And this kind of white lipped oyster is extremely difficult to breed in the juvenile stage, and the white lipped oyster over three years old can be cultivated with pearls, so even if the white lipped oyster is now used for artificial pearl cultivation, most of the time it is to go to the sea to directly carry the grown white lipped oyster back for pearl breeding, rather than breeding the white lipped oyster to breed, and each mother oyster can only give birth to three or two pearls.

Even so, after three to four years, only about six to seventy percent of the white lipped oysters implanted in the embryonic nucleus can successfully give birth to pearls, and only nearly two percent of the pearls are round or nearly round, and even one percent of these round pearls can be selected as high-grade. It can be seen that even artificially cultured saltwater pearls are very difficult to achieve high quality. This is also the reason why ordinary pearls can be ground according to the pound scale, and pearl jewelry can still be sold at sky-high prices.

I was a little puzzled and said, "Anyway, it's already a pearl, so can't it be polished to make jewelry? ”

Xi Bufan looked at me and smiled, "Pearls are different, although the shelling of pearls should be one, but in fact, this is made of countless pearl membranes layered, once polished, the luster of pearls will be destroyed, or even warped, such pearls are not worth anything at all." As the only gemstone in the world that does not need to be processed, if you do it, it is actually no different from fraud. ”

I nodded, "Speaking of which, I've always heard of collecting diamonds, rubies, and even jadeite, but I don't seem to hear about collecting pearls?"

Xi Bufan explained to me: "This is simpler, so simple that you can't even think of it, but as soon as I say it, you will understand, there is a word called: people are old and yellow, have you heard of it." ”

"One of the particularities of pearls is that they can actually be regarded as life-saving gemstones, normal pearls can be maintained for two or three hundred years under good maintenance conditions, but in fact, good pearls will begin to turn yellow in about seventy or eighty years, and gradually lose their surface luster. Seventy or eighty years is enough for personal wear, but from a collection point of view, it is not competitive. After all, unless it has a special meaning, no one wants to wear a yellow, tarnished gemstone to show off, right? "It dawned on me that I had seen a lot.

Xi Bufan paused, "Back to the topic, after our Xi family entered the field of pearl farming, it was relatively simple freshwater pearl farming at the beginning, and the return was okay earlier, but this technology is too simple, just tell me, there are many people in our country who do it in other countries and they are too lazy to do it, they only need to import it directly from us." ”

"So in order to seek development, we turned our attention to the very high cost of seawater pearl farming, after all, the luxury market is always competitive, this piece is mainly responsible for Lingyi, before in the stage of testing the water, everywhere to learn from experience, now finally see some results. ”

"But after all, it takes three to four years to harvest pearl farming, and one or two years is our harvest period, and last year it was fine, but this year something went wrong. ”

I asked him, "What's wrong, this sounds too professional, I don't think we can help much." ”

Xi Bufan lit another cigarette and said: "Pearls, let people steal them." ”

I was stunned for a moment, "Stealing people?" Xi Bufan nodded.

"No, Uncle Xi, if this is a theft, won't it be over if you call the police directly, with the strength of your family, at least you have to arrest it as an important case, isn't it better than a few of us hairy boys?"

Xi Bufan shook his head, "That's the problem, it's not necessarily a person who steals it." ”

I smacked the taste, "What do you mean?"

"Although it takes three to four years to harvest in seawater pearl farming, because of its delicate nature, we actually have to fish the oyster every month to remove plankton from its surface, because they absorb the nutrients of the oyster and observe the growth of the pearls. As a result, we found that some of the pearls were gone, or to be precise, they were harvested. ”

"The management didn't even notice that, according to you, it's not easy to get this pearl out. ”

"Well, because we are all going to the top grade pearls, so the management is still relatively strict, but whether it is the security personnel or the video surveillance, nothing abnormal has been found, and there is no trace of outsiders entering. ”

I whispered, "Is it possible that the guards are stealing themselves?"

"It's not possible, unless everyone on the farm is colluding and the video data is tampered with, but that's obviously not realistic. ”

I rubbed my nose, and it was a bit weird. "And what do you suspect?"

"Because of our own special circumstances, I have doubted that it will be the monster who did it. ”

"No, if it's really a monster who did it, what's the use of it with that thing, go back and give it to your daughter-in-law? Besides, if you want to give a gift, it's not more valuable to directly prick a fierce son into the sea to find a natural pearl. "It's going to be hard for us to find natural pearls, but if it's a youkai, it's much easier than us.

