Heavenly Insight Eye Could Read Stones

Everyone said the jadeite trade ran deep.

But who truly knew just how deep those waters went?

You thought chopping a million off in one stroke counted as haggling?

Buying vegetables at the market, that was indeed haggling. You could do the same at an ordinary storefront. But in the premium jadeite section, that just made you an amateur.

The prices of premium jadeite were called appraisals!

An appraisal was not the selling price.

If you wanted it, the price was negotiated on the spot.

What did a true insider's price for jadeite look like?

Take the appraisal, divide it by ten, then multiply it by one point five or two—that was roughly right.

So for an appraisal of 3.2 million, a true insider's appropriate counteroffer would be around 500,000.

Yet he had opened with 1.8 million.

What was more, the jadeite trade had an unwritten rule: an offer must be honored!

In other words, once you offered 1.8 million, that 1.8 million became your bottom line. As long as the seller agreed, you had to buy it!

"Mr. Li, you really are a forthright man! As they say, sincerity buys the genuine article. I'm making a friend of you!" Boss Zhang laughed. "I'll let this Ice Valley Orchid go to you at that price!"

"Fine, wrap it up," Lin Xiaosu said.

The saleswoman controlled her hands and feet with all her strength, not daring to reveal the slightest shock as she wrapped up the bracelet.

Lin Xiaosu shifted his gaze to Zhou Mei. "Lan'er has made her choice. What about you, Mei'er?"

The saleswoman's carefully controlled heartbeat started pounding again. There was another one!

My heavens, all those girls downstairs had been guessing and guessing which young lady would win his favor. Now it seemed that left or right, they had all guessed correctly—he was giving them to everyone...

Whose wastrel young master was this... oh, no, a super God of Wealth?

If possible, could I hitch a ride on this lucky wind too?

At the very least, my chest is perkier than theirs. It should feel better too...

Zhou Mei said, "Do you have a bracelet exactly like this Ice Valley Orchid?"

Boss Zhang said, "Jadeite has life. There are no two completely identical bracelets in the world; every piece is one of a kind. That is precisely why jadeite is so rare. There definitely isn't one identical to this bracelet, but there are others at the same price range. How about this, miss? Why not pick a similar one?"

"Yes, there are several more bracelets over here, miss. You can take a look..." The saleswoman became lively again.

Zhou Mei gently shook her head. "If there isn't an identical one, then... forget it."

Everyone present was stunned.

Buying jadeite and demanding an identical piece—this was truly impossible.

How could natural, earth-born raw ore come in identical copies?

Even two bracelet blanks cut from the same rough stone would differ. It was absolutely impossible for them to be exactly the same.

Was this girl competing with the one called Lan'er?

She had to have an identical one!

This seemed to confirm the saleswoman's earlier judgment. Both women were his lovers, and he could not favor one over the other...

"How about this?" Lin Xiaosu said. "Mei'er, pick a few rough stones and make up a total of 1.8 million. In any case, I'll spend 1.8 million on each of you. After that, it'll depend on your own luck."

"That's a good idea! Boss, do you have any good rough stones?" Zhou Mei was delighted.

Boss Zhang had watched the deal fall into a deadlock, only for the situation to suddenly take a turn for the better. He was so happy he nearly jumped up. "Yes, yes! A batch just arrived the day before yesterday, including some of the finest old-mine material."

Behind the shop was the workshop.

The moment the shop door opened, the tranquil surroundings were immediately replaced by noise.

Twenty or thirty workers sweated profusely over their lathes.

Sky-window opening, stone cutting, extracting pieces, grinding, and polishing were all in full swing.

Everyone moved with practiced skill. One look was enough to tell that each of them had been doing this for years.

Boss Zhang leaned close to Lin Xiaosu's ear. "Mr. Li, these are all assembly-line products, beneath your notice. Let's take a look in the back."

Lin Xiaosu nodded lightly.

Zhou Mei secretly looked toward him, her gaze carrying questions...

The situation here was special. She could not be sure where surveillance devices might be, so speaking was certainly out of the question. But perhaps they could still exchange some information through their eyes.

Unfortunately, Lin Xiaosu wore a very stylish pair of photochromic glasses that blocked most of his gaze. Looking past the frame, his eyes seemed somewhat vacant.

Yes, this was actually a special reaction from Temporal Reversal.

Whenever he reversed time and space, his eyes seemed detached from the world, seeing through everything before him and peering into unknown spaces.

He had already gained something!

A tremendous gain!

Before entering the jewelry store, his certainty had been fifty percent. Now, it was at least eighty percent.

Because the batch of rough stones delivered the night before last had been sorted, and part of it was up front while another part had been taken somewhere it should never have appeared...

About thirty meters from the machine workshop stood another factory building, filled entirely with rough stones.

Boss Zhang introduced the place as they walked. The rough stones outside were ordinary stock, while those inside were premium rough stones. So-called premium rough stones were judged in two ways. First was Sky-Window Opening: opening a window in jadeite to glimpse a little of the stone's interior. Second was experience—judging which rough stones contained good material.

