Chapter 115: Learn and Apply Immediately
“What’s the matter?” Yang Ming saw how Lan Ling’s expression wasn’t quite right and immediately asked her.
Lan Ling shook her head. “I miss my grandmother and my mom!”
“Where is your grandmother?” Yang Ming knew that her mom had already passed away, but her grandmother should still be alive!”
“I don’t know where she went…” Lan Ling felt a bit lost. “She got cursed by an enemy’s voodoo, a powerful voodoo, then she disappeared… I miss her… When I was young, my grandmother always made me noodles and told me nice stories…”
Yang Ming sighed. Lan Ling’s situation was too pitiful!
After they finished their noodles, Yang Ming paid the bill for Lan Ling. He turned around to head out. At that moment, the shop owner shouted at him, “Wait a moment. The money isn’t right!”
It isn’t right? Yang Ming was surprised. Did I encounter the black shop from the legends? Yang Ming was not a person who was afraid of trouble. However, now that he was in a foreign town, he tried to keep to the principle that the less trouble he got himself into, the better. Since he didn’t get attacked on the spot, he turned around and asked, “Why? Isn’t it twenty-five yuan?”
“It is indeed twenty-five yuan, but you gave me thirty-five. These two ten yuan notes got stuck together!” The shop owner returned ten yuan to Yang Ming.
Yang Ming didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. It seemed that he was too cautious. There was an overwhelming number of news stories online about how tourists got cheated, so he thought that he needed to be extraordinarily careful during his travels. However, he looked again at this little restaurant that was full of customers. How could this be a black shop! So many locals were here for their meals. If it was a black shop, who would dare to come again?
Once he was back at the hotel, he was surprised to see that Zhang Bing wasn’t asleep yet. He was still playing with his two gemstones. It seemed that this time Zhang Jiefang would be elated! It was natural for the father to pass the business to his children. His only concern was that his son would not properly attend to his duty. Yang Ming was also able to guess what Zhang Jiefang intended, but he didn’t say it out loud. It seemed that Zhang Bing was the only one who wasn’t aware of the situation!
“What do you think of my piece of jade here?” asked Zhang Bing as he took out one of the gemstones that he polished.
“Oh? Your piece here?” Yang Ming took it and looked at it. When he was in the taxi, he briefly browsed through the book that he bought and gained some understanding of jade. Therefore, he could immediately apply what he learned and said, “There are six criteria to determine the quality of jade. They are the color, transparency, uniformity, shape, density, and clarity.”
“What do you mean?” Zhang Bing thought his head was in the clouds after he heard it. “Seduction? Fraud? [1]”
“F***!” Yang Ming looked at him with contempt. “It’s fine that your brain is empty, but don’t let it go underwater! What seduction and fraud? I don’t even know how you formed these words! It’s color, transparency and density, clarity!”
“Hehe. It was just a bit of my hearing problem.” Zhang Bing said embarrassingly, “You came out with so much jargon at once. How would I be able to understand? You should at least explain them all!”
Yang Ming intended to show off a little, so he said, “Firstly, it’s color. By color, we mean color [2]. The best color for jade would be a green color; the red and purple colors are only twenty percent of a green colored jade’s value. The jades that are red, purple, green or white color are considered to be a ‘Fu Lu Shou Xi’; if they contain red, green and white – all three colors – it would be considered ‘Fu Shou Xi’ [3]. When the color is pale or has a slightly yellowish color, the jade is considered low-quality. If a jade has a single color, and as long as the color is balanced, it is considered a good jade. Your jade, not that I want to put it down, is black and bulging with some slightly yellowish color. One look and you would know that it’s a low-quality jade!
“By transparency, it means that the jade should be like glass – completely transparent. There shouldn’t be any dirty spots on it. It would be considered a good quality jade as long as it was not rough or too slippery. Semi-transparent jade and opaque jade are both classified as moderate quality jade and average quality jade. Before and during the Qing dynasty, imperial jade only included the red, green, and white jade. But in modern society, imperial jade essentially refers to those types of transparent jade. Thus far, all imperial jade are identified as green in color and looks transparent. Your jade isn’t green; neither is it transparent. That’s the second point.
“The third point is balance. It fundamentally refers to how even the jade’s color is. If the jade’s color contains white and green but the color wasn’t even, the price would be low. This jade of yours doesn’t qualify, but your yellow jade is exquisite.
“Shape essentially refers to how the shape of the jade chunk could be processed into various pieces. There was no specific requirement for it. Normally, the larger, the better. Yours looks pretty big.”
Yang Ming didn’t even finish his sentence before Zhang Bing interrupted him, “What do you mean by pretty big? Your words sounded like there was a second meaning. Sister-in-law is still here. Can you be more polite?”
