Cyber Ghosts

“It’s not confusing.” Liu Shuai watched people come and go, mainly to see the pretty girls. “How could it be possible that the players in each round of stone-gambling stayed the same?”

“Xiao Hong shouldn’t mean that.” Zhou Yuan also looked around and seemed to find something suspicious. “The scent here is a little odd.”

“The scent?” Xiao Hong didn’t seem to be on Zhou Yuan’s side. “What I meant before is that every rich man here has a follower by his side. Do you notice it?”

“Eh…” Liu Shuai opened his eyes wide to have a look, and he found such was the case. Every dressed-up man had a normal person near him. “Anything odd? It’s not strange that the rich people have several servants around him.”

“The problem is that they have only one person beside them. And almost every person has only one by his side.” Xiao Hong squinted his eyes and said, “Generally speaking, when the rich people come here for stone-gambling, they have several adepts as their companions, or they just come alone, or they’ll gather their friends. Surely, there are some people who only ask one man to help. But I’ve never seen a case like today that everybody has only one person with him.”

“Never?” Liu Shuai teased him and said, “So, how many times have you been here? But it seems that the helpers here are very stressed. You see! They all wear a gloomy face.”

“Eh?” Hao Ning didn’t set his eyes on them or looked through one by one until he heard Liu Shuai’s words. “Yes, exactly. It seems that each of them owes their employers a large amount of money. No! Not only the servants but also the rich people beside them seem to be unhappy.”

“There must be something wrong.” Xiao Hong pondered for a while and then said, “You stay here and do not move. I’ll be back soon.”

After saying that, Xiao Hong rushed out, leaving these three people inside the field.

“Sir, would you like to have a look at the stones?” Not long after Xiao Hong left, a waiter came over with a big basket in his hand. There were three stones in the basket. He said politely to Hao Ning, “These are our well-selected rough stones. Would you like to look through them?”

“How much?” Hao Ning, gazing at Xiao Hong’s back, asked unconsciously without much consideration. Liu Shuai and Zhou Yuan, holding their mobile phones, were discussing the cars which they were going to buy with their heads lowered. They totally ignored the waiter.

“Ten thousand yuan each stone.” The waiter smiled and said, “It’s a low price. You can see the green on it.” Saying that, he pointed at the three stones. There was indeed a green spot on each stone. Hao Ning didn’t keep a clear memory, but he remembered vaguely that in some fictions of stone-gambling, anything with green was supreme.

“Ah! You two guys, just share your opinions!” Hao Ning was a little tempted, so he asked these two people. Unexpectedly, they answered without raising their heads, “We are busy. Leave us alone!”

“Yuck!” Hao Ning showed his disapproval. He thought in his heart that these two people might know about the cars worse than him. They looked through the models probably in vain. So, he grumbled, “Wait and see how I’m going to pick on you when you’re buying a car at that time.”

Thinking of this, Hao Ning did not intend to buy the stone anymore. But he thought it improper to refuse the waiter directly, so he said, “It’s not worth such an expensive price. 500 yuan in total will be good.”

“It’s a deal.” The waiter said with a smile and took out a QR code. “Scan it, please.”

“Ugh…” Hao Ning was near a breakdown when hearing this. He meant to make the waiter freak out by beating a bargain like this, while the waiter was so responsive that he couldn’t make it. Was the waiter a nut? Thinking of this, he looked around and then glimpsed at the smile on the waiter’s face. Considering his words, he was about to say that he didn’t really want it and he was just joking. But the waiter whispered stealthily, “Sir, if you break your words here, you’ll be lavishing your good luck on it.”

“Fuck you! Well! I’ll take it!” Though he knew that the waiter was talking nonsense, Hao Ning didn’t want to point it out for some reason. He bit the teeth to take out the mobile phone and scanned the QR code. The waiter, seeing that he had received the payment, threw the basket on the ground and fled happily.

“We’re done. We’re done. I miscalculated it.” Xiao Hong came back with a complex face. He shook the head as he walked. When seeing that Hao Ning stared blankly into the distance with a basket in his hands, he asked strangely, “What are you up to, holding these several pieces of concrete? Are you working for a construction team to finance your study?”

“Concrete?” Hao Ning was about to cry when hearing that. Obviously, he was cheated. He told Xiao Hong what happened before quickly. After he finished his words, Xiao Hong was both angry and hilarious. “Big bro, I’ve told you not to move, haven’t I?”

“I didn’t move!” Hao Ning said with a bitter face, “I just stayed here, and he came to me himself.”

Speaking of this, Hao Ning wanted to maintain his dignity, so he pointed at the stones in the basket and said, “It doesn’t look like concrete at all. You see! There are some green spots on them.”

“Good, good! Green spots.” Xiao Hong turned mute for a while and put Hao Ning’s hand on his forehead. He said with a bitter smile, “Have a look at yourself.”

It was probably the first time for Hao Ning to feel so hopeless when borrowing the mana. He said perfunctorily in frustration, “Lend Me Your Mana.”

