"Haha, Brother Zhuang, we haven't seen each other for just a day, don't you think you don't recognize me as your brother?"
The man who walked out of the door laughed loudly, but this man was Song Jun who bought Zhuang Rui's Wang Shizhen manuscript yesterday.
Zhuang Rui was stunned for a moment, and felt relieved. Apart from anything else, just as a shareholder of Tiandu Hotel, it is reasonable to own a villa here, not to mention that although Song Jun spoke
He is close to her, but he has an aura that is calm and powerful. He must have other identities that he doesn't know about.
"Dachuan brought me here, and I didn't say that I came to see you, Brother Song, but we are unwelcome guests. I want you to treat me to dinner today..."
Zhuang Rui said jokingly that although he was born in the Taira family, due to his mother's upbringing, he has always been neither humble nor overbearing towards others. Maybe there are classes in this society, but this is definitely not reflected in Zhuang Rui.
Song Jun was stunned for a moment after hearing this. It seemed that no one had spoken to him in this tone for a long time. It felt a bit novel. He couldn't help but patted Zhuang Rui's shoulder affectionately, hugged him and walked towards the villa. As he walked, he said:
"Okay, let's go to Tiandu today. You can order abalone and lobster as you like. I saw that your face turned green yesterday. My brother asked you to get back what you spent yesterday. That's alright."
"Hey, Brother Song, just lend us your car. I'll treat you to a meal. Do you think so..."
Liu Chuan followed behind and said carefully.
"You brat, what a big deal. You've been with me for more than half a month. Okay, for Brother Zhuang's sake, I'll give you the car today. MD, I haven't driven it a few times.
, you kid, don’t fall apart for me, and if I’m not satisfied with the Tibetan Mastiff you found for me, I won’t give you a penny…”
Song Jun turned his head and looked at Liu Chuan who said fiercely, but with a smile on his face. It was obvious that he was not really angry. Zhuang Rui also understood. It turned out that the old customer Liu Chuan was talking about was actually the one in front of him.
Bit.
It’s easy to understand why I didn’t accept this. On the way here, I saw a few villas with ferocious wolf dogs tied up in the yards. When I saw strangers walking in, the way they looked with their bared teeth and slit mouths was very disturbing.
It is intimidating to people, and those thieves will probably stay away from it when they see it.
In fact, Zhuang Rui didn't know that in such a tightly guarded villa area, keeping these gadgets is not entirely to prevent theft, but more to reflect a status symbol. In some private luxury villas in big cities,
Some people even keep large carnivores such as panthers and crocodiles.
After entering the villa, Zhuang Rui couldn't help but his eyes lit up. It was not that the decoration inside was so luxurious, but that it was very unique. Facing the door, there was a huge mahogany screen about two meters high, divided into twelve leaves.
, carved with dragons and phoenixes, which effectively isolates the room from the outside world.
Going around the screen, Zhuang Rui discovered that the area of the hall was about fifty or sixty square meters, and the surrounding walls were covered with a kind of purple wood, and exuded a light fragrance.
, making people feel calmer without even realizing it.
The furnishings in the hall are also very simple. They are all old-fashioned antique furniture. The reason why they are called antique is because these furniture seem to lack the atmosphere that has been settled by time. If you look carefully, you can see that they are recently made.
Yes, there is no trace of modern electrical appliances in the entire hall. As soon as he entered, Zhuang Rui felt as if time and space had changed, as if he had returned to the residence of the ancients hundreds of years ago.
Zhuang Rui looked intently at a square red sandalwood table next to him. Sure enough, it contained no aura at all. This also proved that although the materials used for these furniture were very precious, they were made in modern times.
"Brother, how is my place? Isn't it more ancient than the private room in the tea room? I spent a lot of thought on these red sandalwood furniture."
There was a hint of pride in Song Jun's tone. When he bought this villa, he spent about 20 million RMB, but the money he spent just on decoration has now reached 30 million RMB, and it is almost
Part of the money was spent on these red sandalwoods. These were top-grade big-leaf red sandalwoods that he personally purchased in Southeast Asia. These red sandalwoods have become extinct in many places. Song Jun spent a lot of effort to build them.
I bought the goods from some people at a high price, and then hired skilled carpenters to build them.
"Brother Song is such a generous person. There must be no other room like yours in the whole country."
