(Another chapter, two more chapters later)
The sky was completely dark, the temperature dropped, and the north wind howled! Even Qin Shi, who had once played with the Earth Master, felt a little uneasy in this dark and desolate wilderness!
The two of them were hungry. They took out the cake they had prepared and filled their stomachs. Now, they felt comfortable.
After packing up their belongings, Qin Shi carried a backpack weighing over 100 pounds while Brother Long carried over 200 pounds. They went down the mountain with the lanterns on.
Other than the traces left behind by the excavation, there was nothing left on the mountaintop. Even the physical packaging was packed away.
Brother Long had the habit of cleaning up the front and back, which was his experience on the battlefield. Qin Shi had the same habit. Back then, he despised those idiots who robbed tombs and left behind cigarette boxes and mineral water bottles!
Do you really think that the police are useless?
He didn't even leave behind the cigarette butts and the lit matchsticks. He took them all away!
Moreover, the cigarettes were the "Big Wild Goose Pagoda" that he bought in XX County. It was a famous cigarette in Xiqin, but it was not the best!
He bought a few more expensive Golden Monkeys and placed them in the car, planning to give them to others when he went back.
If you were to smoke a phoenix from the capital or an ancient pine from Yongcheng in Jiangnan, and then throw your cigarette butts and shells around, any smart person would know: The people who were digging things might have come from East China.
Many Tufuzi had fallen into such small details because of their carelessness!
It was easy to go up the mountain but difficult to go down the mountain. The two of them spent almost double the time to reach the parking place at the foot of the mountain.
The jeep was still there without any abnormalities.
He put the things in the back seat, got in the car, and ran!
After 8 pm, they drove to XX County and did not return to the city.
It had been five days since he had left the village. Qin Shi hated the current road conditions. He only had ten days of vacation, and he had to rush back!
Otherwise, in ten days, this round would be enough for him to go to Xichuan Province in the south. There were still treasures waiting for him there.
Even if the conditions were not suitable for this trip, it was still possible to check the situation.
Even if he didn't go to Xichuan, he would still need to go to the places he needed to investigate in the early stages if he went north over the Qinling Mountains.
And now, home!
Just as Qin Shi and his wife were looking for a place to stay in XX County, they began to get tired of their current job. This damn thing was just a rope around his neck!
Although the income of a buyer was quite good and it was considered free, to him, it was still limited!
"What I need is complete autonomy!”
……
The next day, they arrived at Yan City. On January 5th, 1980, at two o'clock in the afternoon, the two of them arrived at Nanyang, Henan Province.
They had agreed to go to Nanyang.
"Digging again?" Brother Long asked.
"No, I'm going to buy something."
Buy what?
Antiques. There was also Nanyang's most famous specialty, Nanyang Dushan Jade!
Nanyang in Henan Province was known as the Jade Capital of the Central Plains, and Nanyang Dushan Jade was one of the four famous jades of the Heavenly Dynasty. It was also known as Nanyang Jade!
Dushan jade had a bright color, fine texture, good clarity and luster, and high hardness. Laokeng's high-grade Nanyang Dushan jade was not inferior to high-quality jade.
As for antiques, there was an old saying decades later: Chinese antiques from Nanyang!
Nanyang had a long history, and there were as many antiques as stars in the sky. In his previous life, he had come to Nanyang with his partner to "explore the treasure" and had gained a lot!
It was the middle of the 1980s, and the locals of Nanyang had already started work. There were many grave robbers!
How many grave robbers were there in Nanyang in the 1980s and 1990s?
In his previous life, Qin Shi had dealt with many antique merchants in Nanyang. Many of them were ordinary farmers and knew the actual situation in the countryside very well.
These friends described the rampant grave robbing phenomenon near Nanyang as: Once the autumn harvest was over, the young and old men in the villages would gather in groups of three or five to call their friends or relatives to form teams. They would carry Luoyang shovels and tools to explore the caves in the wild.
They were like groups of groundhogs, digging everywhere.
Those big tombs that were spread by word of mouth and known to everyone were generally not dug up. The target was too big. However, using the Luoyang shovel to search for treasures was like doing farm work. He dared to do it openly during the day!
Digging graves and robbing tombs had become an indispensable job for many people. It was as common and natural as doing farm work.
In downtown N, in addition to the state-owned jade shops, jade vendors also appeared in the 1970s.
Moreover, from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s, almost all the private jade vendors and shops in the country were selling antiques! In Nanyang, it was almost 100%!
However, the phrase " Chinese antiques from Nanyang "”，In fact, there was a second meaning, which was that since the middle and late 1990s, Nanyang had become the largest antique production base in China.
In another ten years, the Nanyang Antique Market would be filled with real, fake, and half-real antiques!
They were also sold all over the country.
In the 21st century, unless one was an expert, most people who came to Nanyang to look for antiques would most likely end up buying fake ones.
At that time, the production of antique antiques was a group and specialized, such as: There were eight workshops and small factories in Y Village that cast bronze ware, but none of them were engaged in the process of making old ones.
Then how could the newly made bronze ware be "archaic"?
