Chapter 1 - Ink Jade Pixiu

At 3 o'clock in the morning, with only a few cars on National Highway 320, a bright yellow Jeep is especially eye-catching. What's even more eye-catching is the asphalt-burning speed of the car.

"Young Master Du, continue persevering, it's less than 100 kilometers!" The big brother driving the car said in a local accent, turning his head towards the man in the back seat and smiling.

"….." The man known as "Young Master Du", Du Ziyu, weakly moved his eyelids. His black eyes did not have half a degree of spirit left. Opening his mouth to speak, his chest suddenly rose up and he used a wet napkin to cover his mouth and nose. His brows furrowed as sweat began to bead on his forehead, sliding down along the side of his sickly face to his sharp chin.

"I say, Young Master Du, can you still go? I don't think you're carsick! It looks more like you have late stage cancer." The man speaking, named Li Wu, is Du Ziyu's brother-in-law. He is tall with a strong, muscular body, thick eyebrows, big eyes, and a handsome face. Unfortunately, nothing proper comes out of his mouth. He helped Du Ziyu stroke his back while cracking a joke: "If you have to let your older sister see, don't worry about me. In any case, I can't avoid her peeling off another layer of my skin!"

"Alright, she won't find out." Du Ziyu glanced at Li Wu, speaking with a weak voice.

A blue road sign flashed by the car window. [Ruili – 56KM]

Du Ziyu sighed, gently rubbing the jade ring on his left thumb1. As usual, the high quality mutton fat jade was smooth and glossy. The surface had a web of dark blood red coloured veins, giving it a bit of a flirtatious charm.

Yunan province's Ruili, a small town on the Sino-Myanmar border with the country's largest market of jade, is the destination of their trip.

"Once we get there, you won't blame me for leaving so early! Look! By that time, the whole street will be full of goods. You can choose whatever you want!" The driver's dark face had a smile. With one foot on the throttle, the car sped up to 150 km/hr.

They had no time to waste.

Du Ziyu knit his brows. He didn't really look forward to the ‘Sino-Myanmar Jade Street' the driver mentioned.

Speaking of the Du family, they are not a frivolous type of family. The family has been involved in the import and export business since his grandfather's generation. Du Ziyu's father took over the business from his grandfather and has always done a good job. The family never had to worry about their next meal.

Du Ziyu going back to Yunnan was because of his third sister. His third sister, who ran an auction house, said the jade market had been good recently, with the price rising every year. This made his brother-in-law want to check it out. Du Ziyu, the Du family young master, grew up with three older sisters, and had a deep love of jade. He also had his own small antique shop, and if this time he notices any good products, he can stock up.

They had driven for almost two hours and finally arrived at Ruili at 5 o'clock. Du Ziyu stumbled out of the car with Li Wu's support. The driver made a call and someone came to pick them up immediately. The jade industry ran deep; without a local to guide you, even experts can mess up.

"Brother Li, Young Master Du, this man is surnamed Mao. You can call him Ah-Mao! He's a Myanmar citizen but has the blood of the Chinese!" The driver winked as he introduced them. "He's a jade connoisseur, far more knowledgeable than me!"

Li Wu nodded and greeted Ah-Mao. The men walked single file towards the Sino-Myanmar Jade Street. The winding narrow streets had no end in sight. Booths of all shapes and sizes filled their eyes. A piece of cloth was laid on the ground, with dazzling jade scattered on top of it. In addition to the local minority and Han Chinese, there were also many Burmese, Bangladeshis, Indians, and Pakistanis there. Voices speaking the local dialect, Mandarin, Burmese, and mixed dialects could be heard bargaining up and down prices.

"Han people, don't be sad." Ah-Mao smiled and waved at Li Wu. "Next time, come early so you can fight for the first-pick products."

The first-pick products he was referring to were the highest quality in the market and could only be picked up at night. Du Ziyu followed the flow of the people and carefully looked products in the booths, which were mostly bracelets, safety button pendants2, rings, and simply carved ornaments. There was also a lot of uncut and unpolished stones, and crudely cut jade.  Ah-Mao took them to a small booth and spoke a few words to the owner. The owner took out a paper bag from his bag. Inside had a single bright green jade bangle3.

"Old pit, ice glutinous type, full green.4" Ah-Mao pointed at the bangle and grinned. In the current market, this quality of bracelet, if genuine, would go for at least a million dollars.

Since they had just arrived, Li Wu didn't plan on buying much. He simply nodded his head, picked up the bracelet and played with it for a while. "What's the price?"

The owner held out his palm. Li Wu raised his brow, took out a strong flashlight, and looked for impurities in the jade. Du Ziyu glanced at the booth beside them. The booth owner was Chinese and had a few hard-to-obtain carved pendants. Du Ziyu picked up a white-with-green-veins jade Pixiu5 to look at.