Xi Bufan said: "These are still not clear, this is the case, at present, the lost pearls are not much, but they continue to be lost, so I said that the matter is not urgent, but it still has to be dealt with." ”

The old man nodded and said, "That's it, stinky boy, you can lead them over and help check it, if it's not a monster, just let Bufan deal with it himself, if it's really a monster, your intervention is reasonable, and I think the other party will also sell the face of the ladyboy." ”

I heard that the old man had set the tone, thinking that he would travel at public expense, and when he arrived at the Xijia territory, it was not a good food and spicy drink, and he couldn't treat us badly, so he happily agreed.

After talking about business, everyone started chatting again, Xi Bufan asked me when to do the matter with Su Er, I looked at Su Er, she didn't squirm at all, only said that she was not in a hurry first, but when the time came, Xi Bufan must give a big gift.

Xi Bufan laughed, agreed, and told me to take care of Xi Fan, this kid's short tendons were unanimously determined by him, Lao Zhao and me, so it is naturally my duty to be an elder brother.

It was just a simple visit, they didn't stay overnight, we went back to the city in the evening, the Xi family of three went to say goodbye to Lao Zhao and them, and the three of us were at home to prepare the luggage to go out. After saying hello to Uncle Han and Sister Yu and Wang Youcai, we got on the plane the next day.

Although this time it is said that it is a tolerance, and it may involve monsters, but Xi Fan and Feng Feng are mixing oil in honey, there is no reason why we go to his house without taking her, before Xi Fan told Feng Feng about our monster identity, the girl was stupid, but Zhao Weiguo also spoke, and said that in fact, we are no different from ordinary people now, Feng Feng accepted it, and pulled us to ask east and west.

When we arrived at the place, Xi Bufan directly arranged a place for us in his hotel, and then took us to the Xi family's house to visit Mr. Xi, which is a must, Mr. Xi looks about the same age as my grandfather, but he is not as energetic as his grandfather, and he probably does not exercise often.

After all, my grandfather has the title of the old prince in the square, and it is normal for Grandpa Xi to be not as good as him, but he is quite kind, but he is a little tired after just saying something, he closes his eyes and recuperates, Xi Bufan first asked Xi Fan to take us around to play, and then arrange to visit the pearl breeding base and carry out an investigation by the way.

This pearl farming base is located in a fishing village, said to be a fishing village, in fact, there are not many fishermen, in addition to the pearl farming base, there are other aquatic processing plants, are also the Xi family's industry, so most of the fishermen are working in it, only some people still maintain the business of going out to sea to fish.

Looking at the fisherman's small yard that was densely covered with dried fish and seafood, the second uncle was drooling, and he almost didn't do it, I asked it to restrain a little, and it was not that it could eat whatever it wanted, and it was enough to think about it.

Su Er pointed to a small courtyard and said, "Look, aliens. "We turned our heads and looked, Mom, whose courtyard was there with a row of grimaces.

Xi Fan said with a smile: "That is also dried fish, ray, have you ever seen it, it looks like a big cloth, with a particularly long tail, and it looks like this after drying." ”

Su Er took out his mobile phone and searched for it, "Hey, it's cute when you're alive." ”

The second uncle licked his nose and said, "It's pretty cute to look at now." ”

I hurriedly said okay, okay, let Xi Fan arrange it in the evening, let's not be embarrassed.

Entering the breeding base, this place is not old, and the departments are also very complete, there are those who specialize in plant nucleation, there are phased observations, there are shellfish pearl diving, and there are data collection. Shen Lingyi had already explained before coming, so the administrator was very polite to us, so the eldest young master of the Xi family is still there.

Su Er and Min Ziqin accompanied Fengfeng to visit Kaibei, and I went to the farm with Xi Fan and the second uncle, saying that it was a farm, but it was actually a long causeway, and a series of floats were tied on both sides of the causeway, and cages were hung under these floats.

According to the administrator, there are fences on the periphery of this area, of course, the main purpose is to prevent damage to the cage during the rise and fall of the tide. I looked into the distance, "Where's the security camera?"

The administrator said: "There are some places on the periphery that have set up surveillance cameras, mainly to monitor the water surface part, because we have no shelter here, so it can cover the entire water surface part of the farm, and there are also some monitors underwater." ”

"So advanced?", I wondered a little, it was the first time I had heard of surveillance under the water.