Chapter 118: Luck
That evening, once they went back to the hotel, under Zhang Bing’s repeated requests, Yang Ming brought the two rocks that he had gambled with to Zhang Jiefang’s room so that Zhang Jiefang could assess whose were more valuable.
“Definitely mine!” Zhang Bing pointed at his the moment after he finished polishing the rock. “The volume of my jades are double yours!”
“That may not be the case. If it was an imperial jade, the size of a palm would have been worth up to a million!” Zhang Jiefang shook his hand. “Between a piece of gold and a piece of silver that’s twice the size, which one do you think is worth more? It’s the same reasoning!”
“It’s impossible to get an imperial jade!” Zhang Bing was feeling a bit reluctant.
“Nothing is impossible. It’s hard to predict luck!” Zhang Jiefang shook his head. “Let’s talk about me. During those years I went to sea with a few friends, I am the only one who got rich. Everyone else was still busy making their living selling small objects.”
Zhang Bing didn’t dare to say much more. He also knew that his dad had some strong superstitious beliefs. Therefore, he said obediently, “Yeah, I just don’t have good luck.”
“Son, you don’t need luck. Your strongest advantage is that you have a good father! Even though your dad is not a billionaire, my net worth is at least in the millions. As long as you don’t ruin it, and run your business honestly, you wouldn’t have any problems throughout your life! I don’t expect you to expand things that much either. As long as you can guard our business, it’s fine!” said Zhang Jiefang.
“Dad, your words make me sound as if I am a prodigal son!” Zhang Bing felt a bit embarrassed. “In the future, as long as Yang Ming and I take care of one another, we are sure we would expand your business well!”
“En, I was just waiting for your words!” Zhang Jiefang laughed. His words just now were to avoid pressuring his son. However, he didn’t think that his son would be able to mature enough to put his heart at ease!
Yang Ming continued to sand the low-quality jade quietly. It started to show the basic nature of the jade. Then he pretended to be disappointed and sighed, “It is nothing even when compared to the worst jade that you have!”
Zhang Jiefang came over and had a look. He also shook his head. “This jade would only be worth ten yuan even if you sold it to the Hand Crafting Workshop. However, nevermind, we still have one more piece. Maybe it could be an imperial jade!” Zhang Jiefang comforted him.
“We shall ride on your lucky words then!” Yang Ming smiled. He purposely came up with this sentence because he wanted to turn the topic into luck. He never thought that Zhang Jiefang would have said it first. It saved him some thinking and words.
Yeah, luck is a strange and interesting thing! At least now there were many scientists from different countries who had started studying “luck” as a field of study! Even though this may sound a bit obscure, you can’t deny that in all the darkness, there seems to be the presence of luck!
For example, when people buy the lottery, someone would continuously win whereas someone else would not win a single prize. Yet the person who won the lottery wouldn’t know why he won the lottery!
The same applies to a table of poker players. Some of the poker players would always have some smooth cards, and their luck from start to finish was incredible!
Science cannot explain all these things. Therefore, Yang Ming wanted to tackle this perspective and have his special ability be due to luck. This way, no one would want to do anything to him.
“Hehe, Yang Ming, how is it? You lost, right? I told you. What could you have gotten out of that bunch of scrap material? There were so many professionals before you. How would it be you!” Zhang Bing criticized.
“I shall look down on you. Are you worried that I may get an imperial jade and your car would be gone?” Yang Ming threw a look of contempt at him.
“En? Why is it so green?” Yang Ming pretended to be curious while he pointed at the corner of the jade that had been chipped off.
“Let me have a look!” Zhang Jiefang was stunned. He took the jade in Yang Ming’s hand and took a look at it. His facial expression became emotional. “Yang Ming, this is an imperial jade! You surely picked up an imperial jade!”
“What? imperial jade?” Yang Ming pretended to be surprised as he stood up. “Uncle Zhang, are you sure you didn’t make a mistake?”
“It can’t be. How would I make a mistake?” Even though your Uncle Zhang is not a professional when it comes to assessing jades, but I am someone who had been in the line for a while. I know how to distinguish a normal jade from an imperial jade! This was absolutely an imperial jade! Yang Ming, we didn’t see it, but you have remarkably good luck. Today there was the traveling merchant who opened an imperial jade, and I thought he was lucky already. I didn’t think that with only two rocks, one of them would be an imperial jade!” Zhang Jiefang took the sandpaper in Yang Ming’s hand and started to sand it.
“Dad, this is an imperial jade?” Zhang Bing also felt that it was very unbelievable.
“Go to the side. Why would your dad cheat you?” Zhang Jiefang felt a bit unhappy. “Let me tell you. This time, Yang Ming has won. Your car is gone!”
“Ah? Please, don’t dad. Isn’t this like making me sit on a roller coaster? It’s just that I’m still in the sky, and after a split moment later I’m at the bottom.” Zhang Bing felt a bit sad.
“However, seeing how interested you are toward jades, I will just reward you one.” Zhang Jiefang said it casually, yet it made Zhang Bing break out in a sweat.
