Chapter 140: Eastern Garden, Warmth and Clarity

The sun was leaning west as the three of them walked along the flagstone path.

The atmosphere was somewhat quiet, and their moods were somewhat heavy.

Ye Anning kept her head lowered, silent and wordless.

She had never imagined that in such a large village, one could hardly see any men. And the reason they couldn't be seen wasn't because they were away working, but because they were in prison for crimes, or had fled because they were afraid of going to prison for their crimes?

She also knew that an ordinary person earned about a thousand a month, and if they could save eight or ten thousand a year, that was considered a high income.

But she had never known that for the sake of eight thousand yuan, people could be driven to their deaths, forcing two families to be torn apart and ruined.

Subconsciously, she remembered the words her uncle had said last night:

"One who has thunderous rage in his chest but a face as calm as a still lake can be entrusted with the rank of general. As the saying goes, those who are good at battle have no glorious achievements. With a personality like Lin Sicheng's, he can ascend to the clouds and descend into the mud.

Otherwise, it would be impossible for him to take only Gu Ming, who hasn't even grown his feathers yet and doesn't know a thing, and calmly and easily retrieve several large crates of national treasures from the hands of Grave Robbers and dealers of Cultural Relics. Why, these people are even still helping him look for more now?

Why don't the criminals view him as an outsider because of his keen eye, his extraordinary ability, or even his age and status? On the contrary, they feel like old friends at first sight, regretting not having met sooner? Because he understands, he knows, and crucially, he can integrate."

"Ye Anning, have you ever thought that Lin Sicheng knows exactly what your aunt is thinking, and even more so what you are thinking, yet he keeps playing the fool? Because going downward is called integration; going upward, that is called a barrier!"

"He is not afraid, but is weighing whether he has the ability to break through the obstacles, and how long it would take. If he cannot do it, or if it takes too long, then he would rather not hurt you..."

At the time, her aunt had scolded him, saying he was making a mountain out of a molehill. But her uncle only said one thing: "Follow him tomorrow and take a look, and you will understand!"

Ye Anning truly understood: for the sake of eight thousand yuan, one could drive a living, breathing life to death?

Or even cause two families to be ruined, or even worse, leave them without a place to be buried?

There are many such stories in History Books, and many have been portrayed on television; the war years were even more miserable than this. But when she saw it with her own eyes, feeling that unprecedented shock, Ye Anning finally understood what her uncle meant: class.

Formless and intangible, yet omnipresent.

So, in the eyes of ordinary people, the advantages she possesses are all strengths. But to Lin Sicheng, have they all become weaknesses?

To put it bluntly, with his abilities, how bad could his future possibly be? Why would he look for suffering when there is none, or look for trouble when there is none?

Perhaps he might even be misunderstood, or even have to endure grievances?

Thinking of this, the fact that he didn't run away as if he had seen a poisonous snake when he met her was already quite enough...

As she thought about this, Ye Anning's mood suddenly improved; she pursed her lips and the corners of her mouth curled up.

Gu Ming was still confused, thinking that Cousin Ye had a strong heart. Just a moment ago she looked so distressed, and after only a few steps, she actually had a smile?

Afterwards, he gave Lin Sicheng a wink.

Lin Sicheng remained indifferent, though he secretly gave Professor Wang a mental thumbs-up.

As for feelings, it is best to let them take their natural course. But Lin Sicheng truly couldn't spare the attention, let alone the energy and time.

And to be like-minded, to be able to tolerate and understand, and to keep understanding, is truly quite difficult.

If one considers it from this point, Ye Anning is truly quite suitable. Of course, the difficulty is not small, and he cannot spare the attention for now, let alone the time...

With these random thoughts, the few of them entered the main street. It was almost five o'clock; some were picking up their children, others were cooking, and the number of people on the street had decreased significantly.

Continuing forward, as they walked, an old woman huddled at the entrance of an alley, beckoning furtively: "Child, child, come here, come here..."

