Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
“600,000, I’ll buy it for six hundred thousand! Muna is a good water source, damn it!” Someone placed a bid and directly raised the price by 100,000.
Li Du winked at Zhong Dapao and said, “Look, your money is back.”
Zhong Dapao asked, “What should I do?”
Li Du said, “Do you have to ask this? Keep grinding, of course. There should be jade in all the ten stones, right?”
They did grind until they could not grind anymore, because Muna represented certainty. Once there it was a water source, there would be full jade, it was just wrapped by a layer of stone.
The polishing master carefully turned, and there was stone powder flying out. With the stone layer ground off, more green was seen.
All were excited when they saw that, Zhong Dapao and Liu Zi most of all. “Oh my God, damn it! This is a big rise! Full green, Master Pao!”
“The texture is fine. It’s indeed a rise. You are in good luck.”
“This time it is a glass species, a beautiful high ice species!”
“The water source is very beautiful and the species is fine, but the main issue is to see if there is a crack behind….”
Zhong Dapao groaned like a desperate gambler as he whispered at the grindstone, “No crack, no crack, no crack!”
Li Du pulled him back and said, “Do you want to die? The blade will cut off your head!”
The outer stone was polished clean. The polishing master said excitedly, “Master Pao, good luck, no crack! Good source! You are going to be rich!”
“Haha!” Zhong Dapao held up the cantaloupe-sized stone and laughed wildly.
Liu Zi jumped and shouted, “Firecracker, let’s put on some firecracker! Ten thousand times, no, I’ll make it a hundred thousand!”
Zhong Dapao snapped at him directly, “Give it a rest with your motherf**ker firecracker! Save some money, ten thousand firecrackers is enough to buy 400 to 500 catties of rice. Besides, it’s Brother Li’s, not ours!”
Liu Zi eventually calmed down and said unwillingly, “Damn, I waited for this day for several decades, can’t I just be happy?”
Li Du took the piece of jade and looked at it. The stone was not big, but the water source was quite good, containing vitreous burnish, quality of a material that was exquisite and pure without blemish. The color was pure and bright, showing its seductive beauty although it was not yet totally polished.
This was indeed a good jade. It had high purity and was a little translucent under the sunlight, with a slight tinge of blue. This was a type of stone that the professionals called transparent jadeite.
Generally speaking, the more light could penetrate through the glass species jadeite, the more valuable it was, because the quality was better. Such jade was harder than usual.
Looking at the jadeite, Zhong Dapao began to sigh, “Oh, glass species, good glass species! Unfortunately, no color, which is annoying. If the species is good, there will be no color, but when there is color the species will not come with it. It would be good if it had some color…”
“You are too damn greedy,” the polishing master said angrily. “I don’t see many pieces of colored glass species in a year here. It’s rare to see even such a piece of glass jade!”
Li Du asked, “How much is such a stone worth?”
Zhong Dapao said, “As you said, six million as a starting price is not too high! Sixteen million if it has a bit of green!”
Li Du said, “Okay, continue grinding. There are so many stones. If we are lucky, there might be another one!”
The polishing master said, laughing, “Dream on! God has blessed you by giving you a stone like this. If there is another piece, it means you are the favorite of fate!”
He cut the stones one by one. Four or five of them were broken, and when there were only two left, he touched one of them, rubbed off one side of the skin, and there was water in it again!
The Canton was in an uproar:
“Damn, this type is too lucky! Two glass species in one bunch of stones? Are you kidding?”
“Get out of the way! Let me see! Damn, this is a good water source…”
“This bastard is getting rich!”
Zhong Dapao pinched his leg and shouted excitedly, “It’s true! It’s true! Liu Zi, we have two rises. It’s two green glass species!”
The polishing master asked, “What do you want to do with it? If you sell it now, you can get about a million. Or do you want to cut a little more?”
Liu Zi excitedly shouted, “F**k, cut it!”
Li Du stared at him and said, “No cutting! We have already cut one. We’ll sell this one.”
Liu Zi shouted, “Sell it? Brother, what is wrong with you?”
Zhong Dapao wanted to cut it too. He hesitated and said, “Brother Li, think twice. This is a Muna stone, and it will show full green jadeite if there is a water source. Wouldn’t it be silly selling it off now?”
Li Du said, “If I were by myself, I’d cut it. I would just sell it off since I had brought both of you along.”
Zhong Dapao was stunned. “What do you mean?”
Li Du said, “It means that I am lucky to buy ten stones and maybe have two jade pieces, but you two are too unlucky. We bought the ten stones together and we will be thankful for one piece of jade. Sell it! How much can we get?”
Zhong Dapao laughed. He disagreed, but Li Du was the one calling the shots. He could only say with a sad face, “Everyone saw that the Muna stone has a water source. Anyone wants it for 600,000?”
“It’s too high, make it cheaper…”
“I will take it,” the middle-aged fat man with the big ears, the one who had been jeering at Zhong Dapao, interrupted. “I’ll buy it for 600,000!”
“605,000, it’s mine!”
“Damn, 610,000, I must buy it! I’ll take a gamble!” The fat man with the big ears shouted.
It was a little risky to bet so much on a roughly polished stone, which was only a little bigger than a melon.
However, there was the glass type stone before them, shining enticingly, and there were people who were willing to bet.
Li Du said impatiently, pointing at the fat man, “Okay, the stone goes to this brother for 610,000.”
Once the money changed hands, Zhong Dapao gave the stone to the winning bidder, who elbowed his way to the front of the line and shoved the stone at the polishing master. “Polish it for me, polish it immediately, I want everyone to see my good luck! It must contain the finest piece of jade this place has ever seen!”
Li Du had a stone that was still uncut. He took it and threw it back into the backpack.
Seeing this, Liu Zi asked hurriedly, “What is this? Why don’t you want to cut it?”
Li Du squinted at him and said, “Do you really expect us to get lucky three times out of ten? Are you serious? Why don’t you have a little humility in your requests from God?”
Liu Zi was not angry at Li Du’s sarcasm. He merely laughed and said, “You have a stroke of good luck.”
Li Du gave him the stone. “Here you go, take it back as a memorial and move to the next station.”
Zhong Dapao asked, “Aren’t we going to stay and take a look?”
Li Du smiled and said, “What do you want to see? If there is jade, we will regret it. If there is no jade, why should we see it? It’s a waste of time either way. So, let’s leave!”
Liu Zi touched his chin and said, “Right, Brother Li has a point.”
“Besides,” Li Du smiled, “How could there be such good luck as having two jade pieces in ten stones? It’s mathematically impossible.”
