Chapter 165: Call Me the Master of Picking Up Leaks (Please Subscribe for Updates)

Since he was going to visit Xia Xiaoxing's home, there was no need to pick up the car for now. After the meal, he had Xia Xiaoxing drop him off at a budget hotel in the Putuo district.

After they left, Qin Yun took a shower, changed his clothes, and strolled out the door.

He had chosen this budget hotel for a reason—nearby was Lingshi Road, and on Lingshi Road there was a Juqi Antique City.

Every Thursday night after eleven o'clock, a ghost market was held here.

And today happened to be Thursday, December 15th.

Going to someone's home as a guest empty-handed was certainly not appropriate. Carrying a few bags of fruit or milk didn't quite match their status either. Whether it was Xia Xiaoxing's family or Xia Weiwei's family, the household backgrounds that came through were both wealthy and aristocratic—not the nouveau riche sort.

He had specifically looked up Shanghai Ziyuan earlier and found that although the houses there were old, the prices were genuinely steep. Back in the early 2000s, a single residence already exceeded 130 million RMB, let alone now.

Whoever could afford to buy there was either rich or noble.

After much deliberation, since the conventional route wouldn't work, he decided to put his craft to good use. So earlier, he had specifically asked Xia Xiaoxing and Xia Weiwei for the zodiac signs of their family members, planning to come to Juqi Antique City to find some jade material and personally carve a few items as gifts.

This way it wouldn't seem stingy, and it would be full of taste—likely fitting the psychology of these wealthy people.

Actually, the main reason was that he felt a bit awkward visiting for the first time; otherwise, as their benefactor, what would it matter going empty-handed? It was just overthinking on his part.

Strolling along, Shanghai's night scenery was dazzling with lights—even close to eleven o'clock, pedestrians still bustled along the road, and traffic was still jammed.

One could only say an international metropolis was different. If this were Zhoushan, everyone would have long been asleep at this hour.

Before long, Qin Yun arrived at Juqi Antique City.

At this time, it probably hadn't reached eleven yet. Many of the open-air stalls were only just being set up sparsely—vans, folding tables, plastic sheets, you name it. All sorts of objects that looked charmingly antique were being laid out one by one.

The air was thick with the smell of diesel and the mustiness of old objects. Under the dim yellow lighting, the various antique trinkets carried a certain air of mystery.

Stepping into the plaza, his gaze swept past the stalls beside him, lingering on each for only a moment before moving on.

Even if he knew nothing about antiques, he knew antiques didn't come in the form of Ultraman—made to look like something unearthed from Sanxingdui, it was simply absurd.

After walking a few steps, he stopped. On a piece of faded blue cloth, a pile of broken porcelain shards was stacked. The blue-and-white patterned fragments gleamed with glaze—some bore fine crackle lines, others still had kiln-mutation marks along their edges from firing.

These things did look somewhat like genuine old objects.

However…

He looked at the stall's owner—a young man about his age.

"Does anyone even buy this kind of porcelain shard? Boss?"

The young man looked up at Qin Yun, immediately thinking the other man was tall and burly, with a rugged air. He had been about to ignore him, but after a glance into Qin Yun's eyes, he still replied: "Mm, even fragments of genuine old objects have their collectors."

Qin Yun gave a slight nod—he didn't know this trade. His gaze drifted from the porcelain shards to some copper coins beside them, then from the copper coins to a jade pendant.

"Boss, may I handle it?"

The young man nodded without a word.

Qin Yun didn't stand on ceremony. He squatted down and directly felt the texture of the jade pendant with his fingers, discovering it really was made of jade.

Although he didn't know antiques, he did know carving—at the level of a master carver. The moment he handled it, he could tell the quality of a piece of jade.

This jade was quite good, just a bit small. If he were to work on it, he probably could only make minor adjustments to its existing form—not much real point to it.

After some thought, he put it back in its place.

