Cyber Ghosts

Hao Ning laughed without saying a word, but he asked back, “What do you want?”

“Now that we are here, we do stone-gambling.” Wang Jun laughed brightly and waved his hand, “Did you just now say that if jade was found, you would pay back 500,000 yuan to Mr. Zhang?”

Hao Ning was really so arrogant at this moment, standing very straight. He would be like a Taoist immortal if he took a fan in the hand. Hao Ning’s behavior made Liu Shuai and Zhou Yuan laugh constantly. This “immortal” said just a few words, “Yes, but so what?”

“Since it is a gamble, how about we raise the stake?” Wang Jun smiled and said, “If you can find the jade, I will give you 5 million yuan no matter how much jade you find in the stones, but if there is nothing in the stones…”

Speaking of this, Wang Jun stopped for a while, and Hao Ning looked at Wang Jun like an idiot. Of course, Wang Jun also looked at Hao Ning sympathetically like an idiot. Wang Jun’s last word lasted a long time, but it did not attract Hao Ning’s question, and he had thought Hao Ning would ask him what if there was no jade in the stones. See that he did not speak for a long time, Wang Jun did not want to wait anymore and could only continue to say, “I won’t get you in trouble. I’ll pay back 500,000 yuan for you to Mr. Zhang.” Saying this, he pointed at Jienan. Then he said to Hao Ning, “I just need your friend to admit his fault and bow his head to me.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Hao Ning shouted suddenly at this time. He now did not look at Wang Jun as an idiot but regarded Wang Jun as a real idiot. “Mr. Zhang clearly said just now that I would pay nothing if there was no jade in the stones, which means that I don’t need to pay the money at all. You just said that you would pay it for me, right? Damn it. Is it necessary for you to pay anything for me? You can’t do that with your money. I am really wondering how you have reached this position.”

“Puff! Ha-ha!” Liu Shuai and Zhou Yuan could not help laughing. Hao Ning was more logical indeed, and Zhang Dalong said indeed that he would pay nothing if there was nothing in the stones. But Wang Jun was still so determined to pay it for Hao Ning. That was so funny.

Wang Jun was stunned. He did not hear the dialogue of them because he just now stood in the distance and just came here when he found there was something strange here. He said those words after someone below told him some relative information.

“Stop talking.” Hao Ning snickered and thought that he had no more things to care about anyway, so he said all he thought in his mind out at this moment, “If you really want to play the game, how about this? If there is no jade, I do not want your money. But if there is some jade, you need to give me 1 million yuan. OK? Wang Family is rich enough anyway, and you won’t need so little money. All right?”

“You!” Wang Jun felt mad and put on a long face. Just now, he did want to show off something, but he did not figure out these details and said those non-logical words. Now, he was disgraced by Hao Ning for those words. With anger, he lowered his head and asked the young man. The young man said something in a very low voice, and Hao Ning frowned without saying a word. At this time, Wang Jun laughed again and said, “Let’s play!”

“Ah! Where are our stones?” Hao Ning lowered his head deliberately and said, “Zhou Yuan, where are our stones? Should they be in your hands?”

“There are here!” Xiao Hong understood something and said. He passed the stones to Zhou Yuan. The moment Zhou Yuan reached out his hands to take the stones, he stuffed the three pieces of jade which were conjured out through Soul Cutter by Hao Ning just now into those stone. Zhou Yuan snickered and wrapped those stones by Virtualized reality at the same time. In this way, nobody would find that there were just some ordinary stones.

That was why Hao Ning required Zhou Yuan to take the crude stones. Now, the three pieces of jade were in the stones indeed, but the key was how to make those masters believe that there was really jade in the stones. Only the Virtualized reality of Zhou Yuan could make it and make the jade gradually appear as the stones were cut open. Before, Zhou Yuan used the Virtualized reality to transform the bad into the good, such as transforming a bike into a Maserati, but now he needed to transform the stones with jade inside into some ordinary stones, and nobody would see clearly the process, which seemed to be very strange but easy for Zhou Yuan to make it with the Virtualized reality

And the key point was that the main feature of Zhou Yuan’s Virtualized reality was to present what people around here thought in the mind. But now, except that Zhang Dalong and his friends were not sure, almost all the people here believed that there was no jade in the crude stones, so they would not see the real condition in those stones surely.

“Show time!” The worker held the crude stones and was about to grind those stones in full view of the public. Hao Ning shouted, “Stop!”

“What?” Wang Jun looked at the stones with a smile and said, “It is too late to regret!”

“Hey!” Hao Ning said with a smile, “It will take a long time to grind such big stones. My friend…” Saying that, Hao Ning pulled Zhou Yuan to his side, who was very confused. “My friend is the master of stone-gambling. It will take less time to cut open those stones by his lineation.”

