Chapter 42 He wasn't lying?

The morning mist had not yet dissipated, and the bluestone path was damp. Lin Sicheng huddled in the shadow of the crooked old locust tree.

Holding the rough porcelain bowl in my palm, the spicy aroma rose up, and my lips turned red from the heat.

Both sides were filled with diners like him, squatting in a row on the curb, slurping their soup loudly.

Xiao Yuzhu glanced at it, then glanced at it again. Then she took out her phone and quickly sent a text message:

Senior Sister Li, I saw Lin Sicheng at Xing Laosan's Spicy Soup restaurant near the north gate of the college.

Li Zhen replied almost instantly: I'll be there right away.

Okay.

Putting away her phone, Xiao Yuzhu pretended to queue, and in just four or five minutes, Li Zhen jogged to the restaurant entrance.

Well, we finally caught them?

Professor Shang asks her every day, and she doesn't know how to answer. She can't exactly tell her advisor: "Lin Sicheng promised to come see you after class, but then he stood her up?"

And it's been sitting there for three days?

She breathed a sigh of relief and followed the line to find Xiao Yuzhu.

"Senior sister, aren't you going to intercept him?"

"No rush, even prisoners get a good meal before they're beheaded!"

"That's right, what do you want?"

"Give me a beef patty, no soup!"

Xiao Yuzhu nodded: "I know!"

There are seats on the second floor, but what if Lin Sicheng runs away?

Li Zhen looked around and saw that Lin Sicheng was only holding a soup bowl and not a pancake. She then quickly ran to the porridge and pancake shop next door and ordered two baskets of steamed buns and three cups of soy milk.

...

Drinking soup alone wouldn't fill you up, but Xing Laosan's pancakes were too bland, so Lin Sicheng didn't order them.

As I put down the empty bowl, wondering whether to get two more roujiamo (Chinese hamburgers) or two more baskets of steamed buns, two figures blocked out the sun.

He subconsciously looked up: Xiao Yuzhu blinked, looking at him with a "let's see where you run this time" expression.

Li Zhen remained silent, gazing at him quietly with a gentle and serene expression.

Lin Sicheng's heart skipped a beat: Oh no.

He said he was going to see Professor Shang, but he completely forgot about it?

He chuckled awkwardly and stood up: "Senior Sister!"

Li Zhen tucked a strand of hair behind her ear: "Just drinking soup won't fill you up, will it? Here..."

Two baskets of meat buns and a cup of soy milk.

Lin Sicheng hesitated for a moment: This breakfast might be hard to digest?

Xiao Yuzhu laughed gleefully: "Now that you've eaten Senior Sister's buns, you can't stand her up again, can you?"

Why bring up something you shouldn't be talking about?

Lin Sicheng didn't say anything and took it.

Li Zhen inserted the straw and handed him the soy milk: "What classes do you have in the morning?"

Xiao Yuzhu shook her head and said, "Anyway, there are no main subjects. Even if there were, he wouldn't study properly!"

Lin Sicheng sighed, "Xiao Yuzhu, it's such a pity you weren't born before Liberation!"

Xiao Yuzhu changed her mind for a moment, then clenched her fist and punched him: "You're the traitor!"

Just like scratching an itch, Lin Sicheng didn't care at all. He looked at the sun that had just risen above the horizon and asked, "Professor Shang shouldn't be at work yet, right?"

"It's okay, she'll definitely be at work knowing you're coming!"

"I'll go to the classroom to put my bag down first!"

"Yes, perfect timing to drop off Ah Zhu, I'll go too!"

Lin Sicheng paused for a moment: "Um... Senior Sister Li, Professor Wang asked me to go to his office first after I arrive at the school!"

Which Professor Wang? The new Professor Wang?

That was the same excuse last time.

Li Zhen smiled gently: "It's alright, I'll wait for you outside the office. It just so happens that Professor Wang and Professor Shang are in the same building."

