After a while, the stone cutter had almost finished opening the stone, and the ground was covered in stone powder.
The stone, which was originally half a fist in size, was now almost the size of an egg.
Seeing this, everyone shook their heads and sighed. They had hoped for a reversal, as it would have made things more exciting.
But unfortunately, if there was nothing, there was nothing; it couldn't be conjured out of thin air.
Zhao Lei was almost ecstatic. He said excitedly, "Hahaha, what did I tell you?"
"I told you this thing wouldn't yield any jade, but you just wouldn't believe me. Now you regret it, but it's too late!"
"I'm telling you, you lost this bet to me. Get ready, I'm going to strike!"
With that, Zhao Lei handed the imperial green jade to Sun Xing, then rubbed his hands together and slapped Wu Tian.
Wu Tian casually grabbed his wrist and smiled faintly, "Are you a bit too impatient?"
Zhao Lei immediately said angrily, "What do you mean by that? I lost earlier, and I let you hit me. Now that you've lost, you're reneging, aren't you? Don't you have any shame?"
Wu Tian continued to smile, "Isn't there still a tiny bit left to be opened? If you want to hit me, it's not too late to do so after this last bit of stone is completely opened, right?"
Zhao Lei acted as if he had heard the biggest joke and laughed heartily again, "Are you an idiot? Do you have to be so stubborn?"
"How much do you expect to get out of such a small piece of stone?"
"Even if you really managed to extract some jade from it, so what?"
"Mine is imperial green. With this little bit of jade, how can you possibly compare to me?"
Wu Tian smiled and said, "I'll say it again, it's always best not to jump to conclusions."
"Until that stone is completely opened, I won't concede."
"Stubborn to the end!" Zhao Lei was somewhat displeased.
He then said to the stone cutter, "Since this guy is so shameless, quickly crush the rest of the stone!"
"Then I'll see what other excuses he can come up with to refute me!"
The stone cutter also felt that such a small piece of stone would definitely not produce any miracles, so he became rather casual with his stone cutting technique.
But as soon as he had done a little polishing on the stone, he found that he couldn't polish it any further.
This situation indicated that there was indeed something inside the stone.
With a hint of doubt, he polished the stone a couple more times and was surprised to find that a bit of green had actually appeared within the stone!
He was extremely surprised and couldn't help but deepen the polished area.
The more he polished, the larger the green area became!
Finally, all the excess stone was stripped away, revealing a translucent jade bead to everyone's eyes.
"This is..." Seeing the bead, the stone cutter was filled with uncertainty.
With his experience, he couldn't even appraise this piece of jade.
So he quickly stood up and handed the jade to the expert who had been there earlier.
The surrounding crowd, who had already assumed Wu Tian was bound to lose and didn't want to watch anymore, were now filled with renewed interest by what had just happened.
Zhao Lei and Sun Xing hesitated, their expressions solemn, as they also wanted to see what trick Wu Tian had pulled off.
The expert looked at the jade bead, and his expression suddenly changed.
He exclaimed in surprise, "This... this is a Cui Zhu? My heavens, am I seeing things correctly!"
"Cui Zhu?" Hearing the expert's words, the surrounding crowd became confused.
What was Cui Zhu?
The stone cutter, however, seemed to have heard something terrifying.
His body trembled violently, and then he said in horror, "Cui, Cui Zhu? No way, are you sure you're not mistaken?"
The expert said excitedly, "How could I be mistaken? This is indeed Cui Zhu!"
"I've been studying jade for so many years, and I've only seen Cui Zhu once in total. To see it again here today is simply incredible!"
The surrounding people were even more confused and couldn't help but ask, "What exactly is this Cui Zhu? Is it really that amazing?"
The expert nodded and said, "Cui Zhu is certainly amazing. It's worth more than imperial green."
"Don't be fooled by its size; even this small piece can sell for millions in the market!"
"Millions?!" At these words, everyone was stunned.
Zhao Lei could not accept this. He shouted loudly, "Impossible! This is absolutely impossible! Are you sure you're mistaken?"
The expert said, "How could I be mistaken? Are you questioning my professionalism?"
"This is definitely Cui Zhu. If you don't believe me, we can go to a professional institution for appraisal right now!"
The stone cutter also said, "It seems this is indeed Cui Zhu. In fact, I had already suspected it earlier, but I wasn't sure, so I asked someone else to take a look."
"Now it seems I wasn't wrong; this is truly Cui Zhu."
The scene immediately fell into a deathly silence. Everyone's eyes were wide open, their eyeballs almost popping out of their sockets.
They found it hard to believe what was happening. Just moments ago, they thought Wu Tian had no chance of winning.
But who could have imagined that Wu Tian would suddenly produce a Cui Zhu?
This young man was simply a god!
When things seemed impossible, he always managed to turn the impossible into the possible. This was simply unbelievable!
Wu Tian took the Cui Zhu and smiled faintly, "Cui Zhu, it seems my luck is really quite good, don't you think?"
No one answered Wu Tian, nor did anyone believe that Wu Tian was truly relying on luck.
After all, Wu Tian had already opened a piece of jade earlier.
And now, from a stone that no one had high hopes for, he had produced a Cui Zhu.
This was not something that luck could achieve; this was entirely skill!
Then, Wu Tian looked at Zhao Lei again and said with a smile, "I'm truly sorry, it seems I've disappointed you again this time."
"Tell me, which is more valuable, imperial green or Cui Zhu?"
Zhao Lei's face turned somewhat pale. His mind was completely jumbled, and he felt that everything happening before him was unreal.
Why was this happening? Why was this happening!
Logically speaking, since he had opened imperial green, he should have already declared victory. But why did he lose?
He knew the value of Cui Zhu. With the quality of his imperial green, it was impossible to compare to Cui Zhu.
The outcome of this competition was already clear. Wu Tian had once again achieved a miraculous comeback.
As for him, he had suffered a crushing defeat and was utterly humiliated...