28. The Stone Gambling Market

“There are over ten thousand stones in the ancient garden opening tonight, attracting stone gamblers from all over the country, as well as some tourists who happened to seize this opportunity. So it will be quite lively tonight, but there’s also a chance things may get chaotic. That’s why Master Zhao asked me to pass along a message: have some fun here, but don’t stay too long. Also, he said you just have to mention his name, and each of you can choose three raw stones to play with, free of charge. Whatever you win is yours to keep.” The driver didn’t say much else—some things, Chen Fengyun would only learn later.

Still, Zhao Jianguo had certainly shown them great generosity. Knowing that Zeng Yiyue and Chen Fengyun might not have much money, he let them each gamble on three stones for free, and whatever profit they made was theirs to keep. It was as if he was gifting them an immense stroke of luck; if fortune favored them and one of the stones revealed high-quality jade, they could easily walk away with hundreds of thousands. Such a favor was no small matter.

But for Zhao Jianguo, it was different. He knew the odds: about one in three stones would contain jade, and the chance of finding truly fine jade was only one in ten. So in the end, he was only giving away three stones each.

“Yiyue, your uncle treats you incredibly well—and I get to benefit too,” Chen Fengyun said with a smile. Earlier, they had agreed not to call her “Teacher Zeng” in public, and so he addressed her as “Yiyue.”

“Of course he does. But our main goal tonight is just to experience stone gambling. Whether or not we actually win jade is secondary; I’m here purely for the fun of it, so I won’t be disappointed either way.” Zeng Yiyue laughed.

“That’s the spirit! As for the crowds and any chaos, we’ll just keep our distance. And with your uncle’s people everywhere, inside and outside the garden, I doubt anyone would dare bother us,” Chen Fengyun nodded.

He wasn’t afraid of trouble, but with Zeng Yiyue at his side, he preferred to keep things low-key and cautious. Even with his current strength, it was hard to say whether he could dodge bullets.

As they spoke, the car pulled into a parking lot in front of an ancient manor. After getting out, Chen Fengyun and Zeng Yiyue began surveying their surroundings—when Zeng Yiyue spotted someone familiar.

“Hey, isn’t that Geng Chunming and Xu Dalin? They arrived before us!”

Chen Fengyun followed her gaze and saw Geng Chunming and Xu Dalin peering around by the main gate. They soon noticed them as well and waved.

“Are they actually waiting for us?” Chen Fengyun was a bit surprised; though they’d met that afternoon, they weren’t exactly close yet.

“There you are! We’ve been waiting for half an hour,” Geng Chunming called out as they approached. It turned out they really were waiting.

“How did you know we’d come?” Chen Fengyun asked curiously.

“This kind of large-scale stone gambling event only happens once in decades. Anyone who’s come to Lincang these days is probably here for it. So I figured you’d definitely show up,” said Geng Chunming with a chuckle.

“Have you ever seen a stone gambling event before? It’s our first time—we know nothing about it,” Zeng Yiyue asked Xu Dalin.

“There are places for stone gambling in the capital too, but they’re much smaller and the prices are higher. Ordinary people don’t even know about them. I’ve gone a few times with my uncle, but only to watch others gamble, never to try it myself. I’ve picked up a few tips, though.”

The four of them strolled into the ancient garden together, chatting as they went. Xu Dalin seemed a bit shy—not what one would expect from someone in his twenties—but he had indeed seen stone gambling before.

Once inside, Chen Fengyun looked around. Beyond the archway was a cluster of old-style buildings, now repurposed as offices, dining halls, and lounges. Behind those buildings lay a sparse wood stretching up a small hillside, all enclosed within the garden’s walls.

From behind the buildings up to the grove and the slope, stones were scattered everywhere—some half-buried in earth. Some were massive, weighing dozens of tons and towering over people, looking more like stone cottages than raw jade ore. Others were small, about the size of a soccer ball, scattered among larger stones as if chipped off from them; it was hard to imagine there might be jade inside.

Most of the stones ranged from the size of millstones to large water jars. Unlike the raw stones displayed at jade shops, these had no “windows” cut in them—there was no sign at all that they contained jade.

The stones varied in color, most sporting a greenish surface, but there were also red, yellow, gray, black, and even white stones—a truly bizarre array.

“Raw stones are also called ‘material’, and fully green ones are known as ‘colored goods’; material with uneven green is ‘flower label material’, while large pieces with no high-grade green are called ‘brick material’,” Xu Dalin explained some basics of stone gambling.

“The rough stones are encased entirely in a shell, uncut and without a window—that’s what makes them ‘gambling stones’ or ‘betting goods’. In jade trading, nothing is more profitable or tempting, but also nothing riskier, than gambling stones. In the jewelry world, there’s a saying: ‘Gambling on stones is like gambling with your life’. If you’re lucky, you can make ten or a hundred times your money overnight and become a millionaire. But if you lose, you could lose everything in an instant.”

Chen Fengyun realized they weren’t the first to arrive; the garden was already dotted with people wandering the crisscrossing paths, inspecting the many stones. Outside, cars kept arriving and people streamed in, including a tour group of twenty or thirty people, young and old alike.

But Chen Fengyun noticed that most of the garden’s guests were wealthy or influential, and some even carried an air of the underworld; the way they sized people up was distinctly different.

He also saw some guests with magnifying glasses, carefully inspecting each stone—clearly experienced gamblers, each with their own methods of studying the rough stones.

“A raw stone with no window cut into it—apart from its shape and weight, no one can say what’s inside. In the stone gambling world, there’s a saying: ‘Even the gods can’t judge an inch of jade’. Only cutting it open can reveal the truth.”

“Stone gamblers rely on their experience and the clues on the stone’s surface to make repeated guesses and judgments, estimating its value. If you buy one and cut it open to find high-quality, water-rich jade, its price can skyrocket instantly. But if there’s no color or water inside, it becomes worthless in a flash. That’s the risk of stone gambling: one cut can make you poor, one cut can make you rich.”