My phone showed the temperature in Mandalay at 39 degrees Celsius—which wasn't even particularly hot for Myanmar. Uncle Harvey had been dispatched by Twin Gold Towers, the jadeite industry's largest publicly traded company, to investigate the rumored reappearance of the legendary dragon-stone jadeite. I was tagging along, racing back from Mandalay to the mine, desperate for answers.
The sun scorched my eyes. In this kind of heat, my brain slowed progressively until thinking became nearly impossible. Normally, sitting in an air-conditioned room, there was nothing that required urgent contemplation. But now, in this murderous sun and stifling humidity, a mountain of mysteries demanded solving:
Why was the dragon-stone jadeite Uncle Harvey found disguised as newly mined material when it was actually antique stock?
Could the Kaqin mine really produce new dragon-stone jadeite?
Who would do such a thing?
The more I needed to think clearly, the more my mind overheated until all thoughts evaporated. Talk about the Matthew effect.
We got into the car Uncle Harvey had called and headed back to the mine.
I couldn't help asking, "Why would the answer be at the mine?"
Uncle Harvey turned the question around: "Why would someone pass off dragon-stone material they've been collecting for decades as new?"
I nodded—this was exactly what I didn't understand. "Right, why?"
"To manipulate the price."
"Manipulate the price? But you told me that in the jadeite industry, price manipulation always drives prices up, not down."
"Correct. That's what's strange—they're deliberately pushing prices down. If Kaqin suddenly started producing new dragon-stone jadeite, it would be like a limited-edition watch of 50 pieces announcing a new production run of hundreds per year. The price would crash."
"But wouldn't that hurt the sellers? They'd be destroying their own market."
"Exactly."
"Then who benefits from crashing the price?"
"Nobody in the jadeite trade." Uncle Harvey gave a bitter smile. "So it's someone outside the trade. Don't forget—who sent me on this trip?"
"Twin Gold Towers' owner."
"Twin Gold Towers is the largest collector of dragon-stone jadeite, and they're a publicly listed company. In the current global financial climate, capital markets are extremely cautious, so..." He let the implication hang.
"Are they trying to short Twin Gold Towers?" I had a flash of insight. "Is Twin Gold Towers' entire inventory—"
"That's right. It's all jadeite, and a substantial portion of it is dragon-stone jadeite."
"And stock prices reflect the company's book value..." I said, watching Uncle Harvey nod slightly, so I continued: "So if the price of dragon-stone jadeite drops, combined with negative press coverage, Twin Gold Towers' asset valuation would take a massive hit. People would think their most important inventory had lost value."
"Exactly." Uncle Harvey nodded.
I went on: "On top of that, if dragon-stone jadeite truly reappeared on the market, increasing supply, many collectors would hold off, waiting to buy at lower prices. That would also hurt Twin Gold Towers' jadeite sales."
"If they can only sell finished products, cash flow gets squeezed too. Shorting the stock for profit—that's the play. The whole scheme makes sense now."
The scale of what was at stake went far beyond anything I'd imagined. I felt like an ant observing a stone; to humans, the ant on the stone was just a speck; to an eagle, a human was just a dot in the desert. No wonder Uncle Harvey had asked me to carefully consider whether to come on this trip—there was real danger lurking.
A chill ran down my spine.
Uncle Harvey said, "Good analysis.Brains do come in handy."
"Stop making fun of me!" I was a bit embarrassed. "I still don't fully understand—Twin Gold Towers has such massive capital, and they hold ninety percent of the dragon-stone jadeite, right?"
"They're a monopoly, yes."
"Then a price war can't last long. The market would revert to Twin Gold Towers holding a near-total monopoly."
"True," Uncle Harvey said. "Whoever's behind this scheme will lose in the long run. But causing Twin Gold Towers' valuation to crash in the short term—that's doable. The energy unleashed by the first domino falling is often impossible to calculate. This whole thing is too complex. What we can do best is what jade people do professionally—figure out whether Kaqin can actually produce dragon-stone jadeite."
I nodded. "From what I saw of that antique material, they definitely didn't mine it recently."
"Right. But how did the rumor from the mine start in the first place?"
"Wait—if someone spread rumors that Kaqin could produce dragon-stone jadeite, wouldn't Boss U be the beneficiary?"
"That's why I couldn't fully trust him either."
"So who are we going to ask?"
"Who did we fail to talk to last time?"
The answer came instantly: "The Yemuxi!"
Perhaps the Yemuxi were themselves the answer. The dragon-stone jadeite we'd seen in Ruili and in Mandalay hadn't come from the mine. So the appraiser probably wasn't lying. If the stones weren't extracted by machine, they must have been "found" by the Yemuxi.
Uncle Harvey said, "If the Yemuxi really found antique dragon-stone jadeite, that would be an overnight fortune—the stuff of legends. Word would spread like wildfire among them. If we ask around and nobody's heard anything, then we can be certain the mine isn't actually producing dragon-stone jadeite."
I processed this and said, "If it's not producing, then this is definitely a scheme."