Zhou Yuan was stunned for a while, looking at Hao Ning. He could not help blurting out, “Well, what’s the lineation?”

“Ha-ha!” Zhou Yuan’s words made all the people behind, including Wang Jun, laugh so loud. “The master of stone-gambling knows nothing about lineation? Wow! Amazing!”

“Hey-hey!” That was what Hao Ning wanted, and he said with a smile, “Sometimes, Tao and spell don’t differ in names. People call it lineation. It is lineation, but it is not lineation too.”

“What is he talking about?” Someone got confused by Hao Ning’s spell-like words.

“He is misguiding us!” Another man said, “I know what’s in the stones!”

Hao Ning did not reply and said to Zhou Yuan, “You are the master of stone-gambling. Do not care about the name and recover the original simplicity. Just tell the worker how to cut open the stones. We only want to take out the jade as soon as possible.”

“OK! You should have told me earlier!” Zhou Yuan touched his head with a smile. He could not remember these words as he had read those novels in an urgent way recently. He now understood it after the explanation of Hao Ning. He knew well how to cut open the stones and take out the jade because the jade was stuffed into the stones by him. Then he said to the worker with a smile, “Buddy, cut down like this.”

The worker was about to cut while Zhou Yuan suddenly shouted, “Wait!” The worker was frightened by Zhou Yuan. His hand joggled, and he looked at Zhou Yuan with anger.

Zhou Yuan ignored the worker directly and looked at Hao Ning and Xiao Hong apprehensively. He said, “If there is jade in the stones, who should get the jade?”

Hao Ning understand Zhou Yuan’s words. Zhou Yuan worried that if the worker cut open the stones and took out the jade, what if the cause and effect came to Zhou Yuan. Although Zhou Yuan knew that the jade was conjured out by Hao Ning, it would be terrible if the cause and effect came to Zhou Yuan. Xiao Hong naturally understood the worry of Zhou Yuan. He smiled and pointed at Hao Ning. Hao Ning also understood it and said hurriedly with a smile, “Nonsense! The stones are bought by me, so it should be me who will get the jade. You just guide the cutting, so you have no right to get the jade. No way! The money which I get after selling out the jade has nothing to do with you! I will not give you even a penny.”

Zhou Yuan knew that Hao Ning was helping him figure out the cause and effect, but others might believe that Hao Ning was so costive that he would not give even a penny to others when hearing this.

“Hey-hey! That is fine.” Zhou Yuan was at ease this time. “It will be good if you do not give me even a penny.”

“Ha-ha!” Zhou Yuan’s words made others believe that he would abandon the jade even if there was jade in those stones. They all laughed and said, “He should be an idiot!”

“Eh, right! Cut down in this way!” Zhou Yuan shouted and gave a thumb-up. “Perfect, bro! Good job! Amazing! Right! One more cut here! Exactly! I will be your apprentice if I want to do this job in the future!”

Zhou Yuan was serious, but the worker’s cutting made himself more scared. He cut the stone according to the guidance of Zhou Yuan. However, there was still no jade in the stone. All of these were some ordinary stones. At the end of his cutting, the worker wiped his sweat off and said with a bitter smile, “You should not be my apprentice. Your skill is so bad that I can’t teach you by any means.”

“Don’t say that, bro!” Hao Ning held the stone and shook it. Then he asked Zhou Yuan, “OK?”

Zhou Yuan nodded. “OK! Now, you just need to get rid of…”

“Now, you just need to get rid of the dust adhering outside!” Hao Ning said in a high voice. He interrupted Zhou Yuan’s words, and Zhou Yuan immediately understood it. Now the size of the stone was the same as that of the jade which he stuffed into the stone just now. But all the people still thought it was just an ordinary and dusty stone since the Virtualized reality of Zhou Yuan had been set up. Hao Ning held the stone and let Zhou Yuan follow suit to cut open the rest of those stones to take out the jade.

“Bro!” Hao Ning passed the three stones to the worker. “Please wash them.”

The worker looked at the three ordinary stones with a disdainful face and rolled his eyes. “There is some water on them. No need to wash!”

“Eh! Don’t say that!” Hao Ning took out a piece of rag from his pocket and deliberately mystified it. After seeing it, Zhou Yuan found that it was not a rag. It was from Hao Ning’s trouser pocket, a piece of cloth which was pulled off from the trousers of Hao Ning contingently. “Bro, the stones should not be washed in this way, and they should be washed by the duster cloth of stone-gambling, which has been handed down from my ancestors for almost one thousand years. Please, use this.”

“You, you…” The worker was nearly insane. He thought the man in front of him was crazy. Everyone knew that the rag was definitely from the trouser pocket. Should the duster cloth which had been handed down from your ancestors for almost one thousand years be made of Dacron? (Dacron material was the product of modern industry.) Did your ancestors pass through to the old time? It was improper for him to say something after he saw the man in front of him was so persistent. Then he sighed and said, “OK! I will do it. Anyway, I can get my pay.”