Zhuang Rui's compliment came from the bottom of his heart. He estimated that these rosewood furniture alone would be worth several million, but he didn't know that he still underestimated the value of these items.
Red sandalwood is a kind of hardwood that grows one inch per century. There are very few mature red sandalwood trees in the world. A Chinese rosewood table made during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty in the 18th century was sold at the Sotheby's auction house in the United States in 1994.
At the auction, it was sold for a sky-high price of more than 35 million US dollars. The so-called "inch of gold" is not an exaggeration. Its value is far beyond Zhuang Rui's imagination. Even if it is not an antique from the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the price is
It is extremely expensive and not within the reach of ordinary people.
The wood of red sandalwood is hard and heavy, and it will sink when it is exposed to water. The utensils made from it will show a natural dark brown without painting. In addition, the place of origin is remote, and it is extremely difficult to make wood. Therefore, it has been praised as the "King of Woods" in the past dynasties.
In the dynasties before the Han Dynasty, even the royal family only had a very small number of small chess sets, scrolls, song boards, small stands, etc. that used few materials.
It was not until Zhu Di, the founder of the Ming Dynasty, came to the throne that in order to promote the prestige of the Chinese dynasty, he sent the eunuch Zheng He to lead a fleet to the Western Ocean. He also loaded a ship full of tea, silk and other gifts, and gave them to the countries he visited along the way. When he returned, due to the movement of the goods,
If it is empty, the hull will be much lighter. Because it is afraid that it will not be able to withstand the wind and waves at sea, a ballast tank will be needed.
Zheng He and others discovered that purple wood in some countries was very solid and heavy, so they ordered people to cut down this wood for ballast. After returning home, some royal nobles began to use these "ballast wood" to make furniture. Later, people discovered that this kind of wood was used as ballast wood.
The wood is strong and hard, not afraid of water and insect-proof, so it became more and more popular, and then large-scale logging began.
In fact, there was originally red sandalwood in the Guangdong and Guangxi regions of our country, but because of its scarcity, it was quickly exhausted. After that, the Ming Dynasty emperor sent people to Nanyang to purchase it. According to data records: "By the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, all over the world
Most of the red sandalwood produced will be brought to China and stored in Guangzhou and Beijing. It was over-harvested in the Ming Dynasty and had not been revived in the Qing Dynasty, so the source was exhausted."
In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, Qianlong also sent people to Nanyang to purchase sandalwood, but most of the red sandalwood trees were too thick to hold and had not yet become useful, so they had to give up. Therefore, the red sandalwood materials used by the Qing Dynasty royal family to make furniture were all from the Ming Dynasty royal family.
Inventory. Later, sandalwood was in short supply to the point where it had to be purchased from private traders at high prices. According to the unwritten rules at that time, no matter what level of officials saw red sandalwood, they would never let it go. They would buy it all and hand it over to the royal weaving organization.
, From then on, privately stored wood was also plundered. After Cixi’s 60th birthday and Emperor Guangxu’s wedding, there was not much wood left in the imperial reserve. In the end, it was all used up by Yuan Shikai, who was restored to the throne.
Before the Qing Dynasty, Europeans and Americans had always believed that red sandalwood was not made from large materials and could only be used to make small utensils. Even in the early Qing Dynasty, Western missionaries came to China in large numbers and were amazed when they saw the many large red sandalwood objects. They then realized that the elite red sandalwood elites were all in Beijing.
So I bought it from many parties and shipped it back to my country. Due to the inconvenience of communication, the whole piece was difficult to transport, so I only bought the patterned components such as cabinet doors and box surfaces, and installed wooden frames of other materials for decoration. Now in the hands of some foreign collectors, many
There are some red sandalwood items from that time.
Moreover, making red sandalwood furniture is quite time-consuming. If you want to make a particularly elegant red sandalwood handicraft, each piece must be made by hand. A large piece of furniture often requires more than a dozen craftsmen to spend seven or eight years to complete. But like this hall
The objects in it are not too big, and the production process is not particularly complicated.
There is a saying in the red sandalwood production technique of "one chiseling, two carvings, and seven polishings." Polishing alone takes up seven-tenths of the entire production process, and the tools used for polishing are also quite unique. They are first coated with wax, and then
Rub it repeatedly with grass and fine gauze until it is as bright as brocade.
