“Shopkeeper, how much for this stone?”
The shopkeeper walked over with a broad smile. “Miss, you have such an eye! This is excellent material from the Xiangdong mine. It’s famous for producing colored jade! I’ll let you have it for eighty silver dollars, just to make a friend!”
“Eighty silver dollars, and you call that making a friend?” Jiang Ci weighed the rough stone in her hand. “That purple jade that came out of the Qin’s gambling house a few days ago came from a thicker stone, and it was from the famous Hpakant mine. It only cost fifty silver dollars.”
“Oh my! How can you compare them? To be honest, how many people have that kind of luck? Hpakant stone has good translucency, but you could gamble on a thousand pieces and still not find color. But my Xiangdong material? Three or four out of every ten have color!”
Jiang Ci didn’t want to waste time. “Fifty silver dollars. If you won’t sell, I’m leaving.”
“Alright, alright! Seeing it’s your first time here, I’ll take a loss just this once!”
Having struck a deal, Jiang Ci didn’t bother arguing with someone who spoke nothing but lies. She tossed down a fifty-yuan red note, took the stone, and went to find the cutter.
Daxin Gambling House wasn’t very large and didn’t have a separate cutting room. In a corner stood two lean masters, both looking to be in their forties, responsible for cutting stones for customers.
The cutting table happened to be placed right in the sunlight, much brighter than the rest of the shop.
This naturally made it easier for other customers to watch the excitement.
When everyone saw that the person getting a stone cut was a young female student, they found it novel. Those who weren’t in a hurry to gamble gathered around to watch.
Qin Yanchi and Zeng Juemi were tall, so they didn’t need to push through the crowd. They simply stood at the back, watching from a distance.
“This one is hard to predict!” Zeng Juemi glanced at the stone on the table and turned to Qin Yanchi. “Yellow sand skin is the most common type of skin, and it’s completely unpredictable. The quality can range from the highest ‘Dragon Stone’ grade all the way down to low-grade bean species. The color varies wildly too. Plus, the skin can be thick or thin, and there’s no telling how much jade meat is inside… She’s going in blind!”
The stone was about the size of a muskmelon, though much flatter in shape.
Cutting it horizontally would usually be faster.
However, Jiang Ci drew a vertical line. “Cut here.”
The onlookers couldn’t help but laugh when they heard this.
“Little girl, you’re ambitious! You’re trying to gamble for a bangle position!”
“Getting a bangle out of such a small stone… what kind of luck would that take?”
“Getting a bangle isn’t rare. Even bean species can be cut into bangles!”
“Easy for you to say. It’s not like you just cut through the skin and find jade immediately; there’s also the fog layer to consider!”
Listening to the comments, Jiang Ci wondered if those thinner “white veils” she had seen before were actually fog layers.
But considering the thickness, she found it unlikely.
The stones she had gambled on a few days ago only had a fog layer two or three millimeters thick.
The “white veil” she saw on this one was easily two centimeters thick.
By now, the saw had cut an inch deep. Sunlight hit the cut, revealing a faint yellow glow.
“It’s yellow fog!”
“Maybe it really will be a good one!”
People who had been selecting stones heard the commotion and rushed over.
“Look! Through the crack in the light, it’s all yellow!”
“The color is quite translucent. It shouldn’t be just rust yellow.”
The line Jiang Ci marked wasn’t in the center; she cut off about a quarter from one side.
After a while, the wire saw finally cut all the way through.
The master separated the two halves, revealing bright, golden jade inside.
“It really is yellow jade! Chicken oil yellow!”
Chicken oil yellow is the most sought-after color for yellow jade, especially popular among men. The crowd erupted in excitement.
“If the second cut doesn’t fail, she might really get a full-color bangle!”
“Hopefully the color doesn’t fade towards the center…”
Jiang Ci looked at the exposed jade, her expression turning slightly strange.
It really looked like a jade fried egg, except the colors were reversed—the white was yellow, and the yolk was clear.
The center of the stone was colorless glass-type jade, surrounded by a thick layer of yellow jade which was slightly lower in quality.
The master splashed some water on it to show her better.
When wet and hit by sunlight, the yellow jade looked just like frozen mango jelly—the surface was transparent, becoming more opaque and vividly colored deeper down.
Seeing Jiang Ci’s lack of reaction, the master explained, “It’s an ice type. Colored jade is like this; the same quality always looks less transparent than colorless jade.”
Just then, a middle-aged man spoke up. “Little girl, will you sell this? I’ll give you a thousand dollars!”
Yellow jade has a smaller market and isn’t as valuable as green or purple jade. Even a top-quality yellow bangle rarely goes for more than ten thousand. Plus, the buyer still takes a risk, so the offer was naturally discounted.
Jiang Ci shook her head. “Thank you for the offer, but I intend to keep this one.”
The man had no choice but to give up.
Jiang Ci reached out and drew another line, signaling for the second cut.
The stone was divided into three pieces: two irregular chunks of yellow jade and one large piece perfectly shaped for a full-color bangle.
