Jade

After receiving Su Ye's reply, Xiao Xiao drove a luxury car over to pick him up.

But Su Ye didn't have a passport, so the two went to the county town to get one for him.

In southern Myanmar, there was a mining site said to be the country's largest jade production base. Millions of people passed through it every day, making it like a small city.

Some people made a fortune there overnight, while others lost everything they owned, or even their lives.

Deaths were commonplace there. People often coveted others' wealth and killed for it, and some desperate criminals didn't care who their victims were.

Whenever Xiao Xiao had come here before, she had used her connections back home to hire a few Xiantian-level experts to accompany her. This time, she had managed to enlist Su Ye, a Grandmaster expert, to help protect her, filling her with a sense of security.

Su Ye and Xiao Xiao drove straight there. When Xiao Xiao grew tired of driving halfway through the journey, Su Ye took over. By the time they reached "Jade City," it was already dark.

So they had to find a large hotel and spend the night there.

Early the next morning, after breakfast, Su Ye and Xiao Xiao began browsing the rough stone shops, looking to see if anyone had cut open a piece of fine-quality jade. If the price was right, they would buy it!

There were dozens of rough stone shops of all sizes in the small city. These shops sold rough stones to customers, who then cut them open themselves. This was what people commonly called "stone gambling."

Stone gambling was very popular in the city. Some people had cut jade worth over a hundred million out of stones costing only a few thousand, while others had spent tens of millions on a stone and cut it open only to find nothing. As the saying went, one cut could take you to heaven, and one cut could send you to hell.

After spending half the day looking around, Xiao Xiao and Su Ye had clearly seen no good finds cut open.

After lunch, Su Ye and Xiao Xiao arrived at the largest rough stone shop in the city.

As soon as Su Ye stepped inside, he felt that the concentration of spiritual energy of heaven and earth around him had risen considerably.

"This spiritual energy... Could these pieces of jade actually contain spiritual energy?" Su Ye murmured.

"What did you say?" Xiao Xiao asked when she saw him freeze.

"Oh, nothing. I was just marveling at how big this place is!" Su Ye made up an excuse on the spot and brushed it off.

The rough stone shop really was enormous, though. It was as large as three or four soccer fields, considerably bigger than the other shops.

There were dozens of machines for cutting and breaking down the rough stones alone.

Yet even with so many machines running, people were still lining up to have their stones cut open.

Not far ahead of Su Ye and Xiao Xiao, someone was cutting open a stone, with quite a few people gathered around shouting. Clearly, someone was cutting open a stone.

Su Ye and Xiao Xiao went over as well. The person cutting the stone was a middle-aged man in his forties, dressed in a black suit and working hard at the cutting machine.

The shop had dedicated masters who operated the machines and cut open the stones, but customers could also do it themselves if they wanted to. After all, it was another kind of thrill.

"Green! Green!" the people around them shouted.

"What does 'green' mean?" Su Ye asked Xiao Xiao.

Su Ye actually had little experience of the world, and he had never even heard of stone gambling before.

"'Green' means that a sliver of jade has been exposed while the stone is being cut. If green appears, it means there must be jade inside the stone. But you have to cut the whole stone open to know how big the jade is," Xiao Xiao explained patiently.

Su Ye nodded and looked at the rough stone. Sure enough, a sliver of jade was reflecting green light where the blade had just touched it.

The owner, who had been cutting the stone himself, stopped the machine and walked over excitedly to examine it.

After studying it for a while, he no longer dared continue cutting it himself. He wasn't a professional, after all. If he accidentally damaged the jade, wouldn't he regret it for the rest of his life...

After calling over a stone-cutting master, he had the work resumed. When the master heard that there was jade inside the stone, he didn't dare work freely either. He carefully ground away the stone's outer layer bit by bit.

After a while, one corner of the jade's true appearance was revealed.

"It's only bean-type jade. Ah, what a pity!" A middle-aged man beside Su Ye shook his head and sighed.

"Sir, what's bean-type jade? Why is it a pity? Isn't it worth much?" Su Ye's interest was piqued, and he asked the man curiously.

The man looked at Su Ye. The kid looked to be only in his early twenties! There was an indefinable air about him, and besides, he had come to a place like this without even knowing such basic facts about jade. Could he be the young master of some major financial conglomerate back home, out looking for fun?

The man wondered this to himself, but outwardly he smiled and began explaining to Su Ye.

"Haha, is this your first time trying your hand at jade, young man? The bean-type jade I mentioned is one of the least valuable kinds of jade."

"The most valuable types of jade are imperial green, green-thread, violet, and old-pit jade."

"The cheapest are bean-type, hibiscus-type, and yellow jade."

"The most expensive are also the hardest to find, and the cheapest are the easiest to find."

After explaining this to Su Ye, the man continued.

"But even the cheapest jade still commands a high price."

"If the part of that bean-type jade still encased in the stone on the platform is all jade too, I reckon it could sell for at least around five hundred thousand."

Su Ye stroked his chin and nodded, then thanked the man.

"I see. Thank you for clearing that up, sir."

The man smiled and replied to Su Ye.

"Haha, that's all basic knowledge about jade. No need to be so polite, young man."

The owner beside the cutting machine had also seen that it was bean-type jade, and his face was full of regret.

If this stone had yielded imperial green, it would have been worth at least tens of millions. What a pity, the owner sighed to himself.

About an hour later, the stone-cutting master had completely freed the jade from the stone.

Su Ye looked over and saw that the jade was pale green with flecks of white. It was about the size of two fists.

"Friend, are you selling that piece of bean-type jade? I'm willing to pay four hundred thousand for it."

The speaker was a middle-aged man in the crowd, wearing gold-rimmed glasses and a black suit.

"Hey? You think you can buy it for four hundred thousand? I bid four hundred and fifty thousand."

Another voice called out from the crowd.

"Four hundred and eighty thousand..."

"Five hundred thousand."

Xiao Xiao, standing beside Su Ye, now joined the bidding.

In the end, Xiao Xiao secured the piece of bean-type jade for five hundred and ten thousand.