Protagonist Halo

Seeing this, Feng Jun felt a stir in his heart. He walked up, crouched down, and carefully examined the stone, which was about the size of a human head.

The stone's color was a dull gray, similar to the rocks in the riverbed, with a slight whitish tint that didn't particularly stand out.

However, this whiteness gave Feng Jun a sense of familiarity, so he couldn't help but pull out a rag to wipe it down thoroughly.

Sure enough, the stone became even whiter, revealing a crystalline and moist luster.

"No way, is this... jade?" Feng Jun grew excited. His chest heaved rapidly, and his eyes were filled with fervor. Although he didn't know much about jade, he knew that jade was supposed to be moist and lustrous.

The next moment, he stood up, dashed over to his motorcycle, and took out the essential tool for any transmigrator—a magnifying glass.

Truly, Feng Jun had read so many web novels, many of which were transmigration stories, and he had always been annoyed by how protagonists ignored the magnifying glass. This thing was genuinely practical and useful.

A magnifying glass could check if a water source was clean, help a protagonist quickly understand local flora and fauna, and even in the wild, when a lighter wasn't handy, it could serve as a cigarette lighter as long as there was sun—it was quite a cool way to show off or impress a girl.

Of course, what he needed to do now was one of the many uses of a magnifying glass: inspecting materials or even antiques.

Feng Jun didn't know much about jade, but he knew one thing: if you couldn't see tiny air bubbles under a magnifying glass, it might be jade; otherwise, it was glass!

He carefully inspected the stone from top to bottom, confirming that he couldn't find any tiny air bubbles.

However, the next moment, he realized a problem: something without bubbles... didn't necessarily have to be jade.

Pebbles didn't have bubbles either, but how much could they sell for?

So, he opened his pack and found that small gourd pendant among his old clothes—the one he had bought for a hundred yuan.

The luster and texture of the pendant were very average. According to the thin shopkeeper, it barely counted as jade and could fool those who didn't know any better.

Feng Jun wasn't an expert either, but he knew how to compare, right?

Compared to the pendant, the stone immediately paled it in comparison. Even with the naked eye, one could see that the stone's color was better, far more delicate and soft. Although it wasn't transparent, its texture was incredibly moist and crystalline.

Better than the pendant and not glass—this... this had to be jade, right?

In his heart, Feng Jun had already concluded it was jade. Looking at the other pebbles around, he felt they were far inferior to the pendant.

But why would this person have died here while tied to a piece of jade?

He thought for a long while before arriving at a guess: this guy probably encountered robbers on a boat and simply jumped into the river with the jade, thinking, If I can't live, I won't let you rob me of the jade!

It was quite a display of the ancient spirit of "better to be a shattered vessel of jade than an unbroken tile of clay."

With such a large piece of jade, Feng Jun figured he could at least sell it for a hundred thousand yuan or so. Although he believed it wouldn't fetch the price of that ruby in the Blue Star world, it would at least cover the costs of his expedition.

Of course, this was just his guess and might not hold true.

With this gain, his enthusiasm soared, especially since the river valley was filled with stones. Every time he found a stone that looked slightly unusual, he would stop to take a look.

However, unfortunately, while there were some nice-looking stones, his intuition told him that if he brought those back, they would at most be considered "ornamental stones." Their value was hard to say, and they couldn't compare to this piece of jade.

This realization left him quite frustrated, but upon further thought, he felt relieved. If jade were as common as cabbage, would that guy have jumped into a river tied to it?

Yet, even though he thought this way, whenever he encountered a magnificent stone, he couldn't help but examine it, to the point that he only traveled a little over two hundred li on the second day.

However, near dusk as he was setting up camp, he made another discovery: a broken jade box.

To say it was broken wasn't entirely accurate; strictly speaking, it was a jade box shattered into two halves, about fourteen or fifteen centimeters wide, twenty-four or twenty-five centimeters long, six or seven centimeters high, with walls about a centimeter thick.

Unfortunately, the lid was nowhere to be found, and the box was snapped in two. The fracture wasn't smooth—a characteristic of jade—but when the broken edges were put together, they fit perfectly.

The jade quality of the box was similar to the stone he had found, though it had a slightly greenish tint.

What made Feng Jun happiest was that there were clear signs of artificial craftsmanship on the box, which confirmed that this object was definitely jade. Otherwise, who would have nothing better to do than carve a rock into this shape?

The box was broken, which was a pity, but Feng Jun didn't mind at all; even half a box could be carved into many small items.

To put it more bluntly, if the box hadn't been broken, it might have sold for an astronomical price in the real world.

That didn't fit his plan of getting rich quietly at all.

Someone would surely wonder, Who is the idiot that carved such good jade into a box?

Feng Jun was more worried about people wondering, The box itself is already so impressive, so what kind of heaven-defying items could have been stored inside it?

