CH 8.1

Before going to Zone D, Bai Jing casually picked a smaller piece of material in Zone E and bought it for a thousand starcoins.

He had just used his perception ability to detect and found that there was no jadeite in this piece. In this way, two pieces of material, one betting up and one betting across, wouldn’t attract too much attention.

The arrangement of the rough stones in the sections in Zone D wasn’t much different from that of the sections in Zone E. The only difference was that the rough stones here were sorted according to three grades, marked with a price tag of 1W, 3W and 5W, and the protection of the rough stones was stricter.

Zone D was also full of people who were mostly alone or in groups of three or two, but there was one particular group of people who were extremely conspicuous. There were about twenty of them, and they were crowded around a young man dressed in luxurious clothes with great force.

Bai Jing took one look and then withdrew his gaze and began to look carefully at the rough stones.

The materials in Zone D were obviously much better than those in Zone E. Most of it were fine leather and sandy skin materials.

If there were any coarse leather materials, they had either had pine flowers or python bands, etc on them. The surfaces had their own characteristics and each had a certain gambling potential, so it was difficult to tell the good from the bad with Bai Jing’s current knowledge.

It seems gambling on stones was far from being as simple as he had thought.

Even if he had mastered a lot of theoretical knowledge and knew the performance of all the rough materials like the back of his hand; without rich experience in gambling stones, without systematic guidance, or without that little bit of luck, he wouldn’t be able to solve a jadeite.

What’s more, Bai Jing’s theoretical knowledge was still in its infancy.

He walked along the stone platform and observed as he went, jotting down a few notes in his notebook from time to time.

Not long after, Bai Jing keenly heard noisy chatter coming from not far away. Lifting his eyes, he found a lot of people pointing at a piece of material as they gathered around it. It was the same group of people he had seen earlier.

The other browsers in Zone D were attracted by the chatter, hence the number of people surrounding that piece of material grew.

The young man in the center of the group was about twenty years old, wearing a silk shirt of good quality, with handsome features and the arrogance of a wealthy young master.

His chin was slightly raised at the moment and he was speaking rather proudly to the people around him about something.

Bai Jing saw a silver badge pinned to the young man’s chest, with a circle of pentagrams on the outside, marked with the letter ‘3’ in the center.

Actually, he had seen this kind of badge on the Stone Gamblers that had been battling against each other in the Gu Group’s gambling house, but he just hadn’t concerned himself with that at the time, but now it seemed that it was a sign of a Stone Gambler’s level.

The youth’s name was Min Qing Shi, and he had become a level 3 Stone Gambler at the age of twenty-two with outstanding qualifications. However, he had just lost a stone gambling battle and was in a bad mood.

When he’d heard that Young Master Gu had come to Proxima Star, Min Qing Shi, who was a Stone Gambler immediately signed up for a stone gambling battle and spent a whole day carefully selecting five pieces of rough stones.

And last night, he had been so excited that he hadn’t slept at all, hoping to show off in front of his beloved, but to his horror, all the pieces he had chosen collapsed!

And he had gone up against an insignificant level 2 Stone Gambler at that, who had just happened to open a piece of jadeite!

Although it was a fancy green jadeite of poorer variety, it undoubtedly dealt a deep blow to Young Master Min’s self-esteem and made his heart burst with hatred.

How dare that trash make him lose face in front of his most adored idol –

His face grim as he left the gambling house, Min Qing Shi sent someone to stop that level 2 Stone Gambler silently in a secluded place and then beat him severely before he was able to relieve his anger.

Then he came here for a break and deliberately chose Zone D, where the rough stones were less expensive.

Looking around at this group of rubbish who weren’t even apprentice gamblers desperately pandering to him because of the silver medallion on his chest, he finally felt better.

If he could open a good jadeite in Zone D, he was sure Young Master Gu would be impressed.

Thinking this way, a smile appeared on his lips as he lowered his stance to explain to the crowd: ”As I said earlier, apart from looking at the distribution of crystals on the surface, the pine flowers and python bands on top, etc., gambling stones also depend on ringworm and locks.

