The stall owner, a young man in his early twenties, was engrossed in eating a box of noodles. Upon seeing **'s appearance, he quickly put down his noodles, wiped the sweat from his brow, and said with a smile, "Brother, want to buy something? Hehe, all of these are genuine, all real jade!"
He spoke quite fluently, which made not only Zhou Xuan laugh, but also **. Although he wasn't considered a master, ** had been in this field for four or five years, making him much stronger than the average newcomer. If Zhou Xuan didn't have the ice-qi ability, he would still be far inferior to him.
Seeing that ** and Zhou Xuan smiled, the young boss immediately said anxiously, "You don't believe me? I'll show you!"
He took out a lighter, then reached up and flicked a few strands of hair from his head, lighting one of them with the lighter. With a "sizzle," the end immediately caught fire, and a burnt smell filled the air.
The young man then picked up the white jade Guanyin statue that the man had examined and said, "Do you know that jade is a treasure among stones? It contains moisture. If you put a strand of silk on jade, it won't burn off. Look!"
He then pressed the hair clippings onto the jade Guanyin statue. He lit a lighter and then reached over to burn the hair clippings stuck to the jade Guanyin statue. After burning for five or six seconds, the hair clippings remained intact.
The young man extinguished his lighter and said smugly, "See? If it were fake jade, the hair would be ruined. I don't sell fakes here!"
Zhou Xuan found it amusing. He had already tested these items with ice energy and none of them were genuine, but the way the young man at the stall patted his chest and guaranteed that they were all real made him laugh.
Zhou Xuan didn't know the technique, but **he understood it very well: even if it were an ordinary stone, let alone jade, you could stick a thread on it and burn it without damaging it.
He was just interested, but he could tell that none of the items on the stall were real. If he couldn't even tell the most basic things, he wouldn't need to work in this line of work!
The two men smiled and turned to walk away. The young boss called out a few times, reluctant to part with them, "Brother, let's talk this over. Name your price. We're doing business. You make your offer and I'll counter. We can discuss it." But when he saw that the two men had already gone far away, he couldn't help but grumble. Then he picked up his bowl of noodles and started eating them again.
He smiled and was about to speak to Zhou Xuan when his sleeve was gently tugged. Turning around, he saw a plain-looking, pretty girl standing next to him, and he was taken aback: Could he really be having a romantic encounter?
The girl leaned closer, showed a jade pendant in her hand, and whispered, "Brother, are you buying real jade?"
I immediately became alert. As the saying goes, once bitten by a snake, twice shy. I immediately thought of him as a swindler!
Zhou Xuan found it very strange. The jade pendant in the girl's hand wasn't of the best quality, but it was still a clear-colored jadeite, a genuine piece!
Brothers, if you have any monthly tickets, please vote for Lao Luo! Guaranteed to finish by the end of the month. To be continued...
Volume 1, Chapter 122: Trap
Erjia roughly estimated that the girl's jade pendant was worth at least ten thousand yuan, and it was quite old, so she said to **, "Take a look."
Hearing Zhou Xuan speak, ** paused for a moment, thinking to himself, "So that's what my little brother likes. This girl is pretty and charming; no wonder he didn't go to those brothels earlier. She's easily swayed by him; looks like he'd be better suited to a schoolgirl outfit—a lolicon!"
How could Zhou Xuan know Zhang Laoda's despicable thoughts? Although ice energy can detect everything, it cannot detect other people's thoughts.
"Let me see!" Zhou Xuan held out his hand to the girl. Since Zhou Xuan had spoken, he wanted to take a look at the item first, to see if it was real or fake, and to figure out if the woman was a fraud or trying to seduce him.
The woman quickly stuffed the jade pendant back into her pocket, looked around, and then whispered, "It's not convenient here, please come with me."
I've seen this kind of thing many times. Usually, someone will lure you in with a genuine item, and then a few burly men will come out of an empty alley and rob you!
He immediately grabbed Zhou Xuan and said, "Fine, if you won't let me see it, let's go find somewhere to eat!"
The woman suddenly became a little anxious and said, "What are you afraid of? It's not convenient for two grown men like me to be here alone. You two seem to know what you're doing. If you really want them, I have some genuine items. Come with me and take a look!"
Although he was lustful, he did have analytical skills. His first impression of this girl was that she was a con artist. She seemed like one in every way, except for her somewhat innocent appearance, but she held no allure for him whatsoever. He preferred the mature, seductive type—someone with real charisma!
