Chapter 430: The Secret Collection of the Qing Dynasty
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
This auction was considered large as it contained 45 storage units. But the treasure hunters were not discussing the units. They were all talking about what had just happened.
“Those California guys were so unlucky. They had sh*t all over their bodies! But unfortunately I wasn’t there to see it.”
“I have so pictures here. F*ck, they were too miserable. It’s lucky you weren’t there. I felt disgusted just looking at them!”
“Oh, my poor California brothers. Why did I feel happy hearing this news?”
“You’re so bad, dude, but I couldn’t stop laughing either! Ha! It’s so funny!”
Li Du was listening the treasure hunters discussing the incident. Suddenly, soone touched his shoulder from behind.
He imdiately turned around. His gaze was clear and cold; he looked gloomy, thinking that soone was looking for trouble again.
Because of his Chinese identity and race, many treasure hunters liked to provoke him and bully him. Now, he had beco an extrely frightening person. So he imdiately turned around.
It was soone he was familiar with, soone who had the sa skin color as he: Zhang Kai.
“Hey, is sothing wrong?”
Zhang Kai was startled by his expression and eyes. He said cowardly, “Oh not… not… no, nothing. Ah, yes, I have sothing to tell you, sothing serious.”
Li Du understood Zhang Kai’s personality well. He was an honest and timid man like many other Chinese people who went abroad.
He patted Zhang Kai’s shoulder to comfort him, then he asked, “What’s so serious?”
Zhang Kai gave him a wink and whispered, “Follow .”
Li Du followed him to pass through the crowd until they arrived at a secluded place. The unpleasant sll of the feces, however, was everywhere because of the poor ventilation there.
Zhang Kai covered his nose. “The feces of the Aricans are more slly than of the Chinese. I was really unlucky. So more their pipes are actually aging. Sh*t, I’m really up to my neck.”
Li Du asked, “Why?”
“The Aricans always bully people,” Zhang Kai complained. “They leave all the difficult work like cleaning to and other East Asians while they only do the easy work.”
This was the reality. There was discrimination and oppression everywhere even though the United States advocated the spirit of equality with ideals such as “everyone is born equal.”
Li Du asked, “So this is what you wanted to tell ? Let think how could I help you—”
“No,” Zhang Kai shook his head. “It’s a more important matter. Co here and I’ll show you sothing.”
He took a picture out of his pocket. There were a few vases and plates in the picture, all of which were porcelain, white on top, colorfully painted with pine trees and bridges. They were beautiful.
Li Du was imdiately interested. “What’s this?”
Zhang Kai said refreshingly, “Have you heard the saying, ‘The secret collection of Qing court shined bright over the centuries?'”
Li Duo shook his head and asked, “Is it sothing related to Chinese porcelain and the imperial Qing Dynasty?”
Zhang Kai had a twinkle in his eye and nodded. “Yes, exactly, have you heard of famille before?
Li Du continued to shake his head. “I don’t know,” he said, embarrassed. “I just guessed from your words. Have you studied this stuff before?
Zhang Kai smiled. “Yes, I collected enaled vases for quite so ti before in China when I was rich, so I’ve seen and studied the famille rose before.
“This so-called famille rose uses overglaze decoration. It was a thod of decorating pottery, where the colored decoration is applied on top of the already-glazed surface, done in a special firing under a very high temperature of 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit.
“Famille rose was originally created during the Kangxi Emperor’s reign. The technique was based on our traditional Chinese overglaze enaling skill and it was combined with the western ceramic technique too…”
Li Du wasn’t familiar with these kinds of things so he listened to Zhang Kai quietly. However, once Zhang Kai started the topic, he spouted the story from the origin to the process. He even shared information on how to identify the enaled vases and so related legends.
Li Du noticed that the auction was about to start so he had to interrupt him. “Sorry, bro, perhaps we could continue in the afternoon as the auction is going to start soon.”
After listening to this, Zhang Kai slapped his face to apologize. “Oh I’m sorry. I just can’t stop talking—I could chat interminably.”
“It’s all right. Straight to the point.”
“Well, what I wanted to say is there are so things like these in the auction!” Zhang Kai said mysteriously.
Li Du was interested once again when he heard this. He said, “There are one of the vases you ntioned just now in the storage units? In a unit that you’re taking care of?”
Zhang Kai shook his head. “No. If all these were a storage unit that I’m taking care of, I would have told you yesterday. They were in another unit and I only learned about it today.”
He paused and continued, “I talked to one of my colleagues yesterday and he told there was sothing valuable in his unit when we talked about the storage auction.”
“The guy is a n*gger without any culture and knowledge. He just took a few photos with his phone. Most of them have no value at all but this photo is different.”
He shook the photos in his hand when he said this. “I think the subject in the photo is quite similar with the famille rose so I printed this photo to have a closer look. I think this is real because Aricans don’t really value this type of work so they wouldn’t need to create the false product.”
Li Du was not completely confident in what Zhang Kai was saying. He knew that there were no such antiques in the other units he had checked on yesterday.
The bug would have been attracted to any antiques yesterday if there had been any. However, he was unsure about this also because he still knew very little about the bug.
So Li Du asked, “So these things are in which unit now?”
Zhang Kai whispered, “Storage unit 44!
Li Du rubbed his chin. Unit 44? He had been impressed with this unit, he rembered, because the Warcraft motorcycle was in this storage.
However, he couldn’t rember coming across any porcelain while searching the units. Maybe he had been too careless: he had only roughly looked around in order to save his energy.
After he learned it was in storage unit 44, he said to Zhang Kai, “Okay, I’ll certainly get the bid. If the famille rose is really in unit 44, I’ll share one-third of the profit with you after I sell it.”
Zhang Kai asked, “One-third?”
Li Du thought he felt that this was too little money. He explained, “I’m cooperating with an Arican so I must share with him.”
Zhang Kai nodded quickly. “Yes, I understand. I ant that one-third is too much. I’d be satisfied even if you shared one-fifth of the profit with . The famille rose is very valuable!”
“Don’t worry,” Li Du said. “I’ll certainly share one-third of the profit with you. You just have to wait for the good news.”
Zhang Kai was nodding continuously. Seeing this, Li Du decided that the man really liked to nod and it seed as though he had very healthy cervical vertebra.
When they went back to the storage company, people had already started viewing the first unit. As there were too many people and units, in accordance with the old rules, a group of five people at a ti was given one minute to view.
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