Xin Yue initially wanted to refuse Zhou Ziwei's offer, but considering that the company urgently needed a large quantity of jadeite raw materials, and seeing how calmly Zhou Ziwei spoke, without any sign of reluctance, as if it were just a small favor for him, and recalling the demeanor Zhou Ziwei had displayed in front of everyone, she guessed that Zhou Ziwei must be a very influential person in front of this mysterious boss who could miraculously amass such a large quantity of jadeite raw materials. So, after hesitating for a moment, she finally nodded.
In Xin Yue's view, since Zhou Ziwei's words carried a lot of weight here, even if she owed someone a favor, it was only to Zhou Ziwei, and had little to do with the mysterious boss.
To put it another way... even if Zhou Ziwei had taken this favor, and then wanted to use it to ask her to do something in return... she probably wouldn't have been too resistant! Otherwise, if it were a man Xin Yue didn't have any good feelings towards, she really wouldn't have wanted to take this advantage...
“Our Bairui Group has more than a dozen chain stores under its jewelry company, and now the jade jewelry in each chain store is almost sold out, with no inventory at all. So what we need now is a large amount of jade raw materials. As for the quality requirements, they are not too high. As long as the quantity is sufficient, we will take even the lowest grade jade raw materials.”
"As long as the quantity is large, quality is not a concern, right?"
Zhou Ziwei nodded slightly upon hearing this, then beckoned to Li Yifeng and said, "Have someone keep jadeite pieces numbered 48, 72, and 109. After today's jadeite auction is over, sell those pieces to Miss Xin at the normal market price!"
Upon seeing Xin Yue, Li Yifeng blinked, remembering that she was the woman who had accompanied Zhou Ziwei when he first met him. He chuckled and said, "So it's Miss Xin... Haha, you've become even more beautiful since I last saw you... Hmm... Ziwei, a beautiful woman has asked for your help, and you only leave her three pieces of jade? Isn't that a bit stingy? Or... how about leaving her a few more?"
Xin Yue was stunned when she heard this. She hadn't dared to have too much hope when she heard that Zhou Ziwei was going to help. She was fine as long as Zhou Ziwei could leave her a piece of jade and sell it to her at a price higher than the market price.
After all, there are just too many merchants outside who want to buy jadeite raw materials. Even if she has a lot of funds at her disposal, she may not be able to buy one or two pieces.
If Zhou had left her one piece beforehand, she would have felt more at ease. However, she didn't expect Zhou Ziwei to leave her three pieces as soon as he opened his mouth, and he even planned to transfer them at the market price.
It's important to understand that raw jadeite is currently in very short supply, with demand far exceeding supply. The so-called market price is just a facade; nobody takes it seriously. Every time a piece of jadeite is unearthed, the auction price is at least 30-40% higher than the usual market price.
But Zhou Ziwei could save her hundreds of thousands or even millions with just a single sentence...
But who knew that Li Yifeng still complained that Zhou Ziwei hadn't left her enough, even jokingly saying that Zhou Ziwei was too stingy... Could it be... that this Li Yifeng is the mysterious owner here? Otherwise, how could he dare to make decisions for the owner so casually? Hmm... but it doesn't seem like it... the last time I saw him, he seemed to be a policeman. How could he become the owner here in just a few months... Good heavens... even the smallest piece of jade here would cost a policeman his whole life, without eating or drinking, and he probably wouldn't earn enough to buy it.
Zhou Ziwei didn't pay much attention to Li Yifeng's words. Apart from Liu Xiaofei, this kid was the only person Zhou Ziwei could still joke with after he had shown his true strength in front of everyone, which made Zhou Ziwei very happy.
He didn't want to be some high and mighty god. Although the feeling of being revered could be quite nice sometimes, being treated with that kind of respect every day would feel really awkward.
"Three pieces may be a bit few, but... these three pieces are quite large. If we were to take out the bracelets, we could probably find dozens of them, which should be enough to support their company for a while."
Zhou Ziwei only made this favor to Xin Yuexing because of Grandpa Zheng Minghui. However, he didn't owe Bai Rui anything. On the contrary, Grandpa Zheng Minghui and his grandson owed Zhou Ziwei their lives, so Zhou Ziwei naturally wouldn't let himself suffer too much.