Looking closely, it was the same old woman who had asked for directions earlier.

Lin Sicheng walked over and stopped three steps away: "Old lady, what is the matter?"

The old woman looked him up and down, then looked at Ye Anning and Gu Ming behind him: "Child, you are here to look for a Treasure, right?"

Huh?

Lin Sicheng paused: "How does the old lady know?"

The old woman curled her lip: "Coming here to look for Tao Qizhi, what else could you be doing? He has plenty of things, but he was sentenced last year—eighteen years!"

Lin Sicheng remained calm: "And then?"

"There is no one left in his house, you definitely won't find anything. But child, my house has a Treasure too, really..." The old woman lowered her voice, "My child ran away, but the child's father got nine years!"

As expected?

Lin Sicheng stood stunned, not knowing what to say.

In this era, he was not surprised that people in this place were so blatant. This was a special era, a special period of development, which created a special social phenomenon.

Just like Lufeng Boshe Cun, which didn't fall until 2014.

He was moved by what the old woman was expressing: the longer the sentence, the more authentic the items!

Seeing Lin Sicheng not speaking, she thought he was suspicious, so the old woman tugged at his sleeve: "If you don't believe me, come with me and take a look; you'll know once you see the items..."

Lin Sicheng thought for a moment, then nodded.

The old woman beamed with joy and led the way, with the three of them following closely behind.

It was the second house in the alley, a small two-story brick building, where a woman in her thirties, slightly plump, was drying cowpeas in the courtyard.

Just as they entered the courtyard, the old woman latched the iron gate, and the woman paused, standing up.

"Go inside, go inside first, I'm going to get the things... Cuiqin, make some tea!"

The woman hurriedly agreed, invited the three into the house, and boiled some water; the old woman carried a Pottery Jar into the room.

Lin Sicheng glanced at it, his eyelids twitching slightly: Han Dynasty pottery?

At first glance, it was dirty and old, and even lopsided, but just by those few simple lacquer patterns on the body of the jar, one could conclude that it was dug out of an official tomb from the Han Dynasty.

There were many in existence, so the value was not high, only a hundred or eighty. But if one were to be strict, the person who dug it up would get a minimum of three years.

Then, the old woman tilted the jar, and with a "clatter," a full jar of copper coins poured out, covering the floor.

Lin Sicheng glanced again, stunned for a moment, then looked at the old woman.

The old woman was quite enthusiastic: "Child, why are you looking at me? Pick! It's not expensive, one hundred per coin!"

Lin Sicheng scanned them again: there were nearly three hundred copper coins on the floor, but less than one-fifth were real.

They were extremely mixed and chaotic; almost every type of Western Han Dynasty currency was there. The key was, the fakes were extremely realistic?

And the price was not low: there are many Five-Zhu coins from the two Han Dynasties in existence; even for Western Han Five-Zhu coins, ordinary ones are only fifty or sixty, and only those in good condition are a hundred or eighty.

And these on the floor, not to mention that very few were real, were only in average condition.

This was the old woman seeing he was young and wanting to slaughter him like a fat sheep.

But since he had already come?

Lin Sicheng sighed, gave a rough scan, and picked them out one by one.

Every time he picked one, the eyelids of the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law would twitch.

The real ones were collected from the village in the early years before the man went inside. The fake ones were what the son had been gradually bringing back from the outside over these years; basically two parts real to eight parts fake.

The real ones all had markings, extremely subtle, which the two women could naturally recognize, but outsiders rarely could. So, relying on this, they had managed to support themselves and the three grandchildren all these years.

It had been five or six years, and the real money in the jar had basically not decreased.

But now, this young man was picking one real one, then another real one?

The two women exchanged a glance, but didn't make a sound.

Real is real, one hundred each; it wasn't actually a loss.

After picking seven or eight, Lin Sicheng pointed: "Gu Ming, come, take a look, what is the difference between these eight?"

