40 Toad Gu Slumbering Within the Purple Gold Rock (2/2)

Thus, the female Gu Master had no expectations towards how many rocks Fang Yuan could buy.

”Let me look around first.” Fang Yuan nodded at her expressionlessly, then started to look seriously into the pile.

In his memory, it should be at this counter in this particular rock gambling den.

But it had been 500 years, it’s been too long. Many things were vague to him already, especially when 500 years of memory was a huge capacity, so to be honest Fang Yuan could not remember distinctly.

He could only vaguely recall, that during this year on the first night the caravan arrived, a lucky bird spent ten primeval stones to buy a fossil with purple gold lustre.

After he opened it on the spot, he obtained a Mudskin Toad. Afterwards this toad Gu was bought by another person, thus causing him to earn a small fortune of primeval stones.

Fang Yuan frowned after observing for a while.

On this counter, fossils with a purple gold glow numbered up to twenty. In which rock was there a hidden Mudskin Toad?

Every rock here was sold at ten primeval stones each. Right now Fang Yuan had ninety-eight primeval stones with him, and he could buy up to a maximum of nine pieces.

But realistically, he could not count like this.

In any sort of risk and gamble, one had to consider the consequences.

Fang Yuan was no longer a greenhorn, like those gamblers who thought they were blessed by heaven. Those who thought they were blessed by fate were usually those who fell under the mischief of fate itself.

”I am alone, with no relatives or friends that can help me. I have to save some primeval stones to survive, as well as to buy food for my Gu worms.” He counted and under the most basic reservation, he could buy at most seven pieces of fossils.

”This rock, the purple gold is dotted like the stars, but it’s flat as a pancake, there's definitely no mudskin toad inside.”

”This piece has striking purple gold colour, but it is only fist sized. if there really is a mudskin toad inside, the rock should be at least 30% larger.”

”This purple gold fossil, well it's big, but the surface is extremely smooth, while the mudskin toad's skin is supposed to be rough and uneven, this is evidently not the one......”

Fang Yuan continued to observe and evaluate, using the method of cancellation.

When Gu worms hibernate after self sealing, they would form into a natural fossil, being undetectable from most of the world's detection methods. The remaining detecting methods were too rough, and once used, it would instantly kill the Gu worm within that is barely alive.

Thus, when Gu Masters choose rocks, they could only rely on their guessing, experience and luck, sometimes relying on a little bit of instinct.

Otherwise, this would not be called gambling.

Of course, in this wide wide world, there are countless wonders, and one cannot exclude the fact that a detection method which is extremely gentle exists, allowing a Gu Master to know if the rock contains a Gu worm.

Fang Yuan had heard of such rumors in his past life, but after experimenting, found that it was all lies.

Fang Yuan assumed privately, “If such a method really exists, it has to be a hidden legacy, controlled in the hands of a small number of mysterious people, having no impact on the gambling business.”

It was still tame around the Qing Mao mountain region, but the more one moves east, the more prosperous gambling dens become. At the Bai Tou(3) mountain region, every family village had its own gambling den. In some large-sized forts, there were even large-sized gambling dens built. The three villages that were famous for their rock gambling were Pan Shi (4) Village, Gu Mu (5) Village and Cang Jing (6) Village, where there were even mega-sized gambling dens.

These three mega-sized gambling dens each had a thousand years of history. Currently, their business was still blooming, with an endless number of gamblers. There had never been a situation of clean sweep by anyone.

Currently, the tent that Fang Yuan was in can only be barely qualified as a small-sized gambling den.

If it was any other 15 year old who came, they would definitely be confused by all the different fossils, and even if they chose it, it would be by random guessing.

But Fang Yuan was different.

Firstly, he already knew a portion of the answer from the start, thus his search range shrunk to less than thirty pieces.

Of course, to find that one rock out of these twenty odd pieces was extremely difficult as well. But using his 500 years of experience as backing, with such a rich pool of information he picked out six pieces of purple gold fossils that best fit the criteria after observing for a while.

He had an 80% chance of confidence that the mudskin toad was hibernating within one of these six fossils!

(1) Antithetical couplet:

(2) Mu (亩): 1 Mu is 666 ⅔ meters²

(3) Bai Tou directly means White Head,(4)Pan Shi is Monolith, (5)Gu Mu means Ancient Grave and (6)Cang Jing is Pale Whale.