Chapter 434: Grand Finale (Part 1): Wu Sansheng Returns

Entering this tea house, I felt very unfamiliar at first, but walking inside and going upstairs, I realized my memory held a faint impression of it—I'd been here a few times before, also with Third Uncle and these gang-port bosses. Back then I was very young; I only remembered the room was often thick with cigarette smoke. The adults would play mahjong and laugh loudly, while my father brought me along to collect New Year's money from a few people before leaving.

Never in a thousand years would I have imagined that in the same place, with the same people, I would go through this again in such a guise.

The second floor of the tea house was a corridor with private rooms on both sides. But unlike the New Moon Hotel where we'd made a huge scene, the decor here was much shabbier—many of the partitions were made of bamboo, painted over so many times they had taken on an oily, bamboo color, withered yellow and faded white. The curtains, when you got close, smelled of cigarette smoke, as if they hadn't been changed in years. The old smoke residue couldn't be washed away.

Panzi led the way to the private room at the end of the corridor, lifted the curtain, and we entered. The room was quite spacious, but it contained only one redwood table placed squarely in the center, with six chairs on either side upholstered in silk cushions embroidered with coiled dragons. Behind them was a window overlooking the street below. I took a glance, thinking that if I was exposed later, I'd jump out of here to escape.

But as soon as I looked down, my heart sank. The street was packed with people—all the followers from the various gang ports had come along. Both sides of the road were lined with all kinds of cars. Anyone who didn't know better would think they were selling train tickets for the Spring Festival rush. If I jumped down, there was no way I could run away.

On the redwood table was a tea set. Xiao Hua stepped forward and removed five of the chairs, leaving only the one for me. The other five tables were pushed against the wall. Panzi immediately sat down and started smoking. I saw his hands trembling, and my heart tightened. I didn't know if he could hold on. I dared not ask, so I just touched the surface of the table, pretending to be nostalgic and thoughtful.

Xiuxiu began to brew gongfu tea for me. Her method was unusual: she untied her coiled bun, first washed her hairpin with tea, then used the hairpin to stir the tea leaves.

I watched her movements, praying she had washed her hair that morning, and noticed that the material of her hairpin was strange—like a light-colored jadeite, or perhaps some kind of bone. It was carved with extremely fine patterns; it must have had a story.

The brewed tea smelled like Biluochun to me, but at the same time, there was a familiar fragrance mixed in that I couldn't quite place. Taking a sip, the taste was excellent, with a calming effect.

I had been stunned by the scene at the tea house entrance just now. The whole experience had left me in a dazed state. Although my heartbeat wasn't racing and I wasn't very tense, all my senses were dulled and numb. It wasn't until I drank this tea that all the floating feelings snapped back into place. My thoughts began to clear, but then I started to get nervous.

When we entered, a large crowd had followed us in. Now they were all outside the curtains, apparently having gone to other private rooms. I couldn't hear a single word of conversation; everyone seemed to be waiting for something.

Maybe noticing my expression was off, Xiao Hua waved his hand to tell me not to worry. He himself whispered something to a few of his subordinates. When it came to the crucial points, he only used gestures, without even moving his lips.

I had no choice but to wait patiently, taking deep breaths to steady my mind. Xiuxiu pressed my hand to comfort me, but that only made me more anxious. If even Xiuxiu could see that I was unsettled, then surely everyone else could too. But I just couldn't control my anxiety.

Finally, after Xiao Hua finished talking to his men, he turned to deal with me. He pulled the curtain down and drew the blinds behind me. The whole room darkened. He leaned down and whispered in my ear, "Wang Baqiu didn't come. It seems he knows things have changed and is using the strategy of retreating in order to advance. But he definitely has eyes outside. If the situation turns unfavorable, he'll bring his people out. Since Wang Baqiu dares not show up, the others outside are restless too. The situation is bad for us. I think we have to prepare to play hardball."

"Then…" I was just about to ask him when he immediately made a "don't speak" gesture and showed me his phone.

On his phone screen was an unsent message. He was using this function as a notepad. The characters written were: "There are at least three people with extremely sharp ears in the next room. Even whispering is useless. The first half of what I just said was real; the rest was for them. Just play your part. We'll handle the rest."

I nodded. He instantly deleted the text on the screen, his fingers moving extremely fast. Then he gave Panzi a look.

Panzi's face was pale, but he nodded. Then he shouted, "Gentlemen, the Third Master requests you. Time to hand over the goods."

As soon as the words fell, the sounds of chairs scraping rose from all the other private rooms, a chaotic symphony. Moments later, the curtain was lifted, and all sorts of shady characters filed in one after another. Soon the tiny room was packed with people.