As expected, the stones in the basket were not stones anymore but concrete filled with voids when he saw them again. Not to mention other things, it was even mixed with a kind of small stone which could be seen commonly on the road inside. And the so-called green spots were actually the fragments of beer bottles. Moreover, perhaps because Hao Ning was in a very bad mood at this time, he couldn’t look further into the stones after two glimpses. Obviously, the mana which he borrowed was used up. It was the first time for Hao Ning to borrow such a short duration of mana. But in this way, Hao Ning became more disappointed.

“Such tricks can be played to deceive some outsiders like you.” Xiao Hong didn’t know about this, so he just sighed and said, “I can tell this kind of thing without using my mana. You… Let it be. How much did you cost in total?”

“500…” Hao Ning said gloomily, “My 500 yuan…”

“Not too bad.” Xiao Hong gave out a relieved smile and waved his hand. Then he said, “Take it as a lesson. It seems that the deceiver also knows that things are not going well today in the market. He didn’t want a higher amount of money, and he just escaped.”

After saying that, Xiao Hong noticed that Zhou Yuan and Liu Shuai were still looking through the deluxe cars on the mobile phone. He got mad and patted on the back of their heads. “It is useless to watch. There are no deluxe cars anymore. Let’s go back!”

“Eh?” Then Liu Shuai and Zhou Yuan raised their heads and peered at the rough stones in Hao Ning’s basket, saying, “Ah? What are you going to do with these blocks of concrete?”

“You all reach to tell it?” Hao Ning was so upset that he went compromised and turned back to Xiao Hong. Then he said, “Didn’t you say that it was designed for our outsiders? But why could Liu Shuai and Zhou Yuan tell it as two outsiders?”

“I’m afraid it’s not for the outsiders like us, but the outsiders like you.” Liu Shuai grinned and pointed at the green on the stones. “Isn’t this from beer bottles? Oh, yes! I forget that you can’t drink. So, I suppose you’ve never got into such an occasion where broken beer bottles are scattered everywhere. This is ordinary glass from beer bottles. You can get as much as you want from the scrapheap. You have it for what?”

“No, nothing.” Hao Ning bit his teeth and said, “I take it as a souvenir.”

“Good, good, nice.” Liu Shuai grinned and patted on Hao Ning’s shoulder. “You should keep it as a souvenir, in memory of your IQ which has gone with the wind.”

“You should have told me if you need it.” Zhou Yuan also smiled and teased Hao Ning. He said, “Under my apartment, they’re doing infrastructure construction. I can make you some as well.”

Zhou Yuan knew from Hao Ning’s face that Hao Ning was obviously about to burst out when he just spoke, so for his safety, he switched the topic by asking Xiao Hong, “By the way, Xiao Hong, what did you say just now? Why should we go back home now?”

“Because all the stones today have been already picked up.” Xiao Hong sighed and said, pointing towards the outside of the door. “No wonder I feel that it is unnatural today, and that these people all wear bitter faces. I just walked out and looked around the rough stone spot outside, only to find that no jade was left.”

“None?” Hao Ning, hearing that, was to crash up. Everything went wrong today. He was cheated first, and now he even lost the chance to compensate his cost. “Why? Even the stones outside are false? All are concrete?” After saying that, he peered at the three false stones in the basket, really wanting to give himself twos slaps on the face.

“No way. People here can identify these stones at least.” Xiao Hong only meant to introduce the fact, which made Hao Ning even more upset after hearing his words. Xiao Hong could only shake his head and smile reluctantly. “Seriously speaking, people here are all at a high level indeed. The reason why no jade was left outside among all the stones is that they are all gripped by these people.

“You’ve seen all of the stones?” Hao Ning said bewilderedly, “You can’t look into the stones by yourself, right?”

“I can.” Xiao Hong corrected and said, “But I can’t say it out, nor give any cues, nor pick one for you, not to mention picking one and selling it myself. These are cause and effect. So, when I went out and looked around just now, even if I discovered there were some stones, I couldn’t tell you, and you have to pick one yourself, while no one could foresee that none was left. As for the rough stones possessed by the people here, you’d better look into it yourself.”

“In these people’s hands…” Hao Ning took a breath this time. He put his hand seriously on Xiao Hong’s forehead and calmed himself down. Then he said, “Lend Me Your Mana!”

As expected, Hao Ning cast a look at them and found that there was some fragmentary jadeite inside the stones help by all the people here. Though it was not in a good texture, none of them held an invalid stone.

“Xiao Hong, you are really awesome!” Hao Ning gave a thumbs-up. “You can look through everything with only a glimpse and some accumulative experience. No wonder these people all wear a gloomy face. It turns out that the jadeite in their hands is so crude.”

“That’s the worst!” Xiao Hong sighed and said, “Is it clear to you?”

As soon as Xiao Hong finished his words, Zhou Yuan and Liu Shuai’s faces changed, and they put their mobile phones into the pockets silently with gloomy faces. “We’re done. We’re done!”

“What’s wrong with you?” Hao Ning didn’t understand at once. “Why are you unhappy? Even though we have no stones today, we can come back several days later!”

“Haven’t you got it?” Liu Shuai, who was very upset, waved his hand and found a vacant bench to sit down. “Why was no jade left among the stones outside?”

