The next morning, just past seven, young Wells clearly hadn't slept at all. When he saw young Garrett, he found that Garrett also had dark circles under his eyes.
"Garrett, I kept thinking last night about when I first started learning jade carving."
"What a coincidence—so did I. You started at Beijing Jade Factory Number One, right?"
"Yeah, I learned the basics in my hometown, but mostly I learned at the factory." Young Wells reminisced. "Back then, working a piece of jade took a good long while."
Young Garrett nodded and said, "Same here. When I first started learning, they only gave me scrap pieces from the corner."
"Exactly. You had to grind those scrap jadeite pieces first, searching for the part with spirit."
"Spirit—that's a good word for it," young Garrett said. "We usually say the part that's beautiful, worth carving, that has character."
"Right, same idea." Young Wells sighed. "But with this material, I tried the old methods..."
"But the results weren't great."
"Right. You too...?"
"I tried all the old tricks, brother."
Young Garrett brought out a half-finished carving.
The first technique you learn in jade carving is "excision" (*ti*).
Most openwork carving isn't just about form and technique—it's also about removing impurities. Modern buyers care deeply about a jadeite stone's gem-quality. If they see a beautiful green jadeite, they love it—but if it has a patch of brownish-black moss, they think it looks dirty. So the jade carver's first move is "excision"—which includes cutting, pushing, hollowing, and smoothing. Different methods, but the goal is the same: remove impurities.
But this technique didn't seem to work. Young Garrett held up the jadeite after he'd removed the impurities and shook his head: "Look, it doesn't really work."
When young Wells saw it, he said helplessly: "You're really skilled at this. The excision is done carefully—the white is mostly gone, and what's left is all transparent ice-grade. But the shape is just... this is nothing! Looks like a dishwashing sponge?"
"Hey, a bath sponge works too. There's too much white moss in this material. Once you carve it out, it's just pitted and uneven—can't be salvaged, brother! What's your approach?"
"I tried 'clever coloring.'"
The second technique of jade carving centers on the word "clever" (*qiao*). If "excision" means removing the unwanted parts, then "clever" is the exact opposite—making use of them. The common technique of "clever coloring" in jade carving does exactly this: highlighting the stone's natural colors. It's most often used for two-color stones. Southern red agate's red and white, Hetian jade's white meat and yellow skin, jadeite's purple and green—all are stages for clever coloring.
"But when I tried clever coloring, the white and the transparent were too similar to stand out. Even when I deliberately emphasized the white, the result wasn't good. Look..."
Young Wells produced a half-finished piece. He'd left all the white spots raised in semi-relief, slightly above the ice-grade base. Carved this way, it looked like a microscopic bacterium—strange and unattractive.
"Yeah... I tried the traditional clever-coloring approach. It doesn't work," young Garrett said. "Actually, there's a second approach."
"Oh!?" Hope ignited in young Wells's eyes. "What is it? I'm all ears!"
"It's not exactly a great solution..." young Garrett said, pulling out a small pouch.
He opened the pouch and poured its contents into his palm. A crystalline cascade of light tumbled out, pooling in his hand.
In his palm lay a handful of tiny jadeite cabochons, each one cut from the colorless ice-grade jadeite between the white cotton clusters. The texture and transparency were excellent—very clear—but they were tiny. Each was only the size of a green pepper seed, a thin little disc, and the thickness couldn't be made generous.
Young Wells asked, "How much are these worth?"
Young Garrett considered and answered, "I estimated—if we cut cabochons ourselves, it's more work. Being generous, one *jin* yields about fifty pieces. At twenty yuan each, that's a thousand. We've got over ten *jin* of material, so no matter what, we'd get back about ten thousand yuan. That's something."
"This won't work. We'd still be losing way too much. And cutting cabochons takes forever! How long would it take?"
"The two of us working together, probably a month."
"A month! We could earn two or three thousand just in carving wages alone!"
"Yeah... or we could go find Don Quinton again?"
"And then what? Let him rob us a second time?"
"Yeah..." Both of them let out a long sigh. Young Garrett pulled out a lighter and lit a cigarette.
Young Wells suddenly said in a low voice, "I didn't tell you—I just finished paying off my debts."
"What debts?"
"When I was twenty-six, I came to Ruili for the first time. I was a hundred thousand yuan in debt." Young Wells lit his own cigarette and continued: "My wife followed me from my hometown. We tried Nanyang, we went to Beijing—every place we went, we lost money. Every business I tried failed, and I was deep in debt."