Gu Ming knitted his brows: To tell the truth, apart from the different colors, he really couldn't see any difference.

But having hung out with Lin Sicheng for so long, and hearing his godfather talk from time to time, he at least knew: the different colors were caused by being buried in different places at different depths, and had little to do with the copper coins themselves.

So, he really couldn't see what the difference was?

Seeing him not speak, Lin Sicheng pointed again: "Compare them with the others!"

Gu Ming curled his lip: How am I supposed to compare?

Lin Sicheng being able to pick them out separately meant these few were definitely real. Conversely, the remaining ones were basically all fake.

However, even laid out in two piles, he still couldn't distinguish what the difference was between the real and the fake.

Suddenly, Gu Ming widened his eyes, a clear light flashing in his pupils. Then, he muttered again: "Didn't I say, I'll never touch this trade again..."

Good to know!

Lin Sicheng nodded and took out his wallet: "Old lady, eight hundred, right?"

The old woman was stunned for a moment: "Right, right!"

She had just been thinking that if this young man bargained, she wouldn't sell them.

The old woman took the money and smiled, squinting her eyes: "The kid has a good eye, what does your family do?"

Lin Sicheng put away the copper coins: "My grandfather works in this trade, setting up a stall at Xiaodongmen!"

"Oh~"

No wonder?

Very young, but his eyes were truly sharp: it had been five or six years, and she had sold at least eight hundred to a thousand copper coins. But this was the first time she had encountered someone who, when faced with a pile of over two hundred, could pick out a real one, and then pick out another real one.

Not a single fake one, and he was fast too...

The old woman stared at Lin Sicheng, thought for a moment: "Kid, I have other treasures here, with characters on them, do you want them?"

With characters?

Lin Sicheng was taken aback, looked at the copper coins in his hand: "A tripod?"

The old woman was startled instead, twisting the corners of her eyes and curling her lip: "If it were a tripod, would the kid's father have only been sentenced to nine years? Life imprisonment wouldn't even cover it..."

"Oh, oh~" Lin Sicheng hurriedly smiled, "Then bring them out!"

"Alright, you sit!"

The old woman replied, and she and her daughter-in-law went out of the room.

Hearing the footsteps gradually fade away, Ye Anning lowered her voice: "Among those eight, is there a Five-Emperor Five-Grain coin?"

Lin Sicheng nodded: "Two, one Red-Edge Five-Grain, one Four-Corner Five-Grain!"

Ye Anning's eyes brightened.

After the Great Han Dynasty succeeded the Qin, because of years of war, most of the Qin Banliang coins were melted into weapons, leaving the common people with no money to use, and prices soared.

To stabilize social order, Liu Bang allowed private minting, which was the origin of the Commandery-State Five-Grain.

Later, during the reign of Emperor Jing, to strengthen centralized power, the minting right was reclaimed by the central government, which then led to the Rebellion of the Seven States.

Afterwards, it was not until the time of Emperor Wu that the minting right was completely reclaimed: the Zhong Yao (in charge of casting), Bian Tong (in charge of inspection), and Jun Shu (in charge of transport) offices were unified at Shanglin Park to manufacture Five-Grain coins, historically known as the "Shanglin Three Offices Five-Grain."

Among them, because of different periods and the different political significance endowed by major historical events, later generations have different names for them.

For example, the first batch of Red-Edge Five-Grain: the inner ring was bronze and the outer ring was pure copper, so the edges of the copper coins would show a unique reddish color, historically known as "Red-Edge" Five-Grain.

It was mainly to reclaim the minting right as quickly as possible and to popularize it among the people as quickly as possible, so the quality was extremely fine.

Later, in order to fight the Xiongnu, but because the country had no money and was even more short of copper, Emperor Wu of Han had no choice but to "harvest the leeks." So he minted money on a massive scale, and the quality became worse and worse, eventually developing to the point where the copper coin only had a thin outer ring of copper, while the inside was all iron.

