145: Chapter 144 The Gem Maniac

This was He Yueyou's first time eating at Cao Xiao's house. When she saw the large plates on the three-meter-diameter circular automatic rotating dining table, her gaze toward everyone became somewhat strange.

Top-tier ingredients prepared as home-cooked meals had a unique flavor. Along with Second Aunt's family and Li Dongping, the sixteen of them managed to flatten the dozen or so 'little mountains' of food. Everyone, including He Yueyou and the little cousin Liu Yang, ate until they could barely walk. After the meal, Cao Xiao naturally pulled He Yueyou to the rooftop to pour their hearts out to each other. Cao Xiao received no small amount of complaints from He Yueyou for what happened in South Africa, even ending up with several bruises on his body. Meanwhile, Dapu, who was busy working for Cao Xiao at Lake St. Lucia in South Africa, couldn't help but shiver.

...

The next morning, a high-spirited Cao Xiao took the girls out. Today was mainly to take Li Lanshan and An Ni out to relax. An Ni hadn't left the house since Cao Xiao's departure, spending her time at home studying hard with a hired tutor. She was very introverted and didn't interact much with Liu Chang and the others. The girls had invited her out many times to no avail; even her parents were helpless with her. She was only affectionate toward Cao Xiao and was almost completely obedient to him. However, before they could even leave, Liu Chang managed to squeeze information out of An Ni and invited her sisters to follow along. That little brat Liu Yang had no classes today and appeared right on time after receiving a tip-off. Two ordinary Audi cars carrying two males and eight females headed toward the city center. Halfway there, He Yueyou joined them with her younger sister, making the group even larger. Seeing this flock of beautiful women chattering and laughing non-stop along the way, Cao Xiao had a massive headache.

The so-called 'relaxing' trip was actually to visit the Jade and Gemstone Expo. This was the first time the expo was being held in Huanghe City. No one disliked magnificent gemstones, so various related news had spread like wildfire, reaching a point where almost everyone in Huanghe City knew about it. Not to mention the elite students like Liu Chang and her friends who were yearning for it, even a little kid like Liu Yang could say a thing or two about the exhibited gems. Under Liu Chang's persistent pestering, Cao Xiao promised to give each of them a gemstone. After that, these girls' enthusiasm for gemstone knowledge exploded. They actually started a video call in the car, engaging in heated discussions and debates. Cao Xiao could only smile bitterly at this; taking them out today was a mistake.

The Jade and Gemstone Expo was held at the International Convention and Exhibition Center. Today was a weekend, but the early morning felt like the morning rush hour, and the area near the exhibition center was incredibly congested. Cao Xiao had to find a parking lot nearby to park the car and walk over. Seeing the surging crowds at the exhibition center, Cao Xiao felt a bit intimidated and considered going somewhere else to play. However, he couldn't resist the girls' enthusiasm. As the only adult male, he had to use all his strength to protect the girls and fight through the crowd, with a little brat on his back. It was exhausting just to squeeze inside. Had he known, he should have brought some bodyguards. Fortunately, the expo was divided into different zones. One was a pure gemstone culture promotion and display area, which was free of charge, so it was quite crowded. The other was the trading area, which was divided into high-end and low-end zones. The ticket for the low-end zone was fifty yuan. It was said that the organizers hadn't expected to attract so many people and charged for tickets to limit the flow; otherwise, it would have been as overcrowded as the promotion area. But even so, it didn't stop people's passion for gemstones, and the flow of people was continuous. The ticket for the high-end trading area, however, jumped tenfold to five hundred yuan. The items displayed and sold inside were high-grade jewelry or raw materials costing tens or even hundreds of thousands at every turn.

A few thousand yuan for tickets was a small matter; otherwise, it wouldn't be fun to browse while being squeezed by crowds. A group of brightly dressed girls was very eye-catching wherever they went. Some passersby involuntarily moved closer to them. In just a short while, quite a few followers had gathered behind them. No matter how Cao Xiao tried to warn them with his eyes, he couldn't stop them from following all the way to the high-end zone. Having had the terrifying experience of traveling with He Yueyou in Cape Town last time, Cao Xiao decided to call over the bodyguards who were on leave.

The love of beauty is universal, and Cao Xiao couldn't forcibly drive away these followers. As long as no one made any excessive moves, Cao Xiao stopped paying them attention. This display area wasn't large, only a few thousand square meters. He let the girls browse on their own; if they saw something they liked, Cao Xiao would just settle the bill later. Currently, the funds in Cao Xiao's private coffers were very abundant. Not to mention a dozen pieces of high-grade jewelry and gemstones, it was possible for him to buy most of the goods in the entire high-end area!

