Chapter 3: Two-Tone Pigment

"Consider yourself lucky, kid. Take it easy when you work from now on."

Bogang sneered as he drove Zhao Chen forward, personally escorting him to the nearby workshop area. Every day, dozens of large trucks entered and exited this site, delivering freshly unearthed jadeite raw stones for the recruited local workers to sort through.

Some of the selected stones were sent directly to the Mandalay jewelry market for sale, especially the low-quality "brick materials" and bulk stones. Occasionally, they would cut open the high-quality pieces themselves or sell them to high-stakes gamblers at even higher prices. After all, the economy in Myanmar was limited; even the finest stones only fetched their true value once they reached China.

Zhao Chen’s workstation was in a corner. The two people closest to him were a dark-skinned local middle-aged woman who spoke a few simple words of Mandarin, and a curly-haired man wearing thick glasses. The latter was young, seemingly a few years older than Zhao Chen, with a gaunt, skeletal frame and a sallow complexion.

Zhao Chen pretended to be busy sorting through the raw stones, lowering his voice to ask, "Brother, are you Chinese?"

"Don't talk!" the curly-haired man snapped without looking back.

It seemed he was a fellow countryman, though it was unclear if he, like Zhao Chen, had been tricked into becoming a "piglet" (trafficked laborer). Zhao Chen stopped bothering him and instead surveyed the environment of the workshop.

The workshop was expansive, covering nearly a thousand square meters. Aside from a row of offices on the far right, the entire area was open and visible. At the main gate on the left, six armed militia soldiers stood guard, and the perimeter was lined with barbed wire. Escaping from here would be as difficult as ascending to heaven.

After a brief period of adaptation, Zhao Chen focused on the raw stones before him, using his left hand to identify which ones contained jadeite and which were valuable. Since he couldn't escape for the time being, he might as well hoard some high-value jadeite stones and figure out a plan later.

The conveyor belt in front of him was nearly a hundred meters long, with at least twenty people responsible for sorting on both sides. His station was at the very end; by the time the stones reached him, most of the high-quality ones had already been picked off. However, this didn't matter to Zhao Chen. Even in the scrap heaps, he could find emeralds; these raw stones had a much higher probability of containing jade.

About half an hour later, a basketball-sized jadeite stone finally gave off a scorching sensation against his touch.

The stone had a grayish-white crust, rough and wrinkled, looking like old tree bark. At first glance, it appeared to be nothing more than an ordinary large rock. But in Zhao Chen’s eyes, the right side of the stone revealed a faint trace of purple. He had been dealing with jadeite for some time now; violet jadeite like this was also quite valuable.

He glanced left and right, and seeing no one paying attention, he grabbed it firmly and tucked it into his palm space. Unfortunately, such good finds were rare. By the end of the afternoon, he had only picked out two; the rest were common street-grade stones with mediocre clarity and various impurities.

As evening approached, two armed militia soldiers pushed a cart, collecting stones from each station and marking each one with a red marker, noting the worker ID and date.

At dinner time, Zhao Chen was surprised to find that the food was actually decent. There was white rice and vegetable soup, with a thin layer of oil floating on top. He immediately began to wolf it down. At the previous waste dump, every meal had consisted of rancid leftovers—who knew if it was just slop collected from hotels.

In a well-furnished bungalow not far from the factory, Wen Min was using a high-intensity flashlight to pick through the raw stones selected by the workers, setting the high-quality ones aside. She could have left this work to others, but she enjoyed the thrill of discovery.

Just then, two militia soldiers brought in a cart of new materials and saluted. "Miss Wen Min, as you ordered, we have brought you the materials selected from station 133."

Station 133 was Zhao Chen’s.

"Hmm." Wen Min nodded slightly. After checking the materials in her hand, she looked up casually and asked in surprise, "So many?"

There were nearly thirty stones of various sizes in the cart. Knowing that Zhao Chen’s station was at the end of the conveyor belt where over a dozen people had already picked through the pile, it was truly bizarre that he could still find so many.

The reason she had gone to such lengths to have his selections brought to her was that she was intensely curious. According to the *yemuxi* (local miners), this guy was the first to rush toward the broken jadeite vein, yet when Bogang searched the entire shack, he hadn't found even a crumb of jade the size of a fingertip. Yet, under the threat of a gun, the kid had found an emerald piece from the mine in less than fifteen minutes.

The *yemuxi* didn't have high-intensity flashlights, and the crust of the raw stones remained intact. Under such conditions, even she couldn't guarantee with one hundred percent certainty whether there was anything inside.

How did Zhao Chen do it?

To test her hypothesis, she had specifically ordered her men to bring all of Zhao Chen’s selections to her.

A militia soldier sneered with disdain, "Miss Wen Min, that man’s station is at the end of the belt; he must have just picked up a pile of trash to fill his quota. Should I go and punish him?"

"No need. Cut all these stones open," Wen Min ordered calmly.

"Huh?" Both soldiers looked surprised.

Not daring to disobey, they pushed the cart toward the cutting machines outside. Wen Min wasn't in a hurry; she stood by, watching, wanting to see if there was anything of value.

A few minutes later, the first piece was split in two. The master technician operating the machine turned off the water pump and power, opening the protective cover. Wen Min immediately shone her flashlight on it and saw a strip of yellow.

She pressed the light against it to get a closer look. The yellow jadeite showed excellent quality under the light; it was translucent. Although it had a hint of cotton-like inclusions, it was complemented by a streak of green, enough to yield two bracelets.

Master Liu, who operated the machine, smiled and flattered her, "Congratulations, Miss Wen Min. It's a two-tone piece."

Two-tone jadeite wasn't rare, and yellow jadeite wasn't uncommon either, but a yellow-and-green bracelet could still fetch a decent price. Given the clarity of this piece, a pair would be worth at least 20,000 Chinese Yuan.

"I didn't expect that kid to have some real talent."

Wen Min’s lips curled into a faint smile, and she instructed Master Liu, "Keep going. Cut the rest."

Just as she finished speaking, Bogang ran in, looking flustered, and whispered something in her ear.

Wen Min’s expression changed, and she said in shock, "Something like that happened? Quickly, take me to see it!"