Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Li Du left the Canton area casually without looking back.
Zhong Dapao wanted to keep his reputation, so he followed up proudly with his chest puffed out.
Liu Zi did not care about his reputation, so he stayed back and tiptoed over to see the cutting process.
After a while, he trotted up and followed them. Zhong Dapao frowned and asked, although he knew, “Where did you go just now?”
Liu Zi cooperated and answered with a smile, “To look at the cutting of the stone that the fat man bought.”
Zhong Dapao was interested and dropped his mask of cool arrogance. “Oh, so how was it?”
Liu Zi laughed. “Do you want to know? Haha, it was a great loss!”
When he said this, he ran to Li Du’s side, nudged him with his shoulder, smiled and said, “Little brother, you are something! Do you have a pair of see-through eyes?”
He turned to Zhong Dapao and said, “I have read a novel in which the man has a pair of see-through eyes. He could see through the ore and find out about any precious stones hidden within.”
Zhong Dapao spat at him, “Go to the mines and work if you don’t have anything to do all day. Why do you have to read such books? By the way, what happened to the fat man?”
Liu Zi said, “It was the same as last time I was in a teahouse. The stones that Lu Dayou and Liu Dao used to cheat Brother Li had a water source too. The situation was the same.”
Hearing Liu Zi’s words, Zhong Dapao looked at Li Du with a surprised expression on his face.
When he was in the teahouse, he saw the anti-deception skill of Li Du. This was the second time something similar happened, and it was hard to believe it was a coincidence.
Liu Zi thought it was no coincidence either, so he asked Li Du, “Brother Li, how did you do that?”
Li Du acted dumb. “How did I do what?”
Liu Zi said, “How did you know which stone was valuable and which was worthless?”
Li Du shook his head and said. “I didn’t know. How could I?”
Liu Zi pursed his lips. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
He leaned forward and stared into Li Du’s eyes. Li Du stared back at him.
After looking for a while, Liu Zi said, “You did not rest well these past two days. You have red eyes.”
Li Du kept his silence.
Zhong Dapao pushed him aside and said, “All right, why do you ask so many questions? Want to earn a Ph.D. in this? Just follow Master Li honestly.”
Li Du laughed. Liu Zi called him ‘little brother’, while Zhong Dapao called him ‘Master Li’. His position was definitely getting higher as far as they were concerned.
He asked Zhong Dapao, “Why didn’t you sell off the glass jadeite inside the Canton?”
Zhong Dapao said proudly, “What’s the hurry? Let’s have a good look first. I’ve never seen such good water source jadeite this year. What’s more, it’s a waste to sell it in the Canton when we can sell it to the businessmen in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. They will pay a lot of money for it!”
Li Du strolled around the market, which was very busy in the morning. Thousands of people were bustling around. People were elbowing each other as they walked past the stalls, haggling and buying.
He bought stones several times during this period, but those were only seed materials, of the same shape and size as the pebbles he had bought before, not large stones.
After a few bets, the seed material that he bought was mostly a loss, but in this process, he gained two jadeite pieces. He now had three, including the glass species they got previously.
Liu Zi borrowed an army saber from a friend of his. He now wore it on his belt, saying, “We are now rich people with millions in our possession. There might be types who want to get their hands on us.”
Li Du rubbed his head and said, “Damn, if you were not so high profile, who would know that we have three pieces of jade?”
Liu Zi smiled in embarrassment and said, “What’s the use in wealth if you can’t brag about it a little?”
“So what?” Zhong Dapao said, rolling his eyes. “I would rather be rich than have a reputation of wealth that could cost me my life. There are some unsavory types out there!”
Li Du walked around in the market, feeling that he really did not need to look for the jade vein.
The space-time bugs were very well-suited to this type of environment. There were many stones in the mine with jade materials from mountains, as well as seed materials. Li Du knew clearly what was hidden under the layer of stone.
The statistical probability of finding jade was small. Only about a dozen stones out of a hundred would contain jade, which also differed in quality. High-quality jade was even rarer and more precious.
There was a lot of jade in the market, but there were few pieces with a good water source. If Li Du bought all of them, and if the market could take it, he could make at least a billion there.
And this was just one out of six, with five more waiting for him.
Li Du and the others left after circling the old Hpakant area.
“Where are they going?” asked Li Du, as many vendors pulled up their stalls near noon.
Liu Zi bit his piece of sugar cane and said, “To work. They are going to the mine to collect the stones, and to the gravel piles to look for discarded treasure.”
The busy area at noon was in Xiangdong, a field area not far away. They drove to get there quickly.
The road was as bad as ever, but fortunately, they drove an SUV. Otherwise, they would not be able to get in.
Li Du shook his head and said, “The road is too bad. The owners of the farm are so rich, why won’t they pay to pave a good road?”
Liu Zi laughed. “Who would pay so much money? It’s too expensive to build roads, and anyway, the bosses know that people would come even if they had to drive over knives.”
Zhong Dapao smiled and said, “Is this road bad? You’ll know what a bad road means when we get to Mukan or Huikha. When these big cars can’t get in, you’ll have to ride a motorbike!”
Hpakant was an old mining area, the earliest to produce high-quality jade. Now as the veins dwindled, they yielded less and less good products each year.
Xiang Dong was not the same. The field area was younger, and people had found good materials in it only recently, so Li Du found more good-quality stones there.
However, the seeds he bought were mostly a loss, and many people in the area, who knew Zhong Dapao and seemed not to be on good terms with him, laughed at them.
Zhong Dapao and Liu Zi were no longer angry. They followed Li Du at ease, looking very confident.
The last big place they planned to visit that day was in Longken. The Hpakant local field area was divided a little messily. Some maps marked it as having six areas, some as eight, and yet others as ten. As for the mines, there were thousands of them!
The names of these sites were not fixed either. There were several names, some after the current owner of the site, and then there would be old names, aliases, various translations and so on.
Among them, the best field was Longken, no matter how it was divided. This was beyond doubt.
Longken was called “Xinchang” in its early days, and the name was still in circulation in the market today.
This area was located in the upper reaches of the Wulong river, starting from the bank of the Wulong river in the east, with a length of 40 kilometers from east to west and a width of 30 kilometers from north to south.
In recent years, there was a saying in the jade industry that stated, “The world’s green water flows from Longken”, which meant that the area was the world’s best source of jade.
This was certainly an exaggeration, but it clearly demonstrated the value of the mine.
