Chapter 77: The First Batch of Antiques

Chapter 77: Chapter 77: The First Batch of Antiques

Zhang Yun was greatly startled, but on the surface, he revealed nothing.

Waiting until the Spiritual Qi was fully absorbed, his hand moved past as usual. Pretending to have missed it on his first glance, he picked the item back up.

It was an inkstone. It had only been dusted off, not washed, leaving a grayish-white surface where ink marks were faintly visible.

"Great-grandfather was quite the literati!" Zhang Yun praised.

Having seen these household items many times before, Zhang Ronghui had no need to pay them any mind. His entire focus was on Zhang Yun’s demeanor.

He hadn’t noticed Zhang Yun’s subtle change in expression just now, but seeing Zhang Yun’s hand move past only to return to the very first item made him wonder if it had some special origin.

"Probably not. Our village has never produced a Scholar. The literary vein here is weak! It wasn’t until your generation that anyone even tested into college," Zhang Ronghui said with a slight sigh.

Zhang Yun put the inkstone down. "Then maybe it was used by a teacher or an accountant in the past. It would be great if there were writing brushes or ledgers to go with it."

"Brushes, ledgers... they’d all be rotten by now." Zhang Ronghui was noncommittal. This was a rural ancestral home, not a scholarly family estate; how could such things be perfectly preserved?

Zhang Yun smiled faintly. "It doesn’t matter if they’re rotten. If we gather a full set, we can spin a story. We aren’t exactly from a famous place, so who knows what the situation was like in the past? Just like how I don’t know Great-grandfather’s history—whatever you say goes, Uncle Hui."

Zhang Ronghui patted him on the shoulder. "You’re really something! You sure know how to do business. How did that comedy sketch go? A splinter of wood can be touted as a toothpick used by the Empress Dowager, hahaha... Let me look!"

Thinking this approach was feasible, he immediately started rummaging through the box.

Zhang Yun also noticed that the items displayed on the cabinets and shelves were the ones Zhang Ronghui considered more valuable and better preserved. The broken, worthless pieces had simply been stuffed into the box.

While the man was rummaging, Zhang Yun touched the rest of the displayed items. He absorbed some Energy, but the largest amount by far had come from the inkstone.

"Come see if these have... haha, the potential for a story." Zhang Ronghui laid everything out.

Zhang Yun stepped closer. There were a few bowls and basins, but they were so shattered that only halves remained. There were also a few tattered, incomplete texts, though it was impossible to tell if they were books or ledgers.

"Haha, these are just too battered. If you claimed Zhu Chongba started his empire with one of these begging bowls, no one would believe it."

Zhang Yun picked them up one by one, passing on all of them. None possessed any Energy.

He then inspected the texts. Damp, rotten, bug-eaten, and rat-bitten, they were completely beyond recognition. He couldn’t even tell what they originally were, which explained why they had been tossed into the discard pile.

But when he touched the final book, Zhang Yun felt a surge of Spiritual Qi suck directly into his hand!

This time, it was an absolute torrent, far stronger than the inkstone!

This was an Ancient Artifact!

It was just a text, and a severely mutilated one at that. The material obviously wasn’t anything special, which meant the value lay within the book itself, or perhaps it was an item once belonging to a great Confucian scholar possessing immense Energy.

Zhang Ronghui had kept his eyes glued to Zhang Yun’s face. Seeing him put every other item down quickly and only linger on the final text, he hurriedly asked, "How about this one?"

Zhang Yun sighed. "I don’t know much, but I feel like this should be a book with some background. It’s just a pity that it’s too dilapidated."

Zhang Ronghui smiled bitterly. If he grabbed it with even a little force, he was afraid it would crumble to pieces. It really would be hard to even spin a story out of it.

"It’s fine, I’ll take them all. I’ll make up a good story and see if I can get them off my hands."

Zhang Ronghui sounded disappointed. "You only fancy the inkstone and this thing?"

He hadn’t sold his collection yet, partly because he didn’t lack money, but also because he thought they might be worth a fortune. Yet Zhang Yun had looked through everything and seemed thoroughly unimpressed.

