βIs it so cheap?β
"It's just a normal price," Xu Jiang replied with a smile. "Besides, my master has taught me that a rare and unpublished copy should only be sold to someone who truly loves it. Your kindness is worth more than a thousand pieces of gold."
"If you continue to run your business like this, when will you be able to expand this bookstore?" Du Hui was worried for her.
"Based on sincerity and reputation, it will be accomplished one day, so there is no need to rush." Xu Jiang was very calm.
Yuan Zuzhi appreciated this very much, so he gave her one hundred taels of silver and did not ask her to pay any more.
Otherwise, how can we say that birds of a feather flock together? Xu Jiang glanced at Du Hui and accepted it with a smile.
After settling the bill, they were about to leave. Hu Xu helped Yuan Zuzhi put away the books. Yuan Zuzhi patted him on the shoulder and said, "Young man, if you want to debate Dong Lingzi with me again, you can come to my house anytime."
Hu Xu was overjoyed and quickly bowed to express his gratitude: "Thank you very much, sir. I will be sorry to bother you in the future!"
Just as they were about to step out of the door, they heard Xu Jiang call out, "Everyone, wait a minute."
Several people turned around in confusion, not knowing what else Xu Jiang wanted.
Xu Jiang couldn't bear to see him being deceived, so she gritted her teeth, walked up to Yuan Zuzhi, and said solemnly, "Sir, I have something to tell you."
Hu Xu sighed deeply, but did not try to stop him.
Yuan Zuzhi and the others looked at each other and asked, "What's the matter?"
Xu Jiang walked up to the servant holding the books, picked up a volume of Donglingzi Collection, and said word by word, "This set of books you have is fake."
"What?" Yuan Zuzhi was startled at first, then refuted, "Impossible! We have all verified this collection and it is truly unique and out of print. How could it be fake?"
Upon hearing this, several people picked up a copy of "Donglingzi Collection" and looked through it, but did not find any fakes.
"Please come in." After Xu Jiang and Hu Xu cleaned up the low table, they invited a few people back.
She lined up the ten volumes of "Donglingzi Collection" in a row.
Yuan Zuzhi stared at her intently and said in a deep voice, "Madam Xu, are you sure this collection is fake?"
"It's not a forgery, but an adulteration." Xu Jiang picked out volumes one, two, three, seven, and nine and laid them out side by side. He then laid out volumes four, five, six, eight, and ten side by side. Then, pointing to the mimeograph in the corner of the printed border, he said, "The truly out-of-print edition was engraved by Mu Huisheng of the previous dynasty. His edition has a unique feature: the character 'ζ' (regret) is engraved in the corner to prevent forgery. However, this character has too many strokes, and since it's engraved in negative ink, it's often smeared with ink. Those who don't know the details would mistake it for a blob of congealed ink."
She pointed to the same spot on the latter, and there was indeed a ball of ink there.
"If you want to tell the difference, it's actually quite simple. The ink on the carved areas will be lighter than on the uncarved areas." She turned to Hu Xu and said, "Zhuchun, please light a lamp for me."
Hu Xu followed his instructions and quickly lit the lamp.
Xu Jiang compared the real and fake books under the light, and indeed saw a very faint word "regret" on the real one.
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