Chapter Thirteen: Selecting the Gambling Stones

“Alright, I’ll sell it!” The man in the suit nodded. Having spent considerable time in the raw stone market, he was familiar with jadeite prices, and this offer was about as good as it got.

Yang Qi watched the scene in amazement, sucking in a breath. One million one hundred thousand yuan—that was a sevenfold increase from the previous price. Moreover, someone in the crowd had mentioned that the suited man had only paid a hundred thousand for the raw stone initially. In a blink, it had appreciated eleven times, netting a million yuan in profit! To put it into perspective, an average commodity house in Qingzhou cost about the same, meaning that jadeite the size of half a fist could buy a property outside the third ring road in Qingzhou. If Yang Qi had that kind of money, perhaps he and Zhang Qian would never have parted ways.

“My brother just received a batch of old mine raw stones. If anyone is interested, feel free to come in and have a look,” the middle-aged man who was breaking stones said with a smile to the onlookers.

The moment he spoke, the crowd surged into the shop, eagerly inspecting the raw jade. This place had already produced a piece of icy jadeite, so who was to say another wouldn’t appear? After all, gambling on stones was itself a gamble, and many involved were quite superstitious.

Seeing dozens of people pouring into the shop, Yang Qi was dumbfounded. The entire store was packed.

“Damn, now I understand why some people are willing to risk everything on lottery tickets,” Yang Qi thought, shaking his head. Even he felt an urge to rush in and buy a couple of raw stones when he saw the suited man sell jadeite for a million.

As the crowd gradually dispersed, the stone-breaking machine area became deserted. Yang Qi frowned as he looked at the now crowded shop in front of him, wondering whether he should squeeze in too.

“Hmm?” Suddenly, his gaze flicked to the neighboring raw stone shop, which was completely empty.

“I’ll pass on pushing into that crowd. Even if I can sense the vital energy fluctuations in the raw stones, there’s no guarantee I’ll get jadeite-bearing ones. It’s better to take my time choosing alone next door,” he reasoned.

With that, Yang Qi decisively walked toward the adjacent raw stone shop.

“Hmm, that young man is heading to Lao Xu’s shop. He must be new to the antique street. Looks like he’s about to lose everything,” the shop owner muttered, shaking his head at Yang Qi’s choice.

Inside the shop, raw jade stones of various sizes were scattered all over the floor—some as small as a fist, others nearly half a person’s height. Near a pile of raw stones sat a middle-aged man with a stubbly face.

“Boss, how much do you sell the raw stones for here?” Yang Qi called out.

The man glanced at him indifferently and said, “If you want to buy raw stones, go to the next shop.”

“What?” Yang Qi looked at the man in disbelief. Did he hear that right? Go to the next shop to buy raw stones? Who did business like that? He had heard of false advertising to lure customers, but never of a seller who sent them away.

“You heard correctly. If you want to buy raw stones, better go elsewhere,” the man said before closing his eyes.

Yang Qi stared at the scattered raw stones, puzzled. “Why send me away? Don’t you sell raw stones here?”

“If you want to buy, buy. But don’t say I didn’t warn you if you lose money,” the man said coldly.

Yang Qi was dumbfounded. Gambling on stones was just that—gambling. There were winners and losers. Why would a seller openly warn customers about losses? In a casino, if the house repeatedly emphasized that customers would lose money, who would ever enter?

“This guy’s strange,” Yang Qi muttered, shaking his head. He immediately began selecting stones anyway. His main purpose was to verify if jadeite contained vital energy and whether he could sense its fluctuations. If not, he wouldn’t buy any raw stones.

He immediately dismissed the large stones. Although he had only read a few novels about stone gambling, he knew that large raw stones were usually expensive. So he focused on the smaller ones.

Squatting before a pile of small raw stones, Yang Qi picked one at random and let his internal energy surge, trying to sense its energy fluctuations.

“Nothing!” In an instant, he detected no slightest trace of energy.

He quickly selected a second stone.

Nothing...

Nothing...

Still nothing...

After testing seven or eight stones, Yang Qi hadn’t sensed any vital energy fluctuations in any of them.

“Could it be that only the Guanyin pendant from Da Fei is special?” Yang Qi frowned but didn’t give up. After all, not every raw stone contained jadeite. In fact, most didn’t, or else stone gambling wouldn’t be much of a gamble.

Trying two more stones yielded the same result—no energy fluctuations.

“Hmm... this is... energy fluctuations...” Just as Yang Qi was about to lose hope, on the third stone he sensed a surge of vital energy, even stronger than the Guanyin pendant Da Fei had given him.

“It really works!” Yang Qi was instantly exhilarated. With vital crystals, his cultivation speed would skyrocket!

Suppressing his excitement, he looked toward the middle-aged man who was still resting with eyes closed and asked, “Boss, how much for this stone?”

The man slightly opened his eyes, glanced at the stone in Yang Qi’s hand, and said indifferently, “Eight hundred.”

So cheap!

Yang Qi was stunned. He had seen the other raw stone shop across the way but hadn’t entered. For stones of this size, their mark-up was 1,200 yuan. Here, the price was a third cheaper. He could buy three stones here for the price of two over there. Although four hundred yuan wasn’t a trivial sum for most, it was significant for Yang Qi, still a student.

A quick calculation showed he had just over 1,100 yuan on him and 4,000 in his bank card—the latter saved from part-time jobs and daily frugality. He had planned to save it for renting a place with Zhang Qian after graduation, but now that was unnecessary. In total, 5,100 yuan. After setting aside living expenses for the remaining days and next month—he estimated about 2,000 yuan for emergencies—he could spare around 3,000 yuan, enough to buy three raw stones.

“I’m going all in. If my cultivation improves, even if I end up carrying bricks on construction sites, I can work harder and earn more!” Gritting his teeth, Yang Qi decided to spend all three thousand yuan on raw stones.

With that resolve, he wasted no time. Spending over half an hour, he sifted through more than two hundred raw stones before selecting four with the strongest vital energy fluctuations.