Once again, this chapter might make you feel anger and at the same time, satisfaction. Enjoy~
And also, I will have a few chapters released today. Good thing I had some drafts saved up cuz my laptop is sent tor repair…
Translated + Edited: Winter Leaf
Chapter 5 Selling Raw Stone
Domestic violence was about to happen, and all the members in the house including Song YuanZhi treat this daily occurence as an entertainment, waiting for the amusing scene where Song Ye will get beaten up badly and still had to clean the dishes with a crying face afterwards.
With eyes that showed cruelty, Lu Lan raised up the broom in her hand and swing it hard towards Song Ye. Just then, a cold, small hand was grabbing onto it and stopped the momentum of the broom.
The air froze up and the surrounding turned silent. All the Song family members widened their eyes in disbelief as they stared at Song Ye.
She really retaliated.
“I am not as weak and good to bully as I appear to be. I"m only considering the ties that we share as a family. If you think that you and I don"t have any familiar bond to speak of, you don"t need to chase me away, I will walk out by myself.”
Song Ye sounded calm and unperturbed, but her words had made everyone panicked internally.
Lu Lan"s expression changed nonstop, she is unable to release the anger in her chest as she saw the calm and cold eyes of Song Ye. When she reached the entrance, a loud pang can be heard when Song YuanZhi stood up from the sofa and roared at Song Ye.
“Who do you think you are, huh? Don"t you dare to come back later, if you were to die, just die and rot outside!”
Even though she"s quite some distance away from them, Song Ye can still hear him cursing at the entrance.
Standing between the doorway and the door entrance, Song Ye curved her lips and let out a cold smile.
Song YuanZhi did not treat himself as someone high above and took any action against her, reversedly, he is the one in the Song family that can"t stand the existence of Song Ye the most. He did not even bat an eye when witnessing Lu Lan abuse her. Now that the Song Ye that used to be the sandbag is not behaving as she should be, he is so angry that his lungs are about to burst.
After so many years, Song Ye had lost every hope that she had for the family. The Song family in her eyes now are not any different from strangers.
The things that she wanted to do currently is filling up both her stomach and her pocket.
In such a remote and lagging town, finding a high-end accessory shop had proven to be difficult, not to mention raw stone markets; but from what she remembered, there is a jewellery shop near her school that is located in the city nearby.
The distance between the town and her school are few tens of kilometers. Usually, the kids of other households in the town rode public transportation in order to reach the school. Lu Lan however, had harshly let Song Ye walked to school everyday in the name of exercising. But in actual fact, she just wanted to save the cost.
The Song Ye now is currently penniless, so she had to walk for three hours straight with an empty stomach. When she reached the city, her face had already gone pale and she was only holding out with her willpower alone so that she won"t collapse.
When she found the jewellery shop from her memory, it had already closed for the day. It is currently dusk, thus the shop had closed up long ago.
Looking at the twilight, Song Ye is unable to walk anymore, so she curled herself up and took a rest beside the shop. Fidgeting with the raw stone on her hand, she heaved a sigh. The road after being reborn is not easy to walk on at all.
When she is deep in her thoughts, a black limousine was headed towards her and stopped in front of her. A man"s face can be seen when the window is rolled down.
“Little miss, what are you doing in front of my shop?”
Song Ye blanked out. When she raised her head and saw the man with a gentle face, she hurriedly stood up and walked up to the car. She hold up the raw stone and spoke softly.
“I want to sell this emerald raw stone. My family is in a difficult situation and we only had this stone left.”
A little girl that came out to sell the raw stone by herself, no matter how one think about it, it will make her look suspicous, so Song Ye had came up with a reason. Accompanied by her pale complexion, it does make one feel like her family is in poverty and had no other choice.
The man did not mind much about it, but when he saw the raw stone in her small hands, his eyes slightly shimmered. He came out of the car and conversed with Song Ye.
“Little miss, did your family ask you to sell this?”
“Yes, my father and mother asked me to bring this out to sell. They said that if you extract the content inside, it can be sold for some money.”
Song Ye pretended to not know what was up and timidly protected the raw stone in her hand while she replied the man.
The man did not think much about it and headed to open his shop up and invited Song Ye to enter.