Zhang Yun thought for a moment. "Uncle Hui, do you have a target price in mind?"

"For these few?" Zhang Ronghui grew even more disappointed. Asking him to name a price meant Zhang Yun didn’t want to pay much, right?

He had safely stored these items for so long, so naturally, he wasn’t willing to sell them for cheap. The reason he enthusiastically sought out Zhang Yun today was that the young man had just struck it rich and could afford a good price.

"You were the first to come to me, and you even warned me about how deep the antique waters are. I’m very touched. If I browse for half a day and only buy one or two pieces, does that look right? Of course, I want everything!

"All, half, or just a portion—anything works. Give me your target price, and as long as I can accept it, I absolutely won’t haggle."

These words made Zhang Ronghui feel very comfortable. Giving his first client such a big discount and sheer convenience meant the initiative was entirely in his hands.

"They are old items, after all. If I really sold them all, I’d be quite reluctant to part with them since I won’t be able to get them back.

"But since I called you here, it wouldn’t be right to refuse to sell," Zhang Ronghui said with a sigh, glancing around the room. "Let’s do half, then. You can take your pick, regardless of size. One more or one less doesn’t matter."

If Zhang Yun managed to sell them for a high price, he would definitely come back to buy the other half at a premium. Even if he couldn’t sell them, Zhang Ronghui could just keep this half for the future.

Zhang Yun nodded. "Name your price."

Zhang Ronghui had been hoping Zhang Yun would discover a true treasure hidden among the pile and actively offer a sky-high price. But based on how things just played out, there wasn’t a single thing that caught the young man’s eye.

Asking Zhang Yun to bundle them now was essentially doing his first customer a favor. He didn’t dare ask for too much, but he wasn’t willing to go too low, either. After hesitating for a moment, he stated a number.

"Fifty thousand... what do you think?"

He noticed Zhang Yun’s expression shift. It seemed the items weren’t worth that price...

Half the collection was only a dozen or twenty pieces. Zhang Ronghui had once shown them to those peddlers who traveled from village to village collecting antiques, and they refused to offer even a few dozen yuan per item. His current asking price averaged over two thousand each.

"Or... ten thousand?"

Zhang Yun genuinely felt they weren’t worth that much money. The only things he was willing to pay for were the inkstone and the book. The inkstone might fetch a small price, but the book was so mutilated it was utterly unsellable.

This was essentially just compensation; buying the rest was merely a cover for those two items.

Zhang Yun chuckled inwardly. He hadn’t even haggled yet, and Zhang Ronghui had slashed the price by eighty percent himself. It showed just how guilty the man felt! To put it bluntly, the village chief still wanted to take advantage of him!

However, he didn’t care. What he truly wanted was the Spiritual Energy; that was his biggest harvest. Collecting Ancient Artifacts was merely a cover, and buying more or less was just a way to recoup a bit of his costs.

"To be honest, fifty thousand is too exaggerated... but Uncle Hui, since you said ten thousand, I feel bad. How about this? I’ll give you twenty thousand. If I can sell them for a good price, I’ll give you a bit more back. How about that?"

Fifty thousand had been Zhang Ronghui’s probe; naturally, the higher, the better. Ten thousand was his absolute bottom line—any cheaper, and he would rather keep them.

Zhang Yun actively raising the offer to twenty thousand while promising to return a cut of the profits—even if it was just an empty promise—left Zhang Ronghui feeling very satisfied.

"Alright! Deal!" Zhang Ronghui pointed at the pile. "You pick them out. I’ll wrap them up later and haul them over to your house with the tricycle."

"Whatever, you decide." Zhang Yun didn’t care.

"Okay, these are too battered, so I definitely can’t include them. This book is also too mutilated to give you, and I’ll keep this inkstone to try and spin my own story. I’ll pick out the good ones for you!"

Zhang Ronghui’s generous words left Zhang Yun completely dumbfounded.

He wondered, "The only ones I actually wanted, you’re keeping for yourself?"