Chapter 75.3
Editor: Jodi
Indeed, the organizers had invited Stone Solvers with over 50 years of experience.
They might not gamble on rough stones, but after so many years of unraveling stones, they could examine each rough stone carefully, touch them, and use strong lights to determine where green was most likely to emerge.
And the first five hundred rough stones in the secret bidding area had been screened repeatedly. Dozens of experienced stone solvers had had discussions for days to determine where exactly to unravel the rough stones to best showcase the value of each rough stone.
Bai Jing used his perception ability to explore several of the rough stones, shook his head inside, then walked further until he stopped when the numbers displayed were past A2000.
He was still in the half-bet rough stones area, however the quality of the openings of the rough stones on display transitioned from high-grade ice and water varieties to mid-to-low-grade jadeites of the oily green and fine bean varieties.
And although the water seed qualities were slightly worse, the colors were all relatively even high green, which could be said to be top-quality of the same level, and their value wasn’t inferior to that of higher level jadeites of the glutinous varieties, egg white varieties, etc.
Then after making observations, Bai Jing found that among the rough stones numbered A2000 to A5000, besides those with obvious qualities at their openings, there were also many rough stones with fog layers.
Like yellow fog and honey fog. These top-quality fog layers would generally continue to be unraveled as the rough stone was unraveled, because the jadeite underneath was mostly clean, and unraveling would increase its value.
While yellow fog, red fog and black fog, because of the uncertainty, generally wouldn’t be unraveled or rubbed out, leaving them to those who liked to gamble on fogs, which could actually fetch better prices.
What Bai Jing was seeing now were rough stones with yellow fog and red fog, and further back, were second-class black fog.
Due to having previously unraveled chicken yellow jadeite of the glass variety from red and yellow fog, Bai Jing was very interested in gambling on fogs. Perhaps there was a certain probability that he would get a rise in bet jadeite made up of rare colors like yellow jadeite and violet jadeite.
And obviously, many people shared the same thought.
Because the starting bid prices of these fog-layered rough stones weren’t low, with each starting bid price being no less than 2 million starcoins, and the number of electronic bidding slips in the bidding boxes unexpectedly not lower than the first 100 rough stones!
This was also related to Bai Jing having previously unraveled a chicken yellow jadeite of the glass variety from yellow fog, a top-quality jadeite which was worth hundreds of millions, something that was enough to drive everyone crazy!
What if they could also get a rise in bet piece of yellow jadeite from under the fog layer? They weren’t asking for jadeite of the glass variety, just jadeite of the ice variety would also suffice.
The fog of jadeites varied in thickness and color, making it difficult to judge the color and texture of jadeite based on the fog layer.
However generally speaking, if the fog layer was relatively pure, then the jadeite beneath it would also be relatively pure, and if the fog layer contained many impurities, then those impurities would also seep into the jadeite beneath the fog layer, resulting in a jadeite with numerous impurities.
Bai Jing selected several pieces from along the stone platform as he moved that had had red fog rubbed out, then after using his sense perception ability on them for a moment, took it back.
Sure enough, there were only a few pieces that could produce red jadeite underneath all that red fog. As the saying went, ‘out of ten pieces with red fog, nine are gray’. This was indeed based on experience.
Bai Jing used his sense perception ability consecutively on more than a dozen pieces and found another new piece that showed red, however it was far from the bright red color, what’s more it’s water seed could only reach that of the glutinous variety, which probably wouldn’t meet the bidding price target that had been set.
The same went for the yellow fog. Even if yellow jadeite appeared below, it was mostly mixed with gray, giving one a dirty feeling. What’s more its color wasn’t bright at all.
Among them, the best piece he found was a piece of yellow jadeite of the ice variety.
Its color didn’t reach a bright yellow, but was slightly darker, more like an orange-yellow. Fortunately, the size of the jadeite wasn’t small, as it weighed over twenty kilograms, and judging by its rarity in the market, the total price should be over 80 million.
This was a piece of rough stone with yellow salt skin, larger than a basketball by a circle, weighed 38.9 kilograms, and had a shape that was concave in the middle and curled up at the new end, somewhat resembling the shape of a gold ingot.
The sand on its surface was evenly distributed, made up of fine grains, a type that belonged to the top grade among yellow sand skins.
A gray-white python belt traversed most of the rough stone in a diagonal manner, with sporadic pine blossoms around it in a jumping pattern.
This type of pine blossom was called jumping belt pine blossom, which was a type of belt pine blossom, and with this kind of pine blossom, it was necessary to check its continuity with the python belt, because if it was continuous, then it would have a relatively strong betting on potential.
