Tòumíng stopped mid-step, the realization hitting him like a freight train. What time was it? He pulled out the crumpled bills from his pocket to check his non-existent phone before remembering he'd sold it yesterday. The mine clock had read 7:45 when he'd left. Walking here had taken at least fifteen minutes.
It was past 8 PM.
He had to get the money to Hǔtān by the end of today. Midnight. That gave him less than four hours.
Panic seized his chest, making their shared heart beat faster. "Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I need two thousand yuan by midnight or they'll—"
He stopped. Looked down at the chunk of rose quartz in his hand. Four hundred grams of premium crystal. He had a fortune literally in his palm.
And now he had a way to know exactly what it was worth.
Tòumíng ducked into a nearby alley, pressing his back against the grimy brick wall. The alley was narrow, dark, filled with the usual detritus of urban life. Overflowing dumpsters, discarded boxes, the faint smell of urine and rotting food. Perfect privacy.
He held the quartz up to catch the last rays of dying sunlight and activated True Price.
The information flooded his vision instantly, overlaying the crystal with data.
ROSE QUARTZ - ANALYSIS
Quality Grade: High-quality, facet-grade
Weight: 403.2 grams
Clarity: Excellent - minimal inclusions
Color Saturation: Premium pink
Current Market Value: 10,020 yuan
Price Breakdown:
Per gram: 24.86 yuanPer pound: 11,283 yuanPer kilo: 24,860 yuan
Tòumíng stared at the numbers. Ten thousand and twenty yuan. For four hundred grams. That was... that was more than enough. That was way more than the two thousand he needed. That was enough to pay Hǔtān for the entire month with money left over.
But something didn't add up. His mind flashed back to Cupid's earlier comments, the excitement in his voice when he'd first seen the vein.
"Cupid," he muttered quietly, checking to make sure no one was in earshot. "You said this stuff was worth millions. You said I could pay off all my debts."
There was a pause before Cupid responded, his voice carrying a note of embarrassment. "Yeah, about that. I may have gotten a little overexcited. In my defense, I thought you'd found pink diamonds. They look similar in the right light and I was operating on limited information while manually pumping your heart."
"Pink diamonds."
"Very rare. Very valuable. Worth millions per carat. Rose quartz is nice, don't get me wrong, but it's significantly more common. Still valuable! Just not retire-to-a-private-island valuable."
Tòumíng felt a flash of irritation, but it faded quickly. Ten thousand yuan was still an incredible find. Four hundred grams of "generous reward" from his boss was worth more than five months of payments to Hǔtān. And he still had five pounds hidden in his pants.
Actually, speaking of which.
He glanced around the alley again, making absolutely certain he was alone, then carefully extracted the larger chunk from its uncomfortable hiding place. The relief was immediate and profound. He'd been walking for nearly twenty minutes with five pounds of crystal wedged between his thighs and the chafing was starting to become unbearable.
The chunk was larger, rougher, less refined than the piece Zhāng Wěi had given him. Tòumíng activated True Price again.
ROSE QUARTZ - ANALYSIS
Quality Grade: High-quality, facet-grade
Weight: 2,267.96 grams (5.0 pounds)
Clarity: Excellent - minimal inclusions
Color Saturation: Premium pink
Current Market Value: 56,381 yuan
Price Breakdown:
Per gram: 24.86 yuanPer pound: 11,276 yuanPer kilo: 24,860 yuan
Fifty-six thousand yuan. Combined with the four hundred grams, he had over sixty-six thousand yuan worth of rose quartz in his possession.
That was enough to pay Hǔtān for two months. Enough to make a significant dent in one of the other loan sharks' payments. Enough to actually, genuinely breathe for the first time in three years.
His hands were shaking as he stared at the crystals. Not from fear or exhaustion this time, but from something that felt dangerously close to hope.
"Don't get too excited," Cupid warned. "You still need to convert it to cash, and pawn shops are going to lowball you. They always do. That market value assumes you're selling to a proper dealer or collector, not some back-alley operation that knows you're desperate."
Right. The pawn shops. Tòumíng had dealt with enough of them over the past few years to know how it worked. They'd offer maybe sixty percent of actual value, maybe less. They'd point out flaws that didn't exist, claim the market was saturated, insist they were taking a huge risk.
But even at sixty percent, even at fifty percent, he'd still have enough for Hǔtān's payment with plenty left over.
He tucked the larger chunk back into his pants, wincing at the renewed discomfort, and kept the four hundred gram piece visible in his hand. Better to sell the smaller piece first, test the waters, see what kind of offers he could get.
Tòumíng stepped back toward the mouth of the alley, ready to start hunting for a pawn shop that was still open this late. He turned the corner and stopped.
He was already standing in front of one.
The sign hung above a narrow storefront, characters lit up in flickering neon: "Golden Fortune Pawn - We Buy Precious Stones." The windows were barred but the lights were on inside, and through the grimy glass he could see a man behind the counter scrolling through his phone.
The same alley he'd ducked into for privacy just happened to connect directly to a pawn shop.
"Huh." Tòumíng stared at the shop, then at the quartz in his hand, then back at the shop. "That's... convenient."
"Suspiciously convenient," Cupid muttered. "But we don't have time to question good luck. You've got three and a half hours to get two thousand yuan to a man who doesn't accept excuses. Get in there and negotiate."