“Wait!” All the people were about to see the scene, but Hao Ning shouted again. He jumped on the ground twice and kept rolling his eyes. He took a few steps under his feet in an unknown way, which seemed to be very apocalyptic. Then he grabbed something nameless in the air and threw it on the stones. Besides, he said in a strange way, “Collect the aura of heaven and earth, and gather the essence of the sun and moon. Om Mani Padme Hum! Well, miss you! Miss you! Miss me! I have made it.”

Liu Shuai and Xiao Hong looked at each other and could not help laughing. Hao Ning was serious and logical in daily life, but now he looked like an inborn actor and was deliberately mystifying.

“…” The worker thought Hao Ning was mental and almost wanted to call the ambulance when seeing this, but he still kept washing the stones patiently due to his professional integrity.

As the water was washing and cleaning the stones, the worker felt more and more surprised with more and more sweat on his forehead as he kept washing those ordinary stones with the trouser pocket of Hao Ning. Not only the worker, apart from Hao Ning and his men, but also all the people here were stunned with sweat streaming down their backs in such a cool place, the temperature of which was only 24℃.

Because they all saw that the green was gradually evident on the grey stones as the stones were washed by the duster cloth which was handed down from the ancestors of Hao Ning. Apparently, the jade which they saw was actually got ready by Hao Ning and Zhou Yuan in advance, violet jadeite with green lines.

Of course, only Hao Ning and his friends knew the truth. The jade was not washed out but made by Zhou Yuan’s gradual remove of the Virtualized reality when the worker did not pay attention to it but washed the stones. It was only a normal trick, and Zhou Yuan was the main magician. But now, all the people were staring at the rag in the hands of the worker, which was taken out and mystified by Hao Ning, as well as the jade which became brighter and brighter. As for Zhou Yuan, nobody would care about him.

“I have finished…” The worker passed the one small and two big pieces of violet jadeite with green lines to Hao Ning. Hao Ning laughed and held the stones, shaking them towards all the people here, including Wang Jun. “All right?”

With a plop, some people behind, whose mental endurance was too weak, directly fainted because of “sunstroke”.

“Oh my God!” The rest of those people shouted out suddenly, “How could it be possible? We see clearly that…”

“What do you see clearly?” Hao Ning was just waiting for this question. Xiao Hong and he looked at each other. Hao Ning got the drop on and stared at those people coldly. He shouted loudly, “What on earth do you see clearly?”

“Stones…” The moment other people said it out, they found that they had said something wrong. They rushed to cover their mouths. If they said it out, that was to say, they admitted their tricks.

“What do you mean? You guys see clearly that those are just stones, right?” Hao Ning thought he was standing on the moral high ground at this time and shouted sharply, pointing at those people. “What do you mean by saying that what you saw clearly was just stones? Ah! I got it! Do you guys have the ability to see the inside of those crude stones? Oh, I see! That’s why you just now laughed at me and said that I was like an idiot.”

Hao Ning pretended to be more and more indignant as he said these words. Then he said seriously and righteously, “No wonder you guys laughed at us and said that we were not experts in this aspect. You have already invited some experts to come here, right? Sure enough, You must have done something dirty secretly with those experts who can see the inside of these stones and deceived us who know little about stone-gambling for our money, right? Hah! I thought that it would happen only in the fields of stock market, real estate, features, and some other industries. But I did not expect that it should happen in the field of stone-gambling, which is just an entertainment venue. I believe that this situation has lasted a long time. In this way, those people like us who know little about stone-gambling should not appear here.”

Those words “should not appear here” was shouted by Hao Ning in a lion-roaring voice, which stunned all the people who did not dare to say a word. On the one hand, Hao Ning shouted in an extremely loud voice. On the other hand, they felt a guilty conscience and were rattled in the mind because of Hao Ning’s revealing their tricks.

“Such a good move! Pretend to move ahead in order to hide the intention to retreat.” Liu Shuai gave a thumb-up to Hao Ning secretly. Hao Ning’s question forced others to deny that they did such a thing. All the people were busy clarifying their innocence, and nobody now cared how Hao Ning took out the jade. In this way, even if someone suspected there was something wrong with the jade, he would have nothing to say at this moment, or it would mean that he could see the inside of the stones in a disguised form.

“How about you?” Hao Ning looked at Wang Jun and asked with a sneer, “Mr. Wang, do you also know some masters who have the ability to see the inside of these stones?”

Wang Jun looked at the young man behind him, and the young man shook his head secretly without saying a word. Wang Jun wiped off his sweat and said with a mock, “You, you are telling a joke. There is no such a thing in the world, right? What do you think? Ha-ha!”