Just a few days after Cao Xiao went to South Africa, the Jade King Jiang Hezheng had already compromised. He found many people to plead with Old Chen. Cao Xiao also didn't have time to return to the country for court, so he agreed to an out-of-court settlement, resulting in five hundred million huaxia currency being deposited. He had extorted 2.2 billion us dollars from the Angress Family, plus his remaining funds and the money from the bank accounts he got in Dubai, totaling a bit over 2.25 billion us dollars. He then transferred 2 billion to Dapu for purchasing mining rights, leaving 250 million us dollars. Later, he obtained another 870 million us dollars from the Commander of Black Scorpion. Among that, 500 million us dollars were voluntarily handed over by the Commander of Black Scorpion, and 370 million were directly transferred by Cao Xiao after he cracked the Commander's phone and logged into his account to move all the remaining money. For safety's sake, Cao Xiao transferred all the funds into his domestic account, keeping 1 billion us dollars and converting the rest into huaxia currency. Thus, Cao Xiao now had 1.3 billion in huaxia currency alone.

After the gold is delivered in a while, there will be 56 billion huaxia currency deposited. In the short term, Cao Xiao doesn't need to worry about money. This 1 billion plus huaxia currency was treated by him as pocket money. It was rare to encounter such a large-scale gemstone expo, and since this time the theme was his favorite jade and emeralds, he naturally wanted to take a good look and buy anything he liked. Especially authentic hetian jade of excellent quality—he must not let it pass. hetian jade is hailed as the King of Jade, with quality surpassing all other types of jade. However, it is nearly mined out. The Hetian region is only so large, and the mountains and waters have long been turned over by people. Even if he went personally, he wasn't sure he could find a new source. Now, the amount of mountain material mined annually is quite small, and authentic 'flowing water seed material' is even rarer to see. It might not be seen at all in a few years, and at that time, hetian jade might no longer have the distinction between mountain material and seed material. Therefore, Cao Xiao planned to buy it whenever he saw it, not even intending to pass on lower quality ones. Anyway, he was rich and willful now; at worst, he could buy them to stack into a rockery for fun.

Liu Chang and her friends all excitedly went to browse the jewelry exhibition area. Mi Fan didn't go with them but instead followed Cao Xiao to the raw material trading area. That little brat Liu Yang kept clinging to Cao Xiao's back and refused to come down; Cao Xiao had to smack his little bottom a few times before he was willing to get on the ground. Cao Xiao didn't trust him with the scatterbrained Liu Chang and the others, so he had to lead this 'tag-along' by the hand. One of his arms was also held by He Yueyou, and behind him followed the three young girls: He Yueshuang, Cao Anni, and Li Lanshan. Mi Fan walked nearby somewhat absentmindedly, keeping a slight distance from them.

Naturally, jade and emeralds were the most common sights, but there was no lack of other gemstones. China has about 100 varieties of gemstone mineral resources. The world's top three gemstones—diamonds, sapphires, and rubies—are also produced there, though the quality and output are not high. Garnet, tourmaline, peridot, topaz, malachite, turquoise, crystal, agate, beeswax, and various other gemstones were a feast for the eyes. The four famous Chinese seal stones—Tianhuang stone, Qingtian stone, chicken blood stone, and Balin stone—were also occasionally found. There were also famous 'strange stones' from all over the country for sale, such as Yuhua stone, Taihu stone, and Peach Blossom stone. However, these strange stones were somewhat large in volume, and the ones displayed here for trade were the best among them. Cao Xiao even saw a few fossils and meteorites for sale, but they weren't anything rare. The fossils were just common marine organism fossils, and the meteorites were only nickel-iron meteorites and stony meteorites, with little actual or ornamental value.

Jade is divided into soft jade and hard jade. Hard jade refers to emerald (jadeite) produced in Myanmar, while soft jade generally refers to white jade, green jade, jasper, and Xiuyan Jade produced in our country. Chinese jade categories include Inner Mongolia Shetaicui, hetian jade, Xiuyan Jade, Dushan Jade, Lantian Jade, Mi Jade, Jingbai Jade, Turquoise, and dozens of other varieties. Among them, hetian jade, Xiuyan Jade, Dushan Jade, and Turquoise are collectively known as China's 'Four Famous Jades.' Except for the Four Famous Jades, other jade varieties here only had a small amount of high-quality goods for trade because the value of other varieties is generally not high. Unlike hetian jade and emeralds, which can cost thousands or tens of thousands per gram at every turn, most of them were sold in the low-end trading area.

There were too many goods, and Cao Xiao was dazzled by the variety. He didn't plan to look slowly with his naked eyes; if he really did that, he wouldn't finish even in a whole day. His goal was to sweep up goods; he didn't have much time to waste here.