"I've long heard that Boss Zhang is the renowned Old Divine-Eye Zhang. Why not have Boss Zhang pick a few for us?" Lin Xiaosu said with a smile.

Zhou Mei's heart suddenly skipped a beat.

People generally called him Divine-Eye Zhang. There was no such title as Old Divine-Eye Zhang.

Yet Lin Xiaosu had deliberately added the word "Old."

What did it mean?

Was he reminding her that the man before them might be Ghost-Eyed Old Seven?

She seemed to understand Lin Xiaosu's performance since entering the shop as well.

Entering the rough-stone area had been killing two birds with one stone?

On one hand, he was investigating the rough stones delivered the night before last. On the other, he was keeping this Divine-Eye Zhang, suspected to be Ghost-Eyed Old Seven, under control so that this crucial person would not flee the moment trouble began.

That was why he had used such a huge deal to tie Old Zhang firmly to his side.

Now that he had given her a hint, did that mean the lid was about to be lifted?

Boss Zhang's expression remained perfectly normal. He laughed heartily. "What 'Divine-Eye Zhang'? That's just my peers flattering me. I've merely been in this trade a little longer and gained a bit more experience. That experience is mainly used for my own business, helping clients guard the gate and keep watch, minimizing their losses as much as possible."

Zhou Mei's heart stirred again.

Boss Zhang's expression had not changed, but if one listened carefully, there was something hidden in his words. He had subtly corrected Lin Xiaosu's seemingly offhand "Old Divine-Eye Zhang," removing the word "Old"!

What did that mean?

A probe and a counter-probe?

Lin Xiaosu was testing him!

And he was resisting that test!

If he was deliberately avoiding that word "Old," then the implications were truly profound...

Ahead stood a row of shelves filled with rough stones.

The other rough stones were all laid out on the ground, but those on these shelves had been placed up high.

That alone was a kind of advertisement, proclaiming that the things above were far from ordinary in value.

"These are the premium rough stones?" Lin Xiaosu asked.

"Yes. Most of them have had windows opened, so you can already glimpse a little of what is inside!"

"Mei'er, pick for yourself," Lin Xiaosu said.

"Okay!"

Zhou Mei picked up a rough stone.

Lin Xiaosu picked one up as well.

Boss Zhang handed him a small flashlight. It was square and tiny, but the beam it emitted had tremendous penetrating power. Lin Xiaosu shone it onto a jadeite Sky Window before him, and the deep green light seemed to turn the rough stone into a crystal ball, exquisite beyond words.

"I don't really understand any of this anyway. Mei'er, take it and have a look." Lin Xiaosu handed the flashlight to Zhou Mei.

Zhou Mei accepted it and began examining the stones seriously.

Women truly loved jadeite by nature. She knew a police officer's salary could never support such a hobby, so she had simply never indulged in it. Today, however, they were acting anyway—if she did not play with it now, when would she?

As for Lin Xiaosu, he did not use that traditional tool. His Heavenly Insight Eye opened, and the instant it did, an unbelievable scene unfolded.

The internal structure of the jadeite rough stone before him, which already had a window opened, was revealed in every minute detail beneath the Heavenly Insight Eye.

Only then did he truly understand how deep the waters of the jadeite trade were.

Take the jadeite rough stone in his hands, for example. Judging solely from the Sky Window Opening, it was green, translucent, and icy.

But beneath the Heavenly Insight Eye, an entirely different sight appeared before him.

This rough stone did indeed contain green, but there was only this tiny patch. The interior was riddled with cracks and packed with impurities. If someone truly bought it at a high price, they were guaranteed to suffer a huge loss.

The person who had opened this Sky Window was an expert.

He had forcibly found such a key point amid a pile of rotten stone.

The second rough stone showed a warm yellow at the Sky Window Opening. Yet once the Heavenly Insight Eye peeled back that yellow outer layer, he realized there was not the slightest yellow inside. That layer of yellow was not the stone's color at all, but a fog layer.

The third rough stone was sky blue and had two windows opened. Light passed through them, giving it the feeling of being completely dissolved. But under the Heavenly Insight Eye, he clearly saw that the stone only had a single color band formed by those two points. Everywhere else, its quality dropped by at least three grades.

Three rough stones in a row—every one of them had Rogue Windows!

A Rogue Window was when an expert selected the finest part of a rough stone and opened a window there.

The rough stone was genuine, and the quality at the window was genuinely good too.

But it represented only that one spot.

Yet it was precisely such a spot that delivered a fatal temptation to customers, luring them into throwing money at it.

What could you say?

Claim they had faked it? They truly had not faked anything.

That was why it was called playing rogue!

Old Divine-Eye Zhang, was this your Divine Eye? Guarding the gate and keeping watch for your clients?

Or was this where Ghost-Eyed Old Seven's "Ghost Eye" lay?

Lin Xiaosu gave nothing away as he picked up the fourth rough stone. His target was no longer the Sky Window, but a crack in the stone.