In 1998, I went to Henan to "hunt for antiques" with the last sum of money on my plate.
The person who was making the "Dragon Chair" went down to "roll the mud", which was a helpless move, because the shelf of the pot under me fell apart, and a few local rats who went to the ground were spotted by the people from the yamen, and finally ran in
If you enter a "cage (cell)", it's just like that house. Even the foundation has collapsed, and the house has become a dilapidated house.
I spent almost all my savings to plug the hole, and only then did I seal the mouths of those people and prevent myself from getting in.
I didn't dare to stay at the original place any longer, so I moved the market to the newly opened Antique Garden in Zhouqiao, Shanghai. But the people in this street all recognized money but not people. I, a fallen phoenix, was worse than a grass chicken.
As soon as they heard that something had happened to me, they all avoided me like the god of plague. All previous relationships were basically severed, and it seemed that my collapse was a certainty.
Finally, it was my grandfather who gave me the idea to go digging for soil in Henan. The old man’s name was Wang Yisheng. He used to be a country rat. He was also known as the “Rat King” back then, but he stopped doing it in the past two years.
In 1998, the Dragon King lost his temper, and many places across the country were flooded. The old man told me that the mudslides on the mountain and the rolling waves on the ground were all in the same group as tomb robbers, and they would definitely be able to find something good.
, as long as you have good eyesight, you will definitely gain something if you go down and look around.
It sounded reasonable to me, so I agreed. The old man knows my eyesight. He has been learning to identify antiquities since he was eight years old. After twenty years of training, he has become very good, so he is very confident that he will use it for retirement.
Tens of thousands of dollars were given to me, but before I left, I was specifically told that people nowadays are very sneaky, so let me show my talents and not be blind.
Also going to Henan with me is my hair boy Li Datong. His name sounds very grand, but he is short, thin and dark, and he looks like a monkey. He and I grew up together.
, his father used to be a clerk under the old man, but something happened later. It was said that he encountered a rice dumpling when he went to the field and his heart was ripped out. The person who died was supposed to be my grandfather, and he was the one who forced it.
He pulled my grandfather out of hell, but got in by himself.
Within two years, his mother ran away with someone. The old man felt sorry for him, so he raised him as if he were his own grandson. So I didn’t treat him as a buddy, in my heart he was my brother.
When we arrived in Henan, we realized that there is always a gap between imagination and reality. The so-called lines are like mountains apart. I used to just sit in the shop and look at it, but now I have to look for it in person to know how difficult it is. When we get there, we can see each other with both eyes.
I'm in the dark, I don't have any clues, I don't know where to start.
You can't do this openly, you can only sneak through the streets secretly, and if you sneak around too many times, people may think you are a thief. You can't fill the streets, villages, and villages with shouts of "collecting antiques."
"It's a receiver." In that case, it might have been put into the cage before the goods were received.
I am a rather impatient person. It has been almost a month since I was born and I am still not getting any results. When I get angry, I fall ill.
In fact, it’s because I’m too conceited and unwilling to be just a small businessman. With my eyesight, I could go to places like Panjiayuan, Ghost Market, etc. to do odd jobs or help people out, but
At that time, I just wanted to get some good stuff to shore up my market, but I ended up in this situation.
It is said that the authorities are blind to the beholder. In the end, the monkey couldn't help but persuade me: "I said Hutou, don't keep thinking about your shop. In my opinion, it will be closed. The worst is that our brothers will go to Panjiayuan."
Let’s set up a street stall. Isn’t this the time of reform and opening up? I heard that there are many foreign devils in Beijing. Let’s fool two of them every day. Isn’t it better than anything else?”
I felt very uncomfortable when I heard that, but I had to accept the reality, so I agreed that if we still couldn't find it in two days, we would go to Beijing. If I had known at that time, what happened next was because of my decision.
Well, I might leave on the same day.
The next day, we came to the antique market in Shangqiu, which is close to the old route of the Yellow River. We have long heard that there are a lot of collectors here, especially the Tang and Song Dynasty porcelains that are famous in China. We came here just to pick up missing pieces.
of.
But after wandering around for a long time, I didn't find anything that could warm my heart. I was extremely disappointed, so I was about to go back to the hotel. But then Monkey called me and asked me to go to the corner of the street to find him, saying that he was
There's something for me to see.
I couldn't help but be shocked. The monkey's eyesight is still good. Although he is a little unsure about big things, he can break almost all the ordinary things. If he calls me over, there must be something he can't eat accurately.
I hurried over, and when I got there, I found the monkey squatting in front of a person, studying something. When I got closer, I saw that he was holding a black jar in his hand, turning it over and over.