He continued walking forward. As time passed, the open-air stalls grew livelier and livelier, with more and more people wandering in, as if it weren't an antique market but rather a flower-and-bird market returned by day.

The items at these open-air stalls were a mix of real and fake, hard to tell apart. As an outsider, Qin Yun was absolutely not going to buy any antiques.

If he got fooled and brought home some worthless piece, there'd be no point.

His purpose was very clear: one was jade material, the other was wood material. Although he didn't know antiques, with these two types of materials, the moment he handled them he could easily judge their authenticity and quality.

This was an essential effect within the knowledge system of the carving skill.

Otherwise, if you couldn't even tell good wood from bad, or good jade from bad, how could you ever become a good master carver? Every master carver's understanding of materials far surpasses anyone else's—otherwise, how could one carve flowers on wood or tigers on jade?

Qin Yun wandered for over an hour, nearly visiting every open-air stall, yet still hadn't found anything to his liking.

He planned to go look inside the main building.

But before he had walked two steps, his attention was caught by an unremarkable stall tucked into a corner.

That stall was wedged between two rows of vans. The owner was an old man with greying hair, wrapped in a washed-out military coat, squatting on the ground. Before him was spread a worn piece of yellow silk, on which lay a jumble of old wood pieces, old wooden spoons, and a few wooden lumps coated in dust—at first glance one might think it was a pile of junk.

The old man kept his head lowered, rolling a wooden bead between his fingers, paying no attention to the passersby—just squinting his eyes, unclear whether he was dozing or lost in thought.

What drew Qin Yun in was a wooden stump at one corner of the stall. This stump was pale yellow all over, with a touch of brown, its surface covered in dust, its edges full of bump and scrape marks, looking like scrap material from an old house's beam.

Just now, someone's flashlight had inadvertently swept across this stump, and a faint pale-green sheen had briefly shown on its surface—quite eye-catching.

But now, looking closely, that sheen was gone, and Qin Yun thought he must have imagined it.

"Old man, may I handle it and take a look?" Qin Yun asked, pointing at that wooden stump.

The military-coat old man lifted his eyelids slightly, grunted an "Mm" from his nose, then squinted his eyes shut again, as if he didn't care at all whether a deal could be made—utterly zen-like.

Seeing the owner agree, Qin Yun immediately picked it up with both hands, pressing and touching with his fingers, even bringing his nose close to sniff it.

He sniffed, but didn't smell what he'd hoped to—only a faint mustiness. Yet the feel under his fingers and the slight rebound of the wood made his heart stir.

In his view, the feel of this wood was top-grade for carving—even compared to the rosewood he'd bought at Mount Putuo, it was no worse, perhaps even better.

Moreover, based on its size and appearance, several names of wood types quickly surfaced in Qin Yun's mind.

"Old man, how much for this piece of wood?"

Seeing him ask the price, the old man opened his eyes again and spat out a single word: "Five."

"Fifty thousand? That's expensive!" Qin Yun feigned shock and hurriedly moved to put the wooden stump back on the stall.

The old man rolled his eyes: "Five thousand, take it, no haggling."

"Five thousand is still expensive, old man. What kind of wood is this?" Qin Yun seemed a bit hesitant. "It looks like a wooden stump—doesn't seem like any good material, does it?"

"This is huali wood. Take it back, find a woodcarving workshop, and you can carve plenty of fine pieces out of it. Five thousand and I'm already selling it cheap."

Though the old man looked advanced in years, when he spoke his voice was full and resonant.

"Huali wood?" Qin Yun said doubtfully. "I recall huali wood's grain is mostly landscape-pattern or ghost-face pattern. Look at this wood—the grain is fine and dense, doesn't look like it."

The old man's eyes bulged: "I collected this wood myself. You understand it, or do I? Take it or leave it—five thousand and it's yours, otherwise get lost. Plenty of people will buy it."

