CH 21.3

The Stone Solver wiped the beads of sweat from his brow and responded with an okay.

He examined the course of the locks and sills on the rough stones once more, then cut near the bottom quarter.

With a single cut, a white stone on the surface was revealed.

Mr. Yu frowned, but he understood that rough stones couldn’t be full of jadeite. It would only happen if there were no cracks or locks.

He set aside the scrap with the white stone that had become visible from the cut and instructed the Stone Solver to continue cutting the one with the locks.

The Stone Solver delineated the line in two or three centimeters and then dropped the cut steadily.

Bai Jing looked up at the big screen and saw that the cut surface was full of damaged jade; the locks had gone in!

And the locks were as dense as a spider’s web, forming a devastating radial pattern all the way to the inside, and based on the distribution and direction of the locks, there was little hope for at least half of the jadeite’s flesh.

Mr. Yu entered into a trance for a moment but quickly came back to his senses, consoling himself.

It didn’t matter. As long as the locks hadn’t eaten up all the flesh, it was still possible to gamble on a rise. It would just be a small rise instead of a great gain.

When the Stone Solver made his second cut, the atmosphere became tense and everyone held their breath as they focused on his movements: it was either a bet up or a bet down, it was either do or die!

Following Mr. Yu’s instructions, the Stone Solver made a direct cut right in the middle of the rough stone, however when the cut was revealed, the crowd sighed heavily in their hearts repeatedly.

The flesh of the jadeite inside was cut to pieces by tiny locks, and not only did the fracture not disappear, it was even worse than one would have expected.

At the sight of this scene, Mr. Yu felt as if he had been struck violently on the head with a hammer and for a brief moment, he felt a sense of dizziness which would have caused him to fall to the ground if it hadn’t been for the support of his friend next to him.

Fortunately, Mr. Yu himself had been through a great deal of experience so he recovered in a few moments, but his face was ashen and his voice took on an indescribable hoarseness: “Master, just one more cut. “

This was his last hope. It wasn’t for the bet to go up, it was just for it not to collapse too much.

The expression on the Stone Solver’s face was equally bad.

After all, just a few minutes ago, he thought he had solved a great gain of rough stone himself. He didn’t expect it to collapse in the blink of an eye.

He took a deep breath and without further thought, cut the rough stone that had rubbed out of the skylight in two.

The moment he saw the cut, Mr. Yu closed his eyes in pain.

There was no hope. The cut was only green two or three centimeters from the skylight and although it hadn’t cracked, it had collapsed badly, not to mention that the fine lines were still there. It was just not obvious.

Mr. Yu’s voice was hoarse as he asked: “Does anyone want this piece of rough stone?”

The few rough stone dealers who had made bids just now looked at each other. One of them bid hesitantly, “Sixty thousand starcoins.”

However the moment he finished saying this, he regretted it.

He had made a mistake. The rest of the rough stone might be just relying on the color green at the top! So wasn’t it a waste buying it–

At this price, Mr. Yu’s body shook violently and a bitter smile appeared on his pale face.

In just a few minutes, a rough stone of one and a half million starcoins had risen to over four million, and then to sixty thousand. This truly fulfilled the old adage: one cut for the poor, one for the rich, one for heaven, and one for hell!

This feeling of falling from heaven to hell was something he had learned today.

Mr. Yu’s eyes were red as he looked at the rough stones dealer: “Okay, 60,000 starcoins and this rough stone is yours.”

He just wanted to get rid of this rough stone as soon as possible.

The rough stones dealer laughed awkwardly, “That, Mr. Yu, I just had a brain freeze and accidentally called out the wrong bid.

To be honest with you, this rough stone …… is really not much of a gamble. I was going to say 10,000 starcoins but got carried away and said 60,000 starcoins.

A big boss like you wouldn’t be bothered by my mistake, right?”

“You–!” Mr. Yu was so angry that his body started shaking.

This rough stone had collapsed and he was even taunted in such a way, it caused his face to turn purple for a while. He was so angry that he couldn’t speak; instead, he coughed violently a few times, which made him look very wretched.

The atmosphere in the shop was tinged with a sense of gravity as several of Mr. Yu’s friends rushed forward to assist him while glaring at the rough stone dealer with unfriendly expressions on their faces.

As the two parties confronted each other, a clear and pleasant voice came from the back, “Mr. Yu, I’ll give you 60,000 starcoins; can you sell the other part of the rough stone to me?”

