Chapter 65: The Glass Species (1)

  Hou Yuanming's jade jewelry store is not far from Baxian'an.

  At first, my uncle was also very capable. During the reform and opening-up period, he, who was over 40 years old at that time, resolutely decided to go south to do jade business. After gaining some experience and channels later, he returned to Xijing in the early 1990s and opened this jade jewelry store.

  Hou Yuanming served as a soldier for several years, then transferred to civilian work and returned home. At first, he worked as a civil servant for several years, but found it uninteresting. Coincidentally, his father had the idea of opening a store at that time, so the father-son duo joined forces to set up this shop.

  With the experience and connections of his father-in-law, as well as Hou Yuanming's sharp mind, the two men complemented each other perfectly. Over the years, their business has been booming, and at the beginning of this year, they even opened a branch store in the city center.

  Hou Yuanming's jewelry store, called Cuiyu Zhai, has a similar style to the Baixian An in terms of both exterior and interior decoration, looking very classical and elegant. This store has been around for nearly ten years, and although it seemed quite spacious at the time, by today's standards, it is only medium-sized.

  Entering the store, in the middle of a circle, there are antique-style glass cabinets, most of which contain jade jewelry, and some of which contain white jade. On both sides and one side of the front, there are exquisite ancient-style wall cabinets, inside which are placed various delicate jade or white jade carvings and decorations.

  Cuiyu Zhai in Xijing should be quite famous, even at noon, there were several customers selecting jewelry or decorations. After Chu Chen and others entered, Hou Yuanming exchanged a few words with the waiter, and then directly led everyone to the backyard, where Cuiyu Zhai gambled on stones.

  The backyard of Cuixu Zhai is about two-fifths smaller than that of Juyuan Ge, and the materials used are also slightly less.

  According to Hou Yuanming, the lowest price of wool here is 100 yuan per piece, and the highest one has more than a million. If you go in with too high a price, it will occupy a lot of funds if you can't sell it, which is not cost-effective.

  There were also three stone cutting machines in the courtyard, one large, one medium and one small. Although there weren't many people cutting stones at noon, there were three people standing next to the medium-sized machine, and a young man in his early twenties was wearing glasses and cutting fabric with it. But don't underestimate this young man's age, his stone-cutting movements were exceptionally skilled.

  "It's gone up!"

  The sound immediately attracted the attention of Chu Chen and others, while Wen Yuting pulled Chu Yulan to run quickly towards there.

  When Chu Chen and the others walked to the stone-breaking machine, they happened to see the window of the cut-opened wool fabric. After seeing this, Chu Chen didn't seem so excited anymore.

  Although the cutting surface is green, that green should be counted as bean green, and it looks almost like glutinous rice. As for value, it depends on how much jade can be produced at the bottom. However, wanting a big rise, the probability is indeed somewhat slim.

  As expected, the next cut revealed that the value of the jade was almost out. Chu Chen estimated that the jade could be made into several bracelets, plus some ring faces and pendants, but the total value was only around 150,000 to 160,000 yuan. Compared to the previous time when Chu Chen spent over a thousand yuan to get a glass seed worth over a million yuan, it was incomparable.

  Although it was nothing for Chu Chen, but for the owner of the wool, one of the three middle-aged men before, it was already very delightful.

  After learning the result, that person became extremely excited. Chu Xuan only found out after inquiring that he had bought the wool fabric for 180,000 yuan and was able to open it up to reveal jade worth 1.5 million yuan, which was already a pretty good profit.

  Next, the young man who was about to carve the stone consulted with the few people standing before him, asking them how they wanted it carved. After discussing it among themselves, they decided to first remove some of the excess material and then polish it again to be on the safe side, which would also ensure the integrity of the jade.

  And in the end, it was also beyond Chu Chen's expectation that the jadeite extracted was worth around 1.5 million.

  An old man in his sixties standing beside him smiled and said, "Boss Song, you've finally achieved your dream this time. I'll give you 1.5 million for this material, what do you think?"

  Mr. Song said with a somewhat excited expression, "No problem at all, Mr. Hou. Young man, take a rest first, I'll trouble you again later to untie the remaining piece of fabric."

  According to Hou Yuanming's introduction, this Song boss is also a boss of at least tens of millions, and he plays with gambling stones just for the fun of winning, and he himself is not addicted to it, so he puts on an air of not caring. And that old man is actually Hou Yuanming's father.

  During the break, Hou Yuanming introduced Chu Chen and others to each other.

  "Dad, don't look down on Xiao Chu just because she's young. Not only does she have a good eye for antique appraisal, but she's also an expert at guessing the quality of jade." Hou Yuanming said with a smile.

  "Good, good," said Old Hou with a chuckle. "The Yangtze River's waves push forward one after another. Today, Little Chu will show off his skills."

