"Were you talking to me？"
Zhuang Rui stopped and looked at the person who had grabbed him, a bit bewildered. The guy was a young man, about twenty-something, skinny and slight, with small eyes that narrowed into slits when he smiled, almost invisible. He looked a bit like Liang Tian from the sitcom 'I Love My Family.'
This guy's clothing was particularly amusing, having a very comedic effect. He wore a somewhat bulky padded cotton pants on his lower body, but on top, over a white down jacket, he had put on a yellow Mandarin jacket with sleeves reaching the elbows. It was even the type with buttons under the armpits. However, on this man in front of him, he didn't look much like the Imperial Guards Zhuang Rui had seen on TV; instead, he looked more like a little eunuch in the imperial palace who emptied spittoons and fed horses.
"Brother, I've been watching you from the side for a long time. I can tell you're an expert, that's why I came to you. Are you interested in calligraphy and paintings？ Come take a look at my stall. They're all authentic works of famous artists. There's even a painting by Zheng Banqiao, which I don't normally take out..."
The horse-feeding eunuch acted like they were old friends, getting close to Zhuang Rui and speaking in a low voice. He started by showering Zhuang Rui with praise, but his small eyes were darting around everywhere, rolling and shifting — no matter how you looked at it, he seemed sneaky and suspicious.
"Oh？ Where is your stall？ If it's far, I won't go..."
Zhuang Rui asked noncommittally. If it wasn't within this market, he definitely wouldn't go. In today's society, especially in a place like this, it's a mix of all sorts of people, good and bad. If you're not careful, losing money is the least of your worries — losing your life has happened before.
Liu Chuan once told Zhuang Rui about something. Last year, a young man from the countryside set up a stall here, selling some rusty ancient coins. According to the young man, he had dug them out of the soil while farming. At first, he thought they were just scrap metal, but after hearing from villagers that people collected such things, he came to the Pengcheng antique market to try his luck. However, there were plenty of people selling coins in the market, and his coins weren't in good condition, so he spent a whole day without making any sales.
Just as the young man was about to pack up for the evening, an old gentleman crouched down by his stall and wouldn’t leave. This old gentleman had a sharp eye and recognized that the coins he was selling were genuine Warring States Qi knife coins, and among them, one was actually a six-character knife coin of the Qi type. The number of six-character knives in existence and unearthed has always been the rarest.
Everyone knows that the state of Qi corresponds to present-day Shandong. Mr. Zhu Huo, a former researcher at the Shandong Provincial Museum, once mentioned in his book 'New Classics of Ancient Coins' that a total of 4,950 Qi knife coins of various types had been unearthed across Shandong, but only 16 were six-character knives. This made the six-character knife coin incredibly precious, with a market price of at least 60,000 RMB per coin. Even so, many collectors who love ancient coins find them extremely hard to come by.
Although this six-character knife coin was somewhat damaged, its overall condition was still fairly good. Moreover, the old gentleman also discovered four five-character knife coins in relatively good condition. While five-character knives are more numerous, each can still sell for tens of thousands of yuan. The old gentleman was so excited he couldn't contain himself and started shouting. This shouting caused quite a stir and instantly created a sensation throughout the entire antique market.
You have to understand that the items sold by these scattered stallholders—putting it nicely, they’re modern crafts; putting it bluntly, they’re fakes and junk, specially meant to fool those who read a few books and come looking for bargains. This market had been open for years, and no one had ever heard of a single item on a scattered stall being worth over 50,000 yuan. Generally, larger transactions took place in the shops, where both the items traded and the amounts were kept confidential. So once the news of a six-character knife appearing at a stall spread, within minutes it swept through the entire market like the wind.
After shouting that out, the old gentleman realized he had slipped up and was of course filled with regret. That shout cost him a chance to snatch a bargain. But he had indeed been searching for a six-character knife coin for a long time and sincerely wanted to buy it. Meanwhile, the young man, having heard the onlookers' discussions, roughly understood the value of his coins. Since the six-character knife coin was not in great condition, its price was slightly lower. After some negotiation, the old gentleman ended up buying that six-character knife and four five-character knife coins for 90,000 yuan, and he immediately took the rural young man to the bank to withdraw the money for the transaction.
By all accounts, the story should have ended there. The old gentleman's slip cost him the chance to snatch a bargain, making him pay tens of thousands more. And most of the onlookers could only silently lament the rural young man's luck, making a windfall out of nowhere.
But in this market, there were plenty of people looking to get rich with ulterior motives. After discovering the value of those coins, several pairs of greedy eyes fixed on the two, and they followed to the bank under the guise of being curious onlookers.
After the transaction, the old gentleman hailed a taxi and left, making it impossible for those people to follow him. But the rural young man, now flush with a huge sum of money, lacked life experience. At the bank, it never occurred to him to open an account and deposit the cash. Instead, he excitedly left the bank carrying the money on him, giving those people their chance. They followed the rural young man to a sparsely populated area, made a move on him, and robbed all 90,000 yuan clean.
It was fortunate that the rural youth was tough; after being struck on the head and knocked unconscious, he was taken to the hospital by a kind passerby. He woke up after a craniotomy and identified the thugs who had been hanging around the antique market and had attacked him. Although the owed money was recovered, out of the 90,000 yuan, more than 30,000 had been squandered by the gang, and over 40,000 went to medical expenses. Those thugs were the type who lived solely for themselves without a care in the world and had no money at all, so naturally they couldn't bear the civil compensation for the youth's medical bills. Though they were eventually severely punished by the law, no one could make up for the rural youth's actual losses. You could say extreme joy begets sorrow.
After this incident, the antique market strengthened its management, added security, and cleared out the idle and disreputable characters. Merchants in the market became much more cautious about high-value transactions. However, no more rare finds like the previous year's discovery at a roadside stall occurred.
It was because of what had happened there that Zhuang Rui asked that question. These days, plenty of people are willing to take risks for money—you have to be on guard. He'd been unlucky enough to get robbed before the New Year; during this festive season, he didn't want to bring trouble on himself.
“Big brother, my stall is right over here. You walked right past it just now and didn't notice…”
The Horse-feeding Eunuch smiled obsequiously, hunched over, pointing to a stall on the path Zhuang Rui had come from.
Zhuang Rui breathed a sigh of relief. Hearing that the man's stall was right on the street he'd just walked down, he figured since he had to head back anyway, there was no harm in taking a look.
“Brother Xiong, bring out that piece of Zheng Banqiao’s calligraphy and let this big brother take a look at it…”
As the two walked up to that stall, the horse-feeding eunuch took a step ahead and shouted loudly at a man sitting behind a stall covered with red cloth.
Zhuang Rui caught a glimpse from the corner of his eye—that scrawny young man blinked rapidly as if sand had gotten into his eyes while shouting. He couldn’t help but smile bitterly to himself. Today he was really learning something new. Usually, he’d heard of medical shills and bar shills, but he never thought he’d run into an antique shill working a double act here too.