Yunling quickly estimated that the thirty strings of cash plus the ten strings plus the thirty-five strings of cash totaled seventy-five strings of cash. She had more than fifty-two strings of cash left from her transaction with Zhao Huasheng yesterday, which she had Gangzi carry out today, intending to use them up. Who knew that it would cost seventy-five strings of cash here? She only had three strings of cash on her, so she was still twenty strings of cash short.
Yunling had no choice but to take out another banknote and ask Da Tou for change.
"Give me twenty-five strings of cash, sir."
Big Head quickly agreed, took the money, and went further inside. The sound of pulling out drawers was intermittent. After a while, he came out with ten strings of cash. He then asked the two men who were sanding the paper if they had any extra copper coins to give as change. The two men scraped together for a while, but could only manage to gather five strings of copper coins.
"Young master, please wait a moment. I'll go to the small eatery we frequent and ask the manager there to help me exchange these coins."
Yunling felt somewhat ashamed, never expecting such things to happen to her repeatedly. But it was only ten strings of cash short; it wasn't worth all this trouble.
"How about this, take a look in this workshop and see if there's anything worth ten copper coins. Just give it to me, and you won't have to run back and forth."
Upon hearing this, Da Tou was naturally delighted to see that goods could be used to settle the debt, but he was not one to be careless and dared not easily deceive Yun Ling. So he rummaged through his chests and cabinets, and from the bottom of one of them, he found a small jade pendant that resembled mutton-fat white jade. He smiled and said:
“This is a good thing. A young man came to me to have his jade processed, but he didn’t have enough money for the processing. So he left this little jade pendant here, saying he would come back in three days to redeem it. But a year has passed and he still hasn’t come. So this little jade pendant is mine.”
Yunling took the small jade pendant. It felt warm and cool in her hand, and translucent in the sunlight. For some reason, she suddenly felt that this jade was perfect for Lu Yinghuai—warm, smooth, and translucent. No, wait, she didn't want to give it to him; it was much better to keep it to herself.
“This little jade pendant is quite nice, sir. It’s too much of a loss to give it away for ten copper coins.”
"No loss, no loss. I just wanted to make friends with you, young man. Didn't you buy several pieces of jade before the New Year? I wonder if you've had them processed yet?"
Yunling smiled and said:
"When my future brother-in-law heard it was a treasure, he immediately sent someone to get it. As for whether it was properly processed, I have no idea."
Da Tou was somewhat disappointed. He had originally thought that if he could take on the deal for those stones from Yun Ling, he wouldn't have to worry for the rest of the year. But now that his investment had gone down the drain, it was impossible for him not to be upset.
But since he had access to Yun Ling's connections, he would have more options if any problems arose in the future, and his expression changed from gloomy to cheerful.
"I see. It's alright. If you have time in the future, young man, you can come and find me. We can go find the stone together."
Yunling also wanted to find more stones, but she would be taking a boat back to Pingcheng in a few days and didn't know when she would be able to come back to Bianjing. She handed the stones over to Cai Dongjia, hoping to polish the jade ornaments as soon as possible.
Now that Da Tou had asked her this, she felt strange and uncomfortable, so she only accepted the small jade pendant and left the remaining fifteen strings of cash behind.
"I will be going on a long trip soon and I don't know when I will be back. Consider these fifteen strings of copper coins as a gift for your meal. I will accept the jade token. Thank you."
Yunling's generosity made Datou even more reluctant to part with her. He chased after Yunling to see her off, and only stopped when he saw her out of the alley and onto the street.
"Boss, you're really missing out. You should at least have accepted those ten strings of cash. That guy was trying to scam you in the first place, so there's no need to be so nice to him."
Yunling stroked the small jade pendant in her hand, liking it more and more the more she did so.
"You're mistaken. It was a willing trap from the start. He did lead me to a good stone, didn't he? Besides, in business, having a friend is always better than having an enemy, and losing fifteen strings of cash is much easier for you, isn't it?"
Tang Ling carefully carried the jade ornament and led Yun Ling into another alley.
“If you’re going to Cai Dong’s workshop, it’ll be faster to go this way.”
The three of them traversed the streets and alleys, arriving at their destination in a quarter of an hour. Upon seeing Yunling, Cai Dongjia quickly stepped forward to greet her warmly:
"Young master looks even more handsome after the New Year. I wonder which lucky young lady will marry him in the future."
Yunling feared that he was saying this to everyone who came here, but she didn't want to directly expose such polite words and ruin the harmony, so she could only go along with him and say:
"I think Mr. Cai is the lucky one with his mouth. He must have eaten so much good sweets and honey during this holiday season, making everyone's heart full of joy."
Cai Dongjia smiled and quickly got straight to the point:
"Young master, you've come today for those fine jades, haven't you?"
“What Master Cai said is absolutely right. I wonder if those jade ornaments have already been polished and carved?”
Cai Dongjia did not respond at first, but led Yunling to the small tea room where they had tea before. He then called a servant to brew a pot of fine white tea, and then slipped out again. No one knew where he went. After the tea was served, he came back in from outside.
Yunling saw that he was carrying two boxes, and behind him was another person carrying three boxes, each of whom tiptoed and placed the boxes steadily on the table.
"This box contains the bracelet, jade pendant, jade thumb ring, jade plaque, and jade beads that the young master requested earlier."
As Cai Dongjia spoke, he opened the box one by one, revealing six bracelets, eight jade pendants, five jade thumb rings, six jade plaques, and an unknown number of jade beads.
Yunling was shocked. She grabbed a handful of jade beads. The beads felt wonderful and were incredibly smooth. She picked out one of them and held it up to look at it with familiarity.
These beads are truly lustrous, made of high-quality material, and the polishing is also excellent. They look even better than the larger ones, so it must have taken a lot of effort.
Seeing Yunling playing with the jade beads, Cai Dongjia smiled and said:
"A total of eighty beads were made, all made to the size of a bracelet. Each bead has a small hole in the center for stringing. How many to string, and whether to add different colors or other materials, depends on the young master's wishes."
Yunling thought Cai Dongjia was very shrewd, and the craftsmanship was exquisite, especially the Guanyin jade pendant, which could be described as "exquisitely carved" and "lifelike." She had only just picked up one of them when Cai Dongjia said:
"As the saying goes, men should wear Guanyin and women should wear Buddha. If you want Guanyin and Buddha to have spiritual power, you have to go to a temple and have a monk consecrate them. However, you can't just carry consecrated jade with you, but you can't go without it either. The profound meaning of this can only be explained to the young man by a monk in the temple."
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