Chapter 36.1
This rough stone, weighing over a hundred kilograms, was split into two parts, left and right by invisible locks.
The left half, near the opening, was undoubtedly of coarse bean variety and not very large, only four or five kilos, followed by the white stone.
However, six or seven centimeters further in, excluding the damaged jadeite near the cracked locks, the remaining half was extremely reactive and was all ice and glassy sunny green jadeite, at least a dozen kilos!
In contrast, the right half of the rough stone, which was separated by the fracture, consisted of 50 to 60 kilograms of rough stone and not a single piece of jadeite.
Once again, Bai Jing clearly felt that there was too much uncertainty in gambling on rough stones.
Even the best Stone Gambler couldn’t accurately determine the distribution and grade of jadeite inside a raw rough stone, as in the case of this rough stone through outward appearance and experience.
When Wang Ping, the shop owner, saw Bai Jing’s interest in this half-bet rough stone with the invisible locks crack on its surface, his eyes flashed brightly and he immediately came over with a smile.
Wang Ping: “Little young master, you like this rough stone? I have to say, you have a really good eye.
Look at this rough stone, it’s a typical from the old pit variety and it’s so large that it must have about 20 to 30 kilograms of jadeite in it, right?
However if there weren’t invisible locks in the middle, it would have been perfect…”
The middle-aged man who was still examining the piece of white salt skin glanced over at him, his expression disdainful.
Heh, just this piece of rough stone?
There wasn’t a single strip of pine python on the surface and the texture was rough with a very destructive crack in the middle as well as countless large and small locks.
The fractures in the crust indicated that this rough stone had been cut several times but no green had come out and so had to be re-polished, but it was unknown what kind of luck it had. Though a little green showed, it was a low-grade jadeite of the coarse bean variety.
Please, wasn’t this just from scraps that were being sold by the pound?
He was really right.
Since that rough stone with the locks that collapsed in bet but then turned into a great gain a month or so ago, there had been a lot more people betting on rough stones with cracks.
All types of money was money, especially for Wang Ping, such a shrewd shop owner.
He took stock of the rough stones he had in the warehouse and picked out the dozen or so rough stones with locks and cracks to see if jadeite could be polished out of them.
If they turned out to have jadeite in them, then they would be sold as half-bet rough stones.
However, rough stones were worthy of being rough stones. After polishing about eight or nine pieces in a row, nothing came out and he even lost a lot of starcoins. As a merchant, how could his heart not ache?
So at this moment, seeing this huge rough stone, Wang Ping had sighed gently. This was his last hope.
The rough stone weighed 150 kilograms and even at a minimum price of 300 starcoins per kilogram, it would cost 40,000 to 50,000 starcoins.
If this rough stone didn’t produce jadeite after a long time of cutting, then it would be difficult to sell. After all, who would buy a rough stone that had been cut down?
But if it turned out to have jadeite, then the price would be at least ten times higher!
Wang Ping calculated the benefits in his head rapidly and then in the end, gritted his teeth and decided to polish it.
He first asked a Stone Solver to turn the abrasive grinding wheel to the fastest gear and rubbed the stone from the right side where the crust was slightly thinner. After ten minutes of scrubbing, all the openings came out as rough stones, so as a last resort, the Stone Solver switched to the laser blade.
After the blue light beam fell two or three centimeters along the crust, when they saw the exposed surface, they sighed in unison.
After some manipulation, more than 20 kilograms of scrap had been cut off, however there was still no sign of jadeite.
Looking at the top right-hand corner of the rough stone, Wang Ping dared not continue cutting it any further, as it would be unsellable if he did so!
But, undeterred, he switched to the other side and started polishing it.
He didn’t believe that there wasn’t even a lick of jadeite in such a big piece of rough stone.
Fortunately, his luck wasn’t too bad this time, because after changing direction and rubbing about three or four centimeters along the crust, some color finally showed up.
Wang Ping and the Stone Solver looked at each other then breathed sighs of relief.
Although what showed along the opening was only jadeite of the coarse bean variety and the color was uneven, he didn’t dare rub it any further, as there were so many large and small locks that if he rubbed it two centimeters further in, the jadeite would turn into damaged jadeite.
Hence this piece of scrap sold by the pound was transformed into a half-bet rough stone.
And the reserve price for a half-bet rough stone was basically no less than one million starcoins.
Wang Ping had reasoned to himself in his head that if he sold it at a high price first, even if the price was cut down to 500,000 starcoins, it would be more than ten times the original price, meaning he would have definitely made a fortune!
Unfortunately, however, the performance of this rough stone was so poor compared to the other half-bet rough stones that few people asked for it.
And of the few that did, the highest bidder only came in at 250,000 starcoins.
Jadeite of the coarse bean variety usually cost between 15,000 and 20,000 starcoins per kilo, so if one wanted to spend 250,000 starcoins to bet on a rise, one would need at least a dozen kilograms of jadeite of the coarse bean seed variety to be inside.
However, because the cracks and locks had obviously penetrated deep into the rough stone, it was difficult to tell whether this much jadeite could be unraveled, hence it was too risky to raise the price further.
