Chapter 6 Yan Ruyi is probably insane.
The person who was pulling Zhao Zhonghou looked older than Zhao Zhonghou, and his eyebrows and eyes were somewhat similar to Zhao Zhonghou's. Considering what he said, the two should be brothers.
Zhao Zhonghou pushed the man away. "There's no room for discussion. We agreed that whoever takes care of Dad would own the old house. I've always taken care of Dad, so the old house should be mine. Anything we find in the old house should also be mine. How come I'm the one taking all the benefits?"
"The old house belongs to you, but that doesn't mean the things inside the old house belong to you."
“This is all that our father has saved up. He’s still alive, so we should at least hear his opinion on how to divide it.”
"When we were raising our father, you all stayed far away and no one wanted to help. Now that there are benefits, you all flock to us. So you're the ones who get all the benefits and I'm the only one who suffers?"
...
There was a cacophony of voices and noise.
Yan Ruyi and the others heard most of it. Zhao Zhonghou had three brothers, and he was the youngest son. Their father lived with him.
The original agreement was that whoever supported the elderly would own the old house, so the old house has always been lived in by Zhao Zhonghou's family.
When Zhao Zhonghou's youngest son was getting married, Zhao Zhonghou wanted to renovate the old house for his son's wedding. Unexpectedly, when digging the foundation, he unearthed a bunch of old things.
Zhao Zhonghou felt that since the old house was his, these old things must also be his.
His two brothers objected, arguing that