Family Matters

"Sell!"

They say that the first drumbeat inspires courage, the second falters, and the third exhausts. With his momentum broken, he no longer had the nerve to let the blade fall, so he simply stuck to his original plan: take the money and leave.

He had bought it for fifty thousand and was selling it for three hundred thousand; he had made his profit and passed the risk onto someone else. Why wouldn't he do it?

Zhang Yang completed the transaction efficiently and took the raw stone.

In the blink of an eye, the watermelon-sized raw stone was in his hands.

The surrounding crowd watched the stone with bated breath. The drama seemed to have reached its climax, and everyone was waiting for Zhang Yang to cut it open on the spot.

Whether it would be a gain or a loss, they were even more anxious than he was.

"Cut it straight through." Zhang Yang handed the raw stone to the master, and without any hesitation, he stepped aside.

He didn't need any psychological preparation, nor did he feel any burden; he was well-prepared for either outcome.

The master nodded, placed the stone on the machine, and cleanly cut it in two.

The raw stone was just like a watermelon, split right down the middle.

Someone nearby splashed a basin of water over it, and under the sunlight, a flash of watery luster immediately shimmered.

From the crowd, someone let out a sudden roar.

"It's a gain!"

"It really is a gain!"

"Damn, if I'd known, I would've jumped in earlier."

"Why are you slapping my leg instead of your own? That hurts like hell, damn it!"

Zhang Yang examined the cut surface. There was no miraculous "glass-grade imperial green" appearing in one stroke, but just like the window that had been polished earlier, it was consistent inside and out.

It had nothing to do with melodrama or coincidence; he had simply won his gamble.

"With this water content and this size, it can yield at least twenty bracelets and ten ring faces. I'll take it for three million."

"Three million two hundred thousand! Will you sell it for three million two hundred thousand?"

Buyers swarmed in. With a transaction worth several million on the line, there were naturally plenty of people who could afford it.

"Let me think about it." Zhang Yang wasn't in a rush to trade right now; he hugged the stone and walked straight out of the scene.

He didn't want to lose out on this, and he wanted to go back and study it further, get a better sense of the market and the pricing. Of course, there was one more important goal.

Just saying he had made a fortune opening jade raw stones wasn't enough; he couldn't just rely on his words. Since he had a rare opportunity, shouldn't he prove it to his family?

Back at his apartment, Zhang Yang started a video call with his father, Zhang Zhaohai, without a second thought.

A moment later, the call connected. Zhang Zhaohai had a towel draped around his neck and was shoveling rice into his mouth.

"Have you eaten?" Zhang Zhaohai set down his bowl and chopsticks, leaned toward the screen, and wiped the camera lens with his finger, as if it were a bit dirty.

"I'll eat in a bit. Is the uncle's hotel busy today?" Zhang Yang asked first.

His uncle had opened a small restaurant a few years ago, and business had always been good. His father had started out as a home-style cook in his early years, so he had been helping out in the kitchen there.

"It's alright. There's a baby's full-month banquet, a few tables, and some guests in the private rooms," Zhang Zhaohai replied, then hurriedly looked up to exchange a few words with someone in the kitchen.

Zhang Yang looked at his father's lunch: white rice and a vegetable-tofu soup—plain as could be. There was certainly no shortage of food in the kitchen, but when you deal with oil, salt, sauce, and vinegar all day, what kind of appetite could you have? He was probably sick of it.

"Right, what made you think of chatting with me at noon?" Zhang Zhaohai sat back down.

"I want to show you something." Zhang Yang switched to the rear camera and pointed it at the split raw stone. "Dad, do you recognize this?"

"A raw stone? Imperial green? You struck it rich?!" Zhang Zhaohai's rapid-fire questions left Zhang Yang a bit dazed.

"Imperial green? No, Dad, where did you learn all this?" Zhang Yang was speechless.

"Novels! Your old man loves listening to novels when I'm free. All that 'this eye, that eye,' the protagonist opening their heavenly eye, this imperial green, that glass-grade—it's so satisfying to listen to... Wait, was I just joking? Is this really a raw stone?" Zhang Zhaohai asked suspiciously.

"It's a raw stone, one that's already been opened." Since his father was already talking about imperial green, it wouldn't be appropriate for him to act overly excited now, so he just said calmly.

"It really is a raw stone? You calling me in the middle of the day, does that mean... it's a gain?" Zhang Zhaohai finally realized the gravity of the situation and asked tentatively.

"It cost me a few months' salary to buy, and yes, it's a gain," Zhang Yang said.

"How much of a gain?" Zhang Zhaohai leaned closer to the screen, as if trying to see the raw stone more clearly.

"I'm not sure about the price myself, but there are people on-site offering three million, and some offering three million two hundred thousand." As soon as Zhang Yang finished speaking, he saw his father fall back into his seat.

"How much??!" Zhang Zhaohai gasped.

"Over three million," Zhang Yang repeated.

"Wait there!" Zhang Zhaohai immediately ran out of the kitchen and out of the hotel; the background behind him was now outdoors.

Zhang Yang felt he had underestimated the impact of three million on his father.

To an ordinary person, what does three million in cash falling from the sky mean? It means a car, a house, the resolution of life's major milestones, and enough left over to save for retirement.

Yes, his own standards had risen, and he might look down on three million, but for his parents, three million was a lifetime.

Over the next few minutes, Zhang Zhaohai kept asking the same questions, and Zhang Yang patiently explained them over and over.

Acceptance takes time, but at least his old man's heart was strong enough to handle it.

He finally calmed down and accepted the facts.

"So you're telling me you bought this thing on a whim for tens of thousands, and it actually turned out to be a profit?" Zhang Zhaohai said.

"That's right." Zhang Yang nodded.

"Sell it as soon as you can, any decent price will do... Well, now your house and car are all taken care of. No wonder you turned that girl down last time; you must have foreseen today, right?" Zhang Zhaohai laughed heartily.

"I've got it covered. You tell Mom; I won't call her." Zhang Yang ended the call with Zhang Zhaohai.

In the afternoon, Zhang Yang loaded the raw stone into his car and spent time visiting several jade shops, eventually selling the stone for 3.5 million.

After all, Zhang Yang was earning 20,000 a day, so he didn't feel too much of a shock when facing the massive sum of 3.5 million, but that didn't mean he was completely unmoved.

After all, even at his current cashback rate, it would take him half a year to reach that figure.

Now, he had reached his goal in one go.

The cash flow in Zhang Yang's hands was unprecedentedly abundant.

Now he could openly drive his Porsche Cayenne, fill the cabin with all sorts of fine cigarettes and liquor, and happily head home for the May Day holiday.

There is no time like the present; Zhang Yang turned the car around and set off to shop again.

To be fair, Zhang Yang didn't really want his father to touch cigarettes or alcohol.

Especially cigarettes; his mother had long detested his smoking. But thinking about it now, his father spent every day bustling about in the kitchen. As a fifty-year-old man who had already lived through most of his life, what was the harm in having a few cigarettes?

Even if he didn't live to be a hundred, living a carefree life until eighty or ninety was enough.

So... buy!

Don't buy too many cigarettes, or they'll get damp and go to waste. Just buy the good stuff: Taishan, Da Chong Jiu, and Golden Leaf Sky Leaf, all costing over ten thousand a carton. He took one of each.

As for the liquor, it didn't matter how long it sat, so he grabbed several cases each of Flying Fairy Moutai and Wuliangye.

The trunk of the Porsche Cayenne was soon packed to the brim by Zhang Yang, and there were only a few days left before he headed home for May Day.

Explaining the source of wealth to his parents is a cliché; I'll skip over it in two chapters.