Guh Ruoyao followed Guh Siqing’s gaze and saw An Yiqing standing within the crowd. She couldn’t help but let out a mocking laugh, her voice dripping with sarcasm as she said, "Isn’t that the truth! Sister Siqing, it’s your insight that’s truly outstanding! Compared to those who go from sparrows to phoenixes, you are the real phoenix here!"
Their conversation, as if no one else was present, left the surrounding crowd exchanging looks, their gazes turning towards An Yiqing, with expressions ranging from sympathy to scorn to indifference.
An Yiqing didn’t speak. She reached out to stop An Zhihang, who was about to step forward to defend her, and stood silently to the side with a faint smile on her face.
"Uncle Zhang, continue the stone cutting. Do not let some petty individuals affect our mood," Guh Siqing said coldly, observing the crowd’s reaction.
Uncle Zhang nodded and continued to cut the stone along the cross-section window.
Five minutes passed by and the stone-cutting machine and the grinding wheel alternated on the rough stone, but other than a few occasional glimpses of green, most of what was grinded away was lime.
As time slipped by, Guh Siqing’s complexion grew increasingly worse, her hands crossed and slowly clenched tighter. The crowd’s breathless anticipation gradually turned to impatience, and a slight restlessness began to stir among them.
"Why isn’t there any green yet? Could it be a dud?" one person muttered, puzzled.
"A dud? Didn’t we just see some green on the cross-section earlier?" another person said, surprised.
"Who knows? If it weren’t a dud, why would it take so long to reveal any green?"
"Just wait a bit longer. Maybe it’ll show up soon."
The audience’s whispering was heard loud and clear by the perceptive Guh Siqing and Uncle Zhang. Guh Siqing managed to keep her composure in light of her ladylike dignity, restraining the anger in her heart. But the hot-tempered Uncle Zhang became increasingly enraged, his brow furrowed, his face turning crimson, and the scar at the corner of his right eye menacingly fierce. He abruptly grabbed the stone-cutting machine, regardless of the crowd’s gasps, and made a fierce cut at the right third of the rough stone!
"Ah..." The audience exclaimed in shock, and even Guh Siqing couldn’t help but cover her mouth.
With the cry, the raw stone was split in two, laid bare before the crowd. Both halves of the cross-sections were full of shattered jade, although translucent, crisscrossing cracks vividly conveyed the reality of the gamble lost.
"This... this is..." someone started to say, stuttering, "Is this a dud?!"
"Yeah! Such a dud wouldn’t sell for even fifty thousand, let alone twenty million! The jade is shattered too thoroughly!" someone else chimed in.
Guh Siqing stood in front of the Stone-Cutting Table, her eyes fixed on the cross-sections of the two pieces of the rough stone, her elegant eyebrows knotted tightly, her complexion on the verge of turning dark.
"Si... Sister Siqing, don’t worry. Maybe there will be green after we cut further," Guh Ruoyao cautiously suggested, afraid of becoming the target of Guh Siqing and Uncle Zhang’s anger.
Guh Ruoyao’s words seemed to spark a glint of hope in Guh Siqing’s eyes, and she stepped forward, grabbing the stone-cutting machine and making another clean cut on the rough stone!
Yet again, the newly revealed cross-sections were filled with crisscrossing broken jade, countless lines tangling like a spider web, densely weaving across the large cross-sections.
Guh Siqing’s face was ice-cold, unbelieving as she stared at the raw stone on the table, and she quickly used the stone-cutting machine to slice the stone into seven or eight pieces.
All of them were duds!
Every single raw stone’s cross-section was riddled with dense cracks!