The crowd turned around spontaneously, making way for the speaker.

They only saw a young man in a white jumper come forward. He was slender, fair-complexioned and elegant, except for the black-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose that blocked most of his face which looked rather odd.

Many of those who knew what to look for recognized the brand of the clothes he was wearing. It was made of a high quality, hand-made material that was soft and skin-friendly, light as a feather and quite expensive.

Immediately, they thought in their hearts, this must be some young master of a family who had nothing better to do.

Bai Jing had arrived late, so he had positioned himself against the wall at the edge of the crowd, watching the rough stone being solved on the big screen.

When Mr. Yu had casually placed the scrap, which had been divided into a white stone from the cut earlier on the table, it hadn’t been far from his hand.

At that moment he had leaned in a little closer, looked closely at the ‘scrap’ and found that there were inconspicuous bands of pine underneath which were light in color and had a good chance of producing jadeite.

Most importantly, he’d had a hunch as soon as he saw the rough stone, a strange feeling, without any reason, that it contained jadeite.

So Bai Jing had pushed his senses deep into the rough stone which was about two-thirds the size of a football and he had actually sensed an active response. The activity inside was very active, it was only slightly weaker than the rough stones that had jadeite of the ice variety inside them.

Once about three centimeters was cut off along the outside of the white stone, the rest was all jadeite, estimated to be at six or seven kilograms.

With this ‘scrap’ in place, this half-bet rough stone wasn’t likely to collapse.

Bai Jing walked straight up to Mr. Yu along the path made by the crowd, reminding him unobtrusively.

“You actually have another rough stone. Would you like to try it again, just in case it produces jadeite?”

“Which rough stone is he talking about? It’s not that scrap, right?”

“He should forget it. That scrap has a white cut, how can it have jadeite inside?”

“That’s right. The other half didn’t even produce jadeite when there were locks and green, so how can that scrap–“

The crowd murmured among themselves, none of them looking favorably at the other half of the rough stone. They even dismissed Bai Jing as a dandy.

The rough stones dealer even smiled and said, “Hehe, young master, this is your first time gambling on rough stones, right?”

“Listen to me, don’t waste your starcoins. You can do something else with that 60,000 starcoins, why buy a piece of scrap?”

Jin Mao also came over and whispered, “Jing Ge, you are now a level 1 Stone Gambler, so you have to keep the statistics on the rate of your increase in bets high. How about… you forget this scrap?”

He knew that although Bai Jing looked a bit cold on the outside, he was very soft and kind on the inside, so he thought he wanted to help this Mr. Yu out.

Sigh, 60,000 starcoins wasn’t a small amount. Not to mention the waste of starcoins, it would be a big loss if it delayed his promotions.

Bai Jing shook his head gently at him then looked back at Mr. Yu, waiting for his response.

At the sound of the teenager’s clear voice, the anger in Mr. Yu’s heart had lifted a little.

But at this moment, he didn’t want to see the collapsed rough stone anymore, nor did he want to hear anything about them.

“Do you really want to buy it?

Cough, cough. Here’s the deal, take it for 30,000 starcoins, no more. “

Mr. Yu dropped the price by half straight away, and when he received the 30,000 starcoins, he and a few friends didn’t stay a moment longer, leaving immediately in a hover car.

For 30,000 starcoins, Bai Jing obtained two cut-down rough stones: a rough stone with a ‘skylight’ and a ‘scrap’ rough stone with a white floral facet.

The rough stones dealer who had offered 10,000 starcoins wasn’t happy with this result.

If this young master hadn’t messed with his deal, he would have gotten the rough stone with the skylight for 10,000 starcoins, which could be considered a good deal.

Thinking this way, he said grimly, “Since young master has bought it, why don’t you unravel it to take a look?

You must have a good eye since you offered such a high price, but I’m wondering if we’d have the honor of staying with you in order to be able to broaden our horizons?”

“Yes, unravel it.”

“Let us see if this piece of scrap has jadeite or not.”

Most of the people around hadn’t yet dispersed, so there was an uproar in the shop as they watched.

Bai Jing looked at the rough stones dealer, his gaze as sharp as a knife behind his lenses: “Alright.”

These rough stones were originally meant to be unraveled, and he had planned to save this ‘scrap’ for last in order to unravel the other rough stones that were sure to break the bet first.

However since this rough stones dealer was being so aggressive, why shouldn’t he go along with it?

Hopefully, when the jadeite inside was solved, he wouldn’t regret it.