"What are you talking about? Am I not clear about where I bought the product from? Besides, even if I couldn’t remember, could the tag on the product and the packaging box still be fake? I also have the sales invoice and certificate of authenticity for your product here, there should be no mistake about that, right?"
The woman spoke with a sense of justified indignation, her eyes expressing anger and annoyance as she looked at Huo Sining and the others, as if they were really a dishonest shop.
Huo Sining almost wanted to laugh. She nodded and said, "Well then, could you please take out the item and tell me how our store’s product is fake?"
"This is it! I bought a Blue Water Piao Hua bracelet from your store, but when I just took it home, my niece saw it and said this is not jadeite at all, it’s just bubbles! You’re trying to fool us with fake jadeite, this is simply fraud; you’re cheating consumers, and I’m going to report you to the trade authorities!"
With that, the woman took out a jewelry box marked with the Jade Beauty logo and pulled out a bracelet with floating blue patterns.
The woman’s clamorous voice was exaggerated and loud. The Jade Beauty booth was already crowded, and with her shouting, even more onlookers gathered around. Seeing the woman pull out a bracelet with floating blue patterns, their eyes widened in astonishment.
"Blue Water Piao Hua bracelets, their store indeed has bracelets in this color—I just saw one earlier, and it looked very similar to this one!"
"Is this really bubbles? It looks a lot like Ice Seed Jadeite to me."
"Of course it does. If it didn’t look alike, how could the merchants pass it off as high-quality jadeite and sell it at a high price? They prey on our lack of understanding of jadeite, substituting inferior goods as superior, deceiving consumers!"
"I can’t believe this store is such a scam. President Qin Lianshan of the Jade Association even came to promote them before, but who would have thought they’d be this deceitful!"
"What about that fifty million jade piece, the twelve hairpins set they are selling for fifty million? I bet that’s also a scam. These unscrupulous merchants are really too shameless, actually using fake jadeite to deceive people!"
"Could they make money without being shameless? Nowadays, all jadeite stores are pulling these tricks. If you’re a layperson who doesn’t understand jadeite, you’re definitely going to be taken advantage of!"
The surrounding crowd was abuzz with discussion, yet the expression on Huo Sining’s face remained unchanged, still smiling faintly. However, a hint of an imperceptible cold light flickered in her eyes.
After taking the bracelet from the woman’s hand, she only glanced at it briefly before spotting the issue. However, she didn’t point it out directly; instead, she looked up with a smile at the woman and nodded, "This indeed is ’bubbles’."
In Myanmar, the reserves of the jadeite mine are limited, and due to continuous mining in recent years, depletion has occurred, with some old mining areas being completely exhausted. As a result, some jade traders have begun to explore unscrupulous practices.
Therefore, in recent years, in the jadeite market of Southwest Kunming, Ruili, and Tengchong, there have appeared some varieties of jade with good water content that resemble ’Ice-type’ jade.
These types of jade are transparent or semi-transparent and are mostly white or grayish-white with few white spots and color bands. In Yunnan, this kind of jade is called ’bubbles’.
The so-called ’bubbles’ is the vernacular term for Albite Jade and Quartzite Jade among the people. It is also a type of natural jade, but it is significantly different in nature from jadeite, and its price is also vastly different from that of jadeite.
’Bubbles’ also originate from Myanmar, and at the Sino-Myanmar Yunnan border in places like Tengchong and Ruili, locals refer to water-like features in the stone as ’bubbles.’ This type of jade looks similar to jadeite but lacks the vivid green color, evenness, and the fibrous patterns of jadeite, and there are certain differences from jadeite in terms of luster, color, and weight.
When held in hand, the foam beads were light and seemed frail without a sense of heaviness; due to their hardness issues, no matter how much they were polished, they would never brighten up and were also easily shattered.
Moreover, when struck, jadeite emitted a crisp and pleasing sound with strong penetrative power; however, the sound of striking foam beads was dull and powerless, feeling pale and thin in comparison, with much weaker penetrative strength.
Nevertheless, these characteristics could only be distinguished by those knowledgeable about jadeite. Ordinary people without long-term exposure to jadeite would have difficulty telling the difference between jadeite and foam beads.
Just like the blue-flowered foam beads bracelet that this woman had pulled out, which indeed looked identical to Blue Water Piao Hua Ice-type Jadeite at first glance.
Upon hearing Huo Sining admit that the bracelet was made of foam beads, Bai Yishan and Su Qingqing immediately panicked.
This woman was clearly here to sabotage, and Huo Sining was even playing along with her by admitting the item was foam beads, wasn’t she just handing over leverage to her?
The onlookers around all showed indignant expressions, thinking that the reputed Jade Beauty was indeed selling fake products. Weren’t they swindlers?
The woman herself felt secretly thrilled, her eyes revealing a hint of a scheme successfully executed:
"I was right, wasn’t I? Even you admit it now. Your store is just cheating customers, fooling us laypeople with foam beads. What else do you have to say for yourself?!"
Hearing what the woman had said, Huo Sining suddenly laughed. She looked at the woman and asked with a smile, "Madam, how do you think this matter should be settled?"
The woman had not expected things to proceed so smoothly. Seeing that Huo Sining was asking her, she naturally followed up on Huo Sining’s question:
"You should compensate, of course. Isn’t your store policy ’ten times compensation for fake products’? Then, compensate me ten times the amount! Besides, we don’t know how many others you have sold these foam beads products to, so you must withdraw from this jewelry exhibition! Vacate this booth for other businesses to make space!"
With that, the woman smirked with satisfaction at Huo Sining and turned to look at the other onlookers, "Don’t you all agree this is the way it should be handled?"
The people around promptly nodded in response, "That’s right!"
Huo Sining was intentionally probing; she had originally thought this woman merely wanted to bring in a fake to extort money, but upon hearing the latter part of the woman’s statement, Huo Sining suddenly stopped short.
If she still couldn’t understand this woman’s purpose by now, she would be a fool.
Firstly, bringing out a fake and then threatening with words, deliberately escalating the situation, this woman aimed to tarnish the reputation of Jade Beauty and make them unwelcome at the jewelry exhibition.
A cold laugh escaped Huo Sining’s heart as she looked at the woman and said coldly, "Madam, I think you have misunderstood one thing. I indeed admitted that your bracelet is foam beads, but I have never, in any word, admitted that this bracelet was sold by our store!"
Upon hearing Huo Sining’s words, the woman’s face immediately stiffened, "What do you mean by that?"