Chapter 231 Purchasing Five Hundred Pounds of Stone
"Look, Ms. Taylor is here."
At the entrance to the raw stone market, the purchasing manager looked at Isabella walking toward them and exclaimed.
Casey looked up and naturally saw her too.
Seeing Isabella walking toward them safe and sound, Casey was extremely surprised.
He had deliberately let Isabella get separated from them earlier to make it easier for those people to make their move.
By all logic, once they were separated and Isabella had no bodyguards around her, those people should have definitely gone after her.
But why did Isabella come back perfectly fine?
Could it be that nothing happened at all?
Casey was puzzled and asked, "Ms. Taylor, on your way here, did you run into any danger?"
Isabella glanced at him and said casually, "No danger at all. I was perfectly safe the whole way. The Veridian people along the route were so friendly."
Casey was even more confused.
How could this be?
That fat guy had been following them the whole way just to make a move on Isabella. He had deliberately gotten separated from Isabella to give the fat guy a chance to act. How could he possibly not go after Isabella?
This was really strange.
"Since everyone's here now, let's hurry into the market and complete the raw stone purchasing task as soon as possible so we can head back early," Alfonso said.
Isabella wasn't hurt, which naturally disappointed Casey, but there was nothing he could do about it. He could only say, "Let's check out Zalune Market first. There's a shop I know in Zalune Market. The owner's name is Royce Castillo, and I heard he's got a batch of good raw stones."
Imperial City's three major raw stone markets were all concentrated in this area, arranged in a triangle. The largest one, which was right in front of them, was called Zalune Market.
Just as they were about to walk into the market, a group of people suddenly brushed past them.
"Did you guys hear? Someone got beaten up over on the tourist street!"
"That fat guy was in bad shape. When they carried him out, he was covered in blood and barely conscious."
"Who did it? That's brutal."
When Casey heard "fat guy," he frowned slightly.
Could it be such a coincidence?
He quietly asked Kirk, "Have your people sent any news? Why exactly did Isabella manage to come back safe and sound?"
Casey wanted to use the fat guy to deal with Isabella, but he couldn't actually let Isabella die here, so he had Kirk send a few people to keep watch just in case.
Just then, Kirk's phone received a message—it was from the people he had sent to follow Isabella.
Kirk looked at the message and froze for a moment.
"What is it? What did they say?" Casey asked.
Kirk looked up, somewhat incredulous. "They said the fat guy was almost beaten to death by that girl. They were the ones who called the ambulance."
"What?!" Casey's expression changed dramatically.
How could this be?
That stupid woman Isabella—was she really that good at fighting?
——
Zalune Market wasn't really a market either, but rather consisted of several streets lined with gem shops and gem appraisal stores.
These streets were noticeably quieter than the tourist street, with mostly experienced gem experts coming and going.
Raw stones of all sizes from Veridian were gathered here.
And Celestial Jewels' task this time was to purchase 550 pounds of raw stones with a budget of ten million dollars.
The stones purchased with this ten million dollars would be cut open, and the gems extracted would serve as raw materials for next quarter's jewelry. Different grades of gems would result in vastly different prices for the finished jewelry.
Isabella looked curiously at the shops of various sizes along the street.
The stones in these shops were considerably larger than those on the tourist street, easily 40 pounds each, with the largest looking to be around 110 pounds.
"I'll go in and take a look first," Isabella walked into a random shop.
The shop's shelves were filled with a dazzling array of stones—different colors, different shapes, different sizes.
Isabella directly touched them with her hands.
"What? Interested in my stones?" the shop owner walked over.
Seeing Isabella walk into that shop, Casey didn't even bother to follow her in. He just said dismissively, "Ms. Taylor, this isn't the shop we're going to. There are no good raw stones here. If you don't understand how things work here, don't look around randomly! Don't waste our time!"
Isabella ignored his words and touched all the stones in the shop, finding they were all just ordinary rocks.
It seemed there really were no good raw stones here.
Isabella walked out of the shop and looked at Casey. "The shop you mentioned earlier, Royce's shop—where is it?"
"Just walk a bit further ahead."
The group followed behind Casey and continued forward.
Before long, they finally arrived at a gem shop at the end—Solmir Exchange.
This shop was luxuriously decorated, a full two stories, but there weren't many stones on the shelves, making it seem rather empty.
Although there were only a sparse few stones left, many people were still gathered in the shop, examining the stones one by one with magnifying glasses and flashlights.
Royce walked over. "Casey's here?"
Casey exchanged a few pleasantries with him, then got straight to the point. "We at Celestial Jewels want to purchase another 550 pounds of raw stones from you. Show me the best goods in your shop."
Royce looked somewhat troubled at his words.
He pointed at the few remaining stones on the shelves and said, "Casey, as you can see, business has been really good lately. I don't have much inventory left in the shop and haven't had time to restock. How about this—I'll package up all these remaining stones for you. It's not 550 pounds, but I estimate it's about 300 pounds."
Casey just glanced at the stones on the shelves and frowned. "I don't want these stones. I know you have other goods on hand. As long as you're willing to bring them out, price is no issue."
Royce thought for a moment. "You're sure? Price is no issue?"
"Of course."
"Casey, then I'll be straight with you. I do have another batch of the best quality goods upstairs, exactly around 550 pounds. I was originally going to sell them to a local, and the price that person negotiated with me wasn't low. If you can buy them all for twenty million dollars, I can sell them to you!"