Chapter 75: Romance of the Three Kingdoms Illustrated Comic Strip Edition
After both parties agreed to cooperate.
Liu Yiyi originally wanted to invite Chen Yiyang for dinner together, but Chen Yiyang refused.
He has other things to do tonight.
When coming to West Capital from Jin City, Chen Yiyang brought two items with him.
The complete set of Disney pins and Ancient Rome brothel tokens.
These two items don't take up much space.
Chen Yiyang directly put them in his suitcase and stored them in the rented safe deposit box after arriving in West Capital.
Just when he went to store the Middle Eastern antique parrot bowl, he took out these two items.
Because these items can only be sold for a good price in Europe and America.
So Chen Yiyang has been waiting for the foreign appraiser from Chinatown to help him find a contact.
Now the foreign appraiser has finally found someone to come to take the items.
Chen Yiyang arranged to meet the counterpart at a high-end restaurant in West Capital.
A little past seven in the evening, the counterpart found Chen Yiyang.
Two foreigners came, a man and a woman, seemingly a couple.
What's more surprising is that neither of them can speak Chinese at all.
With a translator, they began to communicate with Chen Yiyang.
Fortunately, the prices of these two items had already been discussed between Chen Yiyang and the appraiser from Chinatown.
These two people only came to ensure the items hadn't been swapped.
"Good."
After checking the items, the foreign man gave Chen Yiyang a thumbs-up, then used the translator to translate a piece of text.
"There is no problem with the items. I will have Tom transfer to your bank card."
Chen Yiyang had previously opened a bank card in Macau that can directly receive US Dollars, so there's no need to worry about exchange rate issues.
The complete set of Disney pins sold for sixty thousand US Dollars.
Ancient Rome brothel tokens, ten thousand US Dollars each, five tokens in total for fifty thousand US Dollars.
Adding up to a total of one hundred and ten thousand US Dollars, which is not a small amount.
After confirming the money was received, Chen Yiyang then handed over the items to the counterpart.
"Did you come solely for this deal?" Chen Yiyang asked in a mix of broken English and Chinese.
"We came for tourism and received a call from a friend along the way, so we came to take a look."
The man introduced himself as John, and the woman is his wife.
"Your country has just opened up a visa-free 144-hour service, so we thought we'd come for a trip."
"Do you have any thoughts after coming here?" Chen Yiyang asked curiously.
"My thought is that I feel our country's media only tells stories, which indeed is true."
John shrugged, "I have also learned an idiom, 'Seeing is believing'."
After completing the transaction, Chen Yiyang treated the two foreigners to a meal here.
During the meal, Chen Yiyang used a translation software to communicate with them.
"Old Tom said you are very professional, are you professional appraisers?"
"No, we are auction house staff, mainly responsible for Middle Eastern antique auctions, but we have a good understanding of other regions' collectibles and can simply judge authenticity."
"Middle Eastern antique auctions?" Upon hearing this, Chen Yiyang immediately took out the Middle Eastern antique parrot bowl he just received to show them.
"This should be from around the ninth century, made by Arab Empire craftsmen. Such a bowl, because of its exquisite craftsmanship, was sold as highly sought-after art across various places."
After John finished speaking, he stared at the photo attentively for a while.
"But no matter how you look at it, this thing seems to have been unearthed recently. Was it given to you by your Middle Eastern friend?"
"This is actually a treasure passed down from a friend's family. They recently wanted to sell it, so they asked me to inquire about the price." Chen Yiyang quickly responded.
"No no no, this is definitely a recently unearthed antique. In this aspect, I can differentiate clearly."
"John, my friend. We have a saying here, 'The more confused, the clearer.' Do you understand my point?"
"I understand." John fully agreed, "This antique is your friend's family heirloom, is your friend planning to sell it?"
"Yes, you can estimate a price."
"Twenty-four thousand US Dollars." John knew Chen Yiyang was also a professional antique collector, so he gave a very reasonable price.
"No problem, I can give you the item, but you have to take it out of the country yourself."
"I would never be foolish enough to take such a thing out of the country." John shook his head vigorously, "Customs can certainly identify that coins with yellow patterns aren't local relics. But they may not be sure if such an antique bowl is from a foreign country. So, if I carry this item out of the country, it's easy to be stopped by customs."
Chen Yiyang hadn't considered this issue.
Just when he thought the deal was off, John took out his phone and gave Chen Yiyang an email address.
"Contact this person. She's an Egyptian, our auction house's manager in Huaxia. If you bring the item to her, she can help you sell this antique through formal auction channels."
