Proofread by May Zhou

The Stone Gambling Festival in Donghai this time was jointly organized by a dozen of jewelry companies that were well-known around the country, and the scale of the festival was unprecedentedly large.

Tianji Jewelry Town was a 28-storey building. And the Stone Gambling Festival was held in this building from the first to the fourth floors.

On arriving at Tianji Building by car, Zhang Jun saw a large number of people shuttling to and fro at the entrance of the building. It seemed that there were many people partic.i.p.ating in the Stone Gambling Festival, which was also a sign of the successful propaganda of the organizers.

Entering the first floor of the building, Lin Xian let Zhang Jun go first by himself to the festival because she had some business engagement. Then she took the elevator alone to the upper floor.

And Zhang Jun went into D Zone, for he was going to buy some stones for fun.

The whole venue for the Festival was divided into four trading zones, A Zone, B Zone, C Zone and D Zone. The raw jadeite stones in A Zone were the most valuable with the prices often over one million yuan. In B Zone, the stones were sold at a minimum price of one hundred thousand yuan while in C Zone one could buy a stone generally at a price over ten thousand yuan.

As for D Zone, the stones were the most inexpensive of all the zones, where one could buy one for only several hundred or thousand yuan. At the same time, the zone was the most crowded place.

Zhang Jun was now in D Zone. He moved close to the sales stand, walking slowly, observing the stones secretly, and hoping to find some valuable jadeite.

He had won two million yuan in the casino. The sum was big enough for him to buy a lot of raw jadeite stones which he liked.

There were three types of stones sold in this zone. The first type was called "Betting", a kind of raw stones that even sellers couldn't decide whether there was jadeite inside them or what kind of jadeite they had. This type of stones were the most risky ones and essentially one could only gamble on his luck.

The second type was called "WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get)", which were cut open in advance so the buyers could see absolutely clearly the inside, and the value of the stones could be immediately determined. Of course, there were also risks of buying "WYSIWYG stones" because the exposed cut of the jadeite was of good quality, but the inside of the stone didn't reach that level at all.

The third was called "Half-betting". The stones of this type were sc.r.a.ped only a small bit for the buyers to watch the part inside. There were also risks of buying such stones, so it was called "half-betting".

All the "Half-betting" and "WYSIWYG" stones in good conditions on their outer layer were sold at a high price. Even if there was real jadeite in them indeed, the buyer could make only a limited sum of money from it. Zhang Jun showed little interest in them. He just focused on the "Betting" that was most risky.

Although Zhang Jun had already X-rayed Lin Xian's jadeite samples, he was still not rea.s.sured. He simply decided to have a further understanding of the inside structures of the stones by means of observing the "WYSIWYG" in this zone, so that he could make more accurate judgment.

The four zones were all equipped with stone cutting machines. The guests could cut open the stones immediately on the spot after they bought them. The process of cutting was very exciting. Many buyers would stare at the stones they bought for the result.

After the stones were cut open, some of them laughed happily while others were rather upset. The former were clearly those who chose the right stones and won a lot, while the latter were those who lost.

Along the way, Zhang Jun found that most people were losing, and only a few of them had made money. Among them there were an old man, whose stone proved to be waxy species jadeite from old pits when cut open, which was worth several hundred thousand yuan at the cost of 3,000 yuan only. With the stone in hand the old man was laughing boisterously.

After observing a large number of stones by his X-ray vision, Zhang Jun gained some confidence and felt a.s.sured. Then he began to check the "Bettings" and looked for the stones worth buying.

This process was quite boring and dull. There were thousands and thousands of stones for him to observe with his X-ray vision one by one, then he chose the ones that he wanted to buy. He walked slowly, and whenever he saw a stone he was satisfied with, he would ask the staff to pick it up and put it in one specific position.

There were enough staff members at his service in the hall. The manager saw that Zhang Jun had already taken three stones in his hand and knew that he was a big customer, so he sent a specific staff to follow him with a small cart to help him take the stones.

When Zhang Jun had found himself armed with the ability of X-ray vision, he laid down a principle of keeping a low profile for himself. So he was just not going to buy too much. Since he had limited the amount, he would naturally pick up some high quality raw jadeite .

He was stunned when he pa.s.sed a stone in the size of a small watermelon. This stone was not small, and its crust looked unremarkable, but there was an apple-sized jadeite hidden in it.

He had x-rayed Lin Xian's jadeite samples and according to this experience, the stone was a purple icy species jadeite of high quality. At this moment he couldn't tell the value of this jadeite yet, but he felt certain that it must be worth more than a million yuan.

He felt a heavy heartbeat and thought to himself, "Stone gambling is really a money-making business. This stone can be sold at a price of 8000 yuan, but if I hand it over，I can make millions or billions RMB yuan! Such a huge sum is fairly enough to buy a big house located in the centre of Donghai city!"

Zhang Jun wandered almost all over D zone and bought ten chunks of raw jadeite stones, which cost him about 60,000 yuan. The biggest one among them was as big as a watermelon while the smallest was as small as a fist, but all the stones contained jadeite of high quality within.

When Zhang Jun came to the counter to pay the bill, Lin Xian came back. Behind her was a 30-year-old man in a suit, about 1.7 meters in height. His left hand seemed to rest on Lin Xian's slender and soft waist and for most of the time his eyes stayed on Lin Xian. There were unconcealed greed and possessiveness in his eyes.

Zhang Jun was quite upset. "What's the background of that guy?" He thought. The man seemed to have some evil intentions on Lin Xian and he started getting fresh with her. Thinking so, he waved to Lin Xian and shouted loud, "I'm here, Senior!"

The young man in suit also heard Zhang Jun's shouts and frowned slightly. He followed Lin Xian and asked her, "Miss Lin, that young guy calls you as Senior, is he your cla.s.smate?"

Lin Xian said, "Yes! He is Zhang Jun and one of my alumnus at Donghai University." Saying this, she went to the counter with him.

Before Lin Xian spoke to Zhang Jun, the young man had fixed his eyes on Zhang Jun's shopping cart. When he saw the ten stones that seemed not to be in good quality, he couldn't help showing a touch of irony and said, "These stones didn't look very well, and it's hard for you to cover your cost."

Zhang Jun was rather disgusted with the man perhaps for the reason that he approached Lin Xian intentionally. And when he heard his comment on the stones he bought at this time, Zhang Jun could not help but reply coldly, "Stop talking tripe! The key to stone gambling lies in the word 'gamble'. There are some risks, of course!"

Zhang Jun's att.i.tude made the young man quite resentful. His face fell slightly and said, "I am Xu Bo, the department manager of Donghai Qianfu Jewelry Incorporation, and one of the organizers of the Stone Gambling Festival. I have been working in the stone-gambling industry for many years, and have some experience on judging the values of stones. Don't say you are not convinced, little bro!"

Lin Xian didn't understand why Zhang Jun, who had always been very modest and courteous, talked to Xu Bo so rudely. However, she did not want to offend the young man in front of her, because her family had to deal with him in most cases if they wanted to buy jadeite. She promptly mediated between the two by saying to Zhang Jun with a smile, "That's true, Zhang Jun. Manager Xu's family has a long history of stone gambling. You could learn a lot from him."

Zhang Jun raised his eyebrows and said, "Really?" And then he turned around and optionally picked up a stone which was as big as a fist from the shopping cart, and said to Xu Bo flatly, "Manager Xu, dare you make a bet with me?"