Chapter 198
"Holy shit, it’s red!"
"Hahaha, hell yeah! I actually got first blood today!"
Chenyang followed the sound of the voice and saw a large crowd gathered in front of a shop just a few steps away.
Through the gaps in the crowd, he could glimpse a stunningly beautiful woman in revealing clothes.
The woman was leaning against the steps.
Her long, slender legs were spread wide.
Her bare, pale feet, as smooth as mutton-fat jade, were particularly eye-catching and alluring amidst the crowd of men.
Her posture, combined with the men’s cheers, gave the distinct impression that she was doing *something* in public.
But when Chenyang, driven by curiosity, squeezed his way to the front, he realized that wasn’t the case at all.
A small machine was placed between the woman’s spread legs.
There were stones arranged on either side of her.
The crowd’s excited cries were because the stone the woman was cutting with the machine had just revealed a patch of eye-catching red!
It was a small-scale stone gambling operation.
Customers paid to buy uncut stones. If they managed to cut one open and find jade, agate, or jadeite worth more than what they paid for the stone, they won the gamble, profiting by the difference in value.
If it was just an ordinary rock inside, then, just like losing the lottery, they had simply made a donation to the owner.
There was a jade mine north of Yang City, so both the city proper and its surrounding counties were home to many stone gambling shops of all sizes.
People from all over the province, and even from other major cities, loved to come here and try their luck.
When Chenyang was a student at Medical University, he, Lin Xiaowei, and a few other classmates had gone once on a weekend. They had pooled their money to buy two stones, but after cutting them open, forget jade—one of them was completely hollow.
For a while, it had made them think the whole thing was a scam.
However, just as they were looking for an angle to argue with the owner, they personally witnessed an old man cut a piece of high-grade, pigeon-egg-sized jade from a stone he’d bought.
Another buyer on the spot offered tens of thousands of yuan to buy it from him.
Chenyang and his friends had been incredibly envious, but as poor students, they had no money. Even if they had figured out a few tricks, they didn’t have the capital to buy any more stones.
Helpless, they could only watch with envy as others made a fortune.
Later, after Chenyang had saved up a little money, he thought about trying again, but after failing to cut anything valuable two times in a row, he gave up completely.
Encountering it again today, he couldn’t resist moving closer for a look.
"Miss, where are these stones from?"
The woman heard this question many times a day and answered casually, "They’re from the old pits at Xiaobeiwa. The yield rate is over forty percent. The price is on the tag. All sales are final—no returns, no exchanges, no regrets."
Xiaobeiwa was the region with the jade mine, and "old pits" referred to productive sites that frequently yielded jade.
After she finished, Chenyang looked down at the stones on either side of her.
As a golden glint flashed through his eyes, the surfaces of the stones rapidly turned transparent, revealing their cores to him.
However, after scanning all of them, not a single one caught his eye.
It wasn’t that they were all empty, but that even if he cut them open, he wouldn’t make a profit.
Chenyang shook his head in disappointment and decided to leave.
But just as he averted his gaze, he inadvertently spotted a flash of emerald green by the woman’s leg.
Chenyang focused his gaze. It was a stone about the size of his fist.
Its tag was wet and difficult to read, and the stone itself was covered in dirt. It looked as if it had either been dropped by accident and gone unnoticed or had long since been rejected by everyone else.
Chenyang raised his hand and pointed. "How much for this one?"
"Kid, you sure know how to pick ’em. We’ve been eyeing that pale leg for over a year. We all want to buy it, but Little An’an refuses to sell."
"I’d advise you to give up. Last time, some guy offered two hundred just for a touch and she turned him down."
Because the stone was right under the woman’s propped-up leg, from Chenyang’s angle, it looked like he was pointing at her thigh.
This not only drew a fresh round of snickers from the crowd, but the woman herself shot him a disgusted look. "If you want to buy stones, you’re welcome. If you’re here to be a pervert, you’d better be ready for a beating."
Chenyang shook his head. "You’ve misunderstood. I’m talking about the small stone under your leg. I can’t read the tag, so I was asking for the price."
The woman paused, then glanced down. A flicker of embarrassment crossed her face when she saw the stone. "This one? Are you sure you want to buy it?"
"Why? Is there something special about this stone?"
’This stone has been sitting here for three or four days, rejected by everyone. Even when I shone a flashlight on it, I couldn’t see the slightest hint of anything valuable inside.’
’To put it bluntly, it’s a worthless rock.’
But she was a stone seller, after all. If someone was willing to pay for it, she had no reason to turn down the money.
"Nothing special. If you want it, give me two... forget it. Just give me one hundred."