Inside the Youyun Stone market.
“Master Li Wu. You’re here! We’ve got some nice stones from the mines nearby. Some people have won quite a lot from this batch!” A middle aged man smiled obligingly.
“If it isn’t master Duyu. I followed your advice a few times and lost every time.” Li Wu said coldly. He didn’t seem to like Duyu.
“I guarantee, you won’t lose this time.”
“If he was able to pick the winners, then he would buy the stones and open them himself. He doesn’t have to be a skilled gemmologist to give advice and receive commission when people win.” Xuanyuan cut straight to the point and headed inside.
Duyu glared at Xuanyuan’s back, then turned back to Li Wu with a smile and asked, “Would that be your friend?”
“A friend I just met. He wants to try his luck in the stone market.” Li Wu took Xuanyuan’s words to heart, and grew to despise Duyu even more.
Looking at their backs, Duyu thought maliciously, “I would’ve let you win a little, but now I’ll just suck you dry of all your money.” He then followed them inside.
In the garden, there were many stones of different shapes lying around with countless people swarming around them. Everyone was able to select their stones with their own hands. Some of them even cut small pieces off with their weapons in hopes to gather clues. Xuanyuan glanced around the place, realizing immediately that there weren’t many jades or crystals inside these stones and lost his interest at once.
In the second garden, Duyu began his long chatty introduction, “These are stones from the Youyun mine. I guarantee there will be some unusual jades inside them…”
But Xuanyuan was annoyed, “Get lost. You’re annoying. You can fool stupid people, but you can’t fool me.”
Duyu was struck by Xuanyuan’s rudeness, “Are you saying that I’m a fraud? I’m a gemmologist hired by the Youyun Stone market. How dare you?”
Li Wu felt insulted as well. Was he the stupid person who got scammed? He asked Duyu to choose the stones many times before and he usually lost. But after some thought, Xuanyuan wasn’t insulting him intentionally.
“So what? We didn’t hire you. Do you want to gamble with me?” Xuanyuan glanced through the stones. They were not much better than those in the first garden.
“Great! We’ll gamble on the stones!” Duyu smirked, pondering how much he could scam from the boy. He was experienced in gemmology, while Xuanyuan wasn’t. The boy was young, and he was the friend of the idiot, Li Wu. Duyu thought that it was a guaranteed win.
“Alright. If we are doing this, we’ll get better quality stones. Take us to the best stones the market has.” Xuanyuan was not intimidated. He observed the man closely, he was a peak king fighter who probably invested a few years into studying gemmology. If he was able to scam someone like Li Wu, he wouldn’t be an easy character.
“The scammer from this type of place will receive more commission with the more the customer spends. We’ll be able to earn a great deal this time.” Greed laughed inside Xuanyuan’s mind.
“Look! Someone’s gambling against master Duyu. This’ll be good. Master Duyu is very famous. He brought me to a very pure fighting source last time!” Someone said. Li Wu was increasingly grumpy. Every time he asked Duyu to choose stones for him, he got nothing from them.
“He’s just a kid. There’s no way for him to win. He is brave to gamble against master Duyu.” Another man said and people started to gather.
Li Wu smiled bitterly. He also thought that Xuanyuan was going to lose. But they weren’t very good friends, anyway. “He wanted to gamble with master Duyu. There’s nothing I can do. Maybe he can win.”
“Don’t be stupid, Li Wu. That’s not going to happen.”
“It’s still a good chance to see how master Duyu chooses his stones. We can learn a lot.
—
They passed through one garden after another, and arrived at the seventh garden. Inside the seventh garden, there was a disposition created by from class crystals, the Disposition of Spirituality. This was to provide Qi to the stones, so the quality of any crystals inside would be enhanced. In this garden, a jin of stone was a thousand king coins, much more than a jin of upper class crystals.
Xuanyuan’s arrival attracted the attention of a large number of people. Only exceptional people with status and wealth were able to enter the seventh garden. The people gathered here were mainly imperial fighters, Xuanyuan scanned around. Suddenly, he saw a woman and his heart stopped.
“It’s her!”
The woman had an exquisite face, delicate like a china doll. She was wearing a black long dress, embroidered with golden threads and numerous rare flora which complimented her figure perfectly. She was walking casually around the stones. Every man in the room was enamoured by the exquisite woman and their eyes followed her every movement.
“It’s her! It’s the Princess of Mo, Shiguan! Even Brother Fung Lie was scared when she appeared in the nest. She possessed a powerful fighting fire.” Xuanyuan thought. If she wanted to kill him, he wouldn’t be able to survive even now that he had merged with the Water of Heaven.
Suddenly, their eyes met. Xuanyuan felt like his body was electrocuted. His body shook and he turned his head immediately.
“Shall we begin?” Xuanyuan said.
“Not so quick. We should establish the rules first. If the quality of the jade, crystals, and source energy we receive from the stones are not as valuable as the one selected by opponent, then it’s counted as a loss. Anything we take from the stones of that round should be handed to the winning party and the loser will also have to pay the value of the winner’s selection to the winner. How does that sound?” Duyu was confident, since Xuanyuan suddenly became quite distracted. He figured the boy was starting to get scared.
“Sure. No problem. Make it quick.” Xuanyuan was in fact irritated by the presence of the Mo Princess. However, suddenly, Princess Shiguan strolled over to Xuanyuan and patted him on his shoulder like he was an old friend.
“We meet again!”
Xuanyuan was shocked. Looking at Shiguan’s stunningly beautiful face, he could only produce a dry laughter, “You must be thinking of someone else. I’ve never met you, lady.”
“You have a short memory. Well, you’re about to gamble. I won’t disturb you, but when this is over, I have something I would like to speak with you regarding something.” Shiguan said mildly. Nothing about her was intimidating, unlike when they met in the Mo nest.
Xuanyuan knew that he wouldn’t be able to escape from Shiguan once he was her target, so he concentrated on the gamble. He’d find a way to escape later.
Li Wu was dumbfounded by the beauty of Shiguan. He would like to have her, but the mysterious air exuberating from her was quite intimidating. He was jealous of Xuanyuan, for simply knowing such beautiful woman. He was thinking how he could get her attention. Only he was worthy of someone as pretty as Shiguan.
Duyu was also shocked that the boy knew someone as strong as the Shiguan. She was one of the most powerful imperial fighters in the seventh garden.
“Alright then, who is going first?” Duyu asked nonchalantly.
“You go first.” Xuanyuan said as he glanced at Shiguan again. She was not as scary as he remembered which allowed him to calm down.
“You even know how to identify precious stones? Not bad. You’ve improved a lot in such a short period of time. You’re quite a genius.” Shiguan said to Xuanyuan. The whole room was boiling with jealousy.
Xuanyuan could only laugh sheepishly as Duyu began choosing the first stone.
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