CH 82

Chapter 82: Counterfeit Crackdown

Generally, jadeite shops would have cutting services, so water guns were necessary. The Toby tribesman immediately picked up some water and sprinkled it on the black sand skin jadeite.

Then just like what Lin Luo said, the water was not absorbed at all. It stayed on the surface for a long time, then slowly dripped to the ground.

“This, this… Is this piece of jadeite really fake? But the jade in this window is brightly colored and has a great texture!”

“I have to praise this boss’s craftsmanship. This quality of counterfeit is a rare precision craft. It uses another piece of jade of the same jadeite type inlaid on the cut surface of a mountain stone or water stone to be used as a window. The edge of the insert has been carefully polished to make it look flat, and then sprinkled with grit to cover it up. This kind of forgery method is difficult to identify and is difficult to find it with normal lighting and color filters. In order to find it you must have good eyesight or observe under magnification.” And because Lin Luo had the genes of the first generation of beastkin, his vision had become extremely excellent after the genetic defect was completely cured. There was no way to hide such a little trick from his eyes.

“You, you’re talking nonsense…” The bearded shop owner was still stubbornly refusing to admit it.

Lin Luo wasn’t annoyed, and just smiled and looked at him, “They usually do this kind of inlay after grinding the jadeite themselves and finding that the jade inside was of poor quality. They know the jadeite won’t sell for a good price, so they use this way to disguise it and restore the value of the jadeite. Do you think that after I peel off the sand next to the insert and pull it with a knife, can I take out this embedded piece of color again? Or do you think your skill at forgery is so sophisticated that it’s impossible to discover?

The bearded shop keeper finally changed his face, “I’m sorry, I was wrong. It’s true, I really did some tricks on this piece of jadeite… My Lord, I was just confused for a while…”

“Is this piece of jadeite the only one?” Victor raised his eyebrows slightly.

“This, this, this…” The bearded Theisser hesitated and couldn’t speak, and cold sweat slowly started beading on his forehead.

Victor snorted coldly, walked to the pile of jadeite, randomly pointed to a piece of jadeite that looked good and looked at Lin Luo, “Look at this piece, is it real or not?”

Lin Luo leaned over and found that it was a piece of water stone jadeite with a white salt sand skin. The skin looked very thin, and the python belt and pine flowers were very complete. It seemed that the possibility of gambling was very high.

However, it was also a piece of fake jadeite.

“This piece of jadeite has also been tampered with.” Lin Luo said honestly.

“Oh?” Victor was intrigued. “Talk about it.”

“The python band and pine flower of this jadeite skin are a beautiful color, but the craftsmanship is not as exquisite as the previous one. The green hue has a feeling of neither blue nor yellow, and some burned spots of different sizes can be seen on the surface. If you observed it with a special color filter, you would find that the green would change to red.” Lin Luo pointed to a few places to observe carefully and showed Victor what he could see.

“Hahahaha! Well said!” Victor couldn’t help but applaud him. He didn’t think that this boy, who seemed to be so young, had such a strong ability to bet on rocks. No wonder Andre regarded him so highly! It had to be known that distinguishing fakes was more difficult than betting on rocks. In addition to having extraordinary vision, you also needed to have solid basic skills. Just like the Toby tribesman who had been a regular at the store, he was also a stone gambling enthusiast who was up and down Trade Street all year round. He lost nine bets, but never suspected that this store was selling fakes.

Lin Luo smiled and replied, “My Lord, I’m flattered.”

Since the evidence was conclusive, Victor didn’t need to continue wasting time on the bearded man. He coldly ordered, “Close this shop, arrest the employees, interrogate them carefully, and recover all illegal gains!”

“Yes!” Victor’s subordinates immediately rushed forward and grabbed the bearded man.

The bearded man finally knew that he was afraid. He knelt down with a ‘plop’ and began to ugly cry with a full face of tears, “My Lord, My Lord! I know I was wrong! I know I was wrong! Please be merciful… “

He didn’t think that this seemingly weak Imperial had such a strong background. If he knew that he was backed by the Lord, he would never have attacked him!

It’s said that there is no medicine to take for regret, and even if he were to regret until his intestines were green, it would be difficult to change his execution.

After his subordinates dragged the bearded man away, Victor looked at Lin Luo again and said, “Mr. Lin, this time thanks to you, this scum who was selling fakes was captured.”

“My Lord, you’re being polite, I really didn’t do anything.” Lin Luo noticed that Victor’s attitude towards him seemed to have changed a little, and he became more polite and respectful. It seemed that Andre was right, Victor really was a person who was good at judging the situation.