When Zhuang Rui first entered the house, he judged the age of these red sandalwoods based on their newness. Little did he know that the well-maintained Ming and Qing red sandalwood furniture looked as good as the newly made red sandalwood in appearance.
"Hahaha...Brother, you are flattering me by saying this. Compared to the Red Sandalwood King, I can't handle these things."
Song Jun was very happy when he heard this, but he waved his hands repeatedly, not daring to be praised by Zhuang Rui. The "Red Sandalwood King" he called was the director of the China Red Sandalwood Museum and the richest woman in China, Ms. Chen Lihua, who is worth more than 5 billion. Song
Jun once had the honor to enter the red sandalwood warehouse collected by Chen Lihua and saw with his own eyes the thousands of exquisite red sandalwood tables, beds, cases and tables. He also knew that these items alone were far from those of Chen Lihua.
It was after Song Jun saw the red sandalwood collected by Ms. Chen Lihua that he took the idea to make his living room look like this, because red sandalwood also has a magical effect of nourishing people. If it is exposed to it for a long time, it will have a great impact on the body.
It is beneficial. For example, when Chen Lihua was making red sandalwood furniture, the yellow teeth of some craftsmen she hired became extremely white. An old craftsman in his 70s actually had his hair turn from white to black, and the red sandalwood was instantly rendered with
A hint of mystery.
"Mumu, let me tell you, Old Man Lu and the others have never been to this place. I told Brother Song yesterday that you were coming, and he agreed right away. You're quite a proud guy..."
Although Liu Chuan is young, he is cheerful and has the same temperament as Song Jun. That's why he was able to enter this villa. In the entire Pengcheng, there are definitely no more than ten people who have been to Song Jun's villa.
"Okay, we are all brothers, what are you talking about? Liu Chuan, when did you behave in front of me?"
Song Jun waved his hand, interrupted Liu Chuan's words, and took Zhuang Rui to introduce the red sandalwood furniture in the room, but he didn't know that Zhuang Rui's mind was not here at all.
"Brother Song, I heard Mr. Lu say that your favorite thing is calligraphy and painting. You must have acquired many fine works over the years. Can you open my eyes to this little brother..."
After more than half an hour, Zhuang Rui patiently listened to Song Jun's explanation, and then asked, this is obviously Song Jun's residence in Pengcheng. Zhuang Rui will not enter Baoshan and return empty-handed.
He had this idea in mind when he first met Song Jun.
After Song Jun heard this, there was a trace of embarrassment on his face, and he said: "Brother Zhuang, it's true that I like calligraphy and painting antiques, and I have indeed collected a lot of fine works in this area. It's just that these objects are except for the manuscript you made yesterday.
Besides, now I am not in Pengcheng, but at my grandfather's residence in Beijing. That old man took away all the treasures I collected, and the whole family is in ruins..."
Song Jun seemed to get angry when he mentioned his grandfather, and there was a deep sense of resentment in his tone. Zhuang Rui next to him naturally didn't know that the disrespectful old man in Song Jun's words was a powerful man on the battlefield back then.
The old general, even now, is a person who can make the imperial city shake with just one stamp of his feet.
"But brother Zhuang, don't be disappointed. When you have time to go to the capital one day, I will take you to where grandpa lives to see. At least those things are more than half of mine. I will still give you this face."
Song Jun saw the disappointed look on Zhuang Rui's face and hurriedly said, but he didn't know whether the unreasonable grandfather would give him this face. As the saying goes, it's a generational kiss, and his father met the old man.
It's like a mouse meets a cat, and the old man kissed her, but he also took all the treasures he had collected for many years as his own.
"Sure, as Brother Song said, I will definitely pay you a visit someday..."
Zhuang Rui's words were definitely not polite. For the sake of the aura in his eyes, he would also find a time to visit Song Jun when he was in the capital.
"Okay, you two, don't be upset, Mu Mu, I said I would give you a surprise yesterday, and now I will take you to see it."
Liu Chuan sat on the red sandalwood hardwood stool, which felt far less comfortable than sitting on the sofa. He had long been impatient. When he saw that Song Jun had finished introducing Liu Chuan, he quickly pulled Zhuang Rui and walked out the door.
