Chapter 216: Ambergris
After showing the gemstones, Yun Jiao took out the three black shells.
“What kind of shells are these? We haven’t seen them around here.”
Yun Jiao nodded: “The orca brought them from very far away.”
There should be pearls inside.
Her eyes sparkled, she used a small knife to open the mother shell, revealing the meat inside and.
She fumbled inside with her fingers and quickly found a round hard lump; it was definitely a pearl.
As the pearl was taken out, exclamations of surprise immediately came from all around.
“This… a pearl!”
And it wasn’t small either.
A black pearl, but not pure black.
After washing it clean and placing it in her hand, everyone could clearly see the black pearl emitting a deep green luster.
This pearl was about 10mm, round and full, and its luster was the best they had seen among pearls so far.
The oyster pearls previously opened from oysters looked like inferior products in front of it.
“It’s so beautiful, it’s too beautiful.”
Regarding the appreciation of pearls, most women understand their beauty better than men.
“Black pearls, old man, I’ve lived this long and never heard of them. In ancient times, only emperors and nobility could afford to use such things.”
Although they lived by the sea, sea pearls were very rare.
Even the renowned Dongzhu pearls were freshwater pearls.
Compared to shellfish and snails from the sea, pearls produced by freshwater mussels were more common.
Then there were the southern pearls.
A profession popular in ancient times, pearl divers, collected these sea pearls in the deep sea.
However, there were no large-scale pearl oysters in their area.
Yun Jiao quite liked this black pearl, and thought about asking the orca where it brought them from, to see if she could follow and get more mother shells.
“Quickly check if there are any in the other black shells.”
At this moment, everyone was filled with anticipation for the remaining two mother shells.
Unfortunately, these mother shells only contained one pearl each.
Of the remaining two black shells, only one had a pearl.
And it was even larger than the first pearl opened.
12mm, it also had a deep green luster, but this pearl had a slight flaw.
However, the flaw did not detract from its beauty; a slight imperfection did not affect the pearl’s loveliness.
Seeing that her mother and aunt liked them, Yun Jiao directly handed the pearls to them so they could look to their heart’s content.
Although she also liked them, she wasn’t overly surprised.
After all, she had seen tens of thousands of pearls, the most beautiful among them being merfolk pearls.
Merfolk pearls were the energy source within merfolk, about the size of a ping pong ball, and they could truly glow.
Moreover, that kind of light was very good for the human body, with the effect of healing illnesses and prolonging life.
In addition to that were merfolk tears, which could induce sleep.
Merfolk’s tears solidified into pearls, and Yun Jiao herself had collected quite a few merfolk tears that had fallen.
In her previous life, the two best types of pearls were found on merfolk.
Therefore, while she liked these pearls, she wasn’t amazed or surprised.
Her liking was purely due to her merfolk’s penchant for gems and pearls acting up.
“They’re so beautiful.”
Clearly, the women in the family liked them immensely as well.
Yun Jiao pondered what kind of item she should find to store these two pearls.
There were still too few pearls; when the weather got warmer and her fathers went out to sea, she would go with them, not only to find fish but also to look for any mother shells that produced pearls.
Gems too.
Lots of them!
The wooden shelf that Yun Chenbei built according to Yun Jiao’s requirements was brought the next day.
It was disassembled.
Old Mu also came along, and the two went into Yun Jiao’s room and started hammering and knocking.
Yun Jiao also put down the book in her hands and strolled around them with her hands behind her back.
She also had a few fluffy tails with her.
While Old Mu was assembling the shelf, the two dogs kept causing trouble, making him so angry his beard bristled.
Then Yun Jiao, who was idly cracking sunflower seeds nearby, along with the dogs, cat, rabbit, and sea turtle, were all kicked out of the room.
The door slammed shut with a bang.
Yun Jiao was sulking.
This was her room!
She crouched down and grabbed the ears of the two dogs: “It’s all your fault!”
In nearly half a year, the two dogs had grown quite a bit.
With their Shiba Inu lineage, the two dogs were chubby, with thick fur.
Coupled with their parents’ good genes and Yun Jiao’s good feeding, they had grown exceptionally sturdy.
They were only a little bit shorter than her waist.
Yun Jiao didn’t leave either; she waited outside the room.
She ate snacks herself and occasionally fed some to the two dogs and the cat leader.
When the shelf was finally finished, Yun Jiao eagerly ran in to see it.
She liked it.
With a slightly rustic dark red hue, designed to fit the wall, with scattered but good-looking wooden compartments.
Yun Jiao, like a puppy, happily circled the wooden shelf, then impatiently dragged a wooden box out from under the bed, wanting to arrange her collection one by one.
Old Mu chuckled and teased, “Old man, I’d like to see what treasures you’ve collected, to the point of needing a special curio shelf to display them.”
He walked over with his hands behind his back and saw Yun Jiao leaning down, dragging out a grayish-white object from under the bed.
Old Mu’s gaze swept over it, hehe… a broken stone…
Wait!
That thing looked so familiar?
“Wait!”
He almost shouted it out.
Yun Chenbei, who was helping his sister tidy up, was startled by this shout.
He looked at his master with a confused expression, what was going on that he was so jumpy.
“You you you… where did you get this thing?!”
“Move aside first, let me see, let me see.”
Yun Jiao blinked: “I picked it up.”
Old Mu leaned closer, looking at and sniffing the grayish-white stone, occasionally murmuring to himself.
Yun Chenbei and Yun Jiao squatted to the side, staring at him.
“Grandpa Mu, what is this?”
Old Mu: “You don’t know?”
Yun Jiao shook her head: “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know and you collected it?” Old Mu looked at her innocent small eyes and face, and was even more shocked.
Yun Jiao scratched her head, with a look of innocent bewilderment: “I just felt that the stone looked a bit strange and had a weird smell, so I collected it.”
Old Mu: …………
“Tsk tsk tsk… what luck you have.”
“This thing is a treasure, do you know what ambergris is?”
Yun Jiao hadn’t reacted yet when Yun Chenbei next to her’s eyes widened.
Old Mu: “Such a large piece of ambergris, and you just happened to pick it up without recognizing it, this thing is very expensive!”
Yun Jiao: “What is ambergris?”
“It’s the excrement of sperm whales. After drifting at sea for decades or even centuries, it becomes real ambergris. The white part is of the best quality. Your piece is so large, with only a small portion being grayish-white, most of it is white. This single piece is enough for you to buy several houses in the capital.”
Originally, Yun Jiao felt quite disgusted upon hearing that the thing was sperm whale excrement, but after hearing the rest, she immediately stopped feeling disgusted.
Although she didn’t know how much houses in the capital cost, this thing was definitely worth a lot of money!