“I"m called Zhao Zhen. If you don"t mind, you can just call me uncle. It is a very valuable item, so hold onto it properly. I will go and get the machines prepared so that the raw stone can be extracted later.”
“h.e.l.lo, Uncle Zhao. I"m Song Ye.”
Song Ye had also introduced herself and sat herself on the chair waiting. During this time, Zhao Zhen had prepared some snacks and tea for her.
“Eat it if you feel hungry. The process for extracting the raw stone will take quite some time.”
Without looking down or discriminating against Song Ye that had tattered clothes on her, the caring action of Zhao Zhen had allowed Song Ye to have an initial deduction in regards to his personality.
Of course, the final conclusion depends on his reaction after he extracted the raw stone.
Zhao Zhen, with a formal suit on him, sat in front of the machine and processed everything by himself. He carefully removed the rough and black surface. One can see how careful and detailed he is as he spent twenty minutes just to sc.r.a.pe off a small part of the palm-sized raw stone.
Zhao Zhen"s jewellery shop is not really that famous in Yun Cheng. The lesser the shop is known by the ma.s.s, the harder it is for them to obtain good resources; not to mention it was hard for the shop to compete against the larger jewellery shop due to the shop"s tight financial. The reason that this shop is still in operation despite all those is due to its reputation. He had considered to change his occupation a lot of times, but whenever he faced the emeralds, he felt a strong adoration and desire to research them. Just like how even though the raw stone on his hands now did not seem to be of good quality, he still treat the raw stone with utmost care.
But the next moment when he saw the green hue that appeared from underneath the surface of the raw stone, he was so shocked that he can"t even utter a word at all.
“What happened, Uncle Zhao?”
Song Ye asked him with a inquisitive look while she is sitting nearby.
A moment later, Zhao Zhen widened his eyes and let out a smile, with an excited tone he said, “It"s green, there"s a green hue! And the transparency level is high as well.”
Not caring if Song Ye understood those jargons, he immediately wiped his sweat with his hankerchief after he finished his sentence. Carefully rubbing the raw stone, he rubbed until the whole emerald appear before him. The transparency and the reflection of the emerald is so beautiful that it is hard for someone to remove their eyes away from it.
Even for Song Ye who is not an expert in this field, will also be able to determine that it"s very expensive and valuable.
She sat beside and said nothing until Zhao Zhen had done researching it and calmed himself down. He initiated a conversation with Song Ye.
“Xiao Ye, did your family mention how much they want to sell this for?”
Song Ye shook her head, “Father and mother did not mention, they only say we need some money to be able to go through another day. I don"t understand or know about it myself, so why don"t you set the price, Uncle Zhao?”
This sentence had slight indication of Song Ye acting naive. No matter how little of a knowledge she had in this field, she"s still not that much of an idiot to allow the other party to set the price. The reason she did it was to test the other party out.
Zhao Zhen was taken aback for a second. He smiled while he hold onto the item.
“This is a gla.s.s type emerald with high density, so it is priceless. But the size is a little small, not to mention this shop of mine is also quite small, so I am unable to take out that much money. Will it be okay if I pay you thirty thousand for this emerald?”
When he said this, Zhao Zhen felt a little guilty. Because this is a gla.s.s type apple green emerald with high density, even if the size is smaller than the current one, it will still cost around seventy to eighty thousand; but he did not have that much money on his hand.
Seeing how he avoided her eyesight, Song Ye knew that he felt guilty. Observing his att.i.tude and behaviour, she judged that he can be someone useful to her. She stood up and walked towards Zhao Zhen.
“Okay, thirty thousand it is. But I would also like to include the share of this jewellery shop into our transaction.”
Notes:
1. Sc.r.a.pe off the raw stone, see the part where it"s not black? This type of sc.r.a.pe, not really sc.r.a.ping the emerald part out:
2. The author really changed from sc.r.a.ping/opening the raw stone to rub. Do I keep it or change it for consistency?
3. Xiao Ye = the Xiao is something eqiuvalent to -chan in JP, an honorific used for someone younger than you/when you are close to someone/something similar to pet name.
Should I insert RMB or bucks or??? The currency is not mentioned in the raws of this chapter, only the figures.