Selling three pieces of jade at market price was already his limit. After all, he had led a group of people to Myanmar and risked his life to earn these, so he couldn't just be a philanthropist and give them all away for nothing.
When Li Yifeng found the three pieces of jadeite from the box according to the numbers, Xin Yue's eyes widened immediately... Zhou Ziwei had indeed chosen them for her according to her requirements. The quality of these three pieces of jadeite was not high. The best one was a water-type material, but the color was much worse. It was just a mixed green... In other words, the color was uneven and irregularly mixed together. With such a color, it would be better to just have no color at all.
The other two pieces of material were of even worse quality and had very ordinary color. However, these three pieces of material had one advantage: they were large. Almost every one of them was at least the size of a washbasin, and the largest one was about the size of half a car wheel.
Zhou Ziwei had said earlier that dozens of bracelets could be made from the three pieces of jade, and Xin Yue hadn't quite believed it. But now she realized that Zhou Ziwei was being conservative. In Xin Yue's opinion, if an experienced master craftsman were to work on it himself... each of those three pieces of jade could potentially yield dozens of bracelets...
These three pieces together can make at least two hundred bracelets, as well as some loose pendants, earrings, etc. However, because the quality of these three pieces of material is too average, they are not very suitable for making cabochons.
However, if she could actually buy these three pieces of material at market price, it would be enough to solve Bairui Jewelry Company's immediate crisis, and she could even make a big profit from it...
However… Xin Yue was quite worried. If it were just three smaller pieces of jade, Zhou Ziwei, with his important position here, might be able to make the decision. But with three such large pieces, would the owner be willing to give Zhou Ziwei the face? She hoped she wouldn't put Zhou Ziwei in a difficult position…
When Xin Yue subtly revealed her concerns, Zhou Ziwei's expression immediately turned very strange, while Liu Xiaofei and Li Yifeng couldn't help but burst into laughter.
Seeing this, Xin Yue was a little confused and asked, "What... what are you laughing at? Am I wrong?"
Seeing this, Liu Xiaofei could only suppress her laughter and gently took Xin Yue's arm, saying, "Thank you for thinking of Ziwei, Sister Xin, but... hehe, you really don't need to worry, because... Ziwei is the owner here, all the jade here belongs to him alone, you don't need to be polite with him."
"What...you mean he's the owner here? This...how is that possible?"
Upon hearing this, Xin Yue's mouth dropped open, and she stared blankly at Zhou Ziwei, utterly shocked by the news.
Back when the two first met in Dangyang, Xin Yue had already learned a bit about Zhou Ziwei's background. She knew that this kid was a good-for-nothing rich second-generation, a spendthrift, basically a useless good-for-nothing, and even so poor that he had to sell his car to make money.
Of course... after getting to know him, Xin Yue naturally knew that Zhou Ziwei was definitely not as incompetent as the rumors suggested, but his awkward position in the Zhou family and his poor financial situation were undeniable.
But... how long has it been... only two or three months! How could he suddenly become so rich? All this jade is his alone, what an incredible fortune that must be... I'm afraid even the entire Zhou Group's assets combined wouldn't amount to this much.
The auction went very smoothly. In this market environment where demand exceeds supply, there was absolutely no need to worry about finding buyers for any piece of jadeite, even the smallest and lowest quality piece. Therefore, the thirty-odd pieces of jadeite that Zhou Ziwei and his team brought out on their first day were all auctioned off in less than an hour.
However, according to Gu Dongfeng, they were really losing money by auctioning it like this. As the saying goes, things are valued for their rarity. Jade is expensive because of the large demand from consumers, but the main reason is its scarcity.
If they had auctioned off the jade pieces one by one instead of all thirty at once, their profits would have been at least 20-30% higher.
With these thirty-odd pieces of jade displayed here, many people will rationally choose to give up on the previous dozen or so pieces when the prices become too high, and instead focus their attention on the jade pieces that follow. In this way, the price will not be driven up too much.