“You said before that the goods in this store were mixed. If all of them were lost, it would be a pity. I don’t know if you can help to pick out the fake jadeite?” There were a lot of goods in the jadeite stall. There were at least 100 to 200 pieces. It would be really troublesome to pick over. With such a useful stone gambler standing by, it would be too wasteful not to use them.

Lin Luo considered it for a moment, then nodded and agreed. He was idle anyway, so he could take this opportunity to consolidate the knowledge of gambling that he had learned before.

Fake jadeite was basically used to conceal cracks, black spots, damage, and other problems on the skin, and to confuse stone gamblers with false appearances to obtain high profits. However, it wasn’t easy to fake so much jadeite. It was impossible to make every piece so meticulously. Lin Luo’s eyesight was extraordinary and could see those pieces with rough workmanship almost at a glance. As such, he screened the jadeite very quickly. Victor sent a few people to follow him specifically to remove all the fake jadeite he picked out and prepared them to be disposed of in an organized manner.

He just that he didn’t expect that Victor, the noble marquis, had stayed in the shop to watch him sifting through the jadeite with great interest, as if what he was doing was fascinating.

Lin Luo let him be, and focused on screening the jadeite. It only took less than two hours to sort out all the fake jadeite that had been tampered with.

Victor nodded in satisfaction and sent someone to dispose of the fakes. At the same time, he smiled and said to Lin Luo, “Mr. Lin has worked hard. I believe it would be suitable for Mr. Lin to choose two pieces of the remaining jadeite and regard it as a result of the hard work done?”

“No, no, no, it’s just a matter of effort.” Lin Luo quickly refused.

“If it weren’t for Mr. Lin, the swindlers would probably harm our Tobys for a long time. You’ve worked so hard to screen them. We can’t help but pay! You are Sisi’s friend and my friend. If he knows that I made you work for nothing, I’m afraid he will blame me! Please, Mr. Lin, don’t be polite with me.”

Lin Luo knew that although Victor was talking about Sisi, he was actually referring to Andre. If it was Sisi, even with ten people’s courage he wouldn’t dare to blame a dignified marquis, right? Since Victor’s words had come to such a point, it would be too much for him to refuse.

“Well, thank you, My Lord.” Lin Luo had no choice but to agree.

Lin Luo went through the remaining pile of jadeite before he found two pieces of relatively good material and picked them out.

Victor walked over and looked at them slowly, and found that the two pieces of jadeite selected by Lin Luo weren’t big in size, and the exteriors looked mediocre. There were neither python bands nor pine flowers, and there were a lot of black spots on the surface of one piece. Although he wasn’t educated on jadeite gambling, he had a general idea of what skins looked better, so he frowned slightly before saying, “Mr. Lin, do you want to choose two more?”

“Huh?” Lin Luo looked up at him with some uncertainty.

“The performance of these two pieces of jadeite seems poor. As I said, you don’t have to be polite with me. Feel free to choose another two pieces of better jadeite.”

Lin Luo couldn’t help but laugh, “My Lord Victor, you’ve misunderstood, I’m really not being be polite with you. Although these two pieces of jadeite look ordinary, they’re both pieces I’m very optimistic about.”

“Oh? Can you tell me why?” Victor looked suspicious, obviously not believing him.

“Of course.” Lin Luo smiled and pointed to the piece of jadeite on the left. “This piece of jadeite has a hard matrix, dull color, and pits on the surface. It looks a bit like chicken skin, but in fact it’s iron sand skin jadeite, which is a kind of rock with many good qualities. Although there are a few cracks on the surface, they should all be just superficial fissures which won’t cause much influence on the inside. Looking inside the cracks, although there’s a lot of sand there, you can still see a little bit of light color coming out, so I would bet there’s jade in it.”

Then he pointed to the piece of jadeite on the right, “This piece of jadeite looks like ordinary yellow sand skin, but it’s actually water foam jadeite. Because it’s been soaked in water for a long time, there are more seedlings on the skin, which are as small as powder and soft. It has a unique feeling when pressed with your nails. There’s a benign form of tinea scab on the bottom which basically only stays on the skin, so I think this material has a strong gambling probability.”

Lin Luo’s remarks were justified and well-founded. After analyzing two pieces of seemingly ordinary jadeite, Victor’s eyes suddenly lit up again.

“Mr. Lin, what you said is really good, I really want to see if these two pieces of jadeite will come to reveal good jade as you said. I wonder if you would be willing to cut these two pieces of jadeite on the spot?” After Lin Luo’s analysis, Victor had become very interested in the two inconspicuous gambling stones.

“Of course.” Lin Luo replied with a smile.

He had already seen that Victor was interested in his stone betting ability because of Andre. He didn’t want to be too dazzling, nor did he want to tarnish his reputation, so he finally chose these two stones which he felt were of moderate size and reasonable value.