Yu Yuqi couldn't wait any longer, so after lunch, he hastily took the jade material and pattern, and rushed out of the door. He was going to find Luo Jing Sheng to make this pen wash immediately.

  "Grandfather." Ye Zhuo called out to stop him.

  Yè yú qī tíng zhù jiǎo bù, zhuǎn guò shēn lái.

  Translation:

  Leaf expected to stop in his tracks and turn around.

  "Are you going to look for Master Luo now?"

  Ye Yuqi nodded: "Right, I want him to bring out this pen and ink."

  "If he asks you who designed this pen holder, don't tell him it was me."

  "Why?" Ye Yuqi asked in surprise. He was still thinking of announcing to the world that his granddaughter had this talent. In Nanshan Town and even Nanyun City, good jade carvers were not hard to find, but good designers were rare, and even the Nie family would fight for them. It seemed that Ye Yuzhang would be furious when he heard this news, regretting that he had adopted Ye Zhuo as the heir of the main house; and as for the Xie family, they would probably also regret breaking off the engagement and rejecting such a talented person like Ye Zhuo.

  "I don't want him to know that I'm learning jade carving, nor do I want him to know that I can design jade pieces. This way, when I go to the workshop in the future, he won't be on guard against me while he's carving jade."

  Ye Yiqi furrowed his brow for a moment, then suddenly understood and couldn't help but reach out to pat Ye Zhuo's head, laughing: "You little scamp, you still want to steal the master's skills? Alright, I'll spend money to ask someone else to design it, thinking of making a few of these things before opening day to make a name for ourselves."

  "And also, that jade material in the middle was dug out, you bring it back, can I design a paperweight, and sell it together with this pen?" Ye Zhuo reminded again.

  "Uh-huh, I see. I'll go find some good jade materials later and bring them back for you to design a few more pieces. I'll also buy a display cabinet, and when we open the store, we can put these things on display."

  "Alright, Grandfather." Ye Zhuo was thrilled to have another piece of jade to design. She was overjoyed. As she designed this pen holder, she felt happier than ever before. She loved doing things like this.

  But this thing can't be carved by oneself, making it one's own work. It's still a great pity for her.

  Leaf Zhuo is thinking: I still have to rush to practice carving.

  She saw Ye Yuxiu off and then returned to her room, picked up the stone, and began carving a teacup again.

  Half a time later, a teacup appeared in her hand. This teacup has made great progress compared to the previous one. First, the shape is basically round; secondly, the cup wall is also uniform in thickness. And didn't forget to leave out a handle, it's already a pretty good teacup. Placing it in front of the first work, Ye Zhuo carefully examined it for a while and nodded satisfactorily.

  Then she started doing the third one.

  She made a plan for her own time in her heart. Daytime was used to design and practice carving, and at night, she would use another half an hour to practice incense cutting.

  Ye Yuqi expected it would be late at night before he came back, his hands holding a paper package, handed to Ye Zhuo in front of him: "It's done. How is it."

  "So soon?" Ye Zhuo's eyes lit up as she hastily took the paper package from Ye Yuqi's hand and opened it. A cyan-inked pen washer appeared before her.

  It turns out that Na Luo's craftsmanship is quite good, and basically all the patterns she painted on rice paper were carved onto jade stones. Moreover, after polishing and buffing, even the originally not-so-warm jade material emitted a soft glow. Overall, this piece of work has an extremely good effect.

  However, Ye Zuo's mouth gradually pouted.

  "What's wrong? Isn't it good?" Ye Yuqi asked in surprise. This pen holder, he was very satisfied with it.

  "It's not bad. It's just that I always feel that the expressions of these characters are not vivid enough. If He Xiangu's mouth corners were slightly raised, Lan Caihe's eyes were slightly narrowed, and Lü Dongbin's sleeves were slightly fluttering, and his chin was slightly raised, these characters would be more vivid and interesting. Although the jade is not good and not suitable for fine carving, making such changes wouldn't take much effort!" Ye Zhuo pointed at the pen holder and said.

  Ye stroked his beard and chuckled: "Zhuo, do you know that if you can do what you just did, you'll become a top-notch jade carver? This kind of inspiration isn't something every jade carver has. Many people only know how to carve according to the methods their masters taught them - the shape of a person's face, the lines on their clothes... all these are things that can be taught. Wanting them to have inspiration is difficult! That's why I only taught you basic carving techniques. I hope you don't have fixed patterns in your mind, but instead carve according to what you think, however you want to carve."

  "Grandfather, I understand." Ye Zhuo thought for a moment and nodded solemnly.

  "Hey, this is the jade stone that was dug up." Ye Yuqi handed her another paper package and then took out another one from his pocket, "This is the jade stone I bought today, its quality is much better than the pen washer's."

  He carefully opened the paper package, and it turned out that inside was a piece of semi-finished jade material. The material had only been opened halfway, revealing smooth and fine light green jade, but the transparency of the jade was not high, and the quality was average; while the other half was dark greenish-black outer skin, and between the outer skin and the jade was yellowish-brown stone material.