However, if so many jade pieces hadn't been displayed at the same time, it probably wouldn't have been able to attract all the buyers from the major domestic jewelry companies. So, although the initial sale of these thirty-odd pieces of jade resulted in a slight loss, it still generated a lot of buzz.
Looking around the trade fair, only Zhou Ziwei's booth was bustling with people, while the booths of the other dozens of jadeite rough stone middlemen were deserted. This can be considered an advantage of this strategy!
Just as everyone was about to leave after bidding on all thirty-odd pieces of jade displayed in the counter, those who had won and those who hadn't were filled with various emotions. Unexpectedly, someone brought out an even larger and better piece of jade from behind and placed it back on the auction stage. Instantly, everyone stirred and stopped in their tracks, their faces filled with excitement.
They never expected that besides the thirty-odd pieces of jade on display, the person actually had other valuable items hidden away.
Seeing the jadeite now displayed on the auction stage, they realized that the thirty-odd pieces they had just received were merely an appetizer.
However, since the seller doesn't say how many exquisite jade pieces like these are left, they have no way of knowing. Perhaps after this piece is auctioned off, the seller will run out of stock. Therefore, anyone with a need for such jade dares not remain in a wait-and-see attitude.
They could only do their best to quote prices that they could afford, gradually raising the auction price until no one could afford it anymore.
After the blue jadeite was finally sold for 13 million, the next bidder brought out another piece of jadeite that looked even better in terms of quality. This made the person who had just spent all their savings to finally win the bid feel like they were going to vomit blood, but it also gave new hope to those who hadn't won the bid.
And so, under Gu Dongfeng's direction, jade pieces were brought out one by one on the auction stage, whetting the appetites of many jewelers. More than fifty pieces of jade were auctioned off in one go, finally completing today's transaction.
This was only one-tenth of the jade they obtained during their trip to Myanmar, but even this one-tenth had already brought in 430 million RMB, almost recouping most of their investment.
If we don't count the Heart of Flame that Zhou Ziwei bought for 60 million US dollars, Zhou Ziwei has already made a considerable profit.
This shows that the business of dealing in raw jadeite is indeed extremely profitable...
However, only a freak like Zhou Ziwei, who possesses X-ray vision, could gain such a huge advantage. If someone else did the same, they would surely lose everything...
After a day of auctions, Xin Yue finally got the three large pieces of jadeite that Zhou Ziwei had promised her.
With these three valuable jade pieces in hand, Xin Yue decided not to continue attending the raw jade trade fair. She immediately said goodbye to Zhou Ziwei. Outside, people from Bairui Group who had come with Xin Yue had already driven a van, sealed the three jade pieces in boxes, and then transported them to the Kunming branch overnight.
Zhou Ziwei estimated that with the huge sum of money he had obtained from today's auction, plus the money remaining in his account, it would be enough for the next phase of the Zhou Group's operations. He then prepared to deal with Qiao Mulin and head to Baoshan overnight to catch a flight back to Dangyang.
As for the remaining few hundred pieces of jadeite, Zhou Ziwei planned to have Li Yifeng, Gu Dongfeng, and others auction off another hundred or so at this raw stone trading fair, with all the proceeds going towards the operating capital of the jadeite raw stone exchange for the next few years.
Without Zhou Ziwei here, they naturally couldn't make huge profits from those low-grade rough stones like they did this time. They could only operate like ordinary rough stone middlemen, which was unavoidable.
Furthermore, if their raw jadeite exchange could consistently produce such a large quantity of jadeite, it would inevitably arouse the hatred and fear of all local raw jadeite middlemen, making it difficult for them to operate here. Even with Wu Di as their backer, they would likely face endless troubles. Therefore, it would be beneficial to keep a lower price after this.
Zhou Ziwei returned to the exchange with the others, preparing to redistribute the large amount of jadeite stored there. At this trade fair, he would try to sell the lower-quality jadeite, keeping the good stuff for later use, or maximizing profits when he established his own jewelry company specializing in jade.
However, just as they left the trade fair and before they could even get back in their car, Zhou Ziwei's expression suddenly changed... He discovered that the soul connection between him and the dozen or so Kun pets that had remained at the raw stone exchange was breaking down one by one.
