197: Chapter 196 Public Auction Shopping Spree

"Uh, wasn't I helping you buy things today? I paid for you to buy things, and you were all hesitant. How come you're complaining about me now?" Cao Xiao retorted shamelessly.

"Boss, I'm a bodyguard. What do I need men's perfume for? Those clothes and bags you bought are so trendy; do you want us to change careers and become models?" Li Quanshuo chimed in.

"Exactly. You shoved dozens of types of cosmetics at me, making it seem like I can't be seen in public without makeup! You're indirectly calling me ugly." Zhou Qingxuan also interjected indignantly.

"You bought dozens of boxes of underwear and shoved them all to me. People on the way were saying I still wet the bed at my age..." Cheng Xiaodao also joined the condemnation.

Facing the crazy bombardment from his bodyguards, Cao Xiao was speechless. He had just been focused on shopping today, and in a few hours, he had spent 13 million. Only when he went to mail them did he realize how much he had actually bought. It was piled up like a small mountain, and it took over ten people half an hour to organize it. He had bought it on a whim, but when he saw it again, he realized he couldn't use it, couldn't finish it, and couldn't throw it away, so he had to give it to others. Thus, with deep apologies, he enthusiastically gifted it to his bodyguards.

The few hours of the flight passed amidst a tide of condemnation. When the plane landed at Yangon International Airport and they reached the booked hotel, Cao Xiao could no longer hold back his sleepiness and slept soundly.

Myanmar has strict management over jade resources. Only through the public auction can they be traded and exported; anything else is considered smuggling. This jade public auction is held at the Myanmar Jewelry Trade Center, about 25 kilometers from Yangon city center, and lasts for seven days, making it the shortest one in history. The first three days are for display because four-fifths of all the jade resources in the public auction are auctioned via secret bids, which takes three days, with the final day being for open bids.

For Cao Xiao, time was very abundant, so he planned to go to the public auction in the morning to view goods and purchase some loose items. Tomorrow, he would go to the jewelry and jade market to purchase rubies, and in the following days, he would go to Mogok, the top ruby production area in Myanmar, to "inspect," then go to the Myitkyina area to "inspect" jade production areas, and stop by the Yeren Mountain area before returning when the secret bid auction started.

Cao Xiao did not have his own jewelry company, nor was he a raw material purchaser, so he had not received an invitation to the public auction. He only realized this problem when he arrived at the entrance. He only knew one jeweler, Fang Yongchang, but Fang Yongchang had caused trouble here and would not come to attend the public auction. There were many people from China coming to attend the public auction, but he was too embarrassed to ask for help. He stood awkwardly at the main entrance, wondering whether to forge one to sneak in. Just at this moment, a voice came to his ear: "Little brother, are you here to attend the public auction? Do you not have an invitation?"

It was pure Huaxia language. Cao Xiao turned his head in confusion and saw a heavyweight big shot looking at him with a smile. Visually, he weighed at least 120 kilograms, but his height was less than 1.6 meters. He could be described as having broad shoulders and a thick waist. On a face like a weight, his eyes were barely visible, yet he had a buzz cut, which was very funny. He couldn't help but want to laugh, but out of politeness, he held it back, nodded, smiled, and said: "Yes, hello!"

The fat guy saw Cao Xiao like this and smiled even more happily. He walked two steps closer, extended a hand in front of Cao Xiao, and said enthusiastically: "My name is Zhang Wenfu, and my father is Zhang Tiantong. Since we are fellow countrymen from Huaxia, we should help each other when out and about. I have an extra blank invitation here; you can take it and use it. Just fill in a name and attach a photo."

Cao Xiao naturally had heard of Zhang Tiantong's famous name—the richest man in Huaxia ten years ago, a famous real estate businessman. In recent years, there was little news about him in the media, and his name hadn't even appeared in the top of the domestic rich list for several years, falling after the top twenty and declining every year. However, Cao Xiao knew this was just an appearance. Zhang Tiantong's real estate company projects were spread across every city in the country, even developing to the county and township level. Huaxia values keeping wealth hidden; if one were to calculate the actual asset value, Zhang Tiantong was not inferior to the current richest man, and perhaps even far exceeded him. He hadn't heard of Zhang Tiantong's son, who was unknown, but Zhang Wenbin's appearance was indeed a waste of media resources. His name was somewhat refined, his speech was pleasant, he was fat but open-minded, and he was chivalrous and helpful. This person was actually not bad and worth getting to know.

