NOVEL NEXT Chapter 323 - 323: 【323】Brother is probably going to embarrass himself following you_1
Chapter 323: 【323】Brother is probably going to embarrass himself following you_1
Just when the contestants were fretting over the ceramics scattered around, a middle-aged man in his fifties approached and briefly explained the rules of the assessment.
“Among these pieces of porcelain, only twenty are genuine, the others are all fakes. You need to identify at least twelve authentic pieces within half an hour to successfully obtain the credentials of a junior appraiser. If you exceed the time limit or identify less than twelve, you will be deemed to have failed…”
The contestants were already familiar with these rules but still listened patiently, afraid to miss even a single word.
When they heard they had only half an hour for the assessment, many faces fell.
Two hundred pieces of porcelain, and to examine them all in half an hour was undoubtedly a daunting task.
Half an hour, that’s one thousand eight hundred seconds.
With two hundred pieces of porcelain.
That means, at the very least, nine seconds per piece.
This was without a doubt a huge challenge for the contestants’ visual acuity and experience.
The middle-aged man didn’t give them much time to prepare and immediately started the stopwatch and yelled, “Begin the assessment.”
As soon as his voice faded, the twenty-odd contestants charged up, not daring to waste a single second.
Zhong Pan’er was among them, and as Yao Guhuai’s disciple, she was under even greater pressure.
If she failed the first assessment, her master would be humiliated along with her.
While observing the ceramics, she glanced at Tang Feng and noticed he was still dallying leisurely, prompting her to sneer inwardly.
At such a critical moment, still putting on airs, truly hopeless.
When he fails the assessment later, what face will he have to pretend in front of her?
Tang Feng followed behind the others at a leisurely pace, picking up a ceramic piece to admire.
Actually, he was just putting on an act.
If he weren’t worried about appearing overly shocking, he wouldn’t even need to pick up the pieces to tell which were genuine.
But with so many contestants, spectators, and judges on site, if he really did so, he’d probably be captured for dissection immediately.
Despite this concern, he didn’t want to waste too much time on this matter.
After casually strolling through the ceramic area for about five minutes, he wrote the answers on his card and signed his name.
Then he handed it over to the middle-aged man in charge of their assessment area.
At this point, the other contestants had examined less than a fifth of the pieces, so his action was quite conspicuous.
All eyes on site turned to him in astonishment.
“He… He has the answers already? Is this a joke?”
“He didn’t even look at them carefully. He glanced over them and had the answers?”
“Ha, I’ve been saying all along that he’s all show. Probably just giving up and handing in a blank sheet, huh?”
“I really don’t know what Elder Ouyang saw in him. This is just too embarrassing.”
“Luckily, Zhong Pan’er didn’t agree to that wager earlier, otherwise Elder Ouyang would have been completely sunk by him.”
The contestants all sneered at Tang Feng’s conduct, thinking that he gave up because he couldn’t pick out any authentic pieces.
But they only made scornful remarks for a moment before diving back into their own assessments.
The ten judges on the panel also noticed Tang Feng’s peculiar behavior and began whispering to each other.
“What’s the deal with that contestant? Why did he hand in his paper so quickly?”
“Maybe he just thought the test was too hard and decided to give up?”
“This appraiser assessment only happens once a year, and to give up so easily, that’s such a shame.”
“There’s nothing to pity, if anything, it’s his own fault for not being proficient enough…”
Yao Guhuai suddenly interrupted, “I beg to differ. This young friend is an old pal of Mr. Ouyang’s; he must have gotten some pointers from Mr. Ouyang to have come up with the answer so quickly. If you ask me, his accuracy rate might very well be one hundred percent.”
He didn’t say this because Ouyang Yushan had leaked the answers to Tang Feng.
The antiques used in this assessment were overseen by the ten judges, with each responsible for one group.
That is, each judge knew only the answers for their own group and had no way of knowing the answers for the other groups to prevent any possibility of bias or fraud among them.
The reason he said this was to force Ouyang Yushan’s hand.
Tying Tang Feng and Ouyang Yushan together, he sought to see both shamed when Tang Feng embarrassed himself later.
Ouyang Yushan knew what he was up to and, even though he inwardly sneered, he did not deny it.
The other eight judges looked at Ouyang Yushan in amazement.
“So he’s Mr. Ouyang’s old pal? His appraisal skills must be exceptional then.”
“Indeed, to win Mr. Ouyang’s favor must mean he has real talent.”
“But his speed is too fast, finishing in less than five minutes. If he can also guarantee a one hundred percent accuracy rate, that would be too incredible to believe.”
“True, even we would find it difficult to pick out twenty genuine pieces in such a short time…”
Out of respect for Ouyang Yushan, they all changed their tone.
But in truth, no one believed that Tang Feng could have finished in such a short time and still maintain a one hundred percent accuracy rate.
Just meeting the minimum requirement for the assessment, a sixty percent accuracy rate, would already be miraculous.
Ouyang Yushan, although outwardly composed, was filled with confusion inside, uncertain what Tang Feng was up to.
He had seen Tang Feng’s actions clearly.
Tang Feng hadn’t looked at the ceramics closely at all; he’d just skimmed through them and then written down his answers.
If Tang Feng got them right by guessing, he would really start to doubt if he had wasted the last few decades.
“Kid, I’m afraid I’m going to be embarrassed because of you,” he lamented inwardly, feeling helpless.
He could only hope that Tang Feng might have guessed at least one or two correctly, to save a shred of his dignity.