Yuan Hongying continued, "My husband made a tentative offer, raising it to 300,000 yuan, and to his surprise, Mr. Xiao actually accepted it. Twenty-six years ago, when the average wage was only 500 or 600 yuan, it was no small sum. We hid the vase that very day and never took it out again. Besides the fact that my father-in-law passed away early, and the plum vase carried so many emotions and memories for him, we also thought we could use it as collateral for future losses if we ever had to."
Xiao Xingyu sneered in his heart. The Wang family thought that the plum vase was valuable and could be used as money, but they did not expect that it might contain clues about celadon porcelain. This one was indeed a waste of time in the field of porcelain.
Yuan Hongying's words made some sense, but Zhang Moyan felt something was amiss. "My second grandfather was willing to pay a high price for the plum vase. That only means it has a high collection value, not that it's related to the secret recipe for celadon porcelain, right?"
Xiao Xingyu gave Zhang Moyan an approving look. Her logical analysis was so clear, and coupled with the truly unreserved address of "my second grandfather", he strongly demanded that his daughter-in-law, who was full of sense of ownership, be included in the list of models of outstanding modern women.
Yuan Hongying confirmed Zhang Moyan's question: "You are right. What really made us pay attention to this matter was your mother's intervention."
Zhang Moyan emphasized two words: "Intervention?"
Xiao Xingyu understood Zhang Moyan's surprise and asked, "You used this word to mean that my mother-in-law came to you on her own initiative?"
"Yes, she was the one who came to us. Actually, we hadn't paid much attention to this girl before. Your mother-in-law is very quiet and doesn't talk much. She usually only communicates with her husband and has almost no contact with us. But shortly after we rejected Mr. Xiao's offer to buy the plum vase, your mother took the initiative to find my husband and proposed to make a deal with us."
Zhang Moyan: "Transaction?"
"Well, the deal is that she'll be responsible for finding evidence that the construction site isn't an official kiln site, and we'll give the plum vase to her once the dust settles."
"Give it to—her?" Xiao Xingyu frowned strangely.
As a master of porcelain who had been competing with each other in the field of celadon porcelain, he was almost knee-jerk sensitive to the division of key elements. However, as soon as he said it, he suddenly realized that he was wrong. At this time, why should he still divide it with his mother-in-law?
He immediately smiled at Zhang Moyan and humbly said, "Our mom is really a heroine. She's very capable!"
Zhang Moyan was so distracted that she didn't respond. After a long while, she spoke: "Why is she so confident that she can find evidence that your construction site is not an official kiln?"
"Years later, we wanted to know the reason. After all, they had only been here a few days, and even Mr. Xiao didn't dare to make any conclusions. How could she have been so confident?! But at that time, we didn't care about that. As long as she could solve our urgent problem, we would give her this plum vase no matter how valuable it was... Later, the facts proved that your mother had indeed done it! Looking back now, she really was like a prophet!"
At this point, Yuan Hongying, Wang Zhongguo and Wang Wenlong all showed expressions of admiration, but Zhang Moyan felt uneasy as she listened, and her hands under the table began to sweat.
Predict the future?
How could this be possible, and how could it be so simple?
Zhang Moyan swallowed her tight throat and asked, "What did she do?"
Yuan Hongying turned her gaze to Wang Zhongguo, who had been watching her for a long time. "After we agreed to your mother's conditions, she selected a few young men from our family, including Zhongguo, and went to the construction site. The kiln ruins there were actually abandoned pits, as confirmed by previous experts. The reason they were filled with porcelain fragments was because they were previously unqualified defective products, left behind after deliberate destruction. Your mother led them to search the porcelain pile for seven days and seven nights, day and night, and finally found a few pieces among the millions of broken pieces, which formed a complete bowl bottom. The relief pattern on the bottom of the bowl clearly formed the Chinese character "Wu". This kind of relief pattern was the symbol used by ancient folk kilns to attract customers, which is enough to deny the kiln site's official status!"
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