Chapter 178: Only I Can Use the Law Chapter 178 Zitan Wood

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Protagonist:

Chen Yi

The level of merchants' information networks varies.

The top tier, upon seeing Chen Yi and hearing the surname "Chen," immediately associates him with the Jiangning Chen Family, and they are also the most enthusiastic; describing them as "shamelessly muscling in" would not be unfair. The second tier, upon hearing the two words "Chen Yi," must first recall recent events in Jiangning before they can tentatively squeeze in and snatch up the last good spots. The third tier only associates him after getting close to the securities industry, having ties with the Chen Group, or seeing others' reactions; by the time they gather around, it's too late, so they simply stand far away.

Of course, there are also those who have no idea what happened, merely standing on tiptoe to watch the show. Such merchants belong to the final elimination and containment type.

Chen Yi's expression was calm as he categorized them and greeted them in order, missing no one, and occasionally he could even call out the other person's name.

This was an astonishing memory; many people he had only met once, or merely glanced at from afar at some gathering, but with an IQ of 130 or above, and using Intelligence Scrolls four or more times a day, never forgetting anything after seeing it once was a simple matter.

The human brain has a huge capacity, and the function of forgetting makes its capacity even greater. In fact, the brain does not simply forget things; it leaves behind a piece of information perhaps only a few bytes in size in the brain's memory area, and when you need it, it retrieves it from deeper storage. This way, it both improves the brain's operating efficiency and avoids needing ever-larger brain capacity. People often have this feeling: upon seeing an old friend they haven't seen in a long time, many memories suddenly surface in their mind. This is equivalent to the brain taking things from the hard drive and loading them into memory for use.

The role IQ plays in this regard is twofold: first, it increases the hard drive's response speed; second, it increases memory capacity. An ordinary face certainly won't be as impressive as an old friend, but if one has seen a photo or the actual person, after all, relevant information is stored.

The materials Chen Yi reads when using or not using scrolls, along with the information he thinks through and organizes, all help him constantly improve and deepen his brain's capabilities. The Saint Qiao Kingdom, with millions of years of development, never produced steam engines or computers, but instead cultivated and evolved a large number of mages. They are precisely the so-called favorites of the universe, with smarter minds, larger brain capacity, stronger logic and spatial thinking abilities...

On Earth, such people appear randomly—some receive education, while others can only accept fate in mediocrity.

If obtaining a scroll is like winning the lottery, then learning the physical skills passed down by the Holy Qiao People for millions of years is equivalent to finding a pirate's treasure.

Chen Yi moved skillfully through the crowd, like a veteran general who had seen many battles, ensuring no merchant felt their expression was wasted—which was actually a common mistake among young people.

A good merchant, when he is the center of attention, is like a veteran actor walking the red carpet: he must keep his image under the best media's flashlights, but cannot let an excited rookie reporter feel discriminated against. The best scenario is to let every reporter get the photo or information they want, making everyone feel valued—actors actually don't care if one or two reporters are disappointed, after all, they're used to it. Merchants cannot do this, because those surrounding him are all peers in the same industry, upstream and downstream suppliers and distributors, content providers and patent holders.

No one can be neglected.

Lu Fan was seeing Chen Yi's manner for the first time, and he was dumbfounded.

Some gentlemen who had nothing to do with it also praised Chen Yi's performance highly.

When student Chen extricated himself from the crowd, Lu Fan was already envious to the point of gnashing his teeth, and said with an embarrassed laugh: "I only now understand why so many people study finance."

"They are because of the Chen Family, not because of me," Chen Yi said with a smile, though his expression hardly changed.

He might be proud because of his family, but he doesn't care if people say he's riding on their coattails.

"I chose the wrong major," Lu Fan was still reminiscing about the scene just now.

Most of the people present came out of respect for Jiangning University's great name and the faces of several senior university leaders, and some were even alumni of the school. Such a group of people had little academic achievement, but they had seen countless academic talents; they had almost no interest in a PhD student like him, and some were too lazy to even be polite, treating him like a receptionist—whose family doesn't have a group of graduate students, a circle of PhD students?

If it weren't for their enthusiasm for Chen Yi, Lu Fan might have thought merchants were naturally like this, but now he understood that the legendary ability to handle all sides smoothly wasn't necessarily a truly smooth-sounding good word.

His expression changed again and again, and Chen Yi found it amusing, patting his shoulder and saying: "These people are either eyeing Jinsheng Securities' business, or the Chen Group's business, and some are even eyeing the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission's business. So, not every finance student has it this easy."

Lu Fan didn't quite understand what he said, shook his head, and laughed: "Thinking about the next 30 years, I'll have to deal with the residences of dead people and dead animals; I'm really unwilling."

"Looking at charts on a computer isn't that interesting either," Chen Yi said as he saw him gradually return to normal. "I'm preparing to invest in fossil excavation; maybe one day I'll ask you to help."

Lu Fan's eyes lit up, and he nodded repeatedly: "Indeed, you spent so much money buying fossils; you might as well dig them yourself. The Rehe Biota is still very rich, but in China, ownership issues are a bit troublesome..."

