Chapter 71.2
Editor: Jodi
Bai Jing looked at the bidding box for A01, where the rectangular screen displayed the number ’16’, indicating that this rough stone had already been bid on 16 times.
It might not be from 16 different people, but it was certainly in high demand.
It had to be known, that this was only the second day of the Sotho Star Planet’s Emporium, and that most people were still focusing on the rough stones in the open bidding area.
So at this rate, who knew how many bids there would be when the secret bidding started.
It seems there were many wealthy people in the Empire, even more than he had imagined.
Actually, the people in the front area of the secret bidding area were from the top-ranked families and tycoons of various major planets, the ones truly at the top of the pyramid.
Some of them didn’t even care about the materials in the open bidding area; as they just put a large amount of their funds into the materials in the secret bidding area, especially those with good performances, like the half-bet rough stones.
In the secret bidding area, the better the performance of the material, the more it had to be placed at the forefront as the ones with good performances had already had their windows rubbed open anyways, making it so that there were already standards for judgment.
Which meant that the ones investing in A01 right now were the main force- there probably wouldn’t be many people with the financial means to bid later on.
Bai Jing thought about it for a moment then scanned the code with his bidding device and placed an electronic bid.
Then he entered a price of 150 million starcoins, and after pressing the confirmation button, the electronic bid was generated automatically, and the number on the bidding device also changed to ’17’.
He knew that it was impossible to win this rough stone with this bid price, as according to his estimate, the final auction price for A01 shouldn’t be less than 300 million starcoins.
However this method of misleading others was quite effective.
The Gu Conglomerate wasn’t short of money anyways, what’s more since this rough stone had such good performance, it would be strange if he didn’t bid on it.
Someone who was observing secretly nearby saw Bai Jing’s actions and subtly said something to an old man who was beside him.
Gu Yuanzhao’s eyes narrowed slightly. This old man was Yuan Song, the head of the Yuan family, one of the five major families in the Empire.
After placing his bid, Bai Jing took a few steps forward and approached the rough stone numbered A02.
This rough stone, like A01, also had authentic Thanaka skin, with good color and a high chance of it being a rise in bet.
A02 was even bigger than A01, pear-shaped, about 70 centimeters long, with one end larger than the other, and dimensions ranging from 15 to 40 centimeters in width and height, displaying a weight of 126.6 kilograms.
The surface of the rough stone naturally had a python belt as well as pine blossoms, however there were cracks in the middle and on both sides of the rough stone.
Let’s not talk about the sides for now. The vicious crack in the middle in particular, which was more than ten centimeters long and had radial branches, definitely had to have caused damage to the jadeite inside if judged based on the depth alone.
An experienced Stone Solver had rubbed open a window at the farthest point from the crack, positioned relatively low and only about two fingers wide. However from the texture visible through the window, it was sunny green glass jadeite!
Although this rough stone had locks and cracks, judging from the color and size visible through the window, its gambling potential was still considerable, hence it had been placed in second position.
Bai Jing looked at the price tag: 80 million starcoins.
This price was definitely not low, considering that compared to the first rough stone, there was much more uncertainty with this one.
Using his sense perception ability, he pushed deeper into the interior along the window. The texture of the sunny green glass jadeite wasn’t affected even when it reached the vicinity of the crack, continuing to extend inwards until it reached the vicious crack.
Unfortunately, the vicious crack was indeed worthy of being called vicious crack, as the scattered fine cracks around it had destroyed the structure of the jadeite completely, turning at least twenty centimeters of it into shattered jadeite.
Fortunately, this vicious crack was at the junction of two ellipsoidal parts of the ‘pear-shaped rough stone’, hence its volume was relatively small, weighing around 30 kilograms.
And after this vicious crack—
Bai Jing’s pupils suddenly contracted, because he saw a familiar, vivid green color. It was imperial green glass jadeite!!
At this moment, the color band happened to be in the denser part of the python belt and pine blossoms, and although it was only about five centimeters in diameter, it was right on the protruding part of the ‘pear-shaped rough stone’.
Bai Jing roughly estimated that there were at least ten kilograms of it, enough to drive people crazy!
It had to be known, that high quality jadeite with a large size was generally rare.
The last time Bai Jing unraveled imperial green glass jadeite, it was only 3.0 kilograms.
This piece, with a whopping ten kilograms, plus most of the rough stone being sunny green jadeite, the value of this rough stone was simply unimaginable—
It had to be bid on, absolutely had to be bid on!
Bai Jing’s breathing faltered for a moment, however he adjusted himself quickly.
Then afraid that he would unintentionally reveal his elation, the teenager squatted down halfway, lowered his gaze slightly, and inspected the locks and cracks on the rough stone carefully, not getting up until his emotions calmed down.
The number displayed on the nearby bidding box was ’18’, a number which was actually two more than the first rough stone, surprising Bai Jing, as he hadn’t expected people to be quite daring.
However this was so mainly because the rough stone A01 had very good performance making it so that those who bid on A01 were afraid they wouldn’t win, so they set their sights on the second best, and that was A02.
Another reason was that half of the seven rough stones that he’d had rises in bet from the day before had had cracks, and although these top-tier families didn’t say anything about it, they definitely made a mental note of it and so would pay extra attention to rough stones that had cracks on them.
Seeing the number ’18’, a number which was higher than even the bids placed for A01, Bai Jing couldn’t help but feel a hint of nervousness.
If he were to bid now, he wasn’t sure how many starcoins he should fill in on the bidding form.
Going too low was out of the question, but how high should he go?
200 million? 300 million? Maybe even 350 million?
No one’s money came easy, and the difference between 200 million and 350 million starcoins was a whopping 150 million, enough to secure rough stones of higher value.
So it was naturally impossible to fill in a bid of 350 million when he could purchase it for 200 million starcoins.
And besides starcoins, it also involved bid blocking by sellers.
Bid blocking referred to the phenomenon where rough stones in the secret bidding area were intercepted by sellers at a high price just before the bidding opened, resulting in no one winning the bid.
Because the secret bidding area opened the next day, on the eve of each bidding day, the organizers would send the final bidding prices to the respective sellers for final confirmation.
When these sellers saw that the rough stones were bid far below or far above their expected prices, they would immediately submit higher bids to intercept them, preventing the rough stones from being sold at the base price.
In this way, since their bid was the highest, the rough stones would automatically return to the sellers’ hands, awaiting a chance to be bid at a higher price later.
For example:
The base price of Rough Stone B was 2 million, and the seller’s requirement was not less than 6 million starcoins.
However unfortunately, this rough stone had few followers, and the highest bid in the bidding box was 3 million starcoins, half of what the seller had expected.
At this point, the seller would submit a bid of 4 million to intercept this rough stone, to prevent it from being sold at the base price in order to wait for another auction.
This was one form of bid blocking.
Another form was bid blocking due to excessively high bids.
In the same example:
The base price of Rough Stone B was 2 million, and the seller’s requirement was not less than 6 million starcoins.
However for some reason, the highest bid in the bidding box was 30 million starcoins, far exceeding the seller’s expectations!
In this case, most sellers would be very happy.
However there were also a few sellers who would be worried that they had underestimated the base price of this rough stone, and that perhaps it was worth more than 30 million.
So the seller would bid 35 million to intercept the rough stone, then have professionals reassess it after the auction ended.
Of course, the final result might be that the rough stone could not be sold for a high price of 30 million again, and the seller would regret it.
All in all, it was just greed at work.
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