Chapter 5: The Antiques Market

It was a small jade shop, run by a middle-aged man with thinning hair who was intensely focused on playing a popular game on his computer screen.
Ye Feng approached the counter. The man lifted his gaze briefly, gave Ye Feng a quick glance, then returned his attention to the computer. In his opinion, such a young man was unlikely to bring him big business; it was more likely he was just wandering around.
Ye Feng went over to a counter and stared oddly at two pieces of jade in the glass display case. In size, shape, and quality, they were similar to the other jades in the case. But what surprised Ye Feng was that a faint yellow glow covered their surfaces. Though the yellow wasn’t very noticeable, anyone with normal vision could definitely spot this oddity from within twenty meters. Yet, despite the constant flow of people, none stopped to look.
“Can’t they see this yellow glow?” Ye Feng asked doubtfully, pointing at the case and addressing the shop owner. “Boss, how much are these jades?”
“Isn’t there a label on them?” the owner replied without even looking up, clearly used to dealing with such inquiries.
“But the label says 39,800…” Ye Feng’s voice grew quieter. “Is this price… really necessary?”
“Young man, 39,800 is already the lowest price for this quality. Jade is a luxury item, not something like cabbage at the market that can be haggled over. Besides, even cabbage’s price has gone up these days, let alone this.” The owner finally stood up and walked over to the case. “Also, jades at this price aren’t meant to be worn personally—they’re for gifting. You seem young, probably still in school. If you want to buy one for yourself, I suggest looking at those over there; they’re all under 1,000 yuan. If it’s for a friend, there’s no need for something like this; consider pieces priced between 1,000 and 3,000 yuan.”
“Can’t it be any cheaper?” Ye Feng asked with a wry smile, yet he still refused to give up.
“If you really want to buy it, the lowest I can go is 38,000. At that price, I can barely make a profit,” the owner said with a smile.
“Oh…” Ye Feng smiled awkwardly. “Well… I’ll take another look then…”

After glancing at the other jades in the shop, Ye Feng left somewhat disappointed. “If two jades in this shop are like this, could there be similar ones in other jade shops?” With this thought, his initial intention to leave the antique market vanished, and he decided to explore further to see if there were any jades within his budget. Over the course of a morning, Ye Feng visited nearly a dozen jade-specialty shops in the entire antique market. Aside from the first shop he went to, only two had jades that emitted a yellow glow on their surface. Throughout the entire market, there were only four such jades in three shops. The most expensive one cost 310,000, and the cheapest 29,000—none of which were prices Ye Feng could afford. After wandering around the market for a long time, until the sun was high and his stomach started to growl, Ye Feng reluctantly left the antique market. “Forget it. Although I don’t know what that yellow light is, the prices of those jades are completely outrageous. Spending tens of thousands of yuan on something whose purpose I don’t even know—I’d better have lunch here and head back to school.” With a self-mocking smile, he looked around for a small restaurant to eat at. Outside the antique market, there were also many street vendors, but they sold mostly trinkets. Though cheap, there weren’t many genuine items. Ye Feng paid little attention to the goods on the stalls along the road and headed straight toward a small restaurant in sight. At that moment, he casually glanced at a jade-selling stall by the road. Just that one glance made it hard for him to look away, and he felt a surge of excitement. Among those seemingly unremarkable jades, there was a rather ugly stone emitting a faint yellow glow. Ye Feng quietly walked over to the stall and pointed at a jade piece next to it that seemed to be of high quality, asking, “Boss, how much is this jade?” “Eighty!” The boss sneaked a glance at Ye Feng. Seeing that he was young, he spoke more confidently. “So expensive?” Ye Feng shook his head. “This is already a very low price. Look at how nice the color of this jade is—no impurities at all!” The stall owner clearly wanted to overcharge him. “So you mean this one would be cheaper?” Ye Feng pointed at the ugly-looking stone he wanted.

“I…” The street vendor immediately didn’t know how to explain.
“It seems you don’t have any pure ones here; this is probably the only one. Look at the others—they all have some color. Especially this one, with so many impurities on it—it’s worth at most ten yuan,” Ye Feng said, still pointing at the ugly-looking stone.
“Ten yuan is definitely not enough. Although it doesn’t look great, it’s still jade. It has to be at least twenty yuan to sell it!” The vendor shook his head, clearly wanting to make more money.
“How much?” Ye Feng pretended to look surprised.
“Twenty. Not a penny less!” the vendor declared firmly. He thought to himself that if he lowered the price for this one, the kid would probably try to cut it further.
“Alright, then I’ll take this one!” Ye Feng said, taking out twenty yuan from his wallet. He then picked up the stone, about the size of an MP3, and left casually, leaving the vendor frustrated.
Watching Ye Feng walk away, the vendor slapped his own forehead. “Stupid! If I had known he wanted this, I would have asked for more!”
For just twenty yuan, Ye Feng got what he wanted. His mood improved instantly. After wandering around the nearby stalls, he headed toward a small restaurant.
“It seems there aren’t many of these. If I hadn’t been lucky today, I probably wouldn’t have gotten this jade at all.” Ye Feng was quite satisfied. After checking out other stalls and finding nothing, he wasn’t too disappointed, as he had expected that.
Feeling great, Ye Feng had lunch at the small restaurant before calmly boarding the bus back to school.
After Ye Feng got on the bus, a young man in his twenties or thirties appeared around the corner, watching the bus leave.
The man picked up his black phone and dialed a number. “He’s already back at school!”
“What did he do in the antique market? Was there anything unusual?” A female voice came through the phone.
“First, he looked at all the coins in different shops but didn’t say a word to the owners, not even asking questions. After that, he went into a jade shop, explored it again, and asked about the prices of some jades. Then he left without buying anything. Just before lunch, he bought a stone from a stall outside the antique market.” The man reported every detail of Ye Feng’s activities.

“Does he understand antiques?” The female voice on the other end seemed to be talking to herself.
“Qinglang, how much did he pay for that stone?” the woman suddenly asked.
“I just went to ask the seller. He said twenty.” The man nicknamed Qinglang had clearly contacted the seller after Ye Feng bought the stone.
“Is there a photo of that stone? If so, fax it to me later. I’ll have someone who knows about this take a look.” The woman gave another order.
“Okay!” Qinglang nodded.
“Continue to keep an undercover watch on him. Inform me immediately if anything happens. Don’t take action against him yet. I want to see what Brother Long sees in him.” The woman gave instructions for the next steps.
“Yes!” Qinglang nodded again, his expression unchanged.
…
Back in the dormitory, it was around 1 p.m., and the room was empty.
Ye Feng closed the door, pulled down the curtains, then took out the stone covered in a yellow glow, holding it in his right hand. “What exactly is this yellow light?”
At that moment, a line of clear text appeared before Ye Feng’s eyes: “Second-tier item. Can be exchanged for 0.2 of second-tier domain value. Do you want to proceed with the exchange…”