Lin Shitu's factory is not located in the town. Instead, it is located about two kilometers away. The factory site is spacious and at least three times larger than Zhou Bo's. There are cameras everywhere, both on the walls and inside the factory buildings, all under electronic surveillance.
Besides the vast plaza of rough jade, the factories contained more than ten times the quantity of high-quality rough jade compared to Zhou Bo's. A dozen large factory buildings were strung together, with two long rows of shelves piled high with green rough jade. Upon entering these factories, Fujimoto and Ito Kinji, seeing so many tempting green rough jade pieces on the shelves, immediately felt an irresistible urge to buy. They were already excited after seeing the jade piece that Zhao Lao Er had been so impressed with at Zhou Bo's place, which had fetched a staggering price of over 17 million. Moreover, the bidding for Zhao Lao Er's jade hadn't even reached the final stages; there was clearly still room for the price to rise!
Fujimoto thought to himself, "Lin Shitu has so many raw jade stones, it's like sand. If I could pick one, I could sell it for ten or twenty million." But with so many raw stones, which ones are missing and which ones aren't? What's the secret?
Fujimoto is incredibly shrewd. The moment he thinks of a lucrative opportunity, he immediately jumps to that idea. Having worked as a manager in the US for several years, he's quite knowledgeable and capable. Now, when his mind falls on raw jade, he immediately thinks about all sorts of instruments and tools. Can they see through stones? How do seasoned experts identify them? We need to pay close attention and work hard to turn the four million he's swindled into forty million, or even four hundred million. Or even more!
Fujimoto is a gambler who seizes any opportunity to make money without worrying about anything because the business is legal.
There were far more businessmen here at Lin Shitu's place, at least ten times more than at Zhou Bo's. The long factory was filled with people carefully examining the raw materials.
Lin Shitu was very wary of Zhou Xuan and his group. He also instructed his subordinates not to provoke them, but not to make it too public; they should just pretend they didn't know anything.
Lin Shitu himself only politely greeted Zhou Xuan at the factory, which was his clever move. People with Zhou Xuan's background wouldn't care about flattery from someone like him, so even if he wanted to build a relationship, his intentions couldn't be obvious. He had to be nice to him subtly, so that Zhou Xuan would notice him and develop a good impression of him.
Zhou Xuan told Zhao Lao Er and Zheng Bing to look around as they pleased, while he went to the shelf to examine the raw materials by himself.
Zhou Xuan knew his special abilities; from his appearance, there was nothing wrong with him. However, he still didn't want anyone watching him use his ice-based abilities, so he went to check out the raw materials alone. Fujimoto and the others also followed him with great interest to look at the raw materials. There seemed to be quite a few skilled workers in the factory, and perhaps they could learn a lot from them.
Zhou Xuan activated his ice energy, starting from the front end. He then slowly walked towards the other end. Wherever the ice energy probed, the true or false nature of the raw materials was revealed. He continued walking slowly, probing all the raw materials in more than a dozen factory buildings.
Zhou Xuan was pleasantly surprised by the results of the ice gas detection!
Lin Shitu's place not only has a lot of rough stones, but the amount of jadeite rough stones is far greater than that of the other places I've seen before, including Zhou Bo's place.
Among the rough stones here, there are two pieces of top-quality glass-like jadeite, one only the size of a fist, and the other as large as a bowl, both of which are of icy, translucent quality. There are also as many as thirty or forty pieces of violet jadeite. Zhou Xuan also detected four pieces of red jadeite; this should be red jadeite. Although he doesn't know its value, it's the first time he's seen jadeite of a different color!
The best and largest piece of jadeite rough, with its glassy texture and clear water content, actually didn't have very good green color. It looked as if the rough had been stained with green and drawn a line across the stone.
The other small piece of jadeite rough was much smaller in size. The jadeite inside was only the size of a fist, and the outer stone was also very thin. This resulted in the rough being only slightly larger than a fist. The outer layer of the rough was only a little over one centimeter thick, and the thickest part was only about two centimeters thick.
