"Step right up, don't miss out! Hey everyone, today I'm going to cut open a dazzling green stone for you all."
"The shopping cart is live, so get your orders in!"
He stepped on Gu Shengsheng's foot. Her brow furrowed, and just as she was about to move aside again, the male streamer cursed, "What's wrong with you! You're in my way, can't you see I'm livestreaming?"
"So clueless. Women are such a pain. Alright, alright, don't mind that, folks. I just ran into a crazy woman. She's obviously taken a liking to my handsome face and is trying to pull a scam on me."
"That woman kept looking away from me, just trying to get my attention. Let's just ignore her. My bros, Qin Shou is back to continue the stream for you!"
"...Who's that barking?" Gu Shengsheng crossed her arms, speechless as she looked at Qin Shou. "You stepped on me. Apologize."
"What did you just say?" The male streamer, Qin Shou, stared at her. "I have two million fans! They're all waiting for my stone gambling stream, and your bad luck is going to ruin my fortune!"
"Women are such a pain, always nitpicking. A girl like you, you think you'll ever get married?"
"Dressed all flashy like that, you're not trying to get my attention, are you? So shrewish—you think any man would dare to marry you?"
"If you lost some weight, your big bro here might reluctantly consider you."
'He looked like he was actually considering it.'
Gu Shengsheng gave a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "You're right, I am fat. Unlike you, who probably weighs less than ten pounds, urn and all."
"A poor craftsman blames his tools. It's one thing to be stupid, but do you have to prove you're stupid on a whole other level with stone gambling?"
The male streamer, Qin Shou, immediately lost his composure. 'This skinny, flashy "thirst-trap streamer" is so sharp-tongued... is she mocking my stone gambling skills?'
His defenses shattered, and he cursed, "You bitch, what the hell do you know about stone gambling?"
"You just rely on those ugly men simping for you late at night. You make a little money and suddenly think you're hot shit?"
"You women are all useless! You make me sick!"
He glanced at the bullet comments on Gu Shengsheng's phone screen and found it even more hilarious.
"Wait, don't tell me you're a stone gambling streamer too? How many followers do you have?"
Gu Shengsheng looked seriously at her screen. "Fifty-three."
Qin Shou burst out laughing with a PFFT.
He said to the bros in his livestream, "Folks, why are there so many of these overconfident, average women nowadays? With that few followers, are they all your aunts and cousins? How do you have the nerve to stream?"
"Women should just stay at home, serve their husbands, and raise their kids. If you have to stream, do something like cooking or taking care of your family. But you, trying to follow me into appraisal streaming? That's hilarious, folks!"
The followers in Gu Shengsheng's stream had originally just tuned in to casually complain a little.
They hadn't expected this. Holy crap, the guy just started cursing people out.
"Whoa, this is the first time I've ever seen such a delusionally confident man. Why is he so disgusting? He's making me sick."
"What's wrong with our streamer? Does he look down on women? Didn't our host just find a great deal on a piece of floating flower jadeite?"
"Even though I also think our streamer has no skill, she doesn't deserve to be treated like this by this disgusting Qin Shou, right?"
"Host, show him what you've got!"
Then, Qin Shou took the initiative and proposed, "Why don't we have a competition! If you don't have the skills, then get the hell out of this market. Don't ever come wandering around the stone gambling market again!"
"Fine." Gu Shengsheng readily accepted. "Mr. Qin, this isn't a society where everyone loves a bitch, after all. You'd better tone it down a bit, or I don't mind teaching you some manners."
"Haha, that's hilarious." Qin Shou said to his stream, "Let me help you all appraise something. This woman is so good-looking, she must be a slut."
"She's dressed so nicely, isn't it just for everyone to look at? A woman appraising treasures? Don't you dare dirty our stone gambling circle!"
Hearing these words, Gu Shengsheng was clearly disgusted.
She slammed him to the ground with an over-the-shoulder throw. Then, she wiped her hands with a wet wipe, a disgusted look on her face, and said, "If you're so unconvinced, why don't you try beating me with your skills?"
"If you lose, you're going to start a livestream and say all those things to yourself, twenty times."
Qin Shou scrambled up from the ground, his legs still trembling.
He swallowed hard. He wanted to hit this bitch, but he didn't dare; he didn't even have the strength to fight back just now. If he tried to retaliate now, he'd just lose face completely.
He could only swallow his anger and say, "Fine. If you lose, same goes for you."
"..."
Qin Shou was brimming with confidence. In any case, he was sure he would win.
'A woman like Gu Shengsheng, isn't she just a pretty face with nothing inside? An empty vase?'
In all his years, what kind of weirdos hadn't he seen?
Gu Shengsheng saw that more and more people were gathering around, all here to watch her competition with Qin Shou.
'The more spectators there are, the easier it will be to collect Emotion Value.'
The rules were simple: each of them had half an hour to pick a raw stone from any stall. Then, they would bring their stones to the center of the market to have them cut by a stonecutter.
Gu Shengsheng was very casual. In less than half a minute, she seemingly nonchalantly picked up a stone from a nearby stall.
The System's mechanical voice sounded:
Item: Ice-Type Light Green Jadeite
Description: The jadeite has high transparency and is aesthetically pleasing when worn. Its drawback is the light green color. Fills 99% of the raw stone.
Market Price: 150,000
System Buyback Price: 130,000
Emotion Value Collected: 52
She said faintly, "I'm ready."
At this, Qin Shou was even more certain that Gu Shengsheng was a complete amateur.
'This takes all the pressure off.' But he still wanted to pick a better stone to gain another wave of followers.
The bigger the scene, the more he stood to gain. This little girl was just a stepping stone for his climb to the top.
Then, Qin Shou exchanged a look with a nearby jade administrator, signaling him: get me the best material!
The jade administrator stealthily led him to a corner area.
Qin Shou then pretended to search there, glancing at the jade administrator's reaction with each "find."
He "found" a large stone. Then, Qin Shou put on a show for his stream, analyzing it for a long time. His speech was so convincing that everyone believed him, thinking he was a god!
Finally, it was time to cut the stones.
None of the netizens thought Gu Shengsheng would win.
Even the fans in Gu Shengsheng's own stream were saying: "Our host competed, so it's a glorious defeat even if she loses!"
The stonecutter started with Qin Shou's stone.
Qin Shou spoke with a professional air, "Cut from the outside, scrape off the rind. Then make a deeper cut on the southeast corner. After that, just lightly sand down the other areas with sandpaper."
The stonecutter did as he was told, and sure enough, while the southeast corner showed no green,
Everywhere else, green was revealed.
After the outer rind was cut away, the stone was about 50% jadeite.
The green was somewhat translucent, and thankfully it was of the waxy variety. All in all, it was worth about 20,000.
There were many onlookers, and cutting a stone worth 20,000 was no small feat.
"The host is a beast!"
"GOAT! Host, you're on a completely different level than that female streamer. She looks like a total noob who doesn't know anything."
"Forget that female streamer, besides those master bargain-hunters, who else in this market can compare to you!"
"Our host is going to be an expert sooner or later."
"Qin Shou isn't a beast at all! Let's go, let's go!"
All kinds of sycophantic praise were blowing him up to the heavens. And Qin Shou was indeed getting carried away.
He turned his head and said to Gu Shengsheng, "Go on, cut your stone. Let me see."
"You know, your personality sucks, but you're quite pretty. I'm a man who appreciates beautiful women, so I don't want to see you lose face."