Chapter 640: Massive Capital
Translator: Udeze Editor: Udeze
Star City Convention and Exhibition Center.
Security guards in black security uniforms numbering over 100 men secured the order in the venue. The guests who came to participate in the Stone Gambling could be too many to count. Tang Xiu just entered the venue while holding Tang Xiaohan, and with a glance, he guesstimated that there were at least two thousand people here, creating a very busty and lively scene.
“How come there are so many people here?” Asked Tang Xiu, feeling a bit incredible.
“The Stone Gambling should have been held in the Blue City,” said Long Zhengyu with a smile. “But some rich and powerful bigwigs in Star City moved this Stone Gambling event to our city after using all sorts of relationships and means. Hence the reason why the riches who love jade came to Star City from all over the country. That’s right, have you heard the news about the hotels in our city? All the hotels in Star City are fully occupied with guests now.”
“How many raw stones material did these local millionaires get? How can they attract rich people from all over the country?” Asked Tang Xiu, surprised.
“It’s massive in number, I tell you,” said Long Zhengyu in a whisper. “I even heard that they pulled half of the raw stones produced in the Southern region. Also, some businessmen who own a jade business also heard the news and thus came over, bringing a batch of their raw stones to sell. Shortly put, you can spend all the money you have today.”
With eyes lit up, Tang Xiu recalled that he only had a few raw stones and jade materials at this time, and he just realized it upon hearing Long Zhengyu’s narration, so this occasion was like it prepared for him.
Going along with the stream of people entering the exhibition center, Tang Xiu now could clearly see a lot of raw stones piled up in a temporarily built shed, each of which had its own staff taking care of it, while each pile of raw stones had a price tag on it.
Some stones were priced at a few hundred yuan, some were priced at a few thousand yuan, but some others were priced at a few million. What made Tang Xiu feel even more incredible was that several stones that were priced at more than 10 million. This was just merely the scene he saw at random at the outermost shed, and there were at least dozens of sheds more when he looked around.
“Zhengyu, do you also plan to play some?” Tang Xiu turned to look at Long Zhengyu and asked with a smile.
“I’m a poor bloke, mate.” Long Zhengyu shook his head. “I will still be fine if you want me to fork out a few hundred thousand yuan, but I’m going to go broke if you ask me to fork out a million. I’m really a poor bloke!”
“Bah, go to hell.” Tang Xiu cussed. “Nobody can be called as rich under the Sun if you’re a poor bloke, man! You don’t need to act like you’re a sorry figure! With so much money, why bother investing in the business, then? Besides, aren’t you the one who manages my construction projects? Supposing that you really can’t turn over the capital, you still can use it for the occasion just fine, no?”‘
“Nope, that won’t do.” Long Zhengyu sternly rebuked. “What I get from your projects is being used to rebuild Nine Dragons Island. Unless the project is done, only then can I use the profit, else using it now before the project is finished is a big no no.”
“Whatever you say, then!” Tang Xiu shook his head. “In any case, I won’t bother with your things, you have your own way around it.”
As they continued moving forward with the stream of people, Tang Xiu’s gazed continued sweeping through the raw stones in the sheds. After having observed several sheds, he finally stopped in front of a shed that sold jade materials. Rough raw stones also filled this shed, but most of them were jade materials. The jades, however, were obviously just taken from the pile of raw stones.
“The quality is average.” After observing it a for a while, Tang Xiu had already his own judgment inwardly.
“Do you want to buy some of them, two gentlemen? These jades of mine are of good quality.” A middle-aged man with a plump belly asked the duo with a beaming smile. Behind him were four young men in a suit who kept scanning the guests in the shed.
Tang Xiu put Tang Xiaohan down and walked inside while holding his hand. There, only then did he respond and smilingly said, “We’re going to have a look at them first. Might buy some if we find some good ones.”
The smile on the middle-aged man immediately turned more bright. He patted his chest and said, “Two little brothers, these jades of mine here are definitely of good quality. I have Jade Seeds, Nephrite Jade, and also Jadeite. And you can be sure that these jades here have absolutely fair prices.”
While observing the jade materials and the prices tagged on them, Tang Xiu forced a smile inwardly. The jade materials here were tagged with high prices. Though he was not short on money at this moment, wanting to hoard a massive number of jades at such prices would make him bleed, as it would cost him a lot of money.
Ten minutes later, Tang Xiu turned to the middle-aged man who was currently greeting other guests. He called him and said, “I have seen all the jades you have here, but the price is way too expensive, and most of them are only of average quality. Let me put it this way, I’ll take all of them if you give me a fair price for all the jade materials here.”
“What?” The plump middle-aged man was dumbfounded, and he looked at Tang Xiu with an incredulous expression, saying, “Tell me, Little Brother, are you kidding me? I got tons of jade here, and all of them should be no less than 1.8 billion…”
Tang Xiu raised his hand to interrupt him and seriously said, “I’m not joking with you. I need to buy a lot of precious stones and jades, and you happen to have ready-made ones here. We can strike a business deal directly as long as we can agree on the price.”