  "How much did you pay for this jade?" Ye Zhuo asked softly. These past few days, she had been fondling those stones and the jade that was made into a pen holder, her sense of control over her feelings about jade growing stronger by the day. Just now, when she touched the part that hadn't been carved out yet, she could feel that there probably wasn't any jade inside. Even if there was, it would be extremely poor quality, almost like stone. If Ye Zhuo had paid a high price for this piece of jade, then she would have lost money.

  "Fifty taels." Ye Yuxiu said with a smile, "Everyone has made a big profit. Just this little bit that's exposed outside is worth thirty taels. Going further in, there must be more jade. No need to take out much, just half of the jade and we won't lose out. If it's a bit more, then this material is worth over one hundred taels. At the time when I was cutting the stone, only Xu Laoban and I were present. He saw that I had just started my business, so he let me have the jade without competing with me. If good jade comes out, I'll still have to invite him to dinner."

  Ye Zhuo let out a sigh, picked up the jade material and put it in her room: "Let's eat first, we'll talk about this later." She was torn whether to tell Ye Yuqi the truth. This piece of jade would definitely lose money if sold; but if not sold, she could still make back the money.

  "Don't design this jade for now, wait until I open up the other half." Ye Yuqi reminded her from behind.

  Ye Zhuo pretended not to hear it.

  After dinner, she went back to her room and drew out the design. When she saw this piece of jade, she had an inspiration. Plus the design was simple, so it was done in no time.

  "This is..." Ye Yuqi held the paper handed to him by Ye Zhuo, and saw that the cyan-brown stone skin was still preserved on it, like a towering mountain range in the distance; The shallow green jade material that opened in the middle seemed to be a continuous mountain peak in the distance; And the layer of yellow stone sandwiched in between, one end was designed into several camels, and the other end was a beautiful pavilion and building, half exposed from the cyan-brown outer skin. It seems that the camel team is about to arrive at the magnificent Dunhuang scenery at dusk. The whole pattern is simple and elegant, with the continuous distant mountains set off by the yellow camels in the distance and the cyan-brown high mountains, showing the pure and elegant beauty of the jade material."

  Ye Yuqi raised his head, puzzled, and looked at Ye Zhuo: "I'm not satisfied. Take out the other half of the stone and redesign it. This painting is good, full of exotic flavor. But it covers up the jade material. The customer doesn't care about the jade, but they won't be willing to spend a lot of money to buy it."

  "Grandfather, you're so confident, is there jade inside?" Ye Zhuo asked.

  Ye Yiqi took a deep breath, looked at the jade material and said: "It should be okay? I'm with Old Xu, it shouldn't go wrong. Besides, there aren't that many pieces of jade, we'll make some profit even if we sell them cheaply! You just design it well, making a few dozen taels of silver is no problem."

  "What if there's no jade inside?"

  "This......" Ye Yuke was taken aback by this question and began to lose confidence, "Won't be, right?"

  "Gambling on stones, what makes it called gambling is that anything can happen." Ye Zhuo said.

  He stared at the jade stone, furrowing his brow, hesitating.

  "Grandfather, after buying the workshop, our family's money isn't much, is it? This jade material is designed in such a way that not only does it increase its value, but also shifts half of the risk to others. Isn't this good?"

  Ye Yuqi was moved by her words.

  "I can feel that there's no jade material in this stone, do you believe me?" Ye Zhuo decided to bring out the big guns. In fact, she knew that Ye Yuqi and Guan Shi were extremely kind people, and they were a family who relied on each other for survival. Even if she told them about her special abilities, nothing would happen. But unless absolutely necessary, she wouldn't tell anyone about it. This decision didn't stop her from hinting to Ye Yuqi, letting him have more confidence in her talent.

  Ye Yuqi raised an eyebrow and asked Ye Zhuo: "How did you know? What's your basis?"

  "It's just a feeling." Ye Zhuo's words were half true and half false.

  Ye Yiqi laughed: "I thought my granddaughter was not only a talented designer, but also a master of guessing the weight of stones." He sighed and patted the table, "Alright, do as you say."

  "Grandfather, you won't regret this decision." Ye Zhuo praised him with a happy tone.

  Ye Yiqi burst out laughing. Seeing Ye Zhuo getting up to return to her room, she reminded him: "Don't be too tired, go rest early."

  "Alright, got it." Ye Zhuo waved his hand and went back to his room to burn incense.

  Five days later, several pieces of elegant stationery designed by Ye Zhen and carved by Luo Jing Sheng were placed on the Bogu rack at Yu Zhen Fang. After a burst of firecrackers, familiar relatives and friends came to congratulate them.

  "Big brother, these few things of yours, the material is not great, but the idea is absolutely fantastic! Who helped you design it? Introduce me to them so I can get to know them." Ye Yuzhang was full of praise as he examined the items on the display rack.

  Thank you, Radish 1031 for the peace amulet reward! Thank you to those who voted with pink tickets floating on the cloud!

  The fastest updated network: ω·u⑻