“Oh! In this way…” Hao Ning did not unmask him. He just said so while looking at the worker who was examining the goods. After the worker finished the examination and confirmed the goods, he said with a smile, “Do you also admit that there is nothing wrong with the jade which has been taken out from these stones?”

“Yes… The worker has confirmed it. Of course, it’s OK.” Wang Jun thought for a while and found no reason to suspect indeed. He just said in a low voice, “Well! It is just that this situation is relatively rare.”

“Rare? Then you should increase your knowledge.” Hao Ning said without considering anything at this time. He said with a smile, “So, 10 million yuan in total. Cash or card?”

“Of course, it should be paid by cash!” Xiao Hong said it out at once. He mocked Wang Jun and said with a smile, “Boss Wang came here for joy. He must take sufficient cash, right? It is impossible for people of Wang Family to come here without any sincerity, right?”

“Certainly!” Hao Ning and Xiao Hong echoed each other as if they were performing crosstalk. “I have heard from Wang Shizhe that credit is his family’s key value!”

“Lee.” Wang Jun gritted his teeth and said something to Lee in his ear. Then he shouted, “You go to bring my case here.”

The person named Lee called several strong men quickly and then left.

“Are they going to escape?” Hao Ning felt a little strange when seeing this and asked Xiao Hong secretly, “What are they going to do with so many people?”

“Maybe, they are going to carry money.” Xiao Hong said with a smile, “It is so heavy to carry 10 million yuan. Lee can’t carry so much money by himself obviously. Wang Jun is really so awesome and takes so much cash with him. Isn’t he afraid of being robbed?”

“Naturally, he isn’t afraid…” Hao Ning did not say more. He just saw that the jade was auctioned off on the spot and glanced at the young man with the corner of his eye.

In the end, the three pieces of jade were auctioned off at a price of 35 million yuan in total, which surely fitted the expectation of Hao Ning.

After a while, Lee walked over with two men behind him holding one case respectively. Wang Jun waved his hand without any distress, and the two men passed the cases to Hao Ning. Hao Ning did not take the cases but asked Xiao Hong to check them.

After Xiao Hong nodded, Hao Ning said with a smile, “Thanks for Mr. Wang’s 10 million yuan. Let’s go!”

“Wait!” Wang Jun suddenly stepped forward and shouted.

“What?” Xiao Hong took the money and turned back to have a look. “Mr. Wang, are you going to back out?”

“Absolutely not! How could it be possible?” Wang Jun smiled lightly and said, “Wang Family will never do that no matter how sorehead we are. I am just wondering whether you guys will want to continue the game since you have earned so much money.”

“What do you want to play?” Hao Ning did not express an opinion. “Looking at the sad faces of you, a group of experts, there may be no good rough stones left. We are just some ignorant people who know little about stone-gambling. Forget it, and we won’t attend the game. There are too many tricks.”

“Ah! Don’t say that!” Wang Jun laughed and said, “As to stone-gambling, the key is gambling. Though there are very few good stones, we can still do the gambling. How about this? Let’s gamble. 30 million yuan for one round. OK?”

“Um?” Hao Ning had been attracted slightly. After all, he had just 45 million yuan now, and with those gold bars, there were only 60 million yuan in total, which was far from 100 million yuan. But Hao Ning knew little about gambling. He then looked at Xiao Hong. Xiao Hong thought for a while and then asked in a clear and loud voice, “For what?”

“Pai Gow.” Wang Jun laughed.

Xiao Hong looked at Hao Ning. Hao Ning felt a little embarrassed and scratched his head. Xiao Hong understood it and said, “I can’t.”

“Puff…” Someone behind burst out laughing. But they were forced to stop laughing by others’ eyes because almost all the people who made fun of Hao Ning and his friends just now had a bad ending.

“Then? Mahjong?” Wang Jun frowned slightly.

Xiao Hong looked at the expression of Hao Ning and said with a bit of embarrassment, “I can’t.”

“Poker?” Wang Jun tried hard to suppress his laughter.

“I can’t.” Xiao Hong saw that Hao Ning also collapsed due to the situation. Hao Ning should not have winked at Xiao Hong since Hao Ning could not play anything. Thinking of this, Xiao Hong could not help asking in a low voice, “What on earth can you play? Just tell me. I will ask them to prepare for whatever you can play.”

Hao Ning blushed and said after keeping silent for a while, “I can play the game of putting some dices into the cup and shaking the cup to figure out which one can get the big number. What’s the name of the game?”

“Clap!” Xiao Hong clapped his head with his hand. He took a deep breath and then breathed out slowly. Then he said with an unwilling smile, “Those games are too complex. Let’s play an earthy one… It is up to you!” Xiao Hong made a gesture to Hao Ning while saying that, which meant that he wanted Hao Ning to propose by himself.