  Chu Chen hastily waved his hand and said: "I don't dare, Lord Hou, I just have good luck, but can't compare to your rich experience."

  "Good luck is also a kind of strength, and I think that in our line of work, good luck is the most important thing. As the old saying goes, 'even gods can't cut off fate', so having good luck is also your capital. Alright, you two go take a look at the materials, I won't delay you any further."

  Jian wanted to go see the wool, Wen Yuting was excited because of the earlier gamble, and she pulled Chu Yulan towards the jade wool, rushing over like a runaway horse, making Chu Chen and others shake their heads in amusement.

  "Li Ge, you'd better go and keep an eye on your girlfriend, or she'll make a wrong bet and lose money, then cry." Chu Chen said with a smile.

  Seeing this, Li Guodong could only shake his head and sigh, then followed her, what can he do, who made him have such a girlfriend?

  Zhou Wenping also smiled and said: "Xiao Chuan, I'll go take a look too. Guo Dong probably doesn't have the ability to fix the Dinghai Divine Needle."

  Chu Chen thought so too. Li Guodong was always at a loss for words in front of Wen Yuting, and it would be good for Zhou Wenping to take a look.

  Jian Zhou Wenping and they all went to see the wool, then Hou Yuanming said: "Xiao Chu, I won't disturb you from seeing the wool either. If something comes up later, just call me."

  "Wait a minute, Brother Hou, most of the wool you have here seems to be some new stuff. To be honest, I'm not really interested in this kind of wool."

  When Hou Yuanming was about to leave, Chu Chen called out to him. Earlier when he came in, Chu Chen had roughly scanned the area and found that many of the outdoor piles were new scene mouth wool materials, which for a newcomer would be fine, but his interest was somewhat lacking.

  Hou Yuanming slapped his forehead after hearing this and said, "Hey, I thought you'd be a bit interested in the new scene too. I forgot that you're a master gambler. Come on, I'll take you there right now."

  Although Hou Yuanming had heard Li Guodong and others say that Chu Chen was a master of guessing the weight of stones, after all, Chu Chen was still quite young, and experience in guessing the weight of stones could only be accumulated over time, so it was unlikely that he would completely believe him, therefore he did not bring Chu Chen to see the old scene mouth's goods at first.

  Hou Yuanming brought Chu Chen to a room with better security measures. The room was about 40 square meters in size, and most of the materials placed inside were old scene mouth materials, but there were also some new scene mouth materials that stood out particularly prominently.

  The wool here was divided into three piles, the old and new materials were each in one pile, and there was a small amount of wool that had been opened, but this was also normal. After all, Hou Yuanming's family originally did jade business, if the opening performance is good, it may be solved by itself.

  Hou Yuanming said with some self-satisfaction, "Xiao Chu, I think the woolen goods here should be enough for you to choose from. I believe that even in the entire Western Capital, there aren't many households with as many fine woolen goods as mine."

  Chu Chen somewhat agreed with this point, the wool here is indeed very good, and at the same price, it's not inferior to Ruchangshun's Juyuan Building. So he nodded and said:

  "Hou Ge, this fabric is really good. It seems I need to spend some time carefully selecting it, otherwise I would be wasting the opportunity you've given me."

  "Go ahead and pick, but there's a piece of woolen goods in here that you can only look at, not buy."

  Hou Yuanming pointed to a piece of wool fabric that weighed over 50 kilograms with a hint of embarrassment, saying: "This piece of wool fabric was purchased last year in southern Yunnan for over two million yuan. It's the one my father liked the most, but he couldn't bring himself to unravel it."

  Chu Chen roughly glanced at the piece of fabric, and indeed it was not bad. Since the owner said it couldn't be sold, he wouldn't mind either. So he smiled and said: "Hou Ge, I can definitely understand this, but since Hou Lao likes it so much, I must carefully study it."

  After exchanging glances with Hou Yuanming, Chu Chen began to carefully select the raw materials. However, what surprised him first was Bao Jue.

  It turned out that he didn't expect that after the upgrade of his special ability, Baojue could also sense the jade material, although it was shorter than the distance from the antique, and he had to be 30 centimeters away from the material to feel it. However, for him, it was already a huge surprise. When selecting jade later, it would save him a lot of time.

  Chu Chen first looked at the wool, which was the one that Hou Yuanming had previously instructed. After carefully examining this piece of wool, he secretly praised it in his heart, as not only did it have a python pattern, but also a relatively rare spring-colored pine flower on the python pattern.

  To know Chunse Songhua is a very rare purple violet, with the addition of this pine flower on top of the python, it's really a rare and precious jade display.

  To be honest, Chu Chen was also very moved by this performance, but unfortunately the owner didn't sell it, so there was no way. However, after using his special ability, he unexpectedly felt a bit disappointed with the result.