However because there were many gray-brown withered ringworms around it, although they didn’t cause much harm to the rough stone, they obscured the continuity of the jumping belt pine blossom, making it difficult for one to discern.
Therefore, this piece of rough stone had a high level of uncertainty.
Not only that, the window of yellow fog that had been rubbed out wasn’t large. It was about the width of a finger, and compared with the fist-sized incision next to it, the contrast was very clear.
Bai Jing glanced at its bidding box. Among the pieces that had had yellow fog rubbed out, relatively few people had bid for this one, with the bids in the box being no more than twenty.
He first scanned several other pieces that had had yellow fog rubbed out that had good performance, filled in 3 million on the bidding device as a decoy,
Then finally, placed an electronic bid of 11.7 million starcoins next to this piece of rough stone numbered A3680.
This price shouldn’t be low. After all, only the top five hundred rough stones were the objects of contention among the aristocratic families. As for this batch of rough stones that had had yellow fog rubbed out, this piece was among the less noticeable ones.
In addition to this piece of rough stone, Bai Jing also placed a bid on a piece that could produce blue water jadeite of the ice variety. However, the blue water jadeite inside was only about fourteen to fifteen kilograms, so he placed a bid of 9.2 million starcoins, unsure if he would win.
Then he continued to move forward. After the red and yellow fogs, the next was the black fog that everyone looked down on.
Black fog was a common type of fog. If the fog was thick, its base would be gray, and it would have saggy like skin.
The quality of black fog also depended on the depth and thickness of the fog layer as well as the width and thickness of it.
Because the changes in black fog were relatively large, not only did it occur between the crust and the flesh of the jadeite, it could also penetrate into it, so there was a high possibility of contaminating the base. [Note]
Therefore, most people disliked gambling on black fog.
Bai Jing used his sense perception ability to inspect several pieces of rough stones with black fog, and as expected, they were all low-grade jadeite with grayish bases.
However he hadn’t walked far when his mental power suddenly sensed a distinct fluctuation.
And following the direction of the fluctuation, he arrived at the rough stone labeled A4100.
This was an authentic black ebony rough stone from an old pit with a pitch-black skin covered in a layer of black wax shell. Its surface was adorned with grayish-green pine blossoms, with a circular stripe of pine blossoms in the middle, showing average performance.
Black ebony rough stones were really a case of ‘nine losses out of ten bets’, with a slight possibility of them yielding high quality jadeites. However this possibility was very small, so they were generally placed in the open bidding area.
However this piece of rough stone was different from ordinary black ebony rough stones as it was exceptionally large. Though large here was relative.
Ordinary black ebony rough stones were quite small, round, with the smallest being the size of a fist and the largest resembling a child’s ball, weighing no more than 7 to 8 kilograms.
Yet this piece of rough stone was the size of a soccer ball, weighing 23.3 kilograms.
Perhaps the seller thought that because this rough stone was large and had plenty of pine blossoms on it, they could try polishing it to see if they could yield high quality jadeite.
However after polishing the wax and sand skin, what was revealed was the most mysterious and unpredictable black fog!
If they continued to polish it, it was highly likely that the bottom would be poor-quality gray jadeite, in which case it would be better to place it directly in the secret bidding area where someone would definitely bid for it.
The starting bid price of this rough stone was 1.5 million which really wasn’t low.
Bai Jing glanced at the bidding box. It had the number ‘8’ on it.
Sure enough, there were people bidding for rough stones with black fog in the secret bidding area. It seems Gu Yuanzhao’s statement that many people would make hundreds of bids wasn’t an exaggeration.
Bai Jing shone a strong light into the rough stone along the black fog, then he saw a deep, dark green color emanating from inside which wasn’t as bright as sunny green or apple green, appearing more subdued.
This color was considered ‘too concentrated’ for green jadeite, as it didn’t meet the criteria of ‘authentic, concentrated, sunny and even’, making it relatively cheap.
However as his sense perception delved deeper into the jadeite through the black fog, he felt an extremely strong reactive force from it. One that was comparable to that of jadeite of the imperial green glass variety!!
What surprised him even more was that this rough stone was entirely jadeite, weighing at least seventeen to eighteen kilograms!
Bai Jing’s breathing suddenly became rapid, then he didn’t dare take a look at the rough stone again. And as he walked away, he took deep breaths, with only one thought in his mind: he definitely, definitely had to win this rough stone!!
Read without ads and unlock a total of up to 110 advanced chapters with coins.
Please kindly turn off the adblock, thank you.
Thanks for the chapter!