After visiting two tourist attractions, Cheng Jiawei could tell that Li Mu wasn't very interested in sightseeing. However, since the two weren't familiar with each other, she couldn't very well drag him along for a walk or to see a movie.
Actually, she had long since lost interest in these tourist attractions in Kaohsiung. As a native of Kaohsiung, she had visited them countless times since childhood. In the past two years, after starting university, she had been dragged around by her classmates to act as their tour guides many times, and she had grown somewhat disgusted with it.
When Li Mu suggested visiting a flea market or antique street, Cheng Jiawei drove directly to Zhuque Street.
Cheng Jiawei understood why Li Mu wanted to visit the antique street; it was normal for martial artists to enjoy searching for treasures among old things. Her great-uncle had taken her there since she was little, and she had even seen him buy those jade spirit stones from a street stall.
Gaojing Antique Market is a decent secondhand market, but Li Mu and his group arrived a bit late, and there weren't many people browsing anymore. However, the number of people didn't matter to Li Mu; fewer people were better, since he wasn't there to see the spectacle.
Upon entering the antique market, Li Mu was filled with anticipation. Last time, he had found a pill furnace in Jiangcheng; he wondered if he could make something similar this time.
The two wandered around for a while but didn't find anything useful. So Li Mu went into a jade shop, intending to buy some jade to make some jade boxes and bottles for storing things. What kind of business is it to keep rummaging through your own walls?
This Fulai Jade Shop has a wide variety of jade. Li Mu doesn't have high requirements for jade, as long as it's genuine. After picking and choosing, he found four or five pieces, all small in size, all Hetian jade, weighing less than forty jin in total. The price wasn't cheap, actually over a million yuan.
When he was about to pay, he saw a large piece of jade, weighing about a hundred pounds. Li Mu went up and examined it with his divine sense. He realized that it was a complete piece of jade.
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"Boss, how much is this stone?" After examining the stone's internal structure, Li Mu decided to buy it.
"Brother, you want to buy this rough jade? This is a huge gamble!" The shop owner was a man in his thirties with stubble on his lip, which he had probably grown intentionally.
Li Mu didn't know what the shopkeeper meant by "rough material." He only knew it was jadeite, whereas the jadeite he had seen before was nephrite. Thinking he was about to be tricked again, he said somewhat unhappily, "Just tell me the price. If it's reasonable, we'll pay together."
"Alright then, I won't ask for a high price, how about 1.5 million?" The shop owner just wanted to give a friendly reminder, but this young master got upset. Seeing that the man had also bought some Hetian jade, the shop owner decided to give a reasonable price.
"Okay, let's settle the bill together." After a quick mental calculation, Li Mu concluded that compared to the other pieces of jade, this stone was reasonably priced.
"Brother, you're so generous. Those few pieces were worth about 1.6 million. Add this one, and we'll give you 3 million." Seeing that Li Mu was young and decisive in buying things, the shopkeeper was generous this time and directly reduced the price by about 100,000.
"Brother, will you be transferring money or paying by card? Do you want the stone cut?" The shopkeeper gestured for Li Mu to go to the cashier, and casually asked if he wanted the stone cut.
"If you can cut the stone, then please help me cut it." Li Mu didn't expect that the stone could be cut. This was even better, since he would have to cut it according to the size of the jade box and jade bottle anyway, which would save him a lot of trouble.
After paying the bill, Li Mu drew tangent lines as prompted by the shop owner. To everyone's surprise, Li Mu drew a dozen or so tangent lines on the big rock, leaving the shop owner speechless. He thought to himself, "What is this supposed to be? Does he know the rock is going to be crossed?"
After Li Mu finished drawing the lines on the large stone, he then drew the tangent lines on the smaller stones as well.
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"Li Mu, are you gambling on stones? You know how to gamble on stones?"
Cheng Jiawei had been watching for a long time, casually spending millions of yuan. Was she going to squander her family's wealth? He knew about jade gambling; nine out of ten times, it was a losing proposition, and his siblings were forbidden from participating.
"You mean these jade stones? I just bought them to make some jade boxes and bottles. If you take a fancy to any of them later, I can make you a little trinket." Li Muzhen didn't know anything about rough jade or gambling stones, so he casually replied to Cheng Jiawei.
After listening to Li Mu's explanation, Cheng Jiawei was speechless. This guy spent millions just to make a few jade boxes and bottles. How idle must he be? He has so much money he doesn't know what to do with it.
Li Mu hadn't expected the stone-cutting process to be so lengthy. Half an hour had passed, and apart from cutting off a piece of nephrite, the large rock seemed to have only been cut a third of the way through—and this was just the first cut. He regretted not cutting it here; he could have easily used a wind blade technique, which would have been much faster.
No matter what, they couldn't stop now, so Li Mu simply found two chairs and pulled Cheng Jiawei to sit down in the workshop.
Cheng Jiawei is young and reserved, so she doesn't talk much. Li Mu isn't a talkative person either. If they were traveling together, they could occasionally exchange a few words. But now that they've sat down, the conversation has already died down because Li Mu kept talking. Now it's a bit awkward.
The shop owner was a quick-thinking person. Since there were only two customers in the shop, he brought over two bottles of drinks to chat with them, which eased the awkwardness. The three of them chatted for a short while when the owner's two children came running over from inside the shop, playing around.
The girl was a bit older, around ten years old, and the boy was about four or five years old. They were wearing open-crotch pants and holding a black stone the size of an egg in their little hands.
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The little boy seemed quite clever, especially his small eyes, which darted around as if he were deep in thought. While deep in thought, he would occasionally toss and catch the stone in his hand, while his other hand kept teasing the little girl.
The little girl didn't tolerate the boy's antics either. When she got annoyed by his teasing, she shoved him. Back and forth, the two children amused everyone.
"Waaaaah! It's all my sister's fault!" The boy was teasing the girl again when she suddenly pushed him, causing him to hit his foot with a small stone and cry out in pain.
"Shanshan, can't you be more considerate of your brother? You're always making things difficult for everyone. Chengcheng, don't cry. I'll throw away this bad stone. It's too nasty." The shop owner picked up the boy, scolded the girl, and casually threw the small stone on the ground into an empty space.
Li Mu looked at the black stone, his heart skipped a beat, and he reached out and grabbed the small stone that was about to fall. As soon as he held the stone, he felt that it was extraordinary. This was a treasure. It was meteorite iron from outer space, a top-grade material for refining weapons.
If we have this piece of extraterrestrial meteorite iron, and gather a few more materials, we can forge a flying sword! A flying sword! A cultivator's flying sword is not an ordinary sword; it requires nurturing with blood and sweat, activation through bloodline, and control by divine sense. It can be stored within the body and used at will.
"Boss, where did you get this little stone?" Li Mu asked, his heart burning with excitement at the thought of the flying sword.
"Oh! You mean this stone? I think I found it in the mountains, but it's been so long I don't remember." The shopkeeper was trying to comfort the little boy, but now he was getting anxious looking at the child who was crying uncontrollably.
Li Mu was drawn by the child's cries and saw that the child's face was turning red and then black. Looking closer at the child's crotch, he noticed a small, bulging lump of flesh – a pediatric inguinal hernia, commonly known as a bulging inguinal hernia. However, in Li Mu's eyes, the child not only had a hernia, but was also poisoned.
"Excuse me, gentlemen, I need to take my child to the hospital..."
The boss stood up anxiously, wanting to leave in a hurry. At that moment, a woman in her thirties heard the crying and came over anxiously as well.
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