163 Charge By the Number of People
Fanny was afraid that she would be the next target. She was nervous, and her mind was already running wild. “Even the second-largest city is so scary! Miss, is the hotel we’re staying in a tourist trap? I feel that this is too chaotic.”
Vivian found it interesting to see such an expression on Fanny’s usually calm face, who usually had a sense of propriety in doing things. She chuckled and said, “Don’t worry, Jobs has been in Mandhesi for so many years. He should know the background of the hotel.”
Jobs saw how much faith Vivian had in him even in a foreign country, and he smiled. He patiently explained to Fanny, “Fanny, don’t be too nervous. The Seaton Hotel is an international five-star hotel built by a joint venture between our country’s enterprise and the M Country’s government. Most of the people living there are foreign guests from all over the world, like us.”
“Those armed forces wouldn’t dare to attack a hotel like this for fear of causing an international dispute to escalate into a diplomatic incident. After all, they also want to get the support of other countries’ governments and wouldn’t dare to have any ideas about foreigners. Moreover, we have so many people, all of them tall and strong, so the safety factor is still very high.”
They were well-prepared this time, and with the experienced Jobs leading them, Vivian wasn’t too worried. She looked at Fanny’s scared face and said, “Fanny, don’t go out when you’re alone. If you need to buy groceries or if you’re lacking anything, let the hotel Butler in our suite handle it.”
Fanny nodded in agreement with Vivian’s wise decision.
The group returned to the hotel and went to bed early. The next day, at 7:30, they drove to the trade fair.
The Mandhesi Jade Trade Fair was one of the world’s largest Jade wholesale markets. It was a famous raw stone gathering and distribution center located in the southwest of the city.
Just after eight o’clock, Vivian and the others arrived at the periphery of the destination. The sidewalks on both sides of the road outside the market were already filled with scattered vendors with jades and more jades. There was a long row of motorcycles parked on the side of the road. There was no more space near the entrance for cars, so they could only ask the driver to drop them off first and then find a place further away to wait for them.
The walls of the trade fair were built with black and gray stone bricks. Beside the gate, there was a glass window next to the wall. Inside the window, there were images of elephants pieced together by cut jadeite raw stones of different sizes. Elephants were the most auspicious divine animal in M Country. The stone brick wall on top of it was a map of M Country.
Jade, as the core industry of M Country, had made a lot of contributions to the country’s economic development. The Mandhesi Jade Trade Fair was free to locals, but to foreigners, it was charged by the number of people, 10 yuan per person. Vivian sighed, Mandhesi was better at making money than the Kolma government.
When Vivian and the others got out of the car at the gate, they saw the big rusty iron gate at the main entrance. No one could tell from the appearance that the daily business transactions inside were millions.
It was very noisy inside after entering the gate. The Jade market was full of people. The whole market was made up of many iron greenhouses, and under the greenhouses were all kinds of stalls. The slightly more successful Jade merchants operated in simple-style shops. Most of them had a layout of shops in front and workshops behind. The processing environment was extremely simple. Most of the hawkers still operated in the way of street stalls like those people in the periphery.
There were many food stalls and simple teahouses among the shops, but many Jade businesses reached deals through fierce price bargaining in these simple teahouses.
The trade fair here was completely different from the ones in China. The normal way of trading was for the seller to walk around the market to find suitable Jade, but there was a new way here. The owner or the intermediary would bring the treasure with them to the market and show it to the seller when they met him. If both parties were not interested, the other party would continue to look for the next buyer.
The market had specially planned a receiving area for the jewelers and shopkeepers who came to receive their goods. Under each large iron shed, square tables were placed in a circle. There was not even a gap between the tables. The small gap would affect the placement of an extra table and chair, resulting in earning less booth fee.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