The plump middle-aged man looked more serious as he carefully observed Tang Xiu a few times. Then, he suddenly furrowed his brows and said, “Where have I seen you before, Little Brother? How come I feel like you look so familiar?”
“I can guarantee this is our first time meeting,” said Tang Xiu. “This face of mine is common among people, so you feel that I look a bit familiar.”
The middle-aged man nodded without speaking. He looked around first and then spoke in a deep tone, “I’ll give you a 10% discount if you really buy all the jade materials I have here.”
“40% is my bottom line.” Tang Xiu shook his head.
“You don’t bargain for such lower price like that, young man.” The fat middle-aged man called out loudly. “40% off? I will eat quite a loss if I sell them at a 40% discount. If you’re not serious in buying, I had better forget it.”
“We can’t have a business deal then, it seems.” Tang Xiu shook his head. “It doesn’t matter, though. I’ll look elsewhere since you don’t want to accept it.”
Upon seeing Tang Xiu’s intention of leaving, the fat middle-aged man hastily said, “15%! How about 15%? This is the bottom line I can afford.”
“40%.” Tang Xiu still shook his head.
Having said that, he grabbed Tang Xiaohan’s hand and walked toward the outside with Long Zhengyu.
The expression of the fat middle-aged man was constantly changing. He looked at Tang Xiu’s back and wanted to call him, but the jade he bought did not come at a cheap price. If he were to sell it to Tang Xiu at 40% discount, not only would he not make a profit, but he would also lose some money. He would break even if he was to sell them at a 30% discount.
20% discount was his bottom line!
Just as Tang Xiu and Long Zhengyu were about to step of the shed, the plum middle-aged man strode to overtake them and shouted, “How about 20%, Little Brother? We’ll have a deal if you can agree with it. But if you can’t, you can have a look at another shed.”
Tang Xiu’s pace came to a halt as he re-examined the jade stones in the shed. “What is the estimated total price for all the jades you have here?”
“A total of 645 million yuan before the discount. We have sold some of them before, and the remaining goods should be around 610 million,” answered the fat middle-aged man.
“Then we have a deal!” Tang Xiu nodded after giving it a thought. “Calculate the price with the discount, and then have all the jade materials here delivered to the address I’ll give you.”
The middle-aged complied and quickly calculated the total price of the remaining jade stones. After spending some time to calculate, he took the bill, came to Tang Xiu and said, “It will be 485.32 million yuan. Since Little Brother is so straight, I’ll cut off the fraction of the number for you, for a total of 485 million yuan. You need to pay 85 million deposit in advance if you want me to deliver them to your designated address, and the address must not be out of Shuangqing Province. We can settle the account for the goods afterward.”
“No need to be that troublesome,” said Tang Xiu. “Just send your people to load all the jade materials into a car, and then come with me together. My place is not far from here and is located in the Star City urban district. When the goods have arrived in my place, we’ll conclude with the payment.”
The plump middle-aged man immediately nodded and said, “No problem. I’ll have it arranged now.”
While looking at the hundreds of blocks of stones in the corner, Tang Xiu then said with a smile, “Would you like to sell all those stones to me, too? I’ll give you 15 million yuan for each, that should do, no? How about 500 million yuan and I take all of them?”
“The total price of each of those raw stones is 30 million, Little Brother.” The fat middle-aged man smiled bitterly. “Even if I give you a 20% discount, it’s still about 25 million yuan. You… you’re really too ruthless.”
“What if I buy raw jade materials from you in the future? As long as the quality is not worse than these ones, I’ll buy them from you however many you can provide. How about it?” Said Tang Xiu with a smile.
The plump middle-aged man stared blankly for a moment and then asked with an astounded expression, “Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious.” Tang Xiu chuckled. “But you shouldn’t be too ruthless, either. I won’t be able to afford it if you send me billions of jade materials that are worth billions of yuan in a year!”
The plump middle-aged man was excited. Though he felt the following words from Tang Xiu were a bit unreasonable, for a person who could buy jade stones worth 500 million yuan was definitely very rich, more so that he would also buy his jade stones again in the future, so the tens of millions of yuan loss he would suffer would be recovered. After thinking about this, he quickly said, “Deal!”
Long Zhengyu, who had been standing next to Tang Xiu and saw the two men happily struck a deal, suddenly said, “Aren’t you way too extravagant, Tang Xiu? You don’t do jade business, yet you bought 500-million-yuan worth of jade all of sudden. What are you going to use it for?”
“Well, let’s say that I’m going to craft a batch of jadeware whenever I have some spare time later,” said Tang Xiu with a smile.
Long Zhengyu immediately understood. He knew that Tang Xiu owned Nine Dragons Island with a big castle built on the island, and more manors were likely to be built after the reconstruction. If at that time the utensils on Nine Dragons Island were all made of jade, that would definitely look very elegant and classy. But still, spending so much money on jadeware carvings… Wasn’t this way too extravagant and nothing but burning your own money?
At this moment, the fat middle-aged man was stunned.
Tang Xiu? Could it be that he is from the Star City Chinese Medical Hospital… that miracle-working doctor, Tang Xiu?