Therefore, Wang Ping held fast to the reserve price of 500,000 starcoins.
But within a few days, as the fad of gambling on rough stones with cracks in them passed, this rough stone became even less popular.
This was the way it was in the gambling world, where people would queue up to have their rough stones cut at the stone-cutting machine after a bet had gone up.
Ever since Bai Jing solved the great gain, that is, the jadeite of the hibiscus variety from the scrap with locks and then was looked upon favorably by Old Man Min, everyone envied his luck and rough stones with cracks and locks were all the rage for a while.
However this fad didn’t last long and disappeared within a few days.
But for Wang Ping, since this rough stone had already shown a little bit of green, it was impossible for him to sell it at a lower price.
So what if it stayed in his shop for a few months or six months?
As long as he could make money at the end of the day.
And just based on the fact that Wang Ping had managed to get the best location on the Gambling Street and that his business had continued to flourish for a long time, there was nothing that could outmatch his patience.
This piece of rough stone which Bai Jing had just used his sense perception ability to detect had at least ten kilograms of ice and glass jadeite in it in addition to the four or five kilograms of jadeite of the coarse bean variety, giving it a price value of over 20 million starcoins. He was definitely going to buy it.
With this rough stone, there would be no need to worry about the raw material for extracting Grade 5 and Grade 6 energy fluid for at least two months.
Faced with Wang Ping’s attentive attitude, Bai Jing nodded gently: “Yes, I’ll buy it casually for practice, because like you’ve said, this rough stone is so large that there should be jadeite inside. I wonder how much it costs?”
Wang Ping laughed in his heart. It wasn’t in vain that he had held on for more than a month without letting go. Look, hadn’t business arrived?
“Little young master, why? You’re a familiar customer that I won’t ask you for much. You can have this rough stone for 1.5 million starcoins.”
Bai Jing was silent.
He could indeed accept this price, because as far as the jadeite inside was concerned, he would buy it even if it was tripled or quadrupled on top of that.
However he wasn’t that stupid.
This rough stone that had average performance wasn’t worth that many starcoins at all, so he would have to haggle a bit.
Bai Jing: “I’ve looked at this rough stone. It’s obviously a rough stone from a new field opening. There’s no wax crust or signs of weathering on the surface and the seeds aren’t old.
The invisible locks in the middle almost bisects the rough stone and is likely to affect the flesh of the jadeite inside, and judging from the opening, it is also jadeite of the rather poor coarse bean seed variety.
Therefore, I will only offer half a million starcoins for this rough stone.”
When Wang Ping heard this offer, he was already very satisfied. For a rough stone of 40,000 starcoins to be sold for 500,000 starcoins, this was a tenfold increase!
However he still stabilized his emotions and raised the price again: “Little young master, the cracks and locks do have an effect on this rough stone, but there are also gamblers who specialize in cracks and locks, so it’s hard to tell what’s actually inside. What if it turns out to be a great gain like your last one?
If you want to take it, how about adding another 100,000 to make it 600,000 starcoins?”
Seeing that Bai Jing remained unmoved, Wang Ping’s mind wandered and then he saw the shopping cart behind him.
“How about this? 600,000 starcoins and except for this piece of rough stone, the other pieces of rough stones in your cart that you’ve picked out will be a bonus, there will be no charge.”
Bai Jing frowned gently, pretending to be reluctant. He thought for a moment before agreeing.
After scanning the code to pay, the middle-aged man next to him looked at Bai Jing as if he were a fool.
How could someone buy such a damaged rough stone with a bad crack like this?
And 600,000 starcoins at that. Really a case of having too much money but not knowing where to spend it.
He snickered then waved at the shop owner, intending to buy a white salt skin rough stone.
The middle-aged man had just looked at the rough stone with a magnifying glass and confirmed that there were no locks or ringworm on the surface that could damage the flesh of the jadeite and had even shone a strong light along the opening, and what he had seen was a very clear ice seed variety with a beautiful green onion color.
His only concern now was the price of this rough stone.
Wang Ping walked over to the middle-aged man and said with a smile, “Mr. Chang, what do you think of it? With your discerning judgement, you must have already made up your mind, right?”
The middle-aged man, whose surname was Chang and first name Qing, had been a humble peddler five or six years ago, but one day he had a stroke of luck and had a rise in bet from a shoddy scrap of rough stone which amounted in a ten-million starcoins glass emerald jadeite and his value multiplied over time.
As the saying went, ‘high quality jadeite could come from the worst rough stone’.
Whether it was luck or not, in any case, it was true that Mr. Chang became rich overnight.
After that, he focused on gambling on rough stones and over the past few years, had really developed a discerning eye and now had hundreds of millions of starcoins; he was no longer the nonentity he had been before.
As his status had risen, his tone had unnaturally taken on a bit of arrogance: “Hmm, Wang Ping, your eye for selecting rough stones has improved. This white salt skin is really a good piece.”
Wang Ping laughed: “It’s all thanks to the blessings of Boss Chang.”
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