Chapter 378 All in One Go At this moment, taking advantage of the crowd's attention being drawn away and the chaos ensuing, the stall owner, a key figure in this scam, was secretly trying to slip away from the edge of the crowd, his face pale.
He had only taken two steps when Gu Huaiye's tall figure blocked his path like an iron tower: "Where are our two stones?"
The stall owner froze, but being a seasoned veteran of the market, his face immediately contorted with a mixture of grievance and defiance.
He deftly pushed the two stones, which had been carefully packed in black velvet bags, forward, raising his voice to a high crescendo: "Look carefully!"
"These are the two stones you unearthed! Once the rough stones are out of our hands, we are not responsible for anything; that's the rule of the trade! I didn't touch a single one of them!"
Xia Zhining glanced at the stones in the two velvet bags, but instead of grabbing them, she gently patted the snowball on her shoulder.
The little weasel nimbly jumped down, approached the openings of the two cloth bags, and sniffed carefully with its little nose twitching.
[Lemon! The first icy blue stone, the taste hasn't changed, it's still the same!]
[But! The second, originally vibrant green gemstone has been replaced!]
Snowball used its little paws to disdainfully scratch at the patch of "green" exposed by the second rock:
[The exposed green area on this fake item has a... a foul, chemical-like smell!]
Xia Zhining immediately said, "The second top-grade imperial green stone has been replaced; this one is an artificial fake."
The stall owner never expected Xia Zhining to have such sharp eyes!
Their team is so skilled at forging counterfeits that they can be mistaken for real ones to the naked eye.
He glanced at the white ferret in Xia Zhining's arms. He had always thought that this thing was a pet ferret that rich people liked to keep, but now it seemed that something was wrong!
"this……"
The stall owner's heart pounded, but he forced a calm facade, quickly weighing the pros and cons in his mind:
We absolutely cannot admit to switching things! We absolutely refuse to admit it, even if it kills us!
As long as he insists that the imperial green jadeite was fake... even if he gets caught, at most it's considered fraud, and the case value is only 90,000 yuan!
But if it's confirmed that he switched the genuine product the customer ordered... then...
A piece of imperial green jade worth three million... that's enough to put him in jail for the rest of his life!
After weighing the pros and cons, the stall owner seemed to have grasped at the last straw, his back straightening up, and he shouted even more shrilly:
"Nonsense! What do you mean by switching! This second stone was always like this!"
He pointed at the "Imperial Green" jade, a shameless, "what's the use of trying" look on his face:
"I admit it! I tampered with this material! The outer layer was fake, and the inside was filled with lead and dyed! I specifically targeted people like you who don't know anything about this!"
"But this is the one you bought! There's only one of these from beginning to end! I'll accept the punishment for selling counterfeit goods! Refund what you owe, and detain me if you need to!"
The stall owner reluctantly admitted that he had fabricated the story, claiming that the imperial green jadeite he had just seen was fake.
The vendor's years of experience in swindling had honed his lightning-fast switcheroo technique, and the fact that the other party could not possibly have recorded the incident gave him a sliver of confidence.
As long as there's no direct footage of him changing the stones...
"But you want to frame me for stealing your millions of dollars worth of imperial jade? No way!"
"Where's the evidence? Who can prove you actually retrieved something like that?! Even the police can't just stage an accident like this, can they?"
Xia Zhining sneered. This stall owner is quick-witted. The crime of counterfeiting is much lighter than the crime of stealing valuable jade.
Before she could speak, the little boy who was holding her tightly seemed to have mustered his courage and shouted, "You switched them!"
The stall owner immediately glared at the little boy and said sternly, "What nonsense are you talking about!"
Xia Zhining stepped aside to block the little boy: "We'll soon find out who's talking nonsense."
She calmly took out her phone and glanced at a small, rapidly moving green dot on the screen.
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