Mr. Xiao bought all the goods, yet his heart was bleeding.
He did not know if he could sell these goods in the Capital.
Moreover, he had no idea how to sell them.
Nevertheless, Mr. Xiao earnestly inventoried all the merchandise in the rented house.
Then, he noticed something very peculiar.
The Western merchant's goods included many strange stones.
These stones were all quite ugly, and didn't look impressive at all; he wondered why the merchant had gone to the trouble of transporting stones to the Dajing Dynasty, given that the Dajing Dynasty was not short of stones at all.
After pondering for a long time, Mr. Xiao suddenly slapped his forehead.
He remembered, from his travels south, some local friends he had met there. They had told him about a type of raw stone that didn't look remarkable on the outside, but if chosen correctly, fine Jade could be cut from it.
When Mr. Xiao looked at these stones again, he suspected that these were the very raw stones they had mentioned.