Uncle Harvey said, "If that's the case, what I need to do is help Twin Gold Towers buy up this remaining ten percent of dragon-stone jadeite. Stabilize the messaging, stabilize the price."
---
Entering the mine, I noticed the road was now lined with armed soldiers, inspecting every vehicle.
Uncle Harvey still got in using his identity as Boss U's friend, but he didn't go directly to see the boss. It was already past noon when we arrived. Uncle Harvey found an excuse to send our driver off for lunch and rest, then led me on foot deeper into the mine.
"Let's go to the Yemuxi camp first," Uncle Harvey told me. "If we can find the boss, great. If not, we'll grab anyone and ask what kind of stones they've been picking up."
When we got there, we were stunned. The camp—the rows of makeshift thatch shelters that had been there before, the woven mats on the ground—were completely empty. Not a single person remained of the thousands-strong Yemuxi workforce.
"They left? Shift's over?"
"There's no such thing as a shift here. Something's definitely wrong."
Just then, a thin, dark-skinned Burmese man came running toward us, looking panicked.
Uncle Harvey ran toward him, and I followed. Seeing us coming, the man changed direction, clearly trying to avoid us. Uncle Harvey shouted, "Friend, don't run! Just want to ask you something!"
The man slowed slightly, and Uncle Harvey sprinted forward, grabbing him firmly. The man looked desperate to leave, but Uncle Harvey's grip was unyielding. I came close and caught a whiff of several days' worth of unwashed body odor.
Uncle Harvey held him and said seriously: "We're Chinese. Friends of Boss U. Friends of the mine owner. We came to Myanmar to buy jadeite. We're here in good faith, to buy jadeite."
To my surprise, the man relaxed his guard immediately!
I thought he was different from the Burmese merchants in Ruili—there was a genuine simplicity about him.
Uncle Harvey asked him, "Why is everyone gone?"
"They all decided to risk their lives!"
"What do you mean?" Uncle Harvey said. "Last time we came, there were lots of people picking stones."
"The mine owner broke the rules! He's trying to steal our jadeite!"
"What happened?" Uncle Harvey looked confused. I didn't understand either—Boss U wasn't hurting for money.
"This morning, the mine owner suddenly showed up with a bunch of men, demanding to know if anyone had found dragon-stone jadeite."
"Did they?"
"No! We haven't found any!"
I interjected, "How do you mean 'no'? Everyone's saying the Yemuxi found dragon-stone jadeite."
"People are saying it, and we've heard it too! We all want to find dragon-stone! Last night, the boss even said lots of us had picked up very good jadeite, maybe even dragon-stone type!"
"Where's your boss?"
"Haven't seen him today. Nobody knows where he went."
Uncle Harvey continued, "So why is everyone stopping work?"
"Because they started forcing people to hand over their stones. There was another group I didn't recognize, and they fought with the mine owner's men. The mine owner had fewer people and lost the fight, so they pulled back."
"They were stealing stones you'd picked up? Why? Aren't there buyers at the bottom of the hill?"
"I don't know why they did it! It goes against all the rules!"
The thin man grew more agitated. "We're here to earn money—every one of us is here to get rich or support our families. The rule is: what the miners pick belongs to us to sell. If they find good stones and someone just takes them by force, then nobody's going to come work this mine again."
"The boss said the stones we picked up were all very good, possibly dragon-stone, and everyone was protecting them carefully. Then the mine owner came to take them by force."
"So you all just walked off the job? Went to another mountain?"
"No, they're all inside..." He suddenly grew cautious and started to move away again. Uncle Harvey caught him.
"Inside the mine?"
"Yes, soldiers went in too. They're going to shoot people!"
"What!?" Uncle Harvey and I exclaimed in unison. How had things escalated to this level?
"After they fought the mine owner's men, soldiers with guns arrived quickly and tried to force everyone to hand over the raw stones they'd found."
Uncle Harvey said, "Boss U wouldn't quibble over that amount of money."
"I didn't want to die, so I gave them mine."
"You're saying some people didn't give theirs up?"
"Of course they wouldn't just hand them over! We worked our hearts out for the chance to find a good stone. Now someone says there's dragon-stone at this mine, of course we're going to protect it with our lives! So they started shooting! I got scared, dropped everything, and ran."
"Where did the soldiers take them?"
The man pointed. "Further inside, toward the lake."
"Did they let you go after you gave up your stones?"
"They didn't let me leave! I escaped on my own. You two should leave too! It's chaotic and dangerous in there! I can take you to buy jadeite—I know where to go. Real jadeite, really beautiful stuff..."
I thought he was right about the danger and turned to see what Uncle Harvey thought. But when I looked—my god—Uncle Harvey was already sprinting into the mine.
"Are you out of your mind!?" I screamed. "Uncle Harvey, they have guns!"
He ignored me and kept running.
I shouted again: "Is money more important than your life!?"
This time, Uncle Harvey stopped. He turned around and yelled back: "You're right—life is important!"
The moment he said it, he turned and kept running, shouting over his shoulder: "But money is more important!"