The green of this rough stone was indeed very good, a comfortable emerald green, but because of its small size, it didn't attract much attention. Zhou Xuan took this rough stone first and walked over to Lin Shitu. He smiled and held up the stone in his hand, saying, "Mr. Lin, after looking around for so long, why don't you buy a small stone first and try your luck!"
Lin Shitu waved to the female worker beside him, who immediately stepped forward to examine the bottom of the rough stone in Zhou Xuan's hand. Zhou Xuan hadn't noticed it, as he always used ice-air detection to examine rough stones and hadn't paid attention to what was on the surface. Only when Lin Shitu's female worker looked at it did he bend down and notice a piece of paper, like a trademark sticker, stuck to the bottom of the stone. The paper had...
The female worker picked up a piece of material from a table next to her, entered the number, and then said to Lin Shitu, "Mr. Lin, the starting price for this piece of material, number 48, is 480,000."
Zhou Xuan was taken aback. Did the price depend on the number? Why didn't he just find number one? But he knew it wasn't true; it was just a coincidence.
However, the green of this rough stone is indeed quite good. It has a kind of jewel-like green, which is very pleasing. It's just that the size is too large. Of course, the price of 480,000 is due to its size. If the stone were larger, the price would double.
Currently, a jadeite bangle with a pure green hue, readily available on the international market, can fetch over ten million yuan. Even jadeite jewelry of slightly lower quality, as long as it's genuine, has good translucency, exquisite craftsmanship, and harmonious color, will still command a high price.
In fact, Zhou Xuan didn't understand this industry, nor did he understand the situation in Myanmar. In reality, small jade traders like Zhou Bo didn't source their raw materials from old jade mines in Myanmar at all; they only sourced them from small jade mountains.
Lin Shitu and Jin Pangzi's goods are genuine old mine jade from Myitkyina, Myanmar.
In Myanmar, the government lifted restrictions on jade mining twenty years ago, allowing private owners to bid for "mine sites," or mining rights to jade-producing mountains. The size of a mine site is determined by the bid. The winning bidder can hire machinery to dig. However, the mined jade must first be handed over to the government and then transported to Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, where it is auctioned off. The journey from the mine site in Hpakant Mountain to Yangon is over a thousand kilometers, requiring transport by human porters, elephants, cars, and trains.
Nevertheless, some of the "stones" were still secretly kept behind. They were transported across towering mountains to Thailand or to Tengchong and Ruili in China.
Although the workers mining jade are Burmese, the winning bidders are almost all Burmese Chinese. And the owners of jade businesses are almost all Chinese as well, because only the Chinese in the world have such a deep passion for jade; those who buy and trade jade are also Chinese. Don't be fooled by the high prices of raw jade and polished jade; in Myanmar, the prices aren't particularly high. It's only considered extremely high within Myanmar itself, given the country's relatively weak national strength and the extremely poor living standards of most ordinary people. A large portion of the poor work as miners because, within Myanmar, mining is considered a relatively high-paying job.
Of course, there are reasons for higher incomes.
The natural conditions at the mines in Myanmar are extremely harsh. The mountains where jade mines are located are covered with virgin forests. Myanmar is also a place without distinct seasons; the rainy season begins in May and lasts until October. The rainwater, after passing through the decaying leaves accumulated on the mountains, flows down in black water. A type of mosquito that bites people in this water can easily cause malaria. A large proportion of the miners die each year, and the vast majority of these deaths are caused by this malaria. Therefore, working in the mines is also known as a death job.
Before coming here, Zhou Xuan had been thinking that, if possible, he would like to take a trip to Myanmar to deal with jade mine owners personally, although he didn't understand the management system there.
In reality, going there would be pointless. All the jade mined goods are publicly auctioned by the Myanmar government, while jade ore stolen privately can only be sold through private channels. If caught, the punishment would be severe. Of course, officials in charge of this area in the government also engage in corruption and malpractice.
Zhou Xuan held the rough stone in his hand, smiled, and said, "Four hundred and eighty thousand it is then. Anyone want to raise the price?"
Those present were jewelers from all over the country, some of whom were buyers from well-known brand stores, including merchants from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and overseas. Many of them were regular customers who had been visiting Tengchong for many years.