He began to think it over, and Chen Yi took the opportunity to leave.

Everyone was now satisfied and gradually returned to their normal wandering state, like wild animals that had lost sight of the protagonist.

Chen Yi followed the sunlight, browsing the antiques in the hall one by one. The first antique appraisal association organized by the school still had some appeal.

The Wenyi Hall had sufficient lighting. Just as required in the initial design, there was a large atrium with a radius of seven or eight meters right in the center of the first floor. Above the atrium were transparent glass and opaque steel plates, which could be switched at any time. Viewing things in the first-floor atrium from the second and third floors offered equally clear views, and was relatively comfortable.

The entire Wenyi Hall could accommodate around 1,000 people; if more spacious, holding a cocktail party for three or five hundred people would be no problem at all.

Now, where the sponsored dining tables should have been placed, about a hundred antiques of various sizes were displayed under semi-open glass covers: porcelain, calligraphy and paintings, jade and agate ornaments, and even Ming and Qing antique furniture... Chen Yi tore open a Perception Scroll to look, and found that the ages mostly matched the introductions. In that case, the cost was indeed not small.

"No wonder there are professional bodyguards up front."

Actually, this was different from ordinary public exhibitions; since there were no idlers around, the antiques could be touched directly, unlike museums or similar institutions where one could only look from afar and not play with them, losing much of the flavor.

Roughly calculating, the items for the third preparatory meeting currently at hand added up to over a hundred million, not inferior in value to ordinary exhibitions. The most valuable among them was a set of zitan wood large beds.

This was a large antique bed from the mid-Qing Dynasty, complete with mud boards, bed boards, bed skirts, bed surrounds, tooth boards, and top surrounds. The most impressive part was that hundreds of immortal cranes were carved inside and outside the bed surround, lifelike in the god-like lake water.

The power of zitan wood lay precisely here. If replaced with other types of hardwood, let alone carving hundreds of immortal cranes, even dozens would weaken the load-bearing capacity, and the difficulty would multiply.

"At least several million, right?"

Quite a few people were looking at it, and Chen Yi asked a friendly-looking trader beside him.

The other party seemed quite familiar with this, smiled and said: "I'm afraid it would be over ten million. A large bed with a top, bottom, and pillars uses at least 1.5 tons of material, and the finished net weight is seven or eight hundred kilograms. It's rare to use all solid material without any splicing traces. At 10,000 yuan per kilogram, that's already 8 million. I think it's worth 20,000 yuan per kilogram and up."

"Priced by weight?"

"It's not the era of standardization now, is it? If this bed has a provenance, the price would rise by another thirty or forty percent. If not, over ten million would suffice." The trader said with a laugh: "Spending over ten million to buy a bed to hide away is nothing; what's impressive is buying it back to sleep on yourself."

Chen Yi chuckled and asked: "Whose bed is it?"

The trader pointed to an old man drinking in the front hall and said: "Boss Huang of Hard Box Technology? He has quite a lot of Ming and Qing furniture. It's said he originally saved up to buy a coffin, but then bought more and more, and got into it."

Chen Yi rested his chin on his hand, giving the impression that he was appreciating the continuous carving art.

Actually, he was considering: if this zitan wood furniture were ground into paper pulp and made into paper, I wonder what level of scrolls could be made.

The highest-grade scroll paper he had seen was Level 10, but it definitely couldn't compare to zitan wood material.

Nodding to the trader, Chen Yi headed toward Boss Huang's direction.

"Is your zitan wood large bed for sale?" Chen Yi got straight to the point and asked while the other person was talking.

"Zitan furniture used for exhibition, I'm embarrassed..." Boss Huang had only said half before turning around, and seeing Chen Yi, he didn't change his words.

A zitan wood large bed like this, one in the world is one, there are absolutely no extras, and it will be hard to make another in the future. Premium small-leaf purple sandalwood comes from India, and that's what was used in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Large-leaf purple sandalwood still exists in the Madagascar Islands, but the price is only expensive, not cheap.

It takes eight or nine hundred years for one tree, and it might not even mature; it's not something used to send favors.

"I remember Boss Huang usually likes huanghuali. I have a large piece of material at my place; how about trading it for this?" Someone else interjected to compete, but the voice was somewhat crisp and pleasant.

Chen Yi looked over, and it was a long-haired beauty.

Straight-cut bangs, phoenix eyes, quite some classical Chinese features. What left a deep impression on people was her pair of jet-black beautiful pupils; no matter what she said, it seemed as if it could be imprinted in the heart.

Chen Yi slightly raised his chin and said: "You are?"

"Wu Jingjing, hello. I am the Overseas Chinese representative from Indonesia." The other party did not shake his hand, but that relaxed and carefree expression gave one the feeling of a spring breeze.

Around twenty years of age, exuding youthful vitality, yet with a mature mind, her charm was restrained yet full of flavor.

……(Unfinished, if you want to know what happens after this, please log in www. qidian. com, more chapters, support author, support genuine reading!)