Jiang Ci put the cut pieces into her canvas school bag and turned to select another stone.
At that moment, a somewhat familiar voice caught her attention.
“That one is no good! They mix bad stones with the good ones here. Look, if you scratch it with your fingernail, black wax comes off. They painted this themselves. Real black wax skin doesn’t scrape off; it just looks like wax!”
Jiang Ci turned and saw that the speaker was the same old man who had warned her earlier when she had bought a dud.
She looked at the stone in his hand and activated her ability.
Inside, the stone was pitch black, not a single thread of white light to be seen.
If cut open, it would definitely be what people call “dogshit quality,” worse even than bean species.
Jiang Ci had always thought jade counterfeiting was a modern thing; she didn’t expect it existed already.
And they were faking the raw stones, too.
But before she could listen further, the shopkeeper stormed over with several employees, looking furious.
“Old Man Ge! You must be tired of living! How dare you come to Daxin Gambling House and spread rumors?” The shopkeeper’s small eyes flashed with malice as he signaled his men. “Throw him out!”
The young man who had been warned by Old Man Ge stepped in front of him. “Whether it’s rumors or not isn’t for you to decide! How do you explain this black wax?”
“Explain? This isn’t even a stone from our shop!” The shopkeeper narrowed his eyes and looked at Old Man Ge, raising his voice. “Every jade expert in Shanghai knows you got sick! Your hand shakes like a leaf whenever you hold a carving knife, that’s why the jade workshops fired you! Now you don’t have a job, instead of finding work, you hang around gambling houses. I see you two are in this together, just here to cause trouble and extort money!”
“How can you be so unreasonable?”
“Reasonable? My fist is the only reason I need!” The shopkeeper waved his hand. “Teach them a lesson!”
Watching this, Jiang Ci gripped the edge of the table tightly.
But someone moved faster than her. A kick sent the shopkeeper stumbling back several steps, crashing into the crowd.
“You son of a—”
The shopkeeper was about to curse, but looked up and saw who it was, instantly falling silent.
It was Zeng Juemi who had kicked him.
Cold sweat broke out all over the shopkeeper’s body. “Second Young Master Zeng! What brings you here?”
“Not only am I here, I brought someone with me.”
Qin Yanchi stepped out from the crowd, looking at the shopkeeper expressionlessly. “I didn’t know our Songjiang Chamber of Commerce had such talent. Bullying customers like this? You’d make a better gangster than a shopkeeper.”
“President Qin, I… I…”
The shopkeeper stammered, unable to find an excuse, his legs turning to jelly.
The reason the Songjiang Chamber of Commerce was the most powerful was due to its strict standards.
To join, one needed wealth and connections, but integrity was the number one rule.
All members must strictly follow the code of conduct. Any violation meant immediate expulsion.
Being kicked out of other chambers meant little, but the Songjiang Chamber was so influential that expulsion meant public disgrace and the total loss of credibility.
For a businessman, losing credibility was a death sentence.
The shopkeeper was terrified of facing his boss’s wrath. His face was as pale as paper, all his earlier arrogance gone.
Meanwhile, hearing the title “Second Young Master Zeng,” Jiang Ci looked at him.
He wore a shearling-collared leather jacket, brown corduroy trousers, and black military boots—quite different from the overly fancy style of other rich kids.
The man beside him was dressed much more formally: a dark grey worsted wool suit with a notched lapel, a pinhole collar shirt, and a dark blue patterned tie. A simple silver watch chain hung from the second last button of his waistcoat, and he wore exquisite handmade dark brown leather shoes.
Since the shopkeeper called him “President Qin,” this must be Qin Yanchi from the third branch of the family.
Jiang Ci glanced at him and realized he was actually much more handsome than Qin Huai’an.
It wasn’t that she admired Qin Huai’an, but as the male lead, the author had certainly favored him in looks.
Even though Jiang Ci disliked his personality, she couldn’t deny he was a handsome man.
Logically, Qin Huai’an should be the pinnacle of male beauty in this world, but seeing Qin Yanchi today made her realize that wasn’t the case.
Qin Yanchi sensed someone looking at him. He glanced toward Jiang Ci, gave a slight nod, and then turned back to the shopkeeper. “Tell your boss to come see me at the Chamber headquarters tomorrow.”
By this time, Zeng Juemi had walked over to Jiang Ci, smiling cheerfully. “Didn’t scare you, did I? Those bastards needed to be put in their place!”
Jiang Ci looked at him but said nothing.
Zeng Juemi slapped his forehead. “Oh right! You don’t know me yet. I’m Zeng Juemi. Our families are related by marriage. That’s my Ninth Brother over there, from the Qin family’s third branch. Actually, he’s related to you too!”
“Second Young Master Zeng. Ninth Master.” Jiang Ci greeted them politely, her eyes searching for Old Man Ge.
Just then, the young man and Old Man Ge walked over. They bowed to Zeng Juemi. “Thank you very much for your help just now, Second Young Master.”