"My name is Cao Xiao. I'm very happy to meet you. I came in a hurry and forgot to prepare, so I will accept it without declining! Thank you!" Cao Xiao extended his hand to shake hands with Zhang Wenfu, took the invitation the other party handed over, and said neither humbly nor arrogantly.

"No need to thank me, it's a small matter, not worth mentioning. I'll go in first." Zhang Wenfu was very humble; after waving goodbye, he left.

"Little Zhou and Little Zhang will come in with me, while the others can wander around outside. I will call in advance when I come out." One invitation could only bring two attendants in. After yesterday's shopping incident, the bodyguards were unwilling to go in with him, so he had to grab two reluctant conscripts.

After paying a deposit of 10,000 euros, upon entering, all that met his eyes besides the crowd was stones covering the ground. As the origin of jade, the scale of the Myanmar jade public auction is the largest in the world, far incomparable to those public auctions in China. The scene was much livelier than the gem exhibition held in Huanghe City. Two-fifths of Myanmar's annual jade production is traded at the public auction. Most jewelry merchants from all over the world gather here to participate in the public auction. During this period, countless tourists who like jade flock here, so one can imagine what a grand occasion it was.

Gambling on stones had no excitement for him; what he was interested in was jade. The purpose of coming to Myanmar this time was to buy at the bottom and sweep up goods, preparing sufficient raw materials for his jewelry store that was about to open. However, his main goal was not the public auction, but the jade production mines. Due to the increasing demand in the Huaxia jade market while jade resources were becoming increasingly scarce, jade prices had been skyrocketing. According to incomplete statistics of single transactions, at each public auction, more than 70% of the jade rough stones were sold at a price slightly higher than the base price, about 20% were sold at 1 to 2 times higher than the base price, and nearly 10% had very fierce competition, even being sold at more than 10 times the base price.

Moreover, the annual increase in jade prices was over 20%. Last year's prices were already crazy, and this year the competition was even fiercer, with prices rising by at least 30%. Before coming, he had injected a large sum of development funds into Dizang Company. Now, he only had a little over one billion us dollars in his account, and he had to keep some in reserve, so he could only take out three to five hundred million us dollars for procurement. But with such a small amount of money, he couldn't buy much jade, which was far from satisfying his appetite. In fact, even if all the raw materials at the public auction were given to him, he would still feel it wasn't enough. His appetite had long been spoiled by the industrial mother machine to an boundless extent. He wouldn't be satisfied until the space was filled, and other jewelry merchants would sooner or later be scared into changing careers.

The interior of the trade center was very large, and although there were many people, it did not seem crowded. Those who could come here were all jewelry and jade merchants. The 10,000 euro deposit and the invitation-only entry system were enough to keep out the vast majority of tourists. People in the venue were gathered in twos and threes around some rough stones, commenting and criticizing, each looking like a stone gambling expert. Cao Xiao pretended to carefully look at a few pieces and then lost interest. Since he could easily know the answer, there was no need to bring out his half-baked knowledge and make a fool of himself. He scanned everything with his perspective vision, made records and purchase plans, and could just bid when the auction started.

After taking a quick look around, he took Zhang Qiling and the other person to the free trade area. The raw materials bought at the public auction could not be cut on-site. After winning the bid, they would be transported by a shipping company designated by the public auction official, and could only be cut after arrival, but that was a long time later. Payment was relatively loose; one only needed to pay off 10% of the payment and taxes within a month, and pay the full amount within three months after receiving the goods. Therefore, many stone gambling enthusiasts targeted the free trade area. Although the quality of the rough stones there was not as good as those at the public auction, they had the advantage of quantity. It was cash on the spot, buy and cut on the spot. In fact, many top-quality jades were cut out there, which was a bit like a divine object hiding its brilliance. The quality of the rough stone only represented a high probability of gambling out jade; it did not mean that good external appearance could guarantee high-grade jade, otherwise, the transaction price of the rough stones at the public auction would be even more terrifying.

He contacted the bodyguards to rent some small carts and a large truck, and also prepared 5 million huaxia currency in cash. Let alone Myanmar's currency, huaxia currency and euros were the main circulating currencies in Myanmar. Myanmar was under economic sanctions from the United States, so us dollar was not popular here. Once everyone was gathered, Cao Xiao began his vigorous sweeping journey. Rough stones were traded here every minute. Cao Xiao was afraid that the raw materials containing top-quality jade would be bought by others in advance, so he planned the purchasing scheme before starting. He started buying from the best, took a casual look at the rough stones, discussed the price with the merchants, and as long as it wasn't outrageous, he didn't bargain much, paid, took the goods, and rushed to the next target.