In an instant, the raw material information of the entire trading area was scanned and stored in the brain-computer. Those hidden inside stone skins were no exception. An individual information file was established for every piece, and they were sorted after a value analysis and screening. Anything with a value below five hundred thousand was filtered out. Consequently, the entire trading area became a treasure trove. Many red dots marked as treasures lit up in Cao Xiao's field of vision. What Cao Xiao had to do now was follow the treasure map and buy all these treasures.

Handing Liu Yang over to An Ni and Mi Fan to lead, Cao Xiao pulled He Yueyou toward the first prompted red dot.

“Boss, how much for this raw material?” Cao Xiao walked up to a stall selling raw emerald stones and asked the boss while pointing at one.

“This piece is yellow sand skin produced in Old Pakan, 3.2 kilograms, with good performance. Look at this line...” As soon as the boss saw business coming, he immediately became incredibly enthusiastic. With a face full of smiles, he began to talk incessantly, introducing the origin and performance of this raw stone to Cao Xiao.

“Boss, I'm only asking for the price. Give me an honest price, and if I think it's right, I'll buy it!” Cao Xiao didn't want to hear his nonsense. If the performance of this raw stone were really as good as he said, and the stall was near the entrance, it would have been bought long ago. Now he wanted to treat Cao Xiao like a greenhorn and fool him; Cao Xiao wasn't going to be polite with him either.

“If you like it, take it for three hundred thousand!” The boss was speaking excitedly and was a bit unhappy to be suddenly interrupted, so he quoted a high price.

“Fifty thousand! Not a cent more. If you sell, I'll pay; if not, forget it!” The emerald inside this raw stone was only worth about five or six hundred thousand, but its external performance was too poor, looking like thirty to fifty thousand at most. Cao Xiao's offer of fifty thousand was already very fair. If he couldn't buy it, he wouldn't waste time haggling here.

The boss saw that Cao Xiao's appearance of wanting to leave didn't seem fake. Fifty thousand was already quite profitable, so he agreed.

He quickly swiped his card to pay, took the goods, and left for the next stall without any lingering.

Half an hour later, Cao Xiao's hands already held a small trolley like a supermarket shopping cart, filled with various raw stones. He Yueyou was also puzzled by this; there was no logic in buying something after just one glance. In just this short while, eight million had been spent. No matter how much money one had, it shouldn't be burned like this. She tried to advise him several times, but Cao Xiao spoke about the few pieces of raw material with such eloquence and flowery language that after a round of bluffing, even He Yueyou started to believe Cao Xiao was a gemstone expert and stopped hindering him. It wasn't that Cao Xiao had so much research on gemstones, but rather that after knowing the hidden gems in advance, he combined the corresponding data from the brain-computer to explain them through reverse reasoning. Not to mention a layman like He Yueyou, even a senior scholar like Old Chen wouldn't be able to find any flaws in this cheating method.

The shopping spree continued. In no time, Cao Xiao became famous in this trading area because no one else spent money as readily as he did or came to buy high-priced raw materials with a trolley. A tycoon's outing brought vendors lining the path. As long as Cao Xiao moved toward them, the vendors were incredibly enthusiastic. At first, some people treated Cao Xiao as a sucker and quoted high prices, but Cao Xiao stuck firmly to one price. If the price was right, he didn't even haggle and just swiped his card to settle the bill. If the vendors didn't accept his price, he would turn and leave without a single word of nonsense. Later, the vendors didn't dare to quote prices too high, and they even stopped haggling after Cao Xiao stated a price, or directly gave a low price. Unexpectedly, this worked well, and Cao Xiao actually bought several more items from those vendors who proactively gave low prices. Therefore, other vendors followed suit. Some vendors even had people bring over their 'bottom-of-the-chest' raw materials from elsewhere. From time to time, vendors would push small carts loaded with goods to hawk them to Cao Xiao. Cao Xiao was also happy to see this; he didn't accept everything, but when he saw something good, he bought it readily.

An hour later, Duan Hong and the other six bodyguards also arrived and moved the items Cao Xiao had bought into the car. The car's trunk was too small, and Cao Xiao had bought many large pieces of raw material, so he directly rented a truck to load them. That scene made other merchants who came to buy raw materials green with envy and hatred. These people didn't know Cao Xiao's name, so they gave him the title of 'Gemstone Maniac.' Of course, this was the most euphemistic of the titles; others like 'Stone Eater' or 'Gemstone Chef' had much more obvious undertones of a curse.

It took two and a half hours of busy work to finish buying from the stall area. He didn't buy all the raw materials worth over five hundred thousand; he passed on some gemstone varieties he didn't like or those where the price was too close to the actual value. He only bought a little less than half. If he had really bought them all, this gemstone trade fair would have become a joke with no high-value raw materials left for sale.