He even came up with novel ideas, creating deer-skin currency and leather currency.

After the war was won, Emperor Wu very straightforwardly issued an edict of self-reproach, then recalled the bad money and minted good money. Then there were the "Shanglin Three Offices Four-Corner Five-Grain."

But not long after, he had to fight the Xiongnu again, and Emperor Wu had no choice but to repeat the old trick.

Like this, back and forth, just during the Western Han Dynasty of Emperor Wu, the number of Five-Grain coins minted was an astronomical figure, but there were not many exquisite ones. Like the first batch of Shanglin Three Offices, the Red-Edge Five-Grain, and the Four-Corner pattern, these were the cream of the crop.

A Red-Edge Five-Grain is worth about five or six thousand, and a Four-Corner pattern is worth twenty or thirty thousand each.

But for Ye Anning, she could at most recognize it as a Five-Emperor Five-Grain. But she really couldn't distinguish which specific kind from Emperor Wu's time it was.

The two copper coins added up to only thirty or forty thousand, which was not even worth mentioning compared to the boxes of national treasures Lin Sicheng had brought back yesterday.

But one has to marvel: unless he doesn't encounter them, as long as he encounters real things, picking up a bargain is as simple as eating and drinking for Lin Sicheng.

And ninety percent of people are like Gu Ming, even if you separate the real and the fake for them, they still can't tell the difference...

After whispering for a few sentences, nearly half an hour passed before the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law returned.

Each was holding an object, wrapped tightly in cloth. One could only tell that the one in the daughter-in-law's hand was very long, like a stick. The one in the mother-in-law's hand was very thick, like a box.

After putting them down, the old woman opened the long one first. Her voice was very low, mysterious: "Kid, you're lucky, you've encountered a real treasure!"

Lin Sicheng was noncommittal, but immediately, his eyes narrowed.

It is indeed a stick, but it has been whittled extremely neatly; the key is that it is also covered in writing.

It looks roughly like this:

This object is called a wooden *gu*. According to Zhang Binglin's *Qiu Shu: Confucianism and Legalism*: "Inscribed on bamboo and wood, wiped on a wooden *gu*." It is a bamboo or wooden slip used for recording and writing before paper became widespread in ancient times.

If you were to call this a bamboo slip, you wouldn't be wrong: it is made by whittling wood, and can have three, four, five, six, or seven edges, with writing on the edges.

They have been unearthed in various places, the most famous being the *Last Edict of Emperor Wu of Han* unearthed in Jiayuguan, Gansu.

But this one is definitely not that, because the things written on it are wrong. If you unfold it to look:

Soap-colored cap, face covering, ribbon and seal, clothing... is this a burial inventory?

To put it bluntly: it is a list of burial goods from an ancient funeral, and it is a burial inventory from the tomb of a high-ranking official.

Continuing to look down, Lin Sicheng's heart couldn't stop skipping a beat: jade mat, jade pillow, Jade Wenming...

What is a Jade Wenming?

*Book of Han: Biography of Huo Guang*: "When Guang passed away, the Emperor and the Empress Dowager personally attended Guang's funeral... bestowing gold, money, silk, cotton, one hundred embroidered quilts, fifty chests of clothing, pearls, jade, and a Gold Thread Jade Suit..."

"... one set each of the catalpa coffin, side chamber, and Huangtang Tizou, and fifteen outer burial chambers made of fir wood. The Eastern Garden Wenming, all according to the system of the imperial carriage..."

To put it simply: during the Qin and Han Dynasties, the users of Huangtang Tizou and Jade Wenming were limited to emperors and their wives and concubines, followed by favored ministers specially permitted by the emperor; even feudal lords did not have this qualification, which is why it says "bestowed."

And the Wenming is the box that covers the head area.

This definitely did not come from the tomb of an emperor or a Concubine, because the regulations of the items recorded in the inventory are wrong; it could only be a feudal lord or a high minister.