“Dad, aren’t you just threatening me?” Zhang Bing breathed a sigh of relief.
“Yang Ming, the quality of your imperial jade wasn’t as good as the traveling merchant’s from today, and neither was its size. However, one could still consider it as a middle-grade imperial jade. If you sell it right away, it could be worth about 200,000 yuan.” Zhang Jiefang said, “How would you like to settle it?”
“I don’t know how it’s usually done in the line. Uncle Zhang, what do you think?” Yang Ming thought to himself. He still had about 20,000 yuan of savings. He already had enough money to gamble for more jade. Even if he didn’t cash out this piece of imperial jade right after that, it was perfectly fine.
“I wouldn’t recommend you to sell it off right away! Uncle Zhang is now advising you as a senior. Of course, I am also a business person. From a business perspective, I would ask you to sell it off to me straight.” Zhang Jiefang continued, “But Uncle Zhang can’t do so. You are a good friend of Zhang Bing. If I wanted to earn money, I wouldn’t earn it from you! What I mean is that you could hand the imperial jade to me, and then we could process the imperial jade in the factory to make a few pieces of jewelry. Then we could sell it off at the shop, and the total revenue could be about 800,000 yuan!”
“Then it shall all depend on your decision Uncle Zhang. Just give me half of the money that you have earned.” Yang Ming wasn’t greedy for money, and he still needed to depend on Zhang Jiefang for a while in the future. Therefore he couldn’t be very stingy with him.
“Hehe, you are a junior. How would I, Zhang Jiefang, want your money?” Zhang Jiefang laughed. “But if you truly want to pass me some amount, then we will do it according to the standard rules for consignment. Give me a 10% procedures fee!”
“However, don’t you also need some procedures fee while you process the imperial jade?” Yang Ming felt that Zhang Jiefang wasn’t a person who cared only for the profit, therefore Yang Ming handed the imperial jade to him without much worry.
Moreover, this imperial jade wasn’t anything much for Yang Ming. Yang Ming thought that he could find a lot more imperial jade from those thousands of raw pieces.
“Those fees are some small amount, only about 1,800 yuan.” Zhang Jiefang shook his hand. Normally, it’s only the people who don’t have a path to process their imperial jade who would sell the imperial jade right away. Or else who would be so stupid? That’s like throwing away money.
“Then I will need to trouble Uncle Zhang.” Yang Ming thanked him.
Zhang Jiefang had already learned of Yang Ming’s financial situation from Zhang Bing. He knew that both of his parents were blue collar workers, therefore he wanted to use this opportunity to help Yang Ming. Moreover, he was here for work, how could he not earn any money! Since Yang Ming was willing to hand over some procedures fee, that’s fine too.
For Yang Ming to get an imperial jade, Zhang Jiefang also saw it as Yang Ming’s good luck. Because even as someone who had been in the field for about ten years now, he wouldn’t be able to guarantee that he would get one imperial jade from two raw stones! If Zhang Jiefang knew that Yang Ming had some superpower, he would still hesitate for a while. Even if Yang Ming was Zhang Bing’s good friend, he can’t just ask him to work for free!
“Uncle Zhang, from the end products of the imperial jade, can you just pass me one jade pendant?” Yang Ming asked after hesitating for a while.
“Of course, the imperial jade was originally yours.” Zhang Jiefang smiled as he said, “Whatever pattern that you want to carve, I shall instruct them to do it!”
Yang Ming nodded his head. He had decided to give a gift to Lan Ling. He had already XO [1] her for N number of times. If he didn’t give a single gift, wouldn’t that be too stingy?
“Damn, Yang Ming. You just bend your waist once, and you have already gotten yourself 800,000 yuan!” Zhang Bing felt very envious. “Do you have some kind of secret?”
“The secret is, no matter how tight the net is, there’s always fish who would be able to pass through it.” Yang Ming smiled, “It’s just probability, hehe.”
“What?” Zhang Bing was stunned.
“Even though Yang Ming’s words have some reason to it, it can’t be the entire case. Surely, this could just be Yang Ming himself who’s luckier!” Zhang Jiefang smiled as he said this.
“What does that mean?” Zhang Bing still didn’t understand.
“Uncle Zhang talked about this before. Regarding the “eyes” who are used to gamble for rocks, a huge part of it just depends on their experience and feeling. There’s nothing based on the outer appearance of the rocks that you could use to differentiate between a good jade and a bad jade. If someone was able to look inside and see whether the jades are good or bad, who else would be selling the stones? Just go and pick out the imperial jades! Even those people who dig for raw stones every day won’t be able to differentiate things clearly, so let’s not even talk about those who are gambling for jades! Therefore, I feel that there would always be some good jades that are left after the others have picked.” Yang Ming explained, “Even though the majority of people thought that they wouldn’t find a good jade from that pile, that doesn’t mean that we can’t get a good jade from it.”
“I understand.” Zhang Bing nodded his head. “What you mean is that the pile of rocks which people had picked from and the pile of rocks that no one had picked from have the same probability of finding a good jade.”