Chapter 88 Stone Gambling III

Fang Yuan stood before the counter and silently examined the stones for a while, his brows gradually drawing together. More than twenty fossils here possessed some degree of purple-gold luster.

Which one contains the toad Gu?

Each stone cost ten primeval stones. Fang Yuan currently possessed ninety-eight, meaning he could theoretically purchase nine.

But naturally, he could not actually spend that much. Any gamble had to leave room for failure and unexpected problems.

After five hundred years of countless successes and setbacks, Fang Yuan was no longer an impulsive youth who believed luck would somehow favor him. Those who thought themselves chosen by fate usually ended up being toyed with by it instead.

After setting aside the primeval stones needed to feed his Gu, Fang Yuan could afford to buy at most seven purple-gold stones.

Naturally, he had to choose carefully. He began eliminating them one by one.

This one has purple-gold specks, but it’s unusually thin. There can’t possibly be a toad sealed inside. This one’s color is excellent, but it’s only the size of a fist. If it truly contained that Mudskin Toad Gu, the stone should be at least thirty percent larger.

This fossil is large enough, but the surface is far too smooth. I remember the stone containing the toad had a rough, uneven shell covered in small pits. This isn’t it either…

Once a Gu sealed itself and entered dormancy, the shell that formed around it became completely integrated with its body, making it almost impossible to detect what lay inside through ordinary methods. The few methods capable of penetrating such a seal were generally too forceful and would directly kill the already weakened Gu within.

Thus, when Gu Masters selected stones, they could rely only on experience, judgment, luck, and occasionally a sudden flash of intuition.

Otherwise, it would hardly be called stone gambling. It was precisely this uncertainty, combined with the possibility of changing one’s fortune overnight, that allowed stone gambling to remain popular for generations.

The practice was relatively restrained around Qing Mao Mountain, but the farther east one traveled, the more widespread it became. In the Bai Tou Mountain region, nearly every mountain village possessed a stone gambling den, while some larger villages had several.

Among them, Pan Shi Village, Gu Mu Village, and Cang Jing Village were particularly famous for stone gambling. Each possessed an enormous gambling market with more than a thousand years of history. Even after so many generations, they remained prosperous, drawing endless streams of gamblers and serving as one of the main sources of wealth for the three villages.

Fang Yuan continued examining the purple-gold fossils before him. Drawing upon the experience accumulated throughout his five hundred years of life, he observed them for a long time, repeatedly comparing their size, shape, texture, and surface characteristics against his distant memories.

Eventually, he narrowed the possibilities down to six purple-gold fossils. It should be among these six.

Fang Yuan’s gaze slowly passed over them once more. He was eighty percent certain that the sleeping toad Gu was sealed inside one of them.

After paying for the stones he had selected, Fang Yuan picked up the first purple-gold fossil. The crescent-shaped mark on his right palm immediately emitted a pale blue radiance. Holding the fossil firmly, he slowly rubbed its surface with his fingers. Moonlight flowed across the stone like water, steadily shaving away its outer shell as fine stone powder slipped through his fingers and scattered across the carpet beneath him.

“Young master, what excellent control!” The female Gu Master beside him immediately praised.

Her words were not empty flattery. As she watched Fang Yuan work, surprise slowly appeared in her eyes. Fang Yuan was using the Moonlight Gu to grind away the stone layer by layer, which required extremely precise control over its offensive power. An ordinary Gu Master would usually need two or three years of practice with the Moonlight Gu to reach such proficiency. For an academy student of Fang Yuan’s age, achieving this level was remarkable. Within the Gu Yue Clan, such control was generally seen only among experienced Gu Masters such as clan elders and veteran group leaders.

Under the continuous blue radiance, the purple-gold fossil rapidly shrank until it was only the size of a marble. A moment later, even that disappeared, leaving nothing but a small pile of stone powder on the carpet. It was an empty stone.

Fang Yuan’s expression remained unchanged as he picked up the next one. The second was empty, and so was the third. By the time the fourth purple-gold fossil had also crumbled into powder, several Gu Masters had gathered nearby to watch. Seeing four consecutive failures, some shook their heads while others sighed. Stone gambling truly was a bottomless pit. No matter how good one’s judgment seemed, a few wrong choices could easily swallow a small fortune.

The female Gu Master smiled reassuringly. “Young master, there’s no need to be discouraged. Four stones isn’t much in stone gambling.”

Fang Yuan merely smiled without replying and reached for the fifth stone. He began grinding it down just as carefully as before, but within ten breaths, something different appeared beneath the purple-gold shell. Instead of turning completely into stone powder, a rough ball of yellow clay gradually emerged from within.

Among the surrounding Gu Masters, one man’s expression immediately changed. Yellow clay appearing inside a purple-gold fossil meant this was definitely not an empty stone. His eyes flickered, and he quietly activated a Gu inside his aperture to send a message.

Elsewhere in the gambling den, Jia Jinsheng quickly received the news.

“What? Some brat actually got lucky and uncovered something valuable in my gambling den?”

A cold light flashed through Jia Jinsheng’s eyes as he immediately headed toward Fang Yuan’s location. Yellow clay hidden inside a purple-gold fossil meant there was a considerable chance that a Rank Two Mudskin Toad Gu was sealed within. More importantly, Mudskin Toad Gu was one of the essential Gu required to refine the Treasure Brass Toad Gu and could easily sell for several hundred primeval stones.

He absolutely could not allow Fang Yuan to cut it open in public. Jia Jinsheng had always been narrow-minded and jealous. He enjoyed taking advantage of others more than anything, while what he hated most was watching someone else profit at his expense.

Although Jia Jinsheng now harbored ambitions of becoming the future Jia clan leader and was no longer the Rank One Gu Master he had once been, he still could not rid himself of his short-sighted and petty nature.

After opening the stone gambling den, he had planted informants throughout the establishment. Whenever a customer appeared likely to uncover a valuable Gu, word would immediately reach him, and Jia Jinsheng would personally intervene, usually attempting to buy the stone before it was completely opened.

Such blatant behavior was obvious to anyone with eyes and naturally earned him plenty of contempt. It even damaged the reputation and business of his own gambling den. Yet Jia Jinsheng remained largely oblivious to the problem and was even somewhat pleased with how clever he believed himself to be.