NOVEL NEXT Proofreader: May Zou
Liu Xingming was shocked and said angrily, “It was just blind luck that you saw through the fake vase. Don’t you really think you are a master of treasure appraisal, do you? What is a student showing off to us here?”
Senior Fang smiled thinly and shook his head, “Antiques should be about art and tastes but have nothing to do with status.”
People who were able to come to Taste Pavilion for meals were all prominent and respected in Jinhai City. Now Senior Fang had given the instruction, if Liu Xingming was still going to embarrass Lin Qi, it would be his fault.
“Just have a look if you guy want to. Could anything fresh be observed?” Liu Xingming snorted with disdain and threw the vase to him casually.
Lin Qi took the vase and shook it beside his ear, and then his face lit up.
Although the vase was only a high-quality counterfeit, this was just what made it unusual.
When Liu Xingming was to break the vase, no one noticed that the vase actually made a small clanging sound. Were it not for the fact that Lin Qi had practiced Hunyuan Zhenqi pithy formula and had more acute perception than common people, it would be extremely difficult for him to perceive the sound.
But how could an ordinary vase make such a crisp sound?
He looked over and over and shook it a few times, and when he was about to open the divine pupil to discover the secret inside. Liu Xingming sneered and said, “Wow, haven’t you seen anything fresh? Or should I give you this fake as a present?”
Lin Qi frowned slightly, said, “You paid a lot for the vase. How about I buy it from you at the original price?”
“He-he, if you do want it, so you can.” Liu Xingming said coldly, “A bumpkin is a bumpkin, who even takes a fake as a treasure. However, it’s also good to fool people with it.”
To project himself in the presence of Jiang Ruoqing, Liu Xingming would naturally make every effort to uglify his rival to beautify himself.
Jiang Ruoqing was the one who understood Lin Qi most. Since he was only a student who was from an ordinary family, how could he pay for this antique, especially when this was only a fake?
“Lin Qi, don’t you have something else to do today? Put this vase down and let’s go.” Jiang Ruoqing winked at Lin Qi.
“To be honest, I still want something more…. Besides, I haven’t paid Mr. Liu for the vase yet…” Lin Qi said without looking up from the blue and white porcelain vase in his hands.
“How can you have so much money!” Jiang Ruoqing said anxiously. If Lin Qi had such a huge sum, then it was unnecessary for him to practice in their hospital.
“You can rest assured. I’ll have the money to pay when I sell it later.”
With the opening of his divine pupil, Lin Qi’s sight penetrated the exterior of the vase. In his eyes, the vase became transparent, and there was actually a simple and unsophisticated small box hidden at the bottom of the vase, which was very old and was inlaid in the vase by a small mechanism, and the sound produced when shaking the vase just now was made by this box.
But before Lin Qi had seen the box clearly, the limit of three seconds for him to open his divine pupil was up, and his eyesight returned to normal.
“Let it go at that. Here, I’ll give you half a million yuan just as the fee to thank you for retrieving a loss for our hospital last time.” Jiang Ruoqing thought Lin Qi was certainly put on the spot now and she knew that all men were afraid of losing face, so she took out a bank card instantly.
“Thank you, but it’s unnecessary, I’ve already seen something unusual. It’s a good thing.” Lin Qi stood up.
This remark made Senior Fang’s face fall. He had just confirmed that the vase was a high-quality counterfeit, but now Lin Qi said it was a good thing. Didn’t Lin Qi make it clear that he was playing against him?
So Senior Fang said unpleasantly, “Young man, you say this is a good thing, do you have any ground?”
“Sorry to make myself a joke. I just guessed that the vase should be of good value.” Lin Qi said to Senior Fang. He thought, if it was an ordinary thing, it would not be hidden in the vase with such effort.
“Young fellow, be a down-to-earth man. Don’t try to bite off more than you can chew, or try to practice fraud.” Senior Fang snorted.
Lin Qi was displeased on hearing this. He merely offered his opinion. How had he offended him?
Jiang Ruoqing worried a lot and covered her forehead with anxiety. She doubted whether there was the possibility for Lin Qi to leave the restaurant now that he had even offended Senior Fang.
But Lin Qi simply continued fiddling about with the vase. Finally, he found a bulge on the bottom of the vase.
Lin Qi beamed with delight. He pressed the bulge hard, and with a click, there was a small crack around the bottom of the vase as if some mechanism was opened.
Holding the bottom tightly, Lin Qi gently twisted it a few turns and soon the bottom of the vase was completely unloaded, and inside the vase there was a simple but elegant box, faintly emitting a smell of eaglewood.
“There was actually a Secret Inside!”
All people present were shocked.
Secret Inside was a saying among antique collectors. There were a lot of capable or talented people who were unwilling to let their collection of treasures be discovered, so they designed a kind of mechanism, something like a secret gear in order to hide the treasure in an ordinary object.
It was amazing that this vase could also be designed with such an ingenious mechanism that even master Senior Fang was fooled.
Lin Qi took out the eaglewood box. On the cover of it there was a poem and a signature of two small words engraved as Tang Yin!
“May I have a look at it, young man?” Senior Fang suddenly got excited and longed very much to grab the eaglewood box directly.
“Well, Senior Fang, you know better than me about this…” Lin Qi handed over the box.
Senior Fang turned it over and over. Both his hands started to tremble. At last his eyes fell on the poem on the cover of the box, he slowly read it,
“I drew the slow-running water in the Blue River.
Love Dusk Pavilion was covered by sorrowful maple leaves.
Autumn moon was shining brightly on Buddhist temple,
Fragrant smoke from incense burner was curling upwards sutra tower.
It was autographed by Tang Yin. It, it is clearly an authentic work of Tang Bohu of Ming dynasty!”
“Tang Bohu?” Everyone present, whether he knew about antiques or not, was all shocked. Tang Bohu was the leading of the Four Talented Scholars, whose authentic works were hard to find, and such works engraved on a box as this one were even fewer.
Lin Qi silently read the poem again, and was surprised to find out the mystery in it, “This is an acrostic poem. See, the first word in each line, it is exactly the four words ‘I love autumn fragrant (I love Qiu Xiang Qiu: Chinese character referring to autumn, and Xiang: fragrant)’. Is this the love token that Tang Bohu gave to Qiu Xiang in his pursuit of her?”
“Absolutely no mistake!” Senior Fang was breathless and trembling with excitement, he said, “This eaglewood box was, indeed, a rouge box in the Ming dynasty. And Tang Bohu was a talented and romantic scholar whose story in pursuit of Qiu Xiang was recorded in biography by later biographer and a movie ‘Flirting Scholar’ was also made. The eaglewood rouge box is surely the love token he gave to Qiuxiang in his pursuit of her!”
No one had expected that this was actually Tang Bohu and Qiu Xiang’s love token. The story of Tang Bohu’s pursuit of Qiuxiang made the significance of the eaglewood rouge box itself far beyond its value of being an antique of Ming dynasty.
What’s more, the engraved handwriting on the cover was vigorous, uninhibited and rakish. It was indeed Tang Bohu’s authentic work.
It was hard to find out a second one as this kind of eaglewood rouge box in the world. It was naturally very precious.
Senior Fang held he box admiringly and was reluctant to let go of it. He even had a sudden impulse to put it in his pocket. Taking a deep breath, he said respectfully in a consultative tone, “My boy, how about selling me the eaglewood box for five million yuan?”