*****Everyone couldn't help but stare at Williams as if he were a big dummy.The silence in the area persisted for nearly ten minutes with this and then a little chuckle suddenly roused everyone."You, an unknown person wish to compete with me?"The scholarly-looking old man who hadn't uttered a single word from the start suddenly inquired with a deep disdain and disgust in his voice after one of the young men beside him finished laughing."No... no, sir, please don't mind that. I'm sure he was only jesting," Grace, known for her coldness and rarely conversing with others, quickly spoke out before Williams could, her voice filled with awkwardness and her eyes reflecting confusion as she gazed at Williams."What are you doing?!!! That's a senior Gemologist for goodness' sake!!" She silently scolded Williams, who continued to smile playfully at her, showing no concern that she didn't trust him.Grace was deeply troubled by this. Ever since she had known Williams, he didn't resemble so

*****"Who will go first?" With a confident, playful grin on his face, the elderly man inquired of Williams once the stone cutter had arrived."You should take the first step," Williams, who had already set down the boulders in his grasp due to their weight, smiled at the elderly man and replied.“Even you already knew you wouldn’t win.”"Fool, I'm glad I didn't wager on him.""I'm so clever to have staked my daughter's school tuition on the master! Now I can both enjoy the evening with a courtesan and pay for my daughter's education after the master is declared to have won.""Hehehe, though the master's stones haven't been opened yet, I'm more than one hundred percent certain that he has already emerged victorious.""Are you merely speculating? Hehehe..."The crowd continued to voice a variety of sentiments, seemingly unconcerned about how Williams might feel. They didn't even mince their words at all and neither did they bother to urge the stone cutter to start his work. It was as

*****“I must be perceiving inaccurately.”Someone declared with a resolute tone after a moment, shattering the profound silence that had enveloped the area.As soon as the stillness was disrupted, various exhalations of amazement commenced to resound from the crowd, astonishing the person who had just spoken and rendered him stupefied once more.“That… that was truly a color emanating from the stone!”“How can this be possible?!”“Darn!”“Could it be that a gem would be unearthed from a big stone for the first time in years!”The area plunged into an enormous uproar in the blink of an eye, and everybody began to exclaim in unison.The clamor this time exceeded the one that had occurred when color was spotted in the elderly man's stone earlier.Everyone, including Grace, found this one perplexing.With her petite mouth wide open and having lost her composure, Grace gazed vacantly at Williams, unable to believe that he had genuinely selected a stone with a gem.She couldn't react for a

*****“This… this is a stone of fifty million dollars in the market for… for goodness sake!”Someone unconsciously stuttered with a voice behind his breath after a moment of intense shock, however, the elderly man, whose soul had nearly left his body quickly persuaded everybody again that Williams had merely been lucky.Everyone accepted this once more, as that was the only thing they could attribute the present situation to, but Williams only grinned at their foolishness and then offered the third stone to the cutter for cutting.This time around, although everyone had been persuaded by the elderly man that there would be nothing found in the stone, they dared to not focus their attention on the stone-cutting, their heart pounding in their chests as they hoped upon hope that nothing would be found in it so that they could regain their lost courage once more. However...“Was… was that not another color?”“How... how is this possible, how... how is this possible? What kind of luck is t

*****Williams who was presently studying the person before him realized that he had started to tremble, the gun he was pointing at him some seconds ago already completely lowered. ‘Was he convulsing?’ Williams was thoroughly perplexed. It was as though the person before him had encountered a devil or someone capable of taking his life, rather than the other way around."What in the world are you doing standing there like a fool? Take the fucking bag already, and let's get the hell out of here!"Williams and the others heard the leader of the armed men shouting in rage, but the person before Williams remained motionless confusing and bewilding Williams and the crowd badly.Just as everybody was about to start entertaining all sorts of thoughts, they witnessed the man before Williams simply turn around and walk back the way he had come, looking completely dazed.'What's happening?'They swallowed hard and watched the man in a state of blank amazement, much like the way the man's com