"Fine, fine, fine, I'll buy it, I'll buy it." Qin Yun muttered, "At that age, still such a fiery temper."

As he spoke, he pointed at the WeChat QR code on the ground: "Scan this one, right?"

The old man nodded, secretly delighted in his heart.

The scrap he'd brought over from his old hometown had actually been sold. Thank goodness he hadn't let the old lady throw it away, or he would've taken a huge loss.

When the sound of the mobile payment arriving rang out, Qin Yun casually hugged the piece of wood to his chest.

Although from the surface he couldn't tell what kind of wood it was, there were only so many possibilities. Qin Yun judged that once the surface disguise was stripped away, it was most likely golden Phoebe nanmu, and quite possibly buried timber.

If it was real, he'd made a killing.

Top-grade golden Phoebe nanmu buried timber goes for over five hundred yuan per gram, and once the waste was stripped off, this stump weighed at least ten kilograms.

Of course, even if it wasn't what he imagined, this piece of wood was more than enough for carving, so he couldn't be bothered to go into the main building. He simply turned around and retraced his steps, heading toward the budget hotel.

But not long after he left, two middle-aged men ran to the old man's stall.

One of them looked at a corner of the stall and exclaimed: "Old man, where's that wood stump?"

"Sold." The old man lifted an eyelid, quite pleased with himself. "Sold for five thousand."

He had an impression of them — they'd come last week too, and had also taken a liking to that wood stump, but wanted to haggle, and in the end no deal was made. He hadn't expected them to come again this week.

Hearing this, the man felt it was a pity, and said to the person beside him: "Old Gu, we made a wasted trip."

The man called Old Gu pointed at the spot where the wood stump had originally been placed, where a piece of broken scrap had fallen on the ground: "May I take a look?"

The old man nodded. A piece of broken scrap — look if you want.

Old Gu picked up the wood, broke it a bit, then bit it with his teeth, and finally even put some in his mouth and chewed it.

In the end, with a complicated expression, he set the wood down on the ground and looked at the old man with a face full of sympathy.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" The old man was a bit puzzled. "Who told him not to buy last week? I said the stuff on my stall is very popular, but he didn't believe it himself."

Old Gu shook his head: "Old man, you sold that wood stump at a loss."

"Sold at a loss?" The old man scoffed. "If you say I sold at a loss, then I sold at a loss. Fine, if there's nothing else, get lost. Don't block my stall."

The middle-aged man beside him asked curiously: "Old Gu, what's the story? Good wood?"

Old Gu nodded: "Good wood, and it's golden Phoebe nanmu buried timber. By what you said, the diameter is around fifty centimeters — this is top-grade stuff, about five hundred per gram."

The man's eyes nearly popped out of his head. Of course he didn't doubt Old Gu's eye — the man was a Fudan archaeology professor, the kind who enjoyed a state stipend, with a sharp eye that couldn't possibly be wrong. He only regretted that last week he hadn't bought it because of the five thousand price tag, and now he felt regret.

The two men left, and the old man fell into self-doubt.

He instinctively didn't believe their words, thinking they were saying it on purpose to spite him — that kind of thing wasn't rare in the market.

But he also clung to the one-in-a-million chance.

"Huh, where are the people? I thought I just saw Professor Gu from Fudan. Old man, where are the people who were at your stall just now?"

At this moment a middle-aged man in his forties or fifties ran over, panting.

The old man's heart jolted, and he stared wide-eyed at him: "What did you say? That person just now was a professor from Fudan?"

The man nodded, puzzled: "Yes, Professor Gu from Fudan, a big shot in our country's archaeology circle, a top expert. What did he take a liking to on your stall?"

'Clang—!'

The old man toppled over headfirst, fainting from anger.

Fortunately his constitution wasn't bad — someone pressed his philtrum and he came back around.

The moment he woke up, he wailed to the heavens: "My golden Phoebe nanmu! Those heaven-cursed little rascals!"