CH 101.1

Chapter 101: Underhanded Means

The people from the Stone Gambling Association arrived at PengCheng Energy Company about twenty minutes later. An ZiHao had already greeted the security personnel at the door and brought them with him directly to the warehouse.

Wang Xun knew that An Zihao was Lin Luo’s assistant, and after he had listened to him briefly describe the situation over the light brain, he had understood the seriousness of the matter. As such, he had personally brought someone over to deal with the matter.

“Chairman Wang, I’m sorry to bother you.” After Lin Luo saw Wang Xun who was brought by the security staff, he immediately stepped forward to greet him.

“Chairman Wang!” He Kun, Xu Jian, Zhao XiaoLei and other people who were familiar with him also stepped forward to greet him with a few words.

After exchanging a few simple greetings, Wang Xun asked about the details of the matter.

At this time, Lin Luo had already taken out all of the twenty gambling stones that Jiang Yan had been responsible for screening. The previous two mistakes were jadeite pieces that should have been eliminated as scrap and were instead divided into excellent and medium, but those could have been explained by reasons such as the engineer’s misunderstanding, poor academic skills, or momentary mistakes. However, on the last piece of jadeite, he had obviously damaged an important indicator on a perfectly good piece of jadeite by spreading the existing cracks to cover the honeycomb pythons in order to make the jade look worse. That kind of behavior made it impossible for his actions to be covered up under the previous reasons.

Although Jiang Yan repeatedly stated that he just so happened to accidentally fall on top of the jadeite, that kind of claim would only deceive a three-year-old child.

Not to mention that after that, Lin Luo found another two pieces of jadeite that had similar issues. On one of them someone had deliberately polished off the pine flowers on the surface and disguised it as natural wear and tear. At first glance, the area looked colorless, but if one were to look closely, some faint green could still be seen. In order to save time, Lin Luo directly used his special abilities to observe, and at a glance he was able to see that the jadeite was actually full of excellent quality jade.

As for the other piece he found, Jiang Yan’s behavior was even more excessive. Lin Luo first noticed a small and inconspicuous hole on the surface of the jadeite. Because the hole was so small, it had easily gone unnoticed. If Lin Luo hadn’t had good eyes, he likely wouldn’t have been able to find it at all. Lin Luo was able to recognize it as a trick used by some less reputable jadeite merchants. If the internal situation of the gambling stone isn’t clear, a small hole will be opened up to find out the situation inside. If they find that the jade inside isn’t to their liking, they’ll cover up the hole and move on.

However, it seemed that Jiang Yan concealed this small hole not because the jade inside was not ideal, but because it was too ideal…

The piece of unremarkable looking jadeite was hiding a rare violet jade inside of it. After Jiang Yan had ascertained the condition of the jadeite, he even sprinkled a layer of black gravel on the surface to make it seem as if the piece had boar bristles, which was really loathsome.

Wang Xun took a look at the tampered jadeite brought out by Lin Luo one by one, and quickly frowned. He could become the president of the Stone Gambling Association, so naturally his ability to bet on and judge stones wouldn’t be bad. After having been exposed by Lin Luo, it was extremely clear to him that Jiang Yan had manipulated these pieces.

Wang Xun nodded, “I think what happened is pretty clear. Where is Jiang Yan?”

Lin Luo nodded to An ZiHao, and An ZiHao immediately asked the security staff to bring back Jiang Yan, who had been taken into the office to be looked after.

Jiang Yan wasn’t from Kipola, but after seeing the recruitment information released by the PengCheng Energy Company on StarNet, he came to apply for the job, so he did not know Wang Xun. However, Wang Xun was clearly wearing the uniform of the Stone Gambling Association and had a badge of theirs on his chest. At first glance, he knew that he was facing a manager of the Stone Gambling Association. It was also clear that it was Lin Luo who had called in the people of the Stone Gambling Association to investigate and deal with things, and he immediately turned white with fear.

“Jiang Yan, what’s your explanation for these pieces of jadeite?” Wang Xun asked, pointing to the tampered jadeite pieces.

“I, I don’t know… I didn’t mean it…” Jiang Yan dared to admit and immediately shook his head into a rattle.

“ha ha, it wasn’t on purpose?” He Kun’s face was flushed with anger. In all his life he had never seen such a shameless person. “I see that you won’t give it up until you reach the Yellow River[1]. So let’s say that the cracks are there because you accidentally smashed the rock. So how did the boar bristles get onto this piece of jadeite? How did the pine flowers that should have been on this piece of jadeite disappear?”

It was fortunate that Xing Mo installed a holographic scanner in the Kulta Star Management Center. When the mined jadeite was registered and put into the warehouse, they used the holographic mode to record the information of each piece of jadeite. That meant that a time like this, it could be used as the most powerful evidence against Jiang Yan.

Jiang Yan looked at the holographic images in front of him and broke into a cold sweat, unable to say a word of rebuttal.

===========Translator’s Corner===========

[1] 不到黄河不死心 – BùDào HuángHé BùSǐXīn  – lit. ‘don’t give up until you reach the Yellow River’, idiom meaning to not give up an inevitably losing battle until the last minute / not stop until it’s too late