Hao Ning showed a face of dementia. “I don’t know.”

Liu Shuai rubbed his forehead. He knew why Hao Ning couldn’t make sense of it. He thought for a while and switched to another question, trying to lead Hao Ning. “Why does each stone held by them contain jadeite?”

“I don’t know.” Hao Ning pondered for a while, and he suddenly got it. He smiled and said, “You are silly. Didn’t we say just now that the stones outside contained no jadeite because they were all picked up by these people here? You’re confusing me.”

“You’re the silliest one…” Liu Shuai, seeing that Hao Ning understood a little, continued to say with his cues, “Why does everyone happen to hold a stone containing jadeite? Meanwhile, since they all have jadeite in their rough stones, why do they look unhappy?”

“Because no jadeite in their rough stones is a supreme. If it were you, and you spent a long time, only to end up with inferior jadeite in your rough stone, would you be happy or not?” Hao Ning thought in his heart that it was such a meaningless question, while the moment he finished his words, he got stunned as well. “No, I’ve ignored that…”

“Yes.” Zhou Yuan, seeing that Hao Ning finally figured it out, nodded and sighed. He said, “How could it be such a coincidence? An invalid stone is held by no one, and all of them contain jadeite? Even if I say that they picked them out with the help of their luck and experience, will you believe that?”

Liu Shuai took a breath and then said, “They haven’t cut open their stones yet, so how could they know that the stones in their hands contain surely jadeite, moreover, of inferior quality?”

“For a normal stone-gambling, even the one with excellent experience will get it wrong sometimes.” Xiao Hong nodded and added, “So, their faces when getting the stones should be worried, palpitant, or excited, with speculation. But absolutely, it shouldn’t be like what they are…” As he said, Xiao Hong pointed at everyone. “So gloomy. It seems that they’ve all known thoroughly about the items in their hands.”

“But they have to take them because only when they have picked up all the rough stones containing jadeite, will there be no more choice left outside.” Hao Ning got it instantly. “In other words, among them, there is someone who knows about the stones containing jadeite, so they’ve screened and picked all the rough stones outside. But they’re unhappy with the quality of the jadeite, right?”

“Not someone.” Zhou Yuan looked around and felt even more upset. “Without any errors, it should be these people.” Saying that, Zhou Yuan pointed at the crowd. “This, this, this, and these. Everyone wearing a bitter face has the ability.”

“Exactly!” Xiao Hong was already quite sure at this moment. He knew whom Zhou Yuan referred to. “Everyone beside the rich should be the one who can manage to know the quality inside the stone. They must have reached an agreement with the sponsors beside them so that they should select the jadeite for the sponsors. But there isn’t any good jadeite by coincidence today. Thus, everyone wears a bitter face like this.”

“The sponsors?” Hao Ning pondered for a while and shook his head. He said, “If these people are able to do that, they can participate in the stone-gambling themselves. Why do they cooperate with the sponsors?”

“As for this…” Xiao Hong pondered for a while and then said, “It’s hard to say. It’s possible that these people have a great capacity but have no strong backup. They fear that even though they can afford to gamble, they can’t afford to take the money.” After saying that, Xiao Hong peered at Hao Ning. “Think about it yourself. If everyone here has the ability, it’s already an open secret then. Some conventions in this field might exist. If someone breaks the rule…”

“No…” Zhou Yuan smiled bitterly and said, “I thought that after having the clairvoyance we would be as powerful as it was depicted in the fiction, while we are still so weak like this in reality.” Speaking of this, Zhou Yuan got the inspiration and said, peering at Liu Shuai, “Liu Shuai, If they all can manage to know about the jadeite inside the stones, then they’re likely to have reached it by…”

“Book Elf!” Liu Shuai responded quickly, and he made it out suddenly. “These people should have used Book Elf and obtained the skills, such as gold X-ray eyes in the fiction or something else. They wanted to make a fortune here, while by accident, all the people here have the clairvoyance. It means that everyone is on the same starting line again. They’re forced to be an advanced worker, who has woken up from the dream of being rich overnight.

“We’re done for!” Hao Ning slumped into the chair. Liu Shuai’s speculation was reasonable. Hao Ning just didn’t expect that so many people would have such an ability. “In this way, we’ll lose the chance forever? Every time we come here, they will manage to know about the condition of these rough stones. The good ones will be grabbed by others.”

“Aside from that…” Xiao Hong sighed and said, “There are still some people who may use some similar measures and save the stones of good jadeite upstream. In this way, when it comes to us, there may not be any good things left.”

“Aren’t they playing the stone-gambling in the way of buying train tickets?” Hao Ning uttered without thinking. Seeing the perplexed faces of others, Hao Ning explained and said, “They didn’t know before what was in the rough stones, so it depended on luck, and it could be called stone-gambling. Now they all know it, so what they compete in now is that whoever can queue up to get the stone first will make a fortune, right? Isn’t it the same as queueing for train tickets?”

“I see. But what should we do now?” Zhou Yuan frowned and said, “In this case, we’ll have to come and join the queue later on?”