There are a total of seventeen urban areas in Zhongyuan Province, and the jade carving competition is also divided into seventeen regions.
Starting from March 3rd, the preliminary round of the competition started with great vigor across the province. It is said that the provincial leaders also attach great importance to this competition. At the opening ceremony of the preliminary round of the competition, a provincial party committee leader even came in person.
Speeches were delivered on the field, and then the first and second leaders from various cities and towns below also came forward one after another, pushing the competition to the top. The whole situation was like a burning flame, which burned the entire Central Plains Province in just the blink of an eye.
Got up.
Chen Ran didn't know how popular it was outside, but the popularity in the Jade Sculpture School could be felt even by Chen Ran who didn't leave home. Walking in the Jade Sculpture School, almost every student he met at random was talking about the competition.
things, especially in Yuyuan Building.
For the students participating in the competition, it gives people a feeling of facing the college entrance examination, nervous and looking forward to it. In other words, this jade carving competition is more like an avenue of stars. If they can get a
If you get a good ranking, your value will double immediately. Obviously, this is like an opportunity to jump over the dragon's door.
Everyone is crazy for such an opportunity... As the preliminary round comes to a grand conclusion, this atmosphere becomes more and more obvious.
Chen Ran cherishes this opportunity, but he is not crazy. The outside is choppy, but he remains calm.
According to his plan, before the competition started, he was going to practice the eight-sword wave-splitting technique to the point where one blow would leave two marks, but now he encountered a bottleneck.
This is also the first bottleneck of the Eight Swords Wave Dividing Sword Technique. If you cannot break through, you will have to stop here for the rest of your life. But if you can break through, it will be equivalent to taking the first step in the Eight Swords Wave Dividing Sword Technique.
Eight swords divide the waves. One sword strike leaves eight traces, while one sword strike leaves one mark. It is undoubtedly the simplest. So obviously changing from one to two is a very important step. Now Chen Ran has already used the knife to divide the waves.
I am extremely proficient in practicing the method, but when I try to break through this step, I always fail.
After practicing for two days without making any progress, and seeing that the competition was coming, he could only give up temporarily and instead listened to the cram school teacher's lessons for two days. He said that he had listened to the lessons for two days, but in fact he spent most of the time there.
Reading by himself in Yuyuan Building, he gained a lot in these two days.
In addition to reading almost half of Yuyuanlou's books, he also has some understanding of the students participating in the cram school. After all, these students may become his competitors in the future.
There are more than thirty people in the cram school. Although there are not many people, there are various forces involved. Almost every student participating in the competition is supported by a big force. Most of them are newcomers trained by various jewelry companies or jade carving workshops.
Not only that, there are even many children from jade carving families.
The children of these jade carving families all have ancestral jade carving skills and jade carving experience passed down from their ancestors. There is no doubt that all of them are superb carvers. The whole cram school can be said to be a hidden dragon and a crouching tiger. It also made Chen Ran understand the so-called jade carving competition.
Although it is just a newcomer competition, it is actually a competition between major forces.
With the conclusion of the preliminary round, the selection competition for the competition has finally begun. Compared with the preliminary round, the selection competition will undoubtedly be more sensational and more intense.
Early that morning, Chen Ran rushed towards the Jade Sculpture School. He participated in the competition as a student of the Jade Sculpture School. During the selection, he had to follow the leading teacher. Yesterday, the school had notified the location and time of the selection competition.
Some rules.
When Chen Ran rushed outside the cram school, although it was not yet eight o'clock, there were already hundreds of people downstairs, all of them neatly dressed. Not only the contestants, but also many jewelry companies and jadeware were present.
company people.
After Chen Ran arrived at the place, he glanced at it and walked towards a little man standing in the corner.
"Ah Han, you came so early!"
Chen Ran walked up to the dwarf and said hello to the dwarf. The dwarf looked to be about seventeen or eighteen years old. He had a tiger-like appearance and gave people a very honest and honest feeling.
The dwarf didn't have a name, so his name was Ah Han. When Chen Ran went to attend classes, there was only an empty seat next to Ah Han, so the two became tablemates. Moreover, Ah Han, like him, didn't often attend classes.
I always go to Yuyuan Building to read. While reading, although the two of them don't speak, they sit together in perfect harmony every time.
Ah Han stretched out his hand to touch his head and smiled naively at Chen Ran.
Chen Ran nodded and stood quietly in this corner. Just standing here, he heard someone greeting him. When he looked up, he saw that it was Fatty Luo.
Fatty Luo panted and ran to Chen Ran, glanced at Ah Han, and then looked at Chen Ran with a smile: "Brother Chen, how are the preparations going? Are you sure?"
Chen Ran smiled noncommittally. This morning was just a written test in the literary test. With his super memory, the written test was naturally a breeze.
"Haha, just have confidence!"
Although Chen Ran didn't answer him, from Chen Ran's look, Fatty Luo could tell that Chen Ran was very confident. But to be honest, he didn't know Chen Ran very well. In his mind, which family did Chen Ran belong to?
Young Master just wants to play with carving jade.
Such things are not uncommon, so he is actually not optimistic about Chen Ran. Of course, on the surface, he naturally wants to support him.
"Ahan!" After saying hello to Chen Ran, Fatty Luo looked at Ahan with a hint of joking on his face: "Ahan, you are going to take the exam too. What do you want me to say?
Forget about automatically abstaining from the competition. You didn't pass the written test at school, so to participate in the competition with just your basic skills is to discredit our school. I don't know how the school managed to allow you to participate!"