"Let's go take a look, boss, we don't have anything else to do anyway!" Zhou Xuanchong said with a smile.
"Go away, go away," he snorted, muttering under his breath, "What a beast!"
The girl led the way, with ** and Zhou Xuan following behind. ** was initially wary, but seeing that the girl wasn't leading them into deserted alleys but towards a busy main street, ** felt somewhat reassured. She thought to herself that even if she had planned to be robbed, she probably wouldn't dare to act in a crowded place.
The girl arrived at a bus stop, looked around, and then whispered to Zhou Xuan and **, "Hurry up and get on the bus!"
He then opened the door of a van parked by the roadside, climbed in, and waved to ** and Zhou Xuan from inside the van.
The van's windows were tinted brown, and there were curtains hanging inside, making it very dark.
After hesitating for a moment, Zhou Xuan stepped into the car, and I had no choice but to bend down and crawl into the car as well.
The girl quickly closed the car door and called out to the front, "Qingyang, drive!"
Zhou Xuan and Zhang De then looked inside the vehicle. The eight-seater van had a row of seats behind the driver's seat, and two more seats on the left side further back. The rest of the space was empty, with two-thirds of the area filled with cardboard boxes.
The girl extended the overhead light, instantly illuminating the inside of the car. The windows were completely covered by curtains, preventing anyone from seeing in. She also pulled up a curtain between the driver's seat and the rear passenger area, making it impossible to see inside from any direction.
This is a great mobile trading platform, much safer than those underground ones.
Only then did one have to admire the girl's imagination; she had even taken business to this level.
Seeing their expressions, the girl smiled and said, "Don't be surprised. Tax evasion is very common in our line of work. According to regulations, the taxes on antique transactions are very high. Some very precious items are worth hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. Even if we pay only one percent in taxes, it's still a lot of money. We do this just to make a little money."
“Tax evasion isn’t something we do; it’s practically an unspoken rule. There are at least a hundred mobile vehicle transactions like ours in Yangzhou!” the girl said, then opened several more cardboard boxes. “Actually, it’s best to do it in the car. Driving on the street is safer and more convenient. You can take your time to look at and inspect the goods. Once you’ve inspected them and agreed on the price, then decide on the transaction. That’s fair and safe.”
He immediately squatted down to look at the contents of the cardboard box. There was a bronze double-eared pot with rust, two pieces of porcelain, and a wooden carved bowl.
The bronze double-eared pot and the wooden carved bowl looked very old, and his heart skipped a beat. Seeing the bronze objects made him somewhat alert. He had suffered a great loss at the hands of He Laosan last time because of bronze objects, but this bronze pot still gave him a thrill!
You become interested in the things in the industry you work in. **Suppressing his racing heart, he glanced again at the two porcelain pieces whose gaps were filled with foam.** He was stunned again! One was a plum vase, the other a blue-and-white dragon-patterned vase—clearly blue-and-white porcelain from the Ming Dynasty!
Aside from the wooden carved bowl, the other two items are all very valuable! After a moment of stunned silence, she pulled Zhou Xuan to her side and squatted down, then carefully picked up the blue-and-white plum vase.
At this point, the car was not moving fast, and the road was extremely smooth, so it was almost no different from when it was stationary.
Pointing to the pattern on the bottle, he said, "Little brother, look at this..."
"The plum blossoms here have a pale blue and dark gray hue, with a slight blurring effect. The design has multiple layers, so it should be early Ming dynasty blue and white porcelain. Early Ming dynasty blue and white porcelain pigments were mostly domestically produced, with few imports. Several points confirm the period: the technique of leaving the plum blossom stems white is only found in the early Ming dynasty, and the white space on the petals is more pronounced than in the Yuan, Song, and Tang dynasties. Take a look!"
Zhou Xuan looked at the color of the plum blossoms on the bottle, and it was indeed as ** had said.
After saying this, he gently placed the bottle back into the cardboard box and foam, then picked up another dragon-patterned bottle. He said, "Look at this one. The dragon pattern on the bottle is slender, with five claws, resembling Nezha's wind-fire wheels. The ruyi clouds are second-tier clouds. Before the Ming Dynasty, dragon-patterned blue and white porcelain generally only had three or four claws. Five claws only appeared in the early Ming Dynasty. Before the Ming Dynasty, the dragons in blue and white porcelain were fierce. The ruyi clouds are third-tier clouds. Take a look."
To be honest, after hearing him say all this, Zhou Xuan actually admired him somewhat; he still had some doubts in his mind.