And so, the question arose... what had been inside the box?

Because he could confirm these two pieces were jade, Feng Jun could basically estimate a price; after all, he had just been to an antique shop.

At least thirty thousand to start, and selling it for three hundred thousand would be normal—well, Feng Jun still didn't understand jade, he could only determine such a wide range.

Of course, he was a little curious about what had been in the box, but that curiosity was only a tiny bit.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; he wasn't a person who reached for things beyond his grasp.

He knew very well that obsessing over things he shouldn't would only increase his troubles.

As night fell, Feng Jun set up his tent and hurriedly ate something. He was so excited that he played with the jade box while eating.

He fiddled with the object for over two hours, and finally, he made up his mind: with this thing, I don't need to go back to the warehouse this time.

That's right, he changed his mind. Previously, he wanted to return to the warehouse because he was too poor and couldn't bear to throw away those few items. In fact, he had even been planning to take a trip out of town after leaving the space to sell a modified motorcycle.

Items of unknown origin wouldn't fetch a high price, but having something was better than nothing. He was truly too poor, with only about ten thousand yuan for capital—with that little money, when would he ever get rich?

Now, with a broken jade box in hand and a piece of suspected jade, he didn't need to live so frugally anymore. Riding the motorcycle back also took time and energy; with that time, it would be better to charge up more and do more business.

Feng Jun wasn't pedantic in his actions. He not only had his own opinions and clear logical thinking, but he also possessed considerable execution skills. He was a typical man of action, so... he would change his plan.

However, it was a pity that his good luck seemed to have run out on this very day.

Over the next three days, he found absolutely nothing.

In order to bring more supplies out of the space to exchange for money, he even picked up a few strange stones that looked somewhat interesting, even though he knew even less about strange stones than he did about jade—there was no helping it, who told him to be so short on cash? He couldn't let anything slip by; even a mosquito is meat.

By that evening, his food and water were running low, so Feng Jun decided to explore for two more days before exiting the space directly.

On the road ahead, he wouldn't need to set up any more supply caches—at most, it was a two-day journey, and the next time he came, he would just build another warehouse; this gap didn't really matter.

On the evening of the next day, good news arrived: he finally walked out of the river valley. The mountain ranges ahead were noticeably fewer, and after climbing a hilltop to take a look, he could vaguely see a plain.

Feng Jun secretly gave himself a thumbs up: my planning is truly impeccable. By not having a supply station within a day's journey of the valley exit, I can protect my secret to the greatest extent possible.

The next day, he didn't rush to set off. Instead, he took out three bottles of mineral water and luxuriously washed his hair and face before beginning his final day of exploration.

However, today's exploration was a failure. He had been driving for over an hour when he suddenly saw a massive cloud of dust rising ahead, accompanied by violent booming sounds. He immediately slammed on the brakes, killed the motorcycle's engine, and quietly pushed it into a cluster of large rocks.

There was no way he could pass up such a spectacle, so he carefully climbed a hilltop and took out his binoculars to peer ahead.

Among all his gear, only the binoculars were confirmed to be genuine—a military-grade 12x42 pair. They were second-hand, costing him only three hundred yuan, but they were well-maintained and performed excellently.

However, when he saw the two sides fighting clearly, he couldn't help but grimace, "What the hell... Sun Wukong? Did I enter a Journey to the West space?"

He was just venting, but he was truly astonished because neither of the combatants ahead were human; they were a gorilla and a hedgehog-like creature.

The gorilla was incredibly tall, easily four or five zhang high, wielding a tree trunk like a club as it swung mindlessly at the hedgehog.

The hedgehog was no small fry either, standing nearly one and a half to two zhang tall, rolling around on the ground in a ball to dodge the opponent's attacks.

Yet, it wasn't without its own means of retaliation. While rolling, the long spikes it raised would occasionally shoot out directly with incredible speed.

The gorilla was very wary of this trick, jumping around to dodge the spikes, but at the same time, it used the tree trunk to block the creature, preventing it from escaping.

The hedgehog had other methods too; as it rolled, its body would suddenly spring up from the ground, its spike-covered frame slamming forcefully into its opponent.

The impact of it striking the ground was immense; one could only imagine how terrifying its strength was.

A spike was embedded in the gorilla's shoulder, and its forehead was a bloody mess; it looked like it had suffered quite a bit of damage.

Feng Jun watched with great interest for over half an hour, seeing the movements of both sides grow slower and slower. After the initial shock, it gradually turned into anticipation, and he couldn't help but breathe more rapidly.

Could it be that I might encounter the legendary scenario where both sides are equally wounded? And then I can reap the rewards as the fisherman?

In web novels, a plot like this is absolutely the hallmark of a protagonist's halo!