The Gamble Stone 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 unprecedented.
Tianji Jewelry Town was a 28-storey building. And the Gamble Stone Festival was held from the first to the fourth floors.
After they got off the car, Zhang Jun saw a large number of people coming in and out of the entrance of Tianji Building. It seemed that many people were participating in the Gamble Stone Festival, which was also a sign of the successful marketing.
Entering the first floor of the building, Lin Xian let Zhang Jun go first by himself to the festival because she had some business arrangements. Then she took the elevator alone to the upper floor.
And Zhang Jun went into D Zone to buy some stones for fun.
The whole venue was divided into four zones, A, B, C and D. The raw jade in A Zone were the most valuable, often worth over one million yuan. In B Zone, the stones were sold at a minimum of one hundred thousand yuan while in C Zone one could buy a stone around ten thousand yuan.
As for D Zone, the stones were the least expensive, where one stone only cost several hundred or thousand yuan. At the same time, it was the most crowded place as well.
Zhang Jun went to D Zone. He moved close to the booths, walking slowly, observing the stones secretly, and hoping to find some valuable raw jade.
He had won two million yuan in the casino. The sum was big enough for him to buy a lot of raw jade as he liked.
There were three types of stones sold in this zone. The first type was called “bet rocks”, raw stones that even sellers couldn’t decide if there was jade inside or what kind of jade they had. This type of stone was the riskiest ones and essentially one could only rely on luck.
The second type was called “bare rocks”, which were cut open in advance so the buyers could see clearly the inside, and the value of the stones could be immediately determined. Of course, there were also risks of buying “bare stones” because the exposed cut of the jadeite might be good quality, but the inside wouldn’t reach that level at all.
The third type was called “half bet, half bare”. These stones were scraped only a bit for the buyers to see the inside. There were also risks of buying such stones, so it was called “half-betting”.
All the “half bet, half bare” and “bare” stones with good outer layer were sold at a high price. Even if there was really jade inside, the buyer could make only a limited amount of money from it. Zhang Jun showed little interest in them. He just focused on the “bet rocks” that were the riskiest.
Although Zhang Jun had already X-rayed Lin Xian’s jadeite samples, he was still not reassured. He decided to investigate the internal structures of the stones by observing the “bare rocks” in this zone, so that he could make better judgment.
The four zones all came with stone cutting machines. The guests could cut open the stones on the spot after they bought them. The cutting process 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 have clearly chosen the right stones and won a lot, while the latter had lost.
After some time, Zhang Jun found that most people were losing, and only a few of them made money. Among them there were an old man, whose stone proved to be an ancient-pit wax-jade, which was worth several hundred thousand yuan at the cost of just 3,000 yuan. With the stone in hand the old man was laughing heartily.
After observing a large number of stones with his X-ray vision, Zhang Jun gained some confidence and felt assured. Then he began to check the “bet rocks” for valuable stones.
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 that he liked, 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 dedicated staff to follow him with a small cart to help him carry the stones.
When Zhang Jun found himself capable of X-ray vision, he laid down a rule to keep a low profile. So, he was not going to buy too much. Since he wasn’t going to buy a lot, he would naturally pick up more high-quality raw jade.
He was stunned when he passed a stone 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, “Gamble stone is really a money-making business. This stone can be bought at a price of 8000 yuan, but if I sell it, I can make millions or even billions! Such a huge sum is enough to buy a big house located in the center of Donghai city!”
Zhang Jun wandered almost all over D zone and bought ten chunks of raw jade, 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 high-quality jade.
When Zhang Jun came to the counter, Lin Xian came back. Behind her was a 30-year-old man in a suit, about 1.7 meters tall. 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. “Where did that guy come from?” He thought. The man seemed to have some bad intentions on Lin Xian and he started getting touchy with her. On that thought, he waved to Lin Xian and shouted, “I’m here, Senior Lin!”
The young man in suit also heard Zhang Jun’s call and frowned slightly. He followed Lin Xian and asked her, “Miss Lin, that young guy calls you a Senior, is he your classmate?”
Lin Xian said, “Yes! He is Zhang Jun and one of my alumni at Donghai University.” She said as she went to the counter with the man.
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 looked like bad quality, he couldn’t help showing contempt and said, “These stones don’t look very good. I doubt you can cover your cost.”
Zhang Jun was rather disgusted with the man perhaps because he approached Lin Xian intentionally. When he heard this comment, Zhang Jun could not help but reply coldly, “Nonsense! The key to bet rocks lies in the word ‘get’. There are some risks, of course!”
Zhang Jun’s attitude 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 Gamble Stone 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 speak too fast, little boy!”
Lin Xian didn’t understand why Zhang Jun, who had always been very modest and polite, 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 many cases if they wanted to buy jade. She promptly tried to ease the tension between the two by smiling at Zhang Jun, “That’s true, Zhang Jun. Manager Xu’s family has a long history in stone-gambling. You could learn a lot from him.”
Zhang Jun raised his eyebrows and said, “Really?” And then he turned around and picked up a random stone which was as big as a fist from the shopping cart, and nonchalantly he said to Xu Bo, “Manager Xu, dare you make a bet with me?”