There was no need to rush!
Village B, which was eight miles away, was a professional village that studied bronze ware and old crafts. The "semi-finished products" of Village Y would be taken over by Village B.
Not only bronze, but also porcelain, calligraphy, jade, and many other things.
He had been to Nanyang dozens of times in his 10-year career of antiques, so he was very familiar with everything here.
……
The car drove to Nanyang Baihe Hotel, which was currently the best hotel in Nanyang. He seemed to remember that this hotel was renamed Nanyang Hotel in the 1990s.
He used the " certificate " of the Ministry of Water Resources to register and successfully checked into this old-fashioned hotel built in the early 1970s.
They chose the government hotel for safety. They would put a lot of things in the jeep and park them in the hotel parking lot without worrying about anyone's dirty hands.
Once she settled down, she dragged Brother Long to Taobao.
There were several state-owned jade shops near the street where the hotel was located. These were the sales departments of local jade processing factories.
He casually walked into a house. There were dozens of jade carvings of various sizes on the side. The small ones weighed seven to eight pounds, while the big ones weighed more than a hundred pounds!
Thirty years later, such a scene was rarely seen.
There were still a lot of jade mines in Dushan, so there were many large jade carvings. There was no need to talk about other small jade carvings. The production was very large and the price was cheap.
In another decade or so, when the jade mine was almost fully mined and the government introduced strict restrictions on mining, the price would soar.
"Brother Long, pick whatever you like!”
Long Zhixi wasn't interested.
"It's useless for me to buy it."
"Nonsense! I'm not asking you to use it! Couldn't you have bought a few bracelets for Auntie Qin and prepared two for your future girlfriend?”
Aunt Qin was Long Zhixi's mother, from the same family.
The two of them spoke in Mandarin, and Qin Shi even had a hint of a Beijing accent, making Brother Long sound like a blockhead.
Upon hearing the smell, a salesperson walked over.
"My two comrades, what do you need to buy?”It was a female salesperson in her thirties.
Qin Shi looked at the various jade articles on the long counter and said,"
"Hello, we are from the Ministry of Water Resources. We are staying at the White River Hotel opposite. I saw that you only put one in this old pit transparent sky blue bracelet. Do you have a better one?”
As he spoke, he even showed his identification.
There were many things in the jade shop, but they were not as exquisite as the ones 20 years later. Nowadays, Dushan Jade's jade carvings were generally a little rough and not very eye-catching, except for those bracelets whose carvings were almost negligible.
The translucent sky-blue bracelet on the counter size a little big, with an inner diameter of about four fingers. It was probably prepared for a big lady, and Qin Shi did not need it.
"Yes, please wait a moment."
"Bring more."
"How much do you want?" When the salesperson heard this, she knew that this was a big customer.
"At least ten pairs. The higher the grade, the better!”
The Old Keng Water Blue Bracelet he mentioned was the top quality of Nanyang Dushan Jade. After 30 years, a single one would be worth at least five digits.
Moreover, this was also a jargon.
He didn't buy the bracelet to add value, but to give it away. This type of Dushan jade bracelet was really beautiful! Although it was said to be translucent blue, it was actually a transparent dark green color that made people happy at first glance!
There was a desire that one could see at a glance, and it was easy to not be able to pull it out!
The salesperson brought over a big bag. When she opened it, it was a simple rectangular red paper bag with the price written on it.
Once he opened it, he found a pair in each packet. The bracelets were tied with red thread and half secured in the red paper packet.
"Comrade, these are the best twelve pairs of bracelets in our shop at the moment. They are made from the same material and can only be seen twice a year.”
The salesperson was not bragging. The green color was deep and transparent. They were all traditional cylindrical jade bracelets. There were big and small size, but the difference was not big.
This meant that during the processing, it was not roughly cutting a cylinder from the raw stone and then cutting it apart section by section. Instead, it was conceived and reasonably selected.
Otherwise, the 12 bracelets would be the same size.
What was even more valuable was the six pairs of jade bracelets. The color difference and green distribution of each pair were extremely small. The pairing had been carefully selected and polished. The surface flashed with a beautiful glass luster.
This was a high-end jade bracelet that was similar to high-end jade but had a different taste.
Even Long Zhixi's attention was drawn over." These jade bracelets were too beautiful!
It was even rarer to come from the same material.
Good jade, as long as the size allowed, the first choice would be to use it to make a bracelet. This was the most cost-effective!
After a round of negotiations, he bought all six pairs of jade bracelets for a total of 800 yuan!
And this was the wholesale price. Otherwise, the price would be even higher!
The average Nanyang Dushan jade bracelet was only a few yuan each. He remembered that in the mid-90s, the price of Dushan jade bracelets had increased greatly. The most common mid-range goods were sold at a wholesale price of tens of yuan, and the retail price was already a few hundred yuan!
This was the case with new jade. The difference between the wholesale price and the retail price was very large. If there was not a price difference of several times or even ten times, the retail company would definitely not do this business. It was not that they were black-hearted, but they would lose money if they did not do so.
Jade articles were not cabbages, and they did not have business every day.
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