In the earlier chaos, I only had a vague impression of them. I had made the wrong assumption that the bosses would be the ones who looked the most vicious. Now, taking a closer look, they came in all shapes and sizes—tall, short, fat, thin, various ages—but they all looked extremely ordinary, unremarkable. Some of the older ones I did vaguely recognize; others were very young. Overall, even if I tried to deliberately remember them, it would be very hard. I recalled what Third Uncle had told me: "For those who work in the pits, no matter how ugly or deformed they look, it doesn't matter if you remember them at a glance for life. But for the salesmen who mix in the crowd, it's best to be the kind of face you see everywhere. It's easy to take things from the dead; the hardest thing is to take money from the living."

Xiao Hua's men moved the four chairs beside Panzi to the front. These were for the four major gang-port bosses. Third Uncle's system was very clear-cut, and it's necessary to introduce it here.

In Changsha, there exists a long-standing system for tomb raiding and fencing stolen goods. This system was established in the late Republic of China era. Why do I say that? If you go further back, there were certainly similar systems, but history was turbulent, and various systems were destroyed in the chaos, so we don't know what they were like. The current system is a legacy from the Republican period.

Antique dealing is divided into domestic collection and overseas smuggling. As the saying goes, "Antiques in times of peace." Only in a prosperous and peaceful era would people devote themselves to collecting antiques. But this old saying is one-sided; it only holds true in a closed world.

Initially, the Kangxi and Qianlong reigns were a great era of prosperity, but the Great Qing Dynasty closed its borders. The maritime ban started in the twelfth year of Shunzhi and was lifted in the twenty-third year of Kangxi. Then it was banned again in the fifty-sixth year of Kangxi, and after that, bans and lifts alternated like clappers. Although the overall time wasn't long, the control over maritime transport was very strict. During that period, the phenomenon of "antiques in times of peace" did appear, but due to the maritime ban and severe penalties, tomb raiding never reached rampant levels.

It was only after the Republic of China era that, on one hand, there was huge foreign demand, and on the other, domestic ports were opened while the government was preoccupied with its own affairs. That's when the peak of modern tomb raiding history arrived.

The market was huge, and there was no oversight—things got big.

The first system that formed was the smuggling system. At the source were the tomb raiders, followed by the "customers." These customers were antique connoisseurs who bought grave goods from the tomb raiders and then took them to be absorbed by the two big cities, Beiping and Shanghai—especially Beiping. In those days, most of the good stuff flowed overseas.

Later, after the founding of New China, customs inspections became increasingly strict, and overseas smuggling gradually receded. But the system had already formed. My grandfather's generation grew up in that era; they successfully survived until the Reform and Opening Up, so the system persisted. After the end of the special period, when smuggling activities began to appear along China's southern borders and coastlines, a huge amount of grave goods that had been stockpiled and hidden over the years began looking for an export route. Third Uncle was one of those people who used the older generation's system to revive the old trade and expand it.

Of course, in today's whole gang-port operation, domestic wealthy people and collectors have become formidable competitors to foreign smugglers. This is also why local antique trading markets are unprecedentedly prosperous.

This also explains Third Uncle's industrial connections in Changsha and Hangzhou, the Huo family and Xiao Hua's connections in Beijing (Beiping), and the various hidden purposes behind the marriage alliance between the Wu family and the Xie family.

From the overall structure, all of Third Uncle's gang ports in Changsha were responsible for two main businesses: one was digging up goods from the ground, and the other was distribution.

The gang ports that dug up goods were commonly called "Lama ports"; the distribution ports were called "Horse ports."

The system operated like this: People like Third Uncle were known as "Iron Chopsticks," the exploiters of the industry chain. They monopolized the best resources, including information about ancient tombs, knowledge of tomb exploration, and identification of grave goods.

These "Iron Chopsticks" would pass on the location and dynasty information of the ancient tombs they controlled to the "Lama ports" below—commonly known as "hiring lamas." Then the "Iron Chopsticks" would assign a "Chopstick Head," who took the information and led the hired lamas from the "Lama ports" to go into the ground and retrieve the goods. Panzi was a very famous "Chopstick Head" under Third Uncle.

At the same time, the Lama port would have familiar Horse ports waiting on the sidelines. As soon as the goods came out, before they had even "cooled down," the Horse port would have already contacted buyers and arranged routes, then would trade directly on the spot. As soon as the goods cooled, the Horse port would take them away. The entire tomb-raiding operation was then over.

This system was extremely fast. As long as you weren't caught in the act, only the Horse port would take the fall; the Iron Chopsticks and Lama ports would not be implicated in any way. This is why tomb-raiding activities never stop despite repeated bans. And for the Iron Chopsticks and Lama ports, there were as many Horse ports as they wanted. Let a few die, no big deal.

Third Uncle's distribution Horse ports were numerous. Those who came to this room were just the heads of the biggest heads. What Third Uncle feared most were the four Lama ports that did the actual digging. The ones who could sit on the chairs were those four people.