"Thank you so much." Chen Yiyang sincerely thanked the couple.
I finally have a reliable channel to deal with the foreign antique collections I've picked up.
Today's news: Former comic bookstore—Progress Bookstore at 432 South City Road, Merit District, West Capital City announces its closure, selling off a large batch of books. Visit now to buy the 1957 printed Romance of the Three Kingdoms comic series, and you can snag a bargain.
Coming to West Capital was definitely the right choice.
More good stuff is coming up.
After seeing today's news, Chen Yiyang immediately got dressed in haste.
It's now seven in the morning.
By the time he got dressed and rushed to the location mentioned in the news, it was not yet eight.
The bookstore, already closed, hadn't even opened its doors.
Chen Yiyang waited until eight o'clock. Only then did a man, about one meter six tall, looking lean and frail, wearing a coat that covered his entire body, come over.
"You're here to buy books, huh." The man glanced at Chen Yiyang. "But our bookstore formally closed today, now doing a cheap clearance. If you want to buy books, you might as well buy several at once; you won't find them later."
"Why did it suddenly close down?" Chen Yiyang hadn't anticipated the bookstore closing just today.
But on second thought, it was quite reasonable.
Once this old bookstore closes, many book enthusiasts will come to buy the books.
A set of top-tier collectible comics wouldn't be hidden for long before someone buys it.
"I inherited this bookstore from my grandfather. But I'm too lazy to continue running it."
The man was opening the store while explaining to Chen Yiyang.
"The location here is good, and the shop is my family's property. Opening a bookstore earns about as much as if I rent out the space.
Why not rent it out? The monthly rent is enough for me to lie at home."
What a reasonable thought.
Chen Yiyang thought from his own perspective, if it weren't for sentiment, managing an old bookstore would be more time-consuming and labor-intensive than simply renting it out for passive income.
Once the man opened the store door, Chen Yiyang went inside.
The shop looked very old.
The interior space was not small, about 400 square meters.
But only near the entrance were some relatively recent magazines.
Further inside were only old books.
Many were even published more than a decade ago.
"My grandfather quite liked reading. When he was younger, he collected many books at home. After opening up, he borrowed money to start this bookstore. He wasn't too concerned with how much he earned each month, just felt happy recommending books he enjoyed."
Accompanied by the man's continuous introduction, Chen Yiyang found quite a few interesting books.
These books weren't expensive either, and Chen Yiyang picked those he liked, putting them aside to buy later together.
"You better not buy too many, or else when you can't carry them away, I'll have to help you."
"Buddy, your laziness makes me envious." Chen Yiyang extended his hand to the man, "Let's get acquainted, Chen Yiyang."
"Xu Hao." The other introduced himself.
While selecting books, Chen Yiyang suddenly thought of buying the shop.
It could be turned into an antique trading store or other businesses.
He then asked Xu Hao, "Are you selling this shop? I might as well buy it."
"Dude, you're quite generous, but I'm not selling."
"Why? Are you worried I'm not offering enough?" Chen Yiyang curiously asked.
"No, I'm worried that if you give me too much at once, I'll spend it all quickly. What am I going to do when I get old?"
Xu Hao gave Chen Yiyang an unexpected reason, "So I'm renting it out, collecting monthly. That way I have money every month and don't worry about starving one day."
"Makes sense." Chen Yiyang felt his action of closing the bookstore wasn't about not seeing its value, but rather seeing it too clearly.
After picking two boxes of books, Chen Yiyang finally found the comic series he wanted to buy in the far corner of the shop, under a pile of old books.
The comic series comprised 61 volumes, which the previous owner had read once, then meticulously wrapped with newspaper and placed into plastic bags to preserve here.
It seemed the original owner hadn't intended to sell the comics, preserving them for occasional reading.
If Chen Yiyang didn't have the tipoff about the comics' location, he might not have noticed them.
He then theatrically picked up one comic to examine, then told Xu Hao, "I quite like this kind of comic book, I'll buy them all."
"Take them, take them! I'm not interested in them, anime is better."
"Alright." Chen Yiyang thought for a moment, then asked, "How much do they cost?"
"I'm too lazy to price them book by book. Anyway, they're old, I'll sell by weight. Twenty per kilogram."
"No problem." The price was several times higher than selling off scrap books.
But much cheaper than selling books directly.
So Chen Yiyang gladly paid the money and ordered a truck via his phone to prepare moving all the books.
Since he was currently staying at a hotel, he planned to rent a private storage space to keep the books.
1957 printed, Romance of the Three Kingdoms comic series.