Li Long had heard of this Great Jade Mountain in his previous life, but had never seen it. Back then, he had wandered into the mountains himself, hoping to find some jade. He had also made time to visit Kazakh pastoralists in the mountains and buy mountain jade from them.
But the pastoralists he had met then were nowhere near as honest and simple as Harimu and Jade Mountain River. After their exposure to commercial society, those pastoralists had something of the unscrupulous merchant about them.
He had spent 2,000 yuan on a piece of mountain jade weighing six or seven kilograms. The middleman had sworn that it was excellent material, carried out of the mountains on a pastoralist's back.
There was no road leading directly to that Great Jade Mountain. Only the pastoralists knew the mountain trails. They rode horses to Jade Mountain, chiseled off jade, then brought it out to sell.
Ma River jade had been quite popular during those two years. The county had also established a Jade Garden and held a Jade Culture Festival.
Many people who found jade brought their stones out to sell, and plenty of jade enthusiasts came to buy them. Three to five hundred yuan could buy a very nice pair of jade bracelets-of course, the kind with black fly-speck inclusions.
For jade without black spots, like the kind Li Long had obtained, a pair of bracelets would cost several thousand or even over ten thousand yuan.
Back then, many people bought rough jade from pastoralists in the mountains, then took it to carvers to have bracelets or handheld pieces made.
For a while, jade-carving shops lined both sides of the Wuyi Highway, enjoying quite a boom.
But when Li Long brought that stone down the mountain to a carver, the man