Free Web NovelChapter 283: Chapter 285: Stone Gambling
"So, has anyone ever won?"
The question An Ning asked was exactly what the three of them loved to hear.
But they couldn’t rush it.
The only woman in the group put on a worried expression and tried to dissuade An Ning.
"Well, yes, people do win, but it’s impossible to predict. Most people lose, so it’s better not to get involved."
"Right, right. We’re just here to watch the excitement."
"Playing for small stakes is one thing, but going big is a bad idea."
The three of them took turns trying to persuade her. An Ning didn’t speak or nod, but her eyes glittered with a craving for money.
By the end of the meal, An Ning had been "convinced" by the three of them. She agreed to go with them to an event called "stone gambling."
"Alright, I’ll go pay the bill."
An Ning stood up and started patting herself down for money.
Her hands moved all over her body, from left to right, then right to left.
She searched high and low, front and back.
"Huh? Where’s my money?"
Looking like a complete fool, An Ning slammed her hand on the table with a THWACK, making the bowls and chopsticks jump.
Her voice suddenly shot up as she glared menacingly at their surroundings.
"Who stole my money? Which rotten-to-the-core scumbag did this?!"
"How could my money just disappear?"
As An Ning put on her show, she was carefully observing the expressions of the three scammers.
"Ah—it’s here."
An Ning suddenly patted her stomach and burst out laughing.
"I forgot, I sewed it into my clothes. Wait a moment, I’ll go to the restroom. It’s not easy to take it out here."
An Ning made to leave.
The three of them quickly exchanged glances, and one of the men stood up.
"No, no, there’s no need for that. How could I let you pay? Where would I put my face as a grown man?"
"This meal’s on me."
As the man spoke, he took out his money. An Ning, who had been "stopped," readily halted.
"Okay, you pay."
She agreed so readily, without the slightest hint of polite refusal, that it made the man paying feel quite uncomfortable.
Regardless, the man paid.
An Ning stood outside the counter and said to the person handling the bill, "Can I get a receipt?"
"My big brother said I can get reimbursed for this."
In the end, An Ning held up a receipt filled with a fake address and information for her fabricated brother and said to the man who paid, "Next time, it’s my treat. Don’t be strangers."
The man who paid felt as if a lump of unleavened bread was stuck in his chest; he felt like he was about to choke to death.
The other two also looked a bit unwell, thrown off by An Ning’s thick-skinned behavior.
However, they recovered quickly. Their real emotions lasted less than a fifth of a second—they were experienced swindlers, after all.
An ordinary person would never have noticed their subtle emotional shifts, but unfortunately for them, they had met An Ning.
An Ning, shouldering her backpack, followed the trio out of the restaurant and toward the "fun place" they had mentioned.
They walked and walked, eventually finding themselves back on the antique street.
The group ducked into a small alley, made a few turns, and arrived at a large black door.
One of the men went forward and knocked. There must have been some kind of password exchanged with the person inside, because the door opened.
When they tried to enter, the person who opened the door stopped them.
"Weren’t there supposed to be three of you?"
"This is our good friend. She’s trustworthy, don’t worry."
"She definitely won’t say a thing."
The three tried to persuade him, but the doorman wouldn’t budge. Instead, he said, "If she wants to come in, fine. One thousand yuan deposit."
An Ning’s mind raced. ’I’m not paying a single cent.’
"That much money? Then I’m not going."
An Ning turned and started to walk away.
The three of them pulled and tugged, calling An Ning back and telling her how great it was inside.
But An Ning was stubborn as a mule. Going in was fine, but paying money was not.
"I haven’t even bought anything, and it’s a thousand yuan just to get in the door? Do you know how many steamed buns I could buy with that?"
"I’m definitely not going."
An Ning squatted by the door, refusing to go in no matter what they said.
’Spending money to buy something is fine, but why spend money when I’m not buying anything?’
In the end, the three of them pooled their money, scraped together a thousand yuan for An Ning, and she went in.
At the doorway, An Ning looked at the three of them, her eyes brimming with tears, and said, "You guys are such good people."
"Sigh... but my mom always said good people don’t live long. What a shame."
With that single phrase, "what a shame," An Ning managed to evoke the feeling of a funeral banner. If you added an erhu, it would be a full-blown funereal affair.
An Ning sauntered inside, shaking her head. The doorman was so amused by her bizarre train of thought that he felt like he’d suffered internal injuries from holding back his laughter.
The three scammers followed An Ning inside, strained smiles plastered on their faces.
The three of them shared a single thought: ’Today, we have to fleece her for all she’s worth!’
An Ning stepped into a courtyard that was a world away from the cramped alley outside.
Before her was an extremely spacious courtyard, covering several hundred square meters.
There were about forty or fifty people in the courtyard.
They stood in small groups of two and three, gathered around piles of rocks, tapping and examining them closely.
’Stone gambling?’
’There’s jadeite inside the stones, but they can’t see it.’
An Ning immediately sent out her spiritual power to plan her next move.
A wave of her spiritual power swept over a stone, and its internal structure appeared clearly before her eyes.
’This is a sure win.’
An Ning scanned two more stones. The view was just as clear, with no issues whatsoever.
However, there was no jadeite inside those stones either.
’That makes sense. If every stone I scanned had something, everyone would be rich.’
All of this happened in the instant An Ning walked in.
By the time she withdrew her spiritual power, the three who had brought her over had reached her side.
An Ning wasn’t in a hurry. She waited to see what move the trio would make.
She walked along with the three of them, listening to them explain things about jadeite.
You choose a stone yourself, also known as a raw stone.
Once you’ve made your choice, you can have it cut open with a machine to see what’s inside.
If you cut open a good piece of jadeite, it’s naturally a massive profit on a small investment.
But most of the time—or rather, more than ninety percent of the time—you lose money.
You can also choose to sell your raw stone directly, but those are usually stones that everyone agrees look promising—the kind of top-quality goods that attract many people to bid against each other.
An Ning understood. ’But how exactly are these people planning to scam me?’
From her observations, the courtyard seemed to be a legitimate operation.
The forty or fifty people inside weren’t shills or accomplices.
Even the young man at the door wasn’t part of their group.
After walking a few laps, An Ning was starting to get a little bored of waiting.
"Oh my god!"
A very faint cry caught An Ning’s attention.
The woman who had been standing next to An Ning kicked a stone, and a speck of fluorescent green, the size of a grain of millet, appeared in An Ning’s line of sight.
An Ning couldn’t help but wonder, ’Are they trying to trick me into buying a stone?’
’But how would they know which stone has something in it and which one doesn’t?’
The female scammer crouched down, picked up the stone from the ground, and stared at it intently.
An Ning crouched down and looked along with her.
"I’m buying this one."
The woman picked up the stone and walked toward the person handling transactions.
Pay, buy the stone, done.
Just as An Ning was trying to figure out their ploy, the scammer woman got ready to have the stone cut open and called her over.
They passed through a small path into the backyard, and suddenly, An Ning understood.
