Free Web NovelChapter 284: Chapter 286: The Trickery of Stone Cutting
An Ning followed the three of them to the backyard.
The backyard wasn’t as large as the front, but there were several small rooms here. Some doors were open, others were closed.
An Ning glanced toward a room with an open door. Inside, a person sat on a stool in front of a whirring electric machine.
Beneath the machine was a raw stone, its outer layer being slowly ground away.
This step was called stone cutting.
"How do you want to do the cutting?"
"Private."
The female con artist answered the young attendant, and he led them into the room at the very end.
After the four of them went inside, the door to the room was closed.
A private cut meant only their own people would know; it wasn’t for outsiders to see.
’The scam must be starting now,’ An Ning guessed.
’The young attendant who just asked the question, this stone-cutting master in the room, and the trio of scammers must all be in cahoots.’
The female con artist wasted no time. Upon entering the room, she handed the stone to the seated cutting master. The machine started to WHIR, and stone dust fell away with the sound.
The small green dot from before gradually grew larger.
It was at this moment that the other two men spoke up.
"Xiao Zi, I’ll give you one hundred thousand for that raw stone. How about it?"
"Brother Wang, that’s not playing fair. We never said this was an auction."
The con artist, Xiao Zi, stared at the raw stone with an air of utter confidence. "I’m not selling. I want to see the whole thing revealed."
Since the woman wasn’t selling, the two male con artists became temporary partners.
"Xiao Zi, it looks good for now, but who knows what will happen if you keep cutting."
"Yeah, the risk is still very high. What if it has cotton inclusions or cracks—"
Xiao Zi shot him a hard glare, and the man who had spoken immediately feigned slapping his own mouth. "Listen to me run my stupid mouth. My fault, my fault."
"Enough talk. I’ll offer one hundred fifty thousand. How about it?"
"One hundred eighty thousand."
"Do you really have to fight me for it?"
"That’s not the right way to see it. Sure, we’re friends, but we both have families to answer to. We’ve all got to contribute something."
One of the men snorted coldly but had to admit the other was right.
"Two hundred thousand!"
"Two hundred twenty thousand!"
The two men continued to raise the price, and Xiao Zi’s expression began to soften a little. At this price, she’d already be making a huge profit.
Besides, if she sold now, she wouldn’t have to shoulder any further risk.
An Ning took in the trio’s entire performance.
’Are they waiting for me to join the bidding?’
An Ning’s spiritual power had already scanned the stone being cut.
There was indeed a green object inside, but its composition wasn’t like jadeite. It was more like glass.
This raw stone was one hundred percent a fake.
The three of them carried on with their boisterous act, as if they’d completely forgotten An Ning was even there.
In the end, Xiao Zi still didn’t sell, choosing to have it all cut open.
When an entire piece of green "jadeite" was revealed, An Ning stared along with them, looking utterly dumbfounded.
The stone-cutting master took the green jadeite and placed it in a nearby bucket of water to wash it off.
When he took the stone out of the water, An Ning thought, ’Now *this* is the real trick.’
The stone had been switched.
Or rather, the glass had become real jadeite.
"It’s all cut."
After the stone-cutting master spoke, Xiao Zi stepped forward to pick up the real jadeite, and the other two men also crowded in to look.
"Oh my god, Xiao Zi, you hit the jackpot! This is emerald green, high ice-variety jadeite. It has to be worth over five hundred thousand."
"Congratulations, Xiao Zi."
The moment she heard the three words "five hundred thousand," An Ning’s mouth fell open. She pointed foolishly at the stone and asked, "Wasn’t it two hundred eighty thousand a minute ago? How is it five hundred thousand now?"
"Five hundred thousand... how much money is that?"
"If you stacked it all up, it’d be enough to bury the three of you, right?"
The three con artists, deep in their act, were taken aback. They’d never heard someone use such a strange comparison for money.
Xiao Zi walked up to An Ning with the stone and, with a sincere expression, advised, "Little Sister An, let me tell you, I just got incredibly lucky. You absolutely can’t try this."
"I may have spent less than a hundred yuan to get something worth close to a million, but it’s still a bad idea."
A few dozen bucks for close to a million. Who could possibly resist that kind of temptation?
"Only a few dozen bucks? In that case, I’ll buy one too."
An Ning wouldn’t listen to their advice at all, which was exactly what the other three wanted.
Still, the three of them put on a show of persuading her with great earnestness, telling her not to get carried away.
As the four of them walked out of the room, the young attendant who had led them there rushed past.
"What’s the rush?"
One of the male con artists asked. The attendant stopped to announce excitedly, "Someone just picked a stone and it turned out to be a piece of jadeite worth tens of millions!"
"Tens of millions?"
The young man nodded frantically, saying he was going to buy firecrackers to celebrate.
The three acted completely stunned, which only further stoked the "simple" An Ning’s desire to buy.
When they saw there was no stopping An Ning, they pulled her aside and began whispering to her.
"Little Sister An, since you insist on buying, I’ll take you to a good place. I’ve cut a lot of good stuff there."
"Xiao Zi, is that a good idea?"
"Strangers aren’t allowed there."
Xiao Zi was feigning kindness, but the two men played their part in trying to dissuade her.
An Ning looked from side to side. "But the luck is so good here today! What if we leave and it all runs out?"
"Didn’t you hear? Someone just found something worth tens of millions!"
"That’s ten million, you know! That’s enough to bury all three of your entire families!"
Her brutally direct words left the three of them speechless and uncomfortable once again.
But An Ning refusing to leave simply wouldn’t do.
"Little Sister An, it’s precisely because someone hit it big here that I’m telling you to leave."
"You don’t understand. Luck is all about balance. Someone else used it all up, so there’s none left here."
"That’s true. Generally speaking, once one person has a big find, it’s hard for others to pick anything good."
"Right. When a new shipment comes in, the boss always picks through it first. Only what’s left is for others to buy. Finding one or two good ones is already the limit."
The three of them went back and forth, chiming in one after another.
Then, Xiao Zi added in a hushed whisper, "The place I’m talking about... it’s run by a relative of mine. They sell the stuff that’s been pre-selected."
Their performance was a perfect mix of emotional appeal and logical reasoning.
Following their script, the mark should have been completely taken in and ready to be led away.
Too bad for them, An Ning had no intention of playing along.
’If I’m guessing right,’ she thought, ’the next place will just be filled with more of their accomplices.’
The simple-minded An Ning furrowed her brow, then said with determination, "I’ll just buy one here. Once I have it cut open, if there’s nothing inside, I’ll go with you."
Hearing this, the three of them began chiding An Ning for wasting her money as they led her back toward the front yard.
As far as they were concerned, there was no way An Ning would find anything.
Back in the front yard, An Ning spread her spiritual power across a wide area.
Of all the stones in the yard, eighty percent were just plain rock. Fifteen percent had something inside, but some were cracked, and others were full of cotton-like inclusions.
A few others did contain something, but their price tags weren’t cheap either.
An Ning painstakingly searched through the yard, the trio following close behind her, until she finally picked out a stone about the size of two fists.
"This is the one."
With the practiced technique of someone thumping a watermelon, An Ning tapped the raw stone twice.
