Chen Xia and Gu Lin took the train and left Northeast China the next day.
The next stop is the capital.
At this time, you can't just go to the capital whenever you want, especially young couples, you must bring a letter of introduction, work permit, and marriage certificate.
Without these documents, you can't even buy a train ticket, and you won't be able to move around in the capital.
If two people live in the same room without a marriage certificate, I don’t say whether it is possible or not, but if you get caught, they will not joke with you. The Chaoyang aunties will teach you a lesson in minutes.
Fortunately, Chen Xia and Gu Lin both had all the necessary documents, and their clothes looked like those of overseas Chinese of that era, so they didn't encounter any difficulties along the way.
The saying "clothes make the man" is true in every era.
Chen Xia had been to the capital Peking many times in his previous life and was not unfamiliar with it, but this was Gu Lin's first time here, so needless to say, he was very excited.
As long as you are a Chinese, who doesn’t yearn for Tiananmen Square in Beijing?
The two of them had a great time traveling for a few days, walking around the square to the Forbidden City, from the Temple of Heaven to the Summer Palace, and the majestic Great Wall.
Chen Xia also went to Houhai specifically and took a photo with Gu Lin on the Yinding Bridge.
The little girl didn't know that Chen Xia and his wife in his previous life had also taken an identical photo on this bridge, in the same position. Someone was just missing that person in his previous life...
On the third day, Ying Yuanyue, Chen Zheng, Chen Jia and Chen Sheng arrived at the capital together.
This time, they came to Beijing with a letter of introduction and work permit from the Qingfeng branch of Yuezhou Pharmaceutical Company, under the pretext of buying medicine from Tongrentang.
His real purpose was to help Chen Xia purchase antiques and curios.
Chen Xia doesn't trust others, but he trusts this old man and his brothers.
Ying Yuanyue has a unique vision. Chen Zheng, Chen Jia and Chen Sheng have all served as soldiers and have a certain level of martial arts skills. This time they want to purchase a lot of antiques, and they are afraid that they will be targeted by some stubborn people under the imperial city, which will cause trouble.
If you have the opportunity to travel back to the early 1980s, going to the capital to collect antiques is something you absolutely cannot miss.
Of course, forget about it if you want to find a bargain. This is a century-old capital, right under the feet of the emperor. There are many hidden talents, so how could you have the chance to miss out?
But it doesn't matter if you don't find a bargain. Antiques are really cheap nowadays. A few dollars for a plate is the normal price, and there are dozens or hundreds of others. The most you can get is a few thousand.
Of course, it is much more expensive than the few dollars in Yuezhou. After all, Yuezhou is just a small city in the countryside. It cannot be compared with the capital, and the price is definitely much higher.
Many time-travel novels would write about buying courtyard houses in Shichahai and Gulou areas of the capital as investments, but Chen Xia had no such plans.
The main reason is that he has no connections. There are definitely scalpers, but the good courtyard houses in the capital are rarely sold, and the slums are not interesting at all.
Even if you buy a big house, it is magnificent and grand, but it is only separated from the Forbidden City by a moat, so what?
Could an ordinary person hold onto this kind of courtyard? The saying "the innocent man is guilty of possessing a treasure" applies to every era. So what if you're rich? In this world, money can never outweigh power.
Chen Xia didn't want to end up not making any money but offending someone else. It wasn't worth it just for a few houses. A few glass-type imperial green jade bracelets he casually took out weren't worth a siheyuan?
So Chen Xia’s goal was very clear, which was to get antiques.
As for the places with the most antiques, people usually go to Liulichang, Fuchang Street Market west of Tianqiao, Xuanwu Factory and other places. As for Panjiayuan, the "handicraft market" that later became famous, it had not yet appeared at that time.
As for collecting junk from ordinary people's homes? Chen Xia didn't have the time or the courage to do so.
Those places are the territories of the Buddhas, the tough guys, and the old guns. Is a outsider looking for death?
A reader might be wondering, didn't you just say there's no chance of "picking up a bargain"? Why are you now saying you can go check for leaks? Isn't that contradictory?
This is really unfair.
When I said there is no chance of finding a bargain, I meant that it is impossible to get something for free without the other person knowing, or to pay a super low price of a few cents or a dollar to purchase an antique.
He knows his stuff and can tell the real stuff from the fake stuff.
But there is still a chance to find a bargain because the things hyped in each era are different. The 1980s were a chaos, and who knows which antiques will be valuable decades later?
At that time, people only knew that porcelains from the five famous kilns, namely Jun Kiln, Ru Kiln, Guan Kiln, Ding Kiln and Ge Kiln, were treasures, so they all bid very high prices.
But did they ever imagine that a few decades later, those gorgeous items from the Qianlong period could be sold at auction for hundreds of millions of dollars?
Who could have predicted that Yuan blue and white porcelain would eventually reach the pinnacle and become a legend?
The national treasure-level cultural relic "Yuan Dynasty Blue and White Porcelain Jar with Picture of Yuchi Gong Rescuing His Lord" was still being used as a pickle jar in the countryside at that time.
Mr. Ma Dudu said on TV that in the early 1980s, he bought a rosewood desk for 5 yuan at the home of a professor at Huaqing University.
Does the old professor know that this is red sandalwood? Of course he knows, but he doesn't have the vision to know how much it can be sold for after being kept for decades.
The old professor didn't understand, but Mr. Ma Dudu had this vision, so he deserved to get rich.
"Invisible rich people" like Mr. Ma can be ranked among the top in the country even in 2020, but their strength is not reflected in tangible stocks, cash, and real estate.
Other people's antiques are priceless. If the things they have are sold, they will definitely be ranked at the top of the "pig slaughtering list".
What Chen Xia wants to learn is Mr. Ma Dudu. It is better to hide antiques than money, and it is better to buy antiques than houses, so as to avoid showing off too much money and attracting attention.
Making a fortune quietly is the right way.
For the next three days, Chen Xia and Ying Yuanyue searched everywhere in these antique gathering places. Every time they collected a certain amount, Chen Zheng and the other two would take it back to the guesthouse nearby.
The staff of the guesthouse are no longer surprised by this. Now there are smart people who are secretly buying antiques, and it is not uncommon to see people coming in and out.
Every time he finished piling up a room, Chen Xia would ask everyone to leave, and he would quietly put the many antiques and curios into the space hospital.
During these three days, except for Ying Yuanyue and a few others who had some idea in mind, Chen Xia just waved his sleeves and spent 200,000 yuan to buy antiques that were enough to support a museum.
To what extent are there so many? Let’s put it this way, the hospital outpatient infusion hall, which is over a thousand square meters, is completely filled.
Ying Yuanyue's hands were literally shaking. He'd seen exaggerations before, but never anything this exaggerated. As long as he nodded, Chen Xia would buy everything. It was as easy as going to the market to buy groceries.
What is even more exaggerated is that in the Capital Friendship Store, Chen Xia spent 100,000 yuan in foreign exchange coupons to buy all the paintings in their store, such as those by Zhang Daqian, Huang Binhong, Xu Beihong, Qi Baishi, and Wu Guanzhong.
He also solemnly asked the salesperson to issue an invoice for each painting, muttering to himself that these invoices would be used as proof of purchase at auctions in the future, otherwise he would suffer a great loss.
It was also because Chen Xia was uneducated and did not know famous artists such as Liu Haisu, Pan Tianshou, Wu Changshuo, Zhou Xiang, and Fu Baoshi, so he missed out on buying them all.
This incident later made Chen Xia regretful and he felt that he had missed out on billions of dollars.
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