Chen Ke boarded the ship in Wuhan, Hubei Province, and the cargo ship had just left Hubei after a night's journey.

At this speed, it would take at least five or six days to travel through provinces such as Jiangxi, Anhui, and Jiangsu before finally arriving in Nanjing and taking a train to Shanghai. You can't just stay on a cargo ship for such a long time and do nothing.

Thinking about this, Chen Ke felt he should take this opportunity to prepare his "goods," since he would be a well-connected "antique dealer" in Shanghai.

Chen Ke opened the system and began to carefully select items.

Before long, a white-glazed porcelain plate caught his attention. Chen Ke had no knowledge of antiques, but this plate was very much to his liking.

After selecting this plate, Chen Ke thought for a moment and then used it to simulate a year's worth of time.

In addition to the officially listed years, the time for this incredibly realistic fake antique can also be manually entered. For example, if you want the antique to look like it's a month real, you can enter a month into the system, but it will still cost one gram of gold.

The fake burial goods that the puppet troops took away, although they were so realistic that they could be mistaken for real ones, lasted for about a month. However, Chen Ke almost used up all the gold ingots buried in the main tomb chamber, which shows the quantity of burial goods in the tomb chamber.

Judging from the tomb structure and burial objects, the respectable tomb owner should have lived during the Song Dynasty.

The Song Dynasty was a very prosperous period in the history of traditional porcelain making, leaving behind many priceless porcelain pieces for posterity. However, due to the invasion of foreign powers and the subsequent war of aggression against China, far too many world-famous treasures were lost overseas.

In this life, Chen Ke's mission is to do his utmost to prevent these precious cultural relics from being smuggled out of the country.

For example, the white porcelain plate that Chen Ke is holding now has a lotus petal-shaped rim and is inlaid with a copper clasp. Its unique and exquisite design would be a rare work of art even in later generations.

Very good. Chen Ke carefully placed it on the table. Although it could only be a fake for a year, it was now a genuine "antique".

Later, Chen Ke selected a porcelain flat pot and a vase with tubular handles to print out, because he only had one suitcase with him and couldn't fit more printed items in it.

Besides, when doing business away from home, you can't bring all your goods with you; one or two items to showcase are enough.

Chen Ke had prepared the "goods," thinking that he would only be able to make business in places with many foreigners, such as Shanghai. However, he did not expect that he would make a profit as soon as the ship arrived in Hubei.

The cargo ship arrived in Hubei and entered a dock to rest for a while. The captain mainly transported cotton cloth for a merchant company, but he could also pick up some people along the way for extra income. Chen Ke got on the ship in this way.

As soon as they reached the shore, a blond, high-nosed foreigner in a tuxedo boarded the ship at the obsequious invitation of a portly middle-aged man.

"Manager Li, you're just going to send me back to Shanghai on this shabby ship?" the foreigner asked in broken Chinese with a strange accent.

The middle-aged man accompanying them wiped his sweat and kept apologizing, "Oh, Mr. Lauster, I'm so sorry, so sorry, I'm really sorry. We're in a hurry... We really can't find a suitable ship to Shanghai right now, but don't worry, I'll make sure you have a comfortable room."

"Hmph! No matter how you furnish this dilapidated ship, I won't be comfortable!" With that, the foreigner went into the cabin with a dissatisfied look on his face.

The boat captain, who had been standing to the side, also looked displeased, but Chen Ke completely understood him, since the "broken ship" that the foreigners kept talking about was the boat captain's most beloved possession.

The middle-aged man apologized to the boatman with a somewhat embarrassed expression, and then paid double the fare before the boatman reluctantly made room for the foreigner.

As luck would have it, it was right next to Chen Ke.

Chen Ke stood at the bow of the boat for a while to enjoy the breeze before going into his room, intending to rest.

However, the wooden planks in the cabin provided very poor sound insulation, and Chen Ke heard every word spoken by the foreigner and the middle-aged man.

Before long, Chen Ke not only learned about the two men's identities and backgrounds, but also their purpose in coming to Hubei from Shanghai.

It turned out that the foreigner named Lauster was the secretary to the general manager of a French trading company in China, while the middle-aged man he called Manager Li was the manager of the trading company.

Manager Li accompanied Lauster to Hubei because a traditional cloth shop there was on the verge of bankruptcy due to poor management caused by the influx of foreign cloth. Their general manager wanted to buy their stockpiled silk at a low price to resell back to France, but the shop owner was out of touch with reality and refused, saying that it was wishful thinking for them to buy their cloth at that price!

Lauters was furious because he hadn't handled things well, so he took it out on Manager Li, who was with him.

Manager Li worked at a foreign firm in a trading company. Even though he was treated as a punching bag with no dignity, he didn't dare to utter a sound and could only keep apologizing and appeasing the foreigner.

"I'm so angry! I've never been treated this badly in Shanghai. Everyone there treats me with utmost respect. I never imagined that someone would dare to be so rude to me in this remote and impoverished place!" The foreigner's Mandarin was broken, and he occasionally threw in a few French phrases.

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry, Mr. Lauters."

"It seems our allied forces haven't had enough influence over the inland regions. We should have just occupied the entire country back then, and let you—"

"Knock knock!" When Manager Li heard this, his face changed, but before he could say anything, Lauters' words were interrupted by the knocking on the door.

Lauters looked at Manager Li, "Who is it?"

Manager Li shook his head. "I'll go open the door and take a look."

Chen Ke's face was cold, and his eyes held an undisguised murderous intent. However, the moment the door opened, his expression immediately became gentle and harmless. Upon closer inspection, one could even discern some shrewd calculation. He gave the impression of a cunning and unscrupulous businessman trying to appear as a refined and cultured Confucian merchant.

Manager Li's first impression of Chen Ke was exactly like this. Moreover, the man in front of him was dressed in a suit and had gold-rimmed glasses, looking like a modern person who had just returned from studying abroad.

Manager Li spoke politely, "May I ask who you are looking for?"

"Oh, hello, my name is Chen Ke. I think I saw someone I know when I was at the bow of the ship, but I wasn't sure, so I came over to confirm." Chen Ke then deliberately added, "My acquaintance is French. If the person you were with just now wasn't French, I might have mistaken him for someone else."

"…This…" Manager Li began to hesitate, so he turned to Lauters and said, "Mr. Lauters, there is a gentleman here who says that you look like an old friend and would like to confirm."

Lauters walked over somewhat impatiently. "How could it be someone I know? I don't recognize this place at all—"

“Mr. Lauters, it really is you! What a pleasant surprise.” Lauters’ words came to an abrupt halt when Chen Ke called out his name precisely.