Seeing me coming, the monkey stood up and handed the jar in his hand to me and said: "Tiger head, look at what this is. Judging from the color, I guess it must be something from before the Tang Dynasty. Look at this thing, it's valuable."
No?"
In fact, I have already noticed that this is a piece of pottery. The reason why it is black is because there is a layer of something painted on it, but it does not look like paint. This thing may or may not be valuable, the key is to see which layer.
Washing off the black stuff to see what's inside is completely possible with today's technology, so this kind of business depends purely on luck.
I didn't take the jar, but looked at the squatting man. He was a thin middle-aged man, wearing a black jacket, with a loyal look on his face. But the more he looked like this, the more wary I became.
, the old man said it well, people nowadays are as smart as ghosts, and some people like to act like this to confuse people and make people relax their vigilance. But middle-aged people have always looked naive, I
Some are not sure what kind of person he is.
I asked him: "fellow, why is your jar black?"
The middle-aged man took two puffs of cigarette and replied in a sharp voice: "I don't know, it was like this when I got it back. Do you want it or not?"
I want to laugh a little in my heart. I am now 80% sure that this person’s background is not simple. Looking at his confident look, it seems that he already knew that I would ask that question. If any farmer from the corner is so shrewd, then what should we do?
How to mix.
I remained calm and said: "Fellow, to be honest, we are a little unsure about this thing. I guess no one will buy it even if you leave it here for ten days and a half. We can't just do it casually."
Just take something and treat it as an antique, right? If the merchant doesn't buy it, we can't do anything about it, so just tell me where this thing came from, which will give us an idea."
The middle-aged man was silent for a moment, knocked the pipe in his hand on the ground, and then said, "I picked this up from the Yellow River."
The Yellow River he was talking about was the old course of the Yellow River here. Now that the autumn tigers have passed, the water in the old course has probably dried up. However, there was a flood some time ago and it is normal for something to wash out. He said that this thing is
It's probably true that it came from the old path of the Yellow River, but I'm not sure whether he picked it up or how it got there.
At this time, I had some confidence in my heart. If I bought this thing for a low price, I would not lose money. But then I saw that the mouth of the jar was sealed, and there were three small eyes on it.
I couldn't help but feel a thump in my heart, and hurriedly said to the monkey: "Monkey, put down your things, let's go."
The monkey saw me leaving without saying a word, and knew that I had discovered something, so he quickly put down the jar and chased after me. He didn't dare to ask questions on the way, until he returned to the hotel, he finally couldn't help it anymore and asked why he was walking in such a hurry.
At this time, I was still not sure whether the jar was what I thought. After calling the old man to confirm my suspicion, I felt a little uneasy. I said to the monkey: "Monkey, we may have something wrong this time."
Trouble."
Monkey's experience was still not as good as mine. He couldn't figure it out at all, so he asked me what was going on. Then I told him that the middle-aged man just now might be a "dragon".
This Hunjiang Dragon is also one of the tomb robbers, but they are engaged in business in the two river basins. No one knows how many magical things existed in the two river basins in history, but the good things must have gone to the sea.
Naturally, some people will take up this idea. "Hunjianglong" and "Helicrawler" are both leaders in this industry. Their actions are secretive and difficult for outsiders to understand.
Moreover, those who work in the Hunjianglong industry are all very well-organized, and the person at the top is called the "big dragon head". I guess the middle-aged person is the "dragon tail", that is, the person at the bottom "Xiahaizi".
I said to the monkey, since there is a wandering dragon here, we can't stay any longer. We should quickly pack up and leave early tomorrow morning. In fact, I still have a layer of worry in my heart, but I didn't dare to tell the monkey. I just hope that this will happen.
We can get away with things like this.
We had an early rest after dinner that day. Monkey lived in the same room as me. We had been together since childhood, and we were both single, so there was no shame in sleeping together.
After the third watch, I felt like my body was terribly cold. It was a kind of coldness that penetrated into my bones, and it woke me up from the cold.
I opened my eyes and took a look, and suddenly my scalp felt like it was shaking. Beside our bed, a black figure stood there in a daze, motionless. Only then did I realize that the monkey next to me was trembling all over. It was obvious that
He had woken up a long time ago and discovered the black figure, but he was too frightened to say a word.
I didn’t know whether this black shadow was a human or a ghost, but I felt that I couldn’t stay here any longer, so I quietly leaned into the monkey’s ear and said one word, “Run.”
When the monkey saw that I was awake, he calmed down. This guy was also very brave. He suddenly turned over, grabbed a boiling water bottle on the bedside and threw it at the black figure.