00:00Have you ever seen a treasure-hunting assembly line like this?
00:02Workers sit beside a conveyor belt staring at rolling stones.
00:05Looks like daydreaming, but they're actually searching for Hethian jade pebbles hidden among ordinary rocks.
00:10This is a stone selection site in Xinjiang's Hethian mining district.
00:13Every day, large amounts of sand and gravel arrive by truck poured into screening machines.
00:17After multiple rounds of sifting, stones are loaded onto conveyor belts waiting for manual selection.
00:21These seemingly ordinary rocks partially come from ancient river beds near the Kunlun Mountains.
00:25Over thousands of years, water currents continuously transported raw jade material downstream.
00:29Eventually forming pebble jade mixed among vast quantities of ordinary stones.
00:33Machines can filter stones by size but cannot judge which ones actually have value.
00:36So the final step belongs entirely to experienced workers.
00:39They must identify within fast-moving stone piles using color, luster, shape and natural surface texture whether any piece contains
00:45jade.
00:46Missed one and a potentially valuable pebble disappears with the ordinary rocks forever.
00:50Once spotted, the stone is immediately removed and sent for further assessment.
00:53What looks like picking up rocks on an assembly line is actually using years of accumulated experience
00:56to find precious natural treasures hidden within tons of sand and gravel.
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