside this rough stone were basically distributed in a fan shape. The area of the two large fan shapes looked quite astonishing, but the thickness of the jade was... ridiculous! Yang Hongtao carefully measured it and found that the thickest part of the two pieces of jade was less than half a centimeter, while the thinnest part was almost like a piece of paper, and the thickness distribution was extremely uneven.
It can be said that although there is jadeite in this rough stone, it is basically a piece of waste material. It is not even thick enough to make a cabochon. At most, a few small pieces can be carved out to make earrings or one or two thin jade pendants.
If I had to give an estimate for the two pieces of material here, it wouldn't exceed 200,000 at most.
While 200,000 yuan isn't a lot, it's still a gamble that could yield a profit compared to the dirt-cheap price of raw jade. However... such a large piece of raw jade can only earn a few hundred thousand yuan... Although Yang Hongtao is poor, he doesn't really care about it.
Yang Hongtao sighed helplessly, knowing that it was impossible to make a profit from this rough jade. It seemed that he would have no choice but to risk taking the glass-type rough jade to the auction later. If someone suddenly decided to bid against him, he would have to accept his bad luck!
"Little brother... come here quickly... there's something interesting to see..."