“Were you listening? When I say that your thinking has some problem, it means that your thinking certainly has a problem! Why wouldn’t others be thinking in the same direction?” When Yang Ming finished his sentence, he asked, “Little Lan Ling, what did you think I was referring to when I said the words ‘pretty big’?”
“Of course, ‘pretty big’ was referring to the jade in your hand!” Lan Ling blinked her big innocent eyes and naively said, “Was it referring to some other thing? Why wouldn’t I know it?”
“F***, both of you evil adulterers [4] are echoing one another’s words. You have defeated me!” Zhang Bing was sweaty as he said, “Okay, let’s say that my thinking was unhealthy. Why don’t you continue and talk to me about that fraud?”
“It’s density and clarity. I think you honestly have the potential to be a good gangster!” Yang Ming continued his explanation. “Density refers to whether any cracks exist in the jade. It’s not easy to observe a cutting line. If you knock on it with a metal object or toss it on a plate, then you can listen for the crisp sound and determine if a crack existed. When the sound is crisper, the quality is better. For your jade, we don’t even need to knock on it. We can see that it has a horizontal crack!
“Regarding clarity, it refers to the black spots and flaws that the naked eyes cannot observe. We only have to use a microscope to look at it then we would know the look of it. We divide a jade’s grade into ten levels. Then we further divide each of the grades into the subgrades of upper, middle and lower class. Within that, for white jade, no matter how transparent it is, how balanced the color is, the price is always the lowest. Your jade has a lot of flaws in it, so we could save this step as well!”
“Are there still so many explanations? Yang Ming, who did you learn this from?” After Zhang Bing listened to Yang Ming’s explanation, he was amazed. “This afternoon you were still a complete beginner. How did you become a professional in only an afternoon? Don’t tell me you had some miracle like some gemstone professional’s soul had gone into your body?”
“Why don’t you say that I had been reincarnated and came back to life?” Yang Ming was dissatisfied with Zhang Bing’s despise.
“I was about to ask that!” said Zhang Bing without giving him any face.
“Look at it yourself!” Yang Ming took out his book, , and passed it to Zhang Bing.
“You are so good. You even bought a book. Why? Have you started to be interested in this line of work?“ Zhang Bing took the book and started reading through it.
“I guess there was just a bit of interest in it!” Yang Ming smiled. “I was also preparing myself to gamble for a bit of jade for some pocket money.”
“How much could you earn? Why don’t I tell my dad and let him guide you a bit more?” Zhang Bing felt that if his best brother would be able to do the same thing, then he would be able to have someone who cared for him after he took over his father’s business!
“Sure, but I am just playing at a small scale, and this was merely a part-time project. Our primary projects are still being a university student.” Yang Ming nodded his head. He would surely not be able to hide this thing from Zhang Jiefang. Since he was a new person, even if he possessed a valuable jade, he wouldn’t have any path to sell it. However, Zhang Jiefang was different. He owned a factory and shop to sell those jades.
Therefore, if he were to earn anything through gambling for jade, then the only thing he could do right now was to think of how he could get Zhang Jiefang to help him out. Otherwise, he even if he had a jade which was worth a lot, he wouldn’t know how to sell it for a good price.
Once he already settled on his path to building a stronger relationship in society, he would be able to set up his own company. Of course, this was only an initial idea. If he spent his whole life gambling on rocks with his special power, it still seemed like a waste!
Moreover, his intuition told him that once the lenses had integrated with his body, his current repertoire of skills wasn’t finalized yet. Binocular vision and x-ray vision were all easily discovered. You could also say that they were simple to operate. However, the ability to read other people’s thoughts was something that Yang Ming hadn’t grasped how to operate. Therefore, we could say that there was still a challenge Yang Ming had yet to overcome!
Gambling for jade was a shortcut to earn some money, but not the only one. Let’s not talk about those that are far away, and speak of those that are nearer first. If he could gamble for jade, then he could gamble for diamonds. Or, as Zhang Jiefang said, he could search for treasure!
“En, what you said was right. But if my dad finds out that you like this field, he would be extremely happy!” Zhang Bing smiled as he said, “if you would do this in the future, then my dad won’t be afraid that I won’t do this!”
“Hehe, pass me a few sheets of sandpaper. Let me go back and take a look at my jade!” Yang Ming smiled.
“There’s plenty on the table. Help yourself!” Zhang Bing pointed at the writing desk beside the television and said, “Pass me another two sheets.”
Yang Ming passed Zhang Bing two more sheets. This guy threw aside the jade that Yang Ming had criticized not being worth a single cent and started to sand the other rock.
Yang Ming took a look at it. The second stone that Zhang Bing had gotten seemed pretty fine. It was much better than the first one. Therefore, Yang Ming encouraged him. “This piece seems fine. I hope that it’s a good jade!”
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