The bodyguards acted as porters, busy back and forth without stopping, everyone complaining constantly, but Cao Xiao was still tirelessly throwing money around. Yesterday's shopping was spending money, but today was truly picking up money. The harvest was really too great. Top-quality jade, which was rarely seen in the world, was not everywhere here, but the quantity was truly not small. This phenomenon was a bit abnormal. If his guess was not wrong, there must be many big speculators behind the scenes constantly hoarding jade rough stones. Most high-quality rough stones were stored in private warehouses waiting for a high price, otherwise, top-grade jade jewelry would not be so rare in the jewelry market. In fact, Cao Xiao also made this inference after discovering many people buying rough stones in large quantities, but those people combined were not as crazy as him.

After realizing this phenomenon, his movements became faster. The top-grade jade rough stones were already in his pocket, and he no longer saved money. When he arrived at a stall, as long as it was worth buying, he would point them all out one by one, let the merchant give a total price, and buy them in bulk. Even if the value of the jade was about the same as the rough stone, he would buy it. Anyway, he didn't intend to transport it out normally; he would find a warehouse to store it first, and after the public auction ended, he would throw it into his space, saving a large sum of money without paying taxes. Continuing like this, he didn't even eat lunch and was busy until 4 PM before storing all the purchased rough stones in the rented warehouse. Everyone, including Zhou Qingxuan, was exhausted like a dog.

Some interesting things happened during this time. Some purchasers saw Cao Xiao was so determined and decisive when buying rough stones and thought he was a great stone gambling expert. Surprisingly, many people shamelessly jumped out to bid against him. The merchants were also happy to see this. Cao Xiao was in a hurry and didn't argue with them, nor was he angry. He didn't raise the price with them, but used the method of swapping the fake for the real, replacing the jade in those rough stones with stones that looked like the skin. He had no psychological burden doing this; getting jade without spending money, why not? Such things happened many times, making more people believe he was a great stone gambling expert and had a very good temper. Until the first person who snatched his rough stone cut it, no one followed him behind wanting to pick up a bargain. In this way, as long as the rough stones he wanted to buy were ignored by others, the merchants also actively discounted and lowered prices, wishing he would buy all their waste materials.

No less than 500 tons of rough stones were placed messily in the warehouse, thrown around casually like worthless stones on the roadside. Looking at the less than 600 million us dollars in his account, Cao Xiao felt no heartache, because these rough stones could bring him at least 4 billion us dollars in profit! The most valuable rough stones in the free trade area were basically all here. He even felt a little grateful to the purchasing merchants who raised the price against him. If they hadn't made trouble, he would have had to spend at least 100 million us dollars more to buy them today. The value of this batch of rough stones was too great, and Cao Xiao was not at ease leaving them here, otherwise, he would have to send a few bodyguards to guard them day and night. So after closing the warehouse door, he collected them into his space and, by the way, unpacked them all.

Various colors of glass species jade were calculated by the ton, totaling 2.2 tons, because one of them was a giant glass species chicken-fat yellow jade weighing 900 kilograms, which was unpacked from a 2.3-ton rough stone, accounting for nearly half the weight. There were more than 5 tons of ice species jade, and about 10 tons of other slightly worse ones. Although most were from new pits, nearly 20 tons of high-grade jade raw materials were somewhat shocking. This gave him a feeling of extreme unreality. It seemed that there wasn't that much high-grade jade flowing into the jewelry market for trading every year. Even if most of the transactions were done privately, the rough stones in the free trade area at most only accounted for one-fifth of the annual production. Calculated by this ratio, where did the nearly 100 tons of high-grade jade go every year? Was this phenomenon of underreporting production a market behavior or organized speculation?

It was not that he wanted to think wildly about irrelevant things, but that he intended to intervene in the entire jade industry. Compared with other minerals scattered around the world, jade, with its single origin, was the easiest to control. As long as most jade resources were in his own hands, he would have the final say in the entire jade market. But now he found that things were not as simple as he thought. Even if he swept away all the high-grade jade on the market and collected all the rough stones still buried in those jade production areas, he could not control the entire industry, because he could not estimate the huge amount that had been collected by others. If they had started hoarding rough stones decades ago, that would be a very huge quantity, and Cao Xiao could only follow behind others and eat dust.