Chen Ran frowned slightly, but didn't say anything. What Fatty Luo said was true. Although he was new here, he had heard about Ah Han. Ah Han had been in school for four years, and he was always at the bottom in every exam.
, it’s okay to be at the bottom, the key is that the score in the written test was extremely low.
Fatty Luo's words were a bit harsh, but Ah Han was not angry. He just touched his head and smiled honestly.
"Forget it, I'm too lazy to talk to you!" Fatty Luo looked a little upset when he saw Ah Han's stupid look. He glanced at Chen Ran and saw that Chen Ran was looking in one direction, so he turned around and looked too.
There were more than thirty students participating in the competition, but almost all of them were here at this time. Except for Chen Ran and Ah Han, almost every other student was surrounded by some people, and among them there was one student who stood out the most.
This student is a young man of about twenty years old. The young man is wearing a black suit. The thick eyebrows on his face are raised rebelliously. Under his long and slightly curled eyelashes, he always gives people a bad smile.
His beautiful eyes, especially the dazzling diamond earrings on his left ear, add a touch of unrulyness to his sunny handsomeness...
Of course, this is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that this young man stepped into the field and immediately became the focus of the audience.
Both other students and people from various companies immediately gathered around him. The students all greeted him cordially. After saying hello, they did not leave but just chatted and laughed with the young people. People from various companies became even more enthusiastic.
, both apologizing and giving business cards.
"Brother Chen, you should know who this is, right?" Fatty Luo curled his lips with some disdain, but his face was full of envy and jealousy.
Chen Ran shook his head. He had never seen this person before.
Seeing Chen Ran shaking his head, Fatty Luo was immediately stunned, and then looked at Chen Ran with a surprised look on his face, as if you are the eldest son of some family, and you don't even know this eldest son, who are you kidding?
.
Fatty Luo was obviously a person who couldn't hold back his words. Chen Ran shook his head to express that he didn't know him, which gave him a topic. Soon he told Chen Ran everything about this person's origins.
In ancient times, whether it was jade carvers or other craftsmen, when they taught skills, most of them were undoubtedly passed down from family to family. This was also the reason why many carving skills were lost, but not all carving skills were passed down.
All have been lost, and some families have slowly passed it down like this. Master Miao's family is actually like this, but Master Miao's family is a family of chefs.
The Lu family in the Central Plains is also a similar family, except that the Lu family is a jade-carving family.
The origins of the Lu family also come from the Qianlong period.
When it comes to jade, we have to talk about Qianlong. Qianlong loved jade very much. Most of the 30,000 jade items in the Palace Museum were collected by him. Qianlong named his son Yong Yan, who later became Emperor Jiaqing. Yan is the name of beautiful jade;
Yongyan's sixteen brothers were also named after jade articles, and Qianlong himself was called the Jade Madman by later generations.
During the Qianlong period, most of the jade carvings had large and heavy titles and neat and symmetrical shapes, creating a unique royal style and another peak in Chinese jade craftsmanship. It is said that Qianlong would have three or four palace jade carvers carve jade for him every day, and
The palace jade carvers of this period were called Qianlong Gong, and the jade wares were also called Qianlong Jade.
A lot of Qianlong jade has been handed down, but the jade carving skills of the palace jade carvers who created these works of art have mostly been lost. Of course, there are some that have been truly passed down, such as the Lu family in the Central Plains.
His family's jade carving skills have a unique royal style and are very popular among people.
And now the Lu family has a fifth-level jade carver in charge.
Lu Tianming was born into a family of jade carvers. At a young age, he was already a third-level jade carver. Even without looking at the family of jade carvers behind him, he was undoubtedly the target of major jewelry companies' efforts to woo him. What's more, there was a fifth-level jade carver behind him.
As for the jade-carving family where the master is in charge.
"This classmate is also a student participating in the competition, right? I'm Zhao Wuyong, this is my business card, please keep it!" Just after Fatty Luo finished speaking, a laughing young man gave Chen Ran a business card, and Chen Ran
After taking it, the young man gave the next student a business card.
"It looks like a small company at first glance, so don't worry about it!" Fatty Luo glanced at the young man and curled his lips in disdain.
Chen Ran was silent, looked up, and found that this young man had given business cards to almost all the students present, but most of the students took one look at them and threw them away. Soon after, many companies sent business cards to Chen Ran.
Obviously, these companies are small companies with little strength. Everyone has a business card and it is completely a matter of luck.
"Okay, Brother Chen, I won't talk to you any more. I'm going to get busy. Let's talk again in the car later!" Fatty Luo greeted Chen Ran and left. According to him, he will also follow him this time.
When the team went to the exam site, he was considered one of the teachers leading the team, but in Chen Ran's opinion, Fatty Luo was actually doing logistical errands.
Not long after Fatty Luo left, he ran over again out of breath, smiled at Chen Ran, and looked at Ah Han: "Ah Han, come and help me move something!"
Ah Han was stunned for a moment, then smiled honestly, and followed behind Fatty Luo.
Chen Ran frowned again. Fatty Luo was obviously bullying Ah Han for his good temper. He thought so, but he couldn't say anything.
Soon the time came to half past eight, which was the time for everyone to set off.
When the time came, the teachers who led the team also showed up. They first greeted people from various companies, chatted for a while, and then set off. Those with cars took their own cars, and those without cars took the school shuttle bus.
In this way, a group of vehicles rushed towards the Zhongdu Branch of the Jade Association...