"Brother..." young Garrett patted his shoulder, not knowing what to say.
Young Wells continued: "I didn't know how I'd ever pay it all off, honestly. I had nothing—nothing except my craft. And my wife was still suffering alongside me, and I had nothing to show for it. But Ruili really gave me a chance. I made a living purely by my craft, by carving jadeite."
Young Garrett gave a slow nod—he seemed to understand deeply.
"Seriously, brother, Ruili saved me. At first I made pieces for factories—each piece earned a hundred yuan in carving fees. Then my wife learned polishing—every piece I carved, she polished. We made pieces for shops, earning two hundred yuan per piece. Piece after piece, year after year. For four years, I didn't make a single piece of my own—I barely took a single day off. And this year, I finally paid off the full hundred thousand in debt." Young Wells's voice grew intense as he spoke.
"Your wife is amazing at managing the household."
"Garrett, I really envy you. A hundred thousand yuan, and you just put it down like it's nothing."
"Actually, this piece has been a strain on me financially. Truth is, I already sold my place in Guangzhou."
"What!? You went that far!?" Young Wells felt like the beer had suddenly worn off. "You call that 'a strain'?"
"I want to buy top-grade material," young Garrett said. "You understand? You have to work with top-grade material to have any hope."
"Yeah."
"I know you don't agree with this. You, Wells, are known for turning dross into gold—that much I know. I'm not saying low-grade jadeite has no value. But the market rules are what they are, and the bosses who buy carved jadeite only care about the material. Without top-grade rough, they won't recognize the craft."
"That's true."
"I want to work at the very highest level. The finest craftsmanship, on the finest jadeite. That's the path I'm taking."
"So you came to Tengchong to get top-grade material."
"Yes. The Qing dynasty had lots of top-grade material. At my current means, I can't afford top-grade confirmed pieces. But I absolutely refuse to gamble on raw stones, so I brought my money to Tengchong. And look how that turned out—I somehow ended up buying this stone."
Young Wells said suddenly, "Garrett, I'll be blunt—your third approach isn't really an approach. I think we can't give up yet. We need to put in more work."
"What kind of work? Do you have an idea?"
"Not yet. But I don't think we should rush. If we calm down and really think about it, there's a breakthrough to be found."
Young Garrett nodded. "You're right. The base material is actually very good—it's just a bit strange. It needs careful carving."
"Every time I carve, I'm searching for the jadeite's own language. It gives me hints," young Wells said, then smiled a little sheepishly. "Garrett, I want to buy a portion of this material from you and take it back to Ruili to study."
"No problem. Name your price—I'll sell it to you at cost."
---
Young Wells ended up buying three-tenths of the Tengchong old material and taking it back to Ruili to study. Young Garrett only charged him thirty thousand yuan, then took his share of the material back to Guangdong and began his own contemplation and design. After they each went home, there was suddenly no communication about this jadeite between them. They'd still call each other occasionally to check in, but whenever the jadeite came up, both of them automatically changed the subject. It was as if this ice-grade material full of white cotton had become a kind of competition.
On the phone, young Wells asked young Garrett: "Garrett, did you figure something out?"
Young Garrett laughed on the other end: "Hey brother, don't just worry about me—how's your own research coming?"
"I've been so busy! No time to work on it! But we'll see each other at the end of the year—I'll discuss it with you in person then."
"Sounds good! I'm looking forward to seeing what you've got."
At that year's Hundred Flowers Award exhibition, two works appeared that shocked everyone.
One was "Searching for a Friend in the Snow" by the young jade carver Wei Dongsheng. He had selected a piece of ice-grade jadeite from the Muna mine with a yellow skin, which he cleverly colored into wintersweet blossoms. The figure was a graceful maiden wrapped in a cloak, her face and the main motif rendered in the transparent ice-grade jadeite. The entire carved piece left much of the surface untouched, but this material happened to be filled with cotton specks that looked like falling snowflakes! Jadeite with these cotton inclusions was normally the least valuable kind, yet in Master Wells's hands it possessed such ingenious beauty—it was almost impossibly lifelike. Gazing at the piece, you felt transported into a cold winter, a crystalline world of white snow and red plum blossoms—pure, noble, transcendent. "Searching for a Friend in the Snow" immersed you completely in the beauty of falling snow.