Lin Sicheng sighed helplessly: It seems there's no way to avoid it now.

Well, whether I stick my neck out or not, I'll get stabbed anyway.

"Senior sister, let's go!"

"good!"

Li Zhen nodded, and she and Xiao Yuzhu flanked him from the left and right, as if afraid he would run away.

Just as the three of them stepped out of the street, a Mercedes-Benz pulled up to the side of the road.

A large group of people got off the bus, six or seven in total, but Wang Qizhi was not among them.

Dan Wangshu pointed into the alley, and a group of people walked in. Ye Anning had just turned around when she stopped again.

He narrowed his eyes slightly, staring at the three people's backs: the boy in the middle looked a bit like the person who picked up the dog bowl yesterday.

Did I see it wrong?

As she was looking closely, Wang Huaizhi slapped her on the shoulder: "What are you looking at? Let's go!"

"oh……"

...

Once in the classroom, Lin Sicheng thought about it very seriously.

It's not that he can't refuse; if he really wanted to, he could come up with a whole bunch of excuses.

He was considering how to refuse Professor Shang's kind offer while still deepening his relationship with Professor Shang and Li Zhen.

What else?

Those twenty-odd Han tiles had been piled up for almost two weeks. When the machine arrived, we couldn't expect him to mold them one by one by himself, could we?

He doesn't know anyone right now, and he definitely can't let Xiao Yuzhu, this hard laborer, go, but if Senior Sister Li could spare some time to help out, wouldn't that be faster and better?

In addition, electric kilns and pottery pulling machines are far from enough; 3D scanning, projection modeling, far-infrared heating, and even air compression and electric grouting are also required.

For now, we can only borrow it from the school's ceramics lab, and Professor Shang is currently the deputy head of the ceramics group, so we definitely need her approval.

If that doesn't work, why not just buy one and build a small studio?

The thought had barely crossed his mind when Lin Sicheng sighed: With only a million or so yuan in his hands, let alone a studio, he'd be struggling to even buy a set of modeling equipment.

But it will have to be built sooner or later.

Because if you want to make money, and more money, you still have to rely on making porcelain.

In 2014, a large polychrome vase from the Qianlong period was auctioned at Skinner Auction House in the United States for US$25 million.

Before the jar was broken into seven or eight pieces, the investment company only spent 700,000 yuan to buy the porcelain shards.

Two years later, at the China Guardian Four Seasons Auction, a Qing Dynasty Yongzheng period blue and white porcelain Yuhuchun with a dragon and floral design and a rimmed top was sold.

This is even more typical: before it was pieced together, it was just a pile of broken porcelain, none of which was larger than a fist, and it was incomplete. After it was pieced together, it was only two-thirds of the original piece.

But it still sold for 5.4 million.

So how much money can you make by finding a bargain? And it all depends on luck. If you're unlucky, you might not find one even after three years.

There's no such concern with piecework porcelain.

It would be best to find a complete set of fragments, but if you can't, you can always piece together porcelain shards from the same period.

A single piece of Jun ware from the Song Dynasty would only fetch a few thousand yuan. Even if you pieced together a small item, it would still cost at least four or five hundred thousand yuan.

About half of the wealth that my grandfather accumulated for himself came from this kind of source.

But without his grandfather's status and prestige, he could forget about borrowing the lab; at most, he could only occasionally use it.

So, I still need to work hard to earn money. I don't need much; if I can earn five or six million by the time I graduate next year, I can roughly set up a studio.

If all else fails, then rely on your parents: you can't make yourself suffer when you don't have to.

Seeing him sitting there in a daze, Li Zhen didn't urge him. She slowly ate her beef patty, occasionally chatting with Xiao Yuzhu.

Just as he was finishing his meal, Lin Sicheng's phone vibrated. He answered it without thinking, and Wang Qizhi's voice came through: "Have you arrived at school yet?"

Li Zhen was suspicious: Lin Sicheng wasn't lying?