And there are records in the literature that those who were honored with an Eastern Garden Wenming during the two Han Dynasties can be counted on two hands.

Looking at the age characteristics, it is the typical loess plateau soil quality of the Northwest region, then narrowing the scope a bit: Xijing and its surroundings.

So, whose tomb was robbed?

Zhang Tang, Wei Qing, Huo Qubing, Huo Guang, or perhaps Princess Taiping?

Secretly suspicious, Lin Sicheng raised his head: "Old lady, where did this thing come from?"

"I don't know either, but the old man specifically instructed me when he went in: at least thirty thousand, don't sell it for less. He also warned me: if the person doesn't look right, absolutely do not take it out..."

Lin Sicheng was silent: then how was he deemed "right" by her?

Driving a car worth six or seven hundred thousand, dressed brightly, definitely not short of money.

Coming here to find Tao Qizhi, definitely here to hunt for items.

Eyes so sharp, and so young, definitely not a cop.

The key is, generous with money, quick and decisive.

"Fine, thirty thousand!"

Suddenly, the old woman beamed with joy.

Although she said that, in fact, quite a few people had seen this item; either they said the item wasn't right, or they said the price was too high.

This young man was the most straightforward of them all.

Selling a stick for thirty thousand—although it is from the Han Dynasty and covered in writing, it is at most an account book.

The key is, no one knows who the owner was. For those flipping antiques, thirty thousand is of course too high.

But standing from the perspective of historical research and archaeology, this stick is a bona fide First-Class Cultural Relic. Calling it a national treasure is no exaggeration.

Lin Sicheng paused again: he had said a bit too much these past few days; he felt the words "national treasure" were becoming a bit worthless?

Changing his mind secretly, he took out his card and handed it to Gu Ming, "Go help me withdraw the money!"

Gu Ming took the card and had just stood up when the old woman stopped him, pointing to the item beside it: "There is one more piece, you will definitely want it too, look at it and withdraw it all at once!"

As she spoke, she lifted the cloth on the outside again.

Layer after layer, it revealed a square box.

The exterior looks roughly like this, like a small house.

After standing it up, looking from the side that was opened, the interior looks like this:

After taking two looks, Lin Sicheng didn't know what to say: he was just thinking about a Jade Wenming, and this old woman had brought him a Jade Wenming?

If judged by regulations and grade, this item is one grade higher than a Gold Thread Jade Suit:

In the *Book of Han*, it is only seen once in the *Biography of Huo Guang*, and then another instance: *Beitang Shuchao, Rites Department 13* cites the *Rites and Ranks of the Jin Officials*, saying: "When Prince Anping Fu passed away, he was granted the secret vessel of the Eastern Garden Wenming."

There are zero instances in the *Book of the Later Han*.

There are several instances in the *Records of the Grand Historian*, such as Zhang Tang, Wei Qing, and Huo Qubing, but they were not introduced into the *Book of Han*, so their authenticity is questionable.

There have been unearthed ones, such as the Han tomb in Huchang, Hanjiang, Yangzhou, Jiangsu, with a lacquer cover.

The Wenming from the Sanjiaowei Han tomb in Tianchang, Anhui, is made of pine wood.

A jade one—this is the first.

From this, Lin Sicheng also knew where this item and the previous inventory were dug up from: beside Duling, the son of Zhang Tang, Grand Marshal during the reign of Emperor Xuan, Marquis of Fuping, Zhang Anshi.

In the Western Han Dynasty, this was a figure as famous as Huo Guang, but later generations rated him much, much higher than Huo Guang.

Lin Sicheng sighed: "How much?"

The old woman's eyes lit up: "One hundred and twenty thousand!"

Lin Sicheng didn't even frown: "Gu Ming, take this lady to transfer the money!"

Ye Anning wanted to say something but stopped.

Lin Sicheng shook his head: "It's fine!"