178: Chapter 178 Gambling on Stones...
Little White Fox Ah Li originated from a nondescript stone found in a cave within the Changbai Mountain Nature Reserve on the outskirts of Jianghai City.
Although that cave was extremely large and had a complex magnetic field, there were still traces of human activity.
And, most importantly, Ye Yang did not believe that there was only one mysterious stone in the entire Blue Star that could give birth to a Little White Fox Ah Li.
Otherwise, he would not have believed that he could stumble upon something so unique in the world.
His gaze once again turned to Little White Fox Ah Li, who was playing with a mobile phone in front of him.
"Creatures with such mysterious origins are known to have huge potential, but they don't evolve as fast as I do with the system..."
"I wonder what level Little White Fox Ah Li belongs to among mysterious creatures..."
When he noticed that the game on the phone screen was Tetris, the corner of Ye Yang's eye twitched involuntarily.
"Ah Li is basically half-ruined..."
The border of the Great Xia Kingdom was a desolate sight, and the sentry stations were empty.
The tight border defense line once formed by Great Xia soldiers had long since disappeared, leaving only massive boundary markers standing tall.
At this moment.
Spiritual energy had appeared in the air of Blue Star for almost a year without anyone realizing it.
Since the astronomical phenomenon of the "Super Red Moon" appeared, Blue Star had lost half its population—over four billion people—and the comprehensive quality and strength of all countries had regressed by decades.
Great Xia was naturally no exception; its reduced military strength could not meet the demands of border defense, and with wild beasts becoming increasingly violent—some individuals even rendering conventional light weapons ineffective—
Great Xia decided to withdraw its border troops and redeploy them to defend cities within the country.
The advantage was obvious: cities in Great Xia were no longer threatened by beast tides. As for the disadvantages...
The fact that the Russian army could sneak into the country twice before was only a minor issue; the most serious problem was the smuggling of goods across the border.
However, most of these people were businessmen; the absence of border taxes allowed them to take the risk.
A sedan was speeding along the border highway.
"You have to admit, without the soldiers guarding the border, crossing it is so much easier now!"
"Ha, who's to say otherwise? If the soldiers were still there, it would be such a hassle for us businessmen to cross the border back and forth..."
"Yeah, it was never this easy..."
The three people in the car were chatting and laughing. They were in the jade and jadeite business—simply put, they went to Myanmar to purchase high-quality jadeite raw stones, then brought them back to their own domestic studios for processing and carving to sell to others.
"We won't run into any wild beasts on this road, will we..."
"Probably not. Didn't our colleagues say that the highway is still quite safe?"
"Maybe in the eyes of those beasts, we are just monkeys with not much meat on us. Don't be afraid..."
"However, this time we must go to Myanmar and buy more high-quality jade raw stones. After all, you can't walk by the river without getting your shoes wet..."
"Right!"
A few hours later, the vehicle arrived in Myanmar.
After resting for a few days, they arrived at the largest local trading market in Myanmar.
Thousands of jadeite raw stones, large and small, were scattered across various stalls.
Even though the situation on Blue Star was unstable and even somewhat chaotic, the massive profits brought by jadeite still drew crowds here.
Even from a fist-sized raw stone, it was very possible to cut out jadeite worth millions.
Although the probability was lower than winning the lottery, at least it was possible.
"Old Zhang, this time we brought almost all the working capital of our studio, ten million... Let's go straight to the big cargo area and take a look."
Old Zhang, the leader of the studio, nodded in agreement, "That makes sense."
Then the three of them walked towards the big cargo stalls.
Sure enough, the jadeite raw stones stored here were all very large, with the smallest starting at thirty kilograms, but the prices were also exceptionally expensive.
The three of them took out flashlights specifically used for examining jade, shining the light onto the surface of the raw stones; the features revealed allowed for a preliminary judgment of the jade's overall quality.
This was the first step of gambling on stones, and also the most crucial one. Almost everyone who bought raw stones for gambling had their own unique experience.
But even if an expert was very optimistic about the performance of a raw stone, they wouldn't dare to say that this piece was guaranteed to increase in value.
After all, jade needs millions of years to gestate, and even existing technological civilization cannot detect the changes in the jade quality inside, let alone humans.
Nature is just that magical, full of mysteries and unknowns.
"Hmm... this raw stone looks good. The texture is almost at the limit of glass-grade!"
The young man among the three took the flashlight and kept stroking a large raw stone, observing the changes.
Old Zhang, the studio leader, joked with Old Li beside him, "Xiao Wang, why are you using the flashlight to marvel at the window opened on the raw stone... Besides, look at the price of that raw stone first."
The so-called 'window' of a raw stone refers to grinding off the skin on one part of the surface to see the local jade flesh inside.
"Hiss... over thirty million! And that's not in Burmese currency, but in daxia currency! Goodness... poverty limits my imagination..."
Afterwards, the young man, Xiao Wang, followed the experienced Old Zhang and Old Li to start looking for large-sized jade that was reasonably priced and had good performance.
After searching for a long time, the three finally stopped in front of a hundred-kilogram jade stone.
"This big guy performs quite well... Even if the jade quality inside isn't ideal, we can still recoup our costs by slowly selling it off over a long period."
"And this piece of jade happens to be priced at exactly ten million."
The performance of this large stone wasn't necessarily great, but relying on the intuition of the experienced gamblers Old Zhang and Old Li, even if this large raw stone didn't yield a huge profit when cut, it wouldn't result in a massive loss either.
Because they could take their time selling it to recoup the costs.
And now that frequent travel between the country and Myanmar was not advisable, this large raw stone was well worth their investment.
"Let's see if we can haggle..."
To their surprise, the miners in Myanmar used to be willing to give big discounts; for a ten-million jade stone like this, they could usually get it for three or four million in the past.
But this stall owner refused to lower the price no matter what.
"Damn it! It seems we aren't the only ones with this idea; the price of jadeite raw stones has skyrocketed!"
In the end, they gritted their teeth and closed the deal...
A few days later, the three of them returned to the country with the hundred-kilogram raw stone purchased from Myanmar.
Inside a specialized shop for cutting raw stones, dozens of people had gathered, all of whom were in the jade business.
Because today they were going to watch a high-quality raw stone worth ten million being cut, which was a good opportunity for them to accumulate experience in gambling on stones...
As the roar of the cutting machine sounded, everyone's eyes were focused on the cutting machine...