Someone was attacking the raw stone exchange, and... those were definitely not ordinary enemies; they were even slaughtering Zhou Ziwei's Kun pets. Feeling his soul connections with eight or nine of his dozen or so Kun pets shatter in an instant, Zhou Ziwei's eyes turned bloodshot...
Volume 2, The Assassin's Nightmare, Chapter 329: The Blood Shadow Returns
Feeling his Kun pets losing contact one by one, meaning they were dying in quick succession, ignited a furious rage in Zhou Ziwei, making him unable to remain calm any longer. Although creating similar Kun pets would be incredibly easy for Zhou Ziwei now, requiring negligible amounts of soul power, these Kun pets were still his pets, which he had raised for some time and developed a bond with. How could Zhou Ziwei not be enraged by the sudden, inexplicable deaths of so many of them?
No matter who it is, he must die. This was Zhou Ziwei's heartfelt promise to the Kun Chongs who had just died.
Without any hesitation, Zhou Ziwei said to the person beside him, "I'll go back first." In the blink of an eye, his body was enveloped in his own force field space. Then, driven by his soul consciousness, the force field space suddenly disappeared like a stream of light, taking Zhou Ziwei with it in a mysterious way.
Zhou Ziwei has learned his lesson. Ever since that incident where his misty soul power was depleted and he was almost killed, he has never dared to recklessly condense his soul power. He only begins to condense it into liquid soul power when the misty soul power he has absorbed is about to reach saturation.
Moreover, each time he dared not condense too much, never more than three drops, and would always stop, then continue to absorb the vast amount of pure energy from the heart of flame until the misty soul power in the sea of souls was about to be saturated again before continuing to condense.
In this way, Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls will always have at least six or seven thousand units of misty soul power.
With so much misty soul power, it should be enough for most of my daily needs.
Currently, Zhou Ziwei's sea of souls contains 83 drops of liquid soul power and about 7,000 drops of mist-like soul power. This means that Zhou Ziwei's total soul power has reached about 90,000. He only needs 10,000 more to reach 100,000, which is the value Zhou Ziwei predicts for his next upgrade.
In addition... when Zhou Ziwei completely replaced the ordinary misty soul power with liquid soul power and took control of his body, a pure energy thread that he had absorbed from the heart of flames failed to be absorbed into his sea of souls in the end. Instead, it coiled up somewhere on his chest.
They even created a small, empty space there, much like a sea of souls, and then stayed there comfortably without moving.
This had made Zhou Ziwei quite nervous for a while. Fortunately, as soon as the thin energy thread entered that void space, it immediately transformed into a droplet-shaped energy body that looked very similar to liquid soul power, and then remained still, seemingly without any intention of causing trouble in his body. Otherwise, Zhou Ziwei would probably have been even more restless.
Later, after carefully studying the location of that drop of pure energy, Zhou Ziwei was surprised to find that the location of that void space actually matched the "Shanzhong acupoint" in traditional Chinese medicine.
Then Zhou Ziwei remembered another name for the Tanzhong acupoint, "Qihai acupoint," and a strange excitement suddenly surged in his heart.
Men of Zhou Ziwei's age have mostly lived through an era when martial arts novels and movies were rampant. In other words, almost every man his age harbored a vague martial arts dream due to the influence of these factors.
Although Zhou Ziwei's current abilities are clearly far superior to those martial arts masters described in martial arts novels, or it could be said that he can be considered a master based solely on his Niu-style Tai Chi.
However, the lack of the legendary internal energy always left Zhou Ziwei with a slight sense of regret. But now... the drop of colorless, pure energy residing in his dantian immediately sparked endless imagination in Zhou Ziwei.
Although he strongly suspected that this drop of colorless, pure energy might be equivalent to real internal energy cultivation, he dared not easily try to make this drop of pure energy circulate in his body like the microcosmic and macrocosmic orbits described in martial arts novels.
You have to understand that when it comes to true internal martial arts, Zhou Ziwei is currently a complete novice who knows almost nothing. If this drop of energy isn't internal energy, that's fine, but if it is, and he manages to make it circulate wildly inside his body, who knows what kind of trouble it will cause? He doesn't want to suffer a qi deviation before he's even mastered any real skills.