Locks and sills are the cracks on a rough stone. Large ones are called locks and small ones are called sills, and as the saying goes: ‘I would rather bet on the color than the locks, and there is no fear of large cracks but of small sills’,

“Look at this piece of material. It looks like it would produce jadeite, but–“

Min Qing Shi’s white-gloved hand pointed to a very small crack on the underside of the stone, “This fine lock is hidden very deeply and spreads to the interior, so you wouldn’t even notice it unless you look closely. It will definitely collapse if you buy it.”

Min Qing Shi was disgusted with rough stones being dirty, so he wore white gloves on a regular basis. These gloves were the most cutting-edge technology, priced at one million starcoins and when worn, was as if they was nothing on the hands, with no difference in feel from direct contact.

“Wow, it really is a lock. This is too much of an eye test. If it was someone else, they wouldn’t be able to see it.”

“Yes, Young Master Min is really something else. He is worthy of being a level 3 Stone Gambler!”

“Thank you Young Master Min for explaining it to everyone, we’ve learnt another lesson.”

Listening to the compliments from the crowd, Min Qing Shi couldn’t help but feel smug.

Hmph, his eyesight had been praised by Master Gu Liubai, who was a level 8 Stone Gambler, but it was a pity that this most honorable Master Stone Gambler in the empire never took on disciples easily and was a direct descendant of the Gu family, so there was nothing he could do even after all his efforts.

Bai Jing had padded into the crowd since just now, listening carefully to the youth’s explanation while observing the piece of material carefully.

As his exposure to gambling stones was too short, it was the right time to urgently absorb the knowledge.

The youth spoke well and it was evident that he had received very formal training, yet Bai Jing had a slightly different opinion about his judgement of this piece of material.

Admittedly the youth’s eyesight was already excellent, but Bai Jing, with his extraordinary eyesight brought about by his supernatural ability, could see even more thoroughly than the youth could.

There were indeed a few locks and cracks at the bottom of that piece of material, however they didn’t go deep inside, but were affected by the cracks and withering of the rough stone itself, thus creating an illusion of depth.

To prove his suspicions, Bai Jing pushed his perception deep into the rough stone and sure enough, he felt a super active reaction when he was almost at the center, even more active than the ice jadeite opened by Li Yu last time!

It was highly likely that this was glass jadeite!

Bai Jing’s heart moving, he immediately planned to buy the rough stone. Glass jadeite could be found but not sought, so since he had found it, he would never give it away.

He still had more than 10,000 starcoins left in his account, which was just enough to buy this piece of material that was marked at 10,000.

As noon approached, there were more and more people in Zone D. When the newly arrived guests saw the group of people gathered here, they moved towards them in curiosity.

Bai Jing lowered his eyes, his long and slender eyelashes fluttering gently like a small fan, casting a silhouette behind his lenses.

He had planned to wait until the youth and his group had left before buying the rough stone so as not to attract unnecessary attention, but he was afraid it was too late now. If someone else preempted him –

Without delay, Bai Jing avoided the crowd and went straight to the rough stone. Sweeping his light brain at the number marked ‘D025’, it showed that payment was complete, then he carefully put the rough stone into his shopping cart.

His action naturally wasn’t hidden from the sight of others.

Seeing that this teenager, dressed frugally and wearing a pair of old-fashioned black-rimmed glasses, had bought the rough stone they had just discussed, the eyes of the crowd turned contemptuous, while some were surprised.

“Young man, didn’t you hear? Young Master Min said there are locks at the bottom of this stone.”

“Che-, I saw him just now. He’s a novice but still doesn’t listen to advice. He deserves to lose his bet!”

“Bah, you’ve gone crazy from wanting to make money right? How dare you buy this rough stone?”

“Hey, look at the way he’s dressed. This kind of slum trash expects to get rich overnight? That’s fu*king amusing…”

Bai Jing turned a deaf ear to all the taunts, his face terribly calm.

No amount of talk from these people could harm him, as it wasn’t as powerful as the claws of zombies in the end times.

Today he’d had a good harvest. Two of the three pieces of rough stones he had bought had jadeite, and one of them was of the rare glass variety.

He planned to solve the other two rough stones first, and then wait until the crowd had dispersed to pick one or two pieces of cheaper rough stones at random and mix them up to solve the glass jadeite.

This way, even if someone saw it, they would only think that he was lucky and wouldn’t suspect anything.