The booth owner saw that Du Ziyu was not an ordinary person. He was exquisitely dressed with a blood red jade on his thumb. He immediately got up and introduced himself. "Boss you have a good eye! The item in your hands is called the 'Overlord Pixiu'. It has our unique Yunnan carving method. You see, its head and body are at right angles. With the head and body aligned, the head will beckon wealth, shouting 'Man without Windfall Has No Wealth'6. The body will beckon wealth from God, saying 'Country Forever Stable'7. The imperial rule of the Overlord will protect your wealth!" The booth owner said while taking out a strong flashlight for Du Ziyu. "Also, look, the bottom material is good quality, look at the transparency, the moisture…"

Du Ziyu played with the jade Pixiu. He first looked at the colour, then the moisture. This piece was indeed hydrated and clear, but there was only a little bit of green on the Pixiu's head. Not good enough. Du Ziyu couldn't help but to laugh. It really was not auspicious!

The booth owner saw Du Ziyu shake his head and took out some pendants from his bag for him to see. In addition to the Pixiu, he also had Guanyin, Maitreya Buddha, Ruyi sceptre, gourds…

"This Overlord Pixiu is still new, I'll give it to you for a low price." Du Ziyu still shook his head.

"Little boss, don't worry, look at this!" The owner enticed Du Ziyu and pulled out a piece from his back pocket. The piece he pulled out was black. It was another Pixiu, but the colour was too weird. "Little boss, this is a rare item. I don't know if you will recognize it!"

Jade comes in a variety of colours - green, red, yellow, and so on. The more green the item was, and the stronger the green colour, the better. Therefore, pure black and pure white jade did not fetch good prices. Du Ziyu carefully scrutinized the black Pixiu. Without mentioning the material, the Pixiu was quite skillfully carved. The head and body were proper - it had a large head, round bottom, full forehead, ferocious face, a pair of yin-yang eyes, a pair of sharp canine teeth, a finely carved alignment of nine stars on its back, a satisfying butt, and it had copper coins on the soles of its feet. The more you looked at it, the more you liked it.

"What are you looking at?" Li Wu came over, glanced at the item in Du Ziyu's hand, and snorted. "Black jade?"

"No." Du Ziyu's eyes narrowed slightly as he pressed his flashlight against the Pixiu. The light shined through the black Pixiu, revealing a dark green colour, catching their eyes.

This was an ink jade8, extracted from the deepest depths of a jade mine.

"Hey! Young Master Du, if you like ink jade, let Ah-Mao pick some for us!" The driver pulled Du Ziyu closer and whispered. "This is a newcomer who doesn't know much. Best not to do business with him."

Du Ziyu looked at the Pixiu in his hands. Under the beam of the flashlight, he could tell the material was clear and clean with almost no impurities, and the green was uniform in colour. Under natural light, the Pixiu was black and shiny, moist and radiant. It was eye-catching.

Du Ziyu, being born in the antiques capital, knew good products were hard to find. It wasn't often that a product would make him look this intensely. This ink jade Pixiu was surprisingly to his liking.

"Give me a price." Du Ziyu sighed.

"You're buying it?" Li Wu couldn't help but to grab Du Ziyu's arm. "Young master, don't make a mistake in buying a bad product and end up running home to cry to your sister!"

"I won't." Du Ziyu curled the corner of his lips. He was confident. His eyes swept over to the booth owner and he spread out his hand towards him.

This was a bidding rule in the Northern antiques market. The buyer holds the seller's fingers, the seller draws a number on the buyer's palm, and they silently decide on a price.

The owner smiled and drew a two on Du Ziyu's palm, then added two zeros, indicating the price was $2 million. Du Ziyu was silent. He suddenly spread out his hand and chuckled. "Are you playing me?"

"Boss, you're a knowledgeable man!" The booth owner was not angry. He gave a thumbs up to Du Ziyu, held out his hand, and let Du Ziyu hold it again.  This time, the price was cut in half. The sellers here were insincere and greedy. You had to bargain. Prices were purposely inflated to see if the buyer knew the market.

The two of them took turns writing out prices, with the owner feeling more and more pressured. After Du Ziyu's last bid, he waved his hand, indicating to the owner that that was his final offer.

"My offer is already very gracious." Du Ziyu coldly looked at the owner. "Don't treat the mainlanders like suckers. You know how much it's worth. The price I gave was out of respect for the craftsman. It's really skillfully carved!" Du Ziyu said as the corners of his mouth hooked upwards. "But if we're really talking about craftsmanship, there are many jade carvings in the mainland that are far superior to this Pixiu. I want this one simply because I like it." After saying that, he looked up at Li Wu. "Brother-in-law, how is your pick?"

Li Wu nodded, immediately understanding the meaning behind Du Ziyu's words. He pat the owner's back. "Almost done! We just need to get the money and we'll leave."

After waiting for their purchases to be loaded into their car, it was already noon.

"Hurry up and find a place to eat. We're not going out in the afternoon!" Li Wu got in the car and told the driver to turn on the air conditioning. He wiped his sweat and turned his head to see Du Ziyu still holding the Pixiu. He laughed out loud. "If you look at it enough, maybe it'll cure your motion sickness!"

Du Ziyu shot him a look, leaned back into the seat, and moved his lips. "I don't know if I can really make a fortune." He shifted his eyes and smiled at Li Wu. "After dinner, let's play mahjong."

When they came, they only had enough people for three player mahjong. Now that there was a Myanmar person sitting in the passenger seat, they had a full table.

Translator's notes:

The term the author uses for jade in this chapter is almost exclusively "翡翠", which specifically refers to Jadeite, instead of the general term "玉"