The misty soul power propelled a huge egg-shaped force field. With Zhou Ziwei completely disregarding the consumption of his energy, it took him less than five seconds to return directly from the trade fair to the rooftop of the raw stone exchange opposite the hotel.
However, within those few short seconds, the soul connection between the remaining three Kun pets and Zhou Ziwei also suddenly broke down. By the time Zhou Ziwei arrived, there was no longer a single Kun pet left.
Zhou Ziwei landed on the roof of the exchange in a rage, and immediately unleashed his full soul power. Although he had not yet used the complete version of Soul Coverage, the ray-shaped soul power covered almost every inch of space within a radius of sixty meters. Within this range, even if an ant crawled by, it would not escape his keen soul consciousness.
They're all dead.
Because a large amount of jadeite was stored in this exchange, it was necessary for Zhou Ziwei and his group to be unguarded when they went to attend the trade fair. So Zhou Ziwei asked Wu Di for help and asked him to send more than a dozen experts to help guard the place.
Zhou Ziwei wasn't entirely without suspicion. He knew the wealth stored inside was in the hundreds of millions, so he wasn't entirely at ease. Therefore, he left a dozen or so mosquitoes inside to guard the place. If any of the dozen or so people sent by Wu Di had any ulterior motives, these mosquitoes could easily take them all down in a second, each serving one person.
In addition, there is a small fruit fly that is best known for its speed. If anything unusual happens here, the fruit fly can fly to the trade fair site within ten seconds to notify Zhou Ziwei, and then Zhou Ziwei can rush back as quickly as possible.
But now... all of those dozen or so experts are dead, and none of Zhou Ziwei's dozen or so Kun pets have escaped their fate either, not even leaving them a chance to send any information to Zhou Ziwei.
The murderer had already vanished without a trace. Although Zhou Ziwei's speed in arriving was astonishing, he was still a tiny bit too late. By that one tiny step, the murderer had escaped unscathed.
Logically speaking, in just a few seconds, the murderer shouldn't have gone very far even if he had left, but Zhou Ziwei showed no intention of searching the vicinity.
By this time, he already knew who the murderer was, and he understood that since the person had already been gone for several minutes, his chances of finding him in the vicinity were practically zero.
Although those Kun beasts did not leave Zhou Ziwei with any soul information, the blood-red mist that still filled the entire building was so familiar to him that it naturally reminded him of a name that had once struck fear into the hearts of many—Blood Shadow.
However, the blood-red mist floating inside the building this time was noticeably different from the poisonous mist seen on Higashiyama Island in Japan last time. The blood-red mist here was mixed with a strange black color, and its smell had an added stench that made people want to vomit.
No wonder those mosquitoes, despite their ability to suck poison, still died instantly in this fog. Even Zhou Ziwei felt dizzy and almost fainted as soon as he stepped into the fog, which shows how terrifying the toxicity of this thick fog is.
After sensing the power of the poisonous gas, Zhou Ziwei carefully retreated back to the rooftop. After a moment's thought, he used his energy field to float down to the ground. Then, with a slight wave of his hands, he suddenly released a series of rotating gas balls.
After the swirling air masses left their hands, they immediately crashed into the building filled with red mist, then transformed into strong gusts of wind that caused the gas inside the building to rise continuously, eventually being slowly expelled from the windows on the top floor.
Zhou Ziwei then threw out over a hundred more gas clouds, thoroughly cleaning the entire building from top to bottom. Only after confirming that there was hardly any poisonous gas left inside did he step inside.
In the lobby on the first floor, six corpses lay scattered about. These were all Wu Di's capable henchmen, but under the terrifying poison gas attack of Blood Shadow, they may have died unjustly without even seeing where they were.
The corpses of the other Kunchong were also lying on the ground in some inconspicuous corners.
Zhou Ziwei looked at the stiff insect corpses and sighed slightly. He then walked inside again and soon saw a circular hole in the marble floor at the back of the hall.
Below the hole was fresh soil, suggesting that the Blood Shadow had escaped through here. He could restore the soil below after he left, but the damaged marble was left with only this clear mark. Blood Shadow, you really aren't truly dead after all… and your abilities seem to have improved even further.