There are plenty of experienced people who believe that the green color of the rough stone in Zhou Xuan's hand is very good, but its size makes it easy to cut it hollow. 480,000 is indeed very risky, after all, it is a small piece, and it is difficult to cut out jade. Even if it is, the size is still too small. As experienced people, they are not willing to gamble on such a stone.
As soon as Zhou Xuan made his move, Fujimoto and Ito Kinji surrounded him. They wanted to see if Zhou Xuan had any luck. They themselves lacked experience, and although they really wanted to gamble, they only had about four million yuan. These rough stones were worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan each, so they didn't dare to make a move easily. They decided to wait and see.
Zhou Xuan first chose this small piece to attack. He wanted to use his luck of picking one out of ten to lure Fujimoto Tsuyoshi, and then let them walk step by step into the trap he had set.
Zhou Xuan's first gamble was based on the assumption that other merchants would be unwilling to bid on the small size of the rough jade. Sure enough, after the price was agreed upon, the merchants gathered around shook their heads slightly. It wasn't that they didn't have the money; they simply didn't want to throw money away and wouldn't bid if they felt it wasn't worth it.
Volume One: The Lotus Buds Just Begin to Emerge, Chapter 163: Where the Dragon Is, There Is Water
Men Shang smiled at Lin Shitu and said, "Mr. Lin, it's really hard to believe. If it's a rock, then it's mine. Do you accept checks here?"
Lin Shitu said calmly, "No problem. No problem. Boss Zhou, please use whichever method is most convenient for you."
Zhou Xuan immediately felt a sense of goodwill towards this Mr. Lin. The man didn't deliberately show any flattery, but his unintentional, subtle gestures of goodwill made Zhou Xuan feel at ease. In this kind of jade gambling business, cash transactions are always the norm. If it's not a very familiar, long-term customer and they want to use checks, then they have to stay in Tengchong for a day or two until the checks are cashed before they can take the goods away. After all, these are deals worth millions of dollars.
Mr. Lin's words just now undoubtedly treated Zhou Xuan as a very familiar and close customer, without mentioning the issue of the payment transaction at all.
Zhou Xuan smiled, then took out a check from his shoulder bag, filled in the amount of 480,000, and handed it to Lin Shitu.
Lin Shitu didn't look at it carefully before casually handing it to the female employee next to him.
"Mr. Lin, could you do me a favor? I'd like to have this piece of material cut open on the spot!"
Zhou Xuan spoke with a smile, and Lin Shitu also smiled and waved. Behind him were two old men in their fifties, one surnamed Chen and the other surnamed Zhao. Like Zhou Bo's uncle, they were veteran stone-cutting masters in Tengchong for decades. Master Zhao, in particular, was one of the pillar masters in Tengchong. Even Jin Pangzi did not have a worker with such high skills as Master Zhao. He had always wanted to poach Master Zhao, but Master Zhao kept saying that he was too old and would retire after this year to go home and enjoy his retirement. Jin Pangzi could not force him. Besides, Lin Shitu was a man of some influence, so it was not good to openly break ties.
Master Zhao stepped forward and took the stone from Zhou Xuan. After examining it carefully, he realized the stone was only slightly larger than a fist, and cutting it was not an option. He could only start by rubbing it, slowly working his way in from the outer edge. After studying it for a moment, he asked Zhou Xuan, "Boss Zhou, how do you want to cut this rough stone?"
Master Zhao usually asks this question first, inquiring about the new owner of the rough stone. They can cut it however they want. If the jade inside is damaged, that's fine too. If the stone cutter uses his own experience and skills, he generally won't damage it, although there's no absolute certainty.
The jade inside the stone fork is only about one centimeter away from the outer layer of stone, and the stone is also irregularly round in shape. It is impossible to cut it. Even the least experienced stone cutter knows that such a small rough stone should be rubbed. Zhou Xuan does not need to tell him how to cut it.
Zhou Bin smiled and said, "Master, I think your skills don't need my guidance at all. You just need to take charge. Even if there are any unexpected situations, it won't matter."