Power and WealthChapter 96 – Crystal Gambling!
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It was 9.20 am. Dong Xuebing took out his sling bag, whichcontains 110,000 RMB from the sales of the antique books, from his closet.After that, he went to the ICBC bank across the road from his house. This was asmall branch, and one-day notification was needed for withdrawals more than50,000 RMB. Dong Xuebing, who had wanted to withdraw 100,000 RMB from hisaccount, was lazy to go to another branch. So, he only withdraws 50,000 RMB.160,000 RMB should be enough. He pulled up the collar of his jacket and walkout to the streets to flag a taxi. He went straight to the stores outside ofPanjiayuan. Many stores were selling raw stones there.
“Boss, do you have any unprocessed jade stones?”
“No. We only sell finished products here. You can try othershops.”
“Excuse me, can I gamble stones or jade here?”
“Oh, we do not have these.”
“Do you know where I can gamble stones?”
“Stone gambling? There is not a lot of such places inPanjiayuan. If you are interested, you can go to the Haidian or Chaoyangdistricts. Every weekend, there are auctions for unprocessed stones. The pricesare reasonable, and the quality of the stones are higher.” Dong Xuebing alsoknow about the auctions in Haidian’s antique market. But the procedures therewas to pay for the stones first before cutting. It takes too much time. His 6minutes was not enough to even bid for the stones. This was why Dong Xuebingwas targeting those smaller shops.
Dong Xuebing carries on walking around Panjiayuan.
Suddenly, there were sounds of a stone cutting machine froma distance.
Dong Xuebing’s eyes widen. When he was working part-time inthe past, he had seen people gambling stones. This was why he was familiar withthis sound. He raised his head and walked towards the direction of the sound.But when Dong Xuebing reaches the shop, he saw a man using the stone cutter tocut a stone. It was not a jade stone. From the color and shape of the stone, itshould be uncut crystal stones. Natural crystals. Crystal gambling? This wasrare. Dong Xuebing hesitated for a while and then entered the shop. Crystalgambling, Agate gambling, turquoise gambling, jadegambling, and jade stone gambling, can all be considered stone gambling. DongXuebing does not need to specifically to look for jade stones or Nephrite jadestones. The returns for crystal gambling was high too.
The cutter machine stopped, and a small window was cut outof the natural purple crystal stone.
The buyers were a young couple, and the girl asked. “Is thiscrystal good? How much can it sells?”
“The color inside is ordinary.” The overweight boss put downthe cutting machine and take a closer look at the stone. “It’s worth 800 to1,000 RMB.”
“We bought it for 5000 RMB, and we can only sell it for1,000 RMB?” The woman heard the boss and gave her boyfriend a slap angrily. “Itold you not to buy it, and you insist. See, we lost!” Only 1 out of 10 wins instone gambling. Although the risk for crystal stone gambling was not as high asjade stone gambling, it’s almost the same. It’s normal to pick worthlessstones. If anyone could find an unprocessed stone worth tens of thousand RMBwith 5,000 RMB, it will be abnormal. Furthermore, Beijing was not a place knownfor stone gamblings. All the unprocessed stones were brought in from otherplaces and were the leftovers from the quarries. This increases thedifficulties of winning in stone gambling.
That man was pissed to hear his girlfriend scolding him. Hegritted his teeth: “This and that! Open up these two!”
The girl shouted angrily: “Stop buying! You can put themoney to better use!”
The man ignored her and paid the boss.
“Ok. I will cut it the same way as earlier.” The overweightboss grabbed the stone cutter and start to cut the stone steadily. The bladesof the cutter cut across the surface of the stone. Crystals were not as hard asjade, and it was faster to cut a crystal stone than a jade stone.
1 cut......
5 cuts......
10 cuts......
Screeched...... after a while, both the big and small crystalstones were cut, and the colorless crystal was exposed. The bigger stone hadair bubbles, and it was worthless. The smaller one did not have any defects,but the color was normal, and it was not worth the price he paid for it.
The young couple left the shop with their crystals arguing.
Not long later, anold man spent 10,000 RMB to buy a bigger yellow crystal uncut stone. In theend, there was some dirt, the size of a fingernail, in the crystal and thevalue of this crystal dropped. At about 11 am, a group of tourist entered theshop and bought 4 to 5 pieces of natural crystal stones. The best piece wasvalued at the price they purchased, and the rest were worthless.
This was stone gambling. There were more losers thanwinners. It all depends on luck.
Dong Xuebing had doubts. After standing there for so long,there was not one person who won. Can he really make money from this?
“Young man, do you want to try your luck?” The fat shopownerasked as he wiped his hands with a towel.
Dong Cuebing, who was standing by the entrance, was notready yet. He shook his head and entered the shop to look at the crystalornaments on display. He pointed to a few of them and asked: “How much is this pinkcrystal necklace? 800 RMB? What about that purple crystal Guanyin statue?20,000 RMB? How about that piece? 130,000 RMB?” The items on display rangedfrom tens of RMB to over 100,000 RMB. The prices depend on the color, clarity,and size of the crystals.
“The finished products are expensive.” The shop owner triedto entice Dong Xuebing. “Why not try your luck with these stones? Maybe youwill be rich overnight!”
Dong Xuebing just smiled and thought to himself. He mightalso be bankrupt overnight!
After lunch, Dong Xuebing returned to the shop and spent onehour standing there watching and learning. Soon, he understood how crystalstone gambling and how the crystals were valued. Natural purple crystals weremore valuable than natural yellow crystals. Natural yellow crystals were worthmore than colorless crystals. The darker the colors, the more expensive was thecrystal. One-color was worth more than multi-colors ones. The purer crystalsworth more than those with impurities. The weight also plays a part indetermining the value. The heavier the crystal, the more valuable it was. Ifthere were acicular inclusions in the crystal, it will worth more. The valuewould increase further if the acicular in the crystal were in the samedirection.
After learning this, Dong Xuebing had a plan in mind. Hestarted to calculate the time needed to cut a crystal stone. If the stone werecut carefully from the sides slowly, it would take a longer time. But if abigger portion was cut, without worrying about damaging the crystals inside, itwill be much faster. It will take less than a minute.
10 minutes later, Dong Xuebing was ready to act out hisplan.
Dong Xuebing took a deep breath. Ok! Let’s start!
Translator’snotes:
Haidian
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haidian_District
Chaoyang
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaoyang_District,_Beijing
Acicularinclusions in Crystals
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acicular_(crystal_habit)
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