...
"Nine million eight hundred thousand!"
"Ten million..."
Although Zhou Xuan wouldn't bid for the stone, seeing everyone treating money like paper or numbers as if it were just a game, he couldn't help but feel excited and his whole body heated up!
No wonder gambling on jade is so alluring!
After another round of bidding, the price of the rough stone was finally set at a sky-high price of 13 million, and the winner was a middle-aged man in his forties.
Chen Chen once bid as high as 10.5 million, so it seems he has some financial strength; otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to make such a big splash with over 10 million.
Zhou Xuan sighed, "There are so many rich people in this world!"
The middle-aged man took out a check from his bag, wrote it down, and handed it to Li Dagong. Then he took the rough stone and walked to the side.
Zhou Xuan noticed that the middle-aged man was quite calm when bidding, but now, holding the 13 million yuan stone, his hands were trembling slightly. After placing the stone on the empty shelf on the other side, he turned to look at this side again.
Li Dagong asked with a smile, "Boss Yang, do you need me to help you solve this?"
The middle-aged man surnamed Yang shook his head and said in a deep voice, "I'll go back and fast for two days, then I'll untie it myself!"
Li Dagong smiled and nodded.
Zhou Xuan was unaware that this custom was not found in books. Many merchants, after gambling on stones, generally dared not be present when the stones were actually cut and processed. Instead, they would burn incense and pray for divine protection nearby. This was especially true in the southern region, where people were very superstitious and almost every local household had a shrine to gods and Buddhas.
Zhou Xuan was only two or three meters away from this Boss Zhou, with the wooden frame right in front of him. Suddenly, he had the idea to try and see if there was any jade inside that stone.
Without hesitation, Zhou Xuan looked around, pretended to be a little weak, leaned forward, and then placed his left hand on the wooden frame. He channeled the icy energy from the pill to it. The raw stone that Boss Yang had placed was only a little over two meters away from Zhou Xuan, less than two and a half meters. The furthest distance Zhou Xuan could currently reach was a little over three meters, but he felt a little strained when the icy energy traveled through the wooden frame. He guessed that wood was not as good at conducting energy as metal, and the distance would be greater on a metal body.
The icy aura just reached the raw stone, and Zhou Xuan's expression tightened slightly. He immediately saw the shape inside the raw stone clearly in his mind.
Beneath the emerald green mist lay only grayish-white sand, nothing at all. As the icy air flowed to the outermost edge of the raw stone, about six or seven tenths of an inch from the right outer shell, Zhou Xuan saw a band of jade, about six or seven tenths of an inch long, only three or four tenths of an inch wide, and one tenth of an inch thick. However, it was of poor quality, grayish, and contained impurities like fine sand.
Zhou Xuan circulated his ice energy throughout the entire piece of raw stone, but there was no jade anywhere else!
I then used an ice crystal to test the name of the jade inside the raw stone, and the result was: "Grey Sandy Land!"
Even if Zhou Xuan knew nothing about jade, he knew that this Mr. Yang had lost his bet. According to what he had read in books, gray sand jade was of very low quality. The gray sand jade in this rough stone was probably not worth much money. Mr. Yang must have lost everything.
While feeling sorry for Boss Yang, Zhou Xuan was also incredibly excited. It turned out that his ice energy could test jade just like that. Moreover, the ice energy from this pill was much stronger than the simple ice energy he used to have. Before, he could only test the name and age of the object, but now he could use his mind to control and test the internal structure of the object. If he were to gamble on stones, wouldn't he be invincible?
On a whim, Zhou Xuan's mind was filled with thoughts of money!
To find a bargain in the antique market, you have to actually find the right thing. Nowadays, there are many people who collect antiques, and they are all very knowledgeable. It's rare to find a genuine piece. If you were to gamble on stones and use your left-hand ability, it would be like God is handing you money!
Zhou Xuan cheerfully wandered around the woodworking factory shelves, pretending to look at the stones. He used his ice energy to test all the raw stones on the shelves, but the result was somewhat disappointing!
The dozens of rough stones on the shelves, no matter what color they were or how good the texture looked, were all grayish-white inside. There wasn't even a tiny speck of dirt the size of a fingernail, or the worst kind of jade like water wrapped in a skin!
Zhou Xuan's excitement cooled down again. It seemed that the saying "nine out of ten gamblers lose" was indeed true. Li Dagong spent a huge sum of 26 million yuan to buy the stones, but none of the rough stones that were most likely to contain jade were actually jade. If the risk had not been transferred to these merchants, Li Dagong would have suffered huge losses. However, he had already earned back half of his investment by selling this stone to Boss Yang.
While Zhou Xuan was pondering, Li Dagong sold nearly 20 million worth of raw stones. By then, he had recouped his entire investment and even made a profit of nearly 7 million. However, only half of the raw stones on the wooden shelves had been sold. There were still a large number of raw stones on both sides of the hall, but their color and texture were extremely poor, no different from ordinary stones. They were only considered raw stones because they were all mined from the same pit.
Chen Chen also spent 4.6 million to buy one. That stone also had green on its surface, but it wasn't as dark as Boss Yang's, though the color was still very good.
But no matter how good they are, there isn't a single bit of jade in those stones!
Zhou Xuan disliked that guy and let him be sad. He didn't know anyone else and it wasn't his place to help. Since he came to gamble on stones, he must have known there were risks involved.
When Zhou Xuan lost interest, he stepped aside and became too lazy to watch Li Dagong sell his stones anymore. The initial excitement of gambling on stones had completely vanished. Thinking about it, it made sense. The reason why gambling on stones was so tempting was that there was a chance to win a top-quality jade stone, just like buying a lottery ticket, where you might win five million.
But if you know the lottery is rigged and you have no chance of winning, then you'll lose all interest.
The same applies to gambling on stones. Zhou Xuan was just like a cheater. If he had known that there was no jade in these rough stones, what interest would he have had?
When reading novels, watching movies, or watching TV, if you slowly read from the beginning, you will have the energy to keep reading. But if you read the ending first and then start reading from the beginning, will you still be interested?
Zhou Xuan sighed, feeling his legs go weak. He stepped aside, and finding no chairs in the hall, he sat down on a nearby rock.
Fu Ying then walked over and asked, "How was it? Watching jade gambling is pretty exciting, isn't it? Want to try your luck?"
Zhou Xuan shook his head and sighed, "How could I be qualified? It seems I should stay away from gambling. Nine out of ten gamblers lose. Playing like this, no matter how much wealth you have, you'll lose it all!"
Fu Ying smiled and said, "That's not necessarily true. I see that many of the rough stones have green inside, so the chances of winning big are very high. But I wonder if the people who gamble on stones will cut them open here!"
Zhou Xuan shook his head again, but didn't say anything. What else could he say? Could he say that none of those stones contained jade?
As they were talking, Wang Jue and Yang Xuan came over. Yang Xuan whispered, "Sister, let's see if anyone is willing to have the stone cut on the spot. If there's any good jade, then we can talk about it. None of the jade in the display case is to our liking!"
Fu Ying nodded: "Alright, top-quality jade is something you can only come across by chance, it's all about fate!"
Zhou Xuan pressed his hands on the stone beneath him, thinking that fate was useless. There was no jade in those stones at all. The auction would only make Li Dagong make a fortune while everyone else would have to pay for his losses. Such a gamble was meaningless!
As Zhou Xuan was thinking, he unintentionally channeled the icy energy from his left hand to the stone he was pressing down on. As the icy energy circulated, he saw a pool of intense and delightful greenery in his mind!
(Please vote. Also, I'd like to say that there have been a lot of arguments and insults in the book review section these past two days, but I think the real readers are actually not saying much. Sigh, I'll just ignore them, and I don't want to. Let them make a fuss.)
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Volume One: The First Signs of Growth, Chapter Forty: Expensive Tuition Fees
Zhou Xuan was inexplicably stunned by the sudden appearance of greenery!
Then it dawned on me that there was a piece of emerald green jade inside the big rock I was sitting on!
Zhou Xuan's earlier feelings of boredom and disappointment were instantly reignited. He immediately stood up, squatted down, and carefully examined the large rock.