Mysterious journey

The carriage slowly stopped in front of the Dolphin Antique Shop.

Garen jumped out of the car, gave money to the driver, and walked to the door of the antique store. The door was closed and it was unusually quiet inside.

He looked up at the store sign, raised his hand and started knocking on the door.

"Open the door old man!"

"I'm coming!"

The shop door creaked open from the inside. Old Man Geguo grabbed Garen, pulled him in, and quickly closed the door.

The store was extremely dark, with only a kerosene lamp placed on the table in front of the bookshelf. Under the faint yellow light, there was a small brown-red hourglass, with fine black sand inside slowly dripping down, making a rustling sound.

Garen slightly adjusted to the light in the store and glanced at the hourglass on the table.

"What is this? Your new good thing?"

The old man didn't speak, but slowly walked to the table and sat down. The light illuminated his face, which made him look extremely old and tired.

"This is a black hourglass given to me by a friend. It is used to measure time. It is said that one time it is turned upside down, it can measure a long time."

He stretched out his hand and shook the hourglass: "It's been two weeks since I got it, and only one-fifth of it has leaked out. Do you think it's slow?"

"It's indeed very slow." Garen frowned slightly, looking at the old man's increasingly older face, "What's wrong with you, old man? You haven't looked very good lately."

He found a stool and sat in front of the table. He turned on the kerosene lamp and the light suddenly became much brighter.

"Maybe he's sick." Old Man Geguo smiled, but he was no longer as obscene as before. "Tell me, why are you here? Normally you wouldn't run to me if you have nothing to do."

"Don't I respect the elderly? You are a lonely old man in his seventies or eighties staying here alone. Aren't I afraid that no one will take care of you?" Garen smiled, "By the way, where are your children? Where are your relatives? ?How come I’ve never seen it before?”

"Who knows?" the old man muttered, with a dazed look on his face, "Okay, don't talk about this, tell me about your business. Your kid will definitely not run to me if he is fine."

"You really understand me." Looking at the old man's expression, Garen knew that his children might be mentioning the old man's sadness, so he changed the subject. "When I came here, I wanted to ask you for advice on how to appraise antiques. Appraisal of antique jewelry. You must have opened an antique shop, so you should know something about it, right?"

"This is simple!" The old man sat up straight and glanced sideways at Garen. "It's just that." He stretched out his hand and spread it in front of Garen.

Snapped.

A stack of banknotes was slapped into the old man's hand.

His hands were still open.

Garen frowned, took out another thousand yuan and slapped it on the old man's hand.

"Old man, please look carefully, this is a stack of one thousand yuan!"

"I know it's a thousand yuan per stack, but the appraisal industry requires long-term accumulation and knowledge and experience. I have accumulated it for so long, so it's nothing to ask for your hard work, right?" Old Man Geguo collected it slowly. For two thousand yuan, he looked very happy. "It's only two thousand, which is a bargain for you kid."

"Then let me first introduce you to the way to appraise a person." The old man cleared his throat.

"The so-called identification actually refers to several aspects of effort. One, identifying authenticity. Two, judging the age. Three, judging the place of origin, and four, judging the value of the craftsmanship. Each of these four aspects requires a long time of understanding, learning and accumulation. Experience. Which side do you want to learn first?”

"Can we study together? I am very confident in myself."

"Study together?" The old man looked at Galen under the light, and suddenly he was startled again, his eyes seemed to be in a trance, "Study together, have confidence in yourself? It's a pity that you have no talent." His last sentence seemed to be murmuring.

After Garen's physical fitness improved, his hearing was good, and he vaguely heard the old man's whisper, but he didn't pay too much attention to it. Everyone has secrets, and it is their right not to be told by others.

"Can I learn to identify authenticity first?"

"No problem." The old man seemed to be interested. He opened his mouth, pulled out the drawer from under the table, took out a stack of white paper and two quills, then unscrewed the ink bottle on one side and dipped it in it. Dip.

"Appraisal of authenticity is actually the most difficult aspect to master in the appraisal industry. This actually depends on the accumulated experience and the time spent playing with antiques." He drew a circle on the paper with a cross inside.

"Do you know what this is?" he said, pointing to the shape.

"Don't know about a circular cross window?" Garen guessed as he looked at the graphics on the paper.

"This is a special mark of a master of jewelry craftsmanship during the Great Navigation. If you know the meaning of this mark, you can see the age, level, and category of this mark in subtle ways. Of course, if you don't understand, you will naturally Nothing can be seen."

Garen nodded thoughtfully: "You are trying to tell me that to identify authenticity, you must not only look at the manufacturing details of the object itself, but also combine it with the origin and history behind it, as well as some special background knowledge, in order to truly identify the authenticity. Fake?"

"Haha? Your mind is very flexible and your reaction is good." The old man was just about to say this key point, but Garen guessed it directly, and his expression was slightly surprised. "I'm also going to show you a high-quality imitation product. You can't tell the authenticity except for the markings. I'm going to give you a vivid example. I didn't expect you to react right away."

He paused, "Now that you know it, you should understand that to identify authentic and fake antiques, what you need is to understand the history, craftsmanship of different eras, famous masters, schools, categories. Famous allusions, manufacturing styles and Factory location, etc. Many times, by combining these things and looking at antique jewelry, we can draw more realistic conclusions.”

"So what I need to learn first is this background knowledge?" Garen nodded. "Are there any integrated books?"

"Yes, there is, but just reading the book is not very useful. You read it first, and then I will tell you about my own appraisal experience and special appraisal methods. Let's go step by step. There are many things that are not found in books. In the appraisal industry, In addition to vision, you also need to use smell, hearing, touch, and taste. So just having a theory is meaningless. But you should read the book first."

The old man rummaged around on the bookshelf and found a white-covered tome. “This is the history of jewelry.”

He flipped through it again and took out a thicker black-covered book, "This is an antique faction and its historical development."

Stack the two books together and push them in front of Garen.

"Take it back and read it. Come back to me after reading it."

Garen looked at the two tomes speechlessly, "When should I see these two books? One of them must have thousands of pages, right?"

"Don't be in a hurry, read it slowly, just finish it within a month." The old man waved his hand, "Okay, get out of here, I'm going to close the stall and go to bed."

Garen picked up the two books and said, "Then I'll leave first. I'll come back to you after reading them."

"Oh, by the way." The old man slapped his head, "Aren't you asking about the book from last time? Since you like that book so much, I'll give you a little gadget as a souvenir."

He reached out and fumbled around in his crotch, and finally pulled out a small pendant, which looked like an open book.

"Here you go." He threw it over.

Garen caught it and looked at it. The pendant was only the size of a thumbnail. It was made very delicately and was completely black. There was a strange dark red symbol in the center of the opened page.

"What's this?"

"It came with the book when I bought it, just keep it." The old man reached out and scratched his crotch again, it seemed a little itchy.

Garen felt a chill and quickly put the pendant into his trouser pocket, "I asked you where did you get this thing from? Are you disgusted? Okay, I'm leaving first."

"Go ahead, go ahead." The old man waved his hands and looked impatient.

After coming out of the antique shop, Garen waited for a carriage in front of the store for a while. No carriage passed by for more than ten minutes. The location of this place was not very good, and there were very few people coming by carriage. He had no choice but to hold the book and walk along the street to the intersection of Burnington Street.

When he reached the floor of his uncle's house, he raised his head and glanced at the window of his uncle's house, just in time to see Lombas quickly walk away from the window, leaving only the sash still shaking, as if he was deliberately avoiding him.

Gallon originally wanted to go up and see his uncle, but when he saw that Longbas was also at home, he suddenly lost interest. Ever since he had an unpleasant incident with Lombas last time, he felt upset when he saw this guy.

"This guy has been quite calm recently." Garen took a few steps forward while holding the book, when suddenly there was a rush of footsteps behind him.

"Brother Garen!" A clear girl's voice came from behind.

Garen turned around and saw a young girl with a red face running towards him.

The girl wore a thin white cotton coat with a waistband, and a pair of white water-brushed jeans that perfectly highlighted the tight curves of her buttocks and long legs. She only looked about thirteen or fourteen years old, and Xiong Ou had little development.

When the girl ran over, she was greeted with a light girlish body fragrance, and her short reddish hair gave her a refreshing and energetic feeling.

"Brother Garon, you've passed by here, why don't you come up and sit down?" The girl was none other than my uncle's other daughter, Filia. Unlike Longbas, Filia has always been very enthusiastic about Garen. Perhaps this is because Garen used to particularly like to play with children.

"I didn't see Filia here." Garen smiled and reached out to pinch the girl's little nose. "Why did you cut your hair?"

"I'm learning martial arts now." The girl made a basic gesture.

"Where's uncle?"

"We are entertaining guests at home. They talk about complicated and troublesome things. It's boring anyway. Brother Jialong, can you come up and play with me?" Filia Candle Jialong shook his arm.

"Forget it, uncle is talking about things at home, so I won't disturb him."

"Also, Dad heard that you were accepted as a disciple by Master Baiyun, and he was very unhappy about it." Filia lowered her voice. "Dad said that I don't want you to waste time learning martial arts. A little self-defense is enough, but it won't be enough to devote all your energy to it. That's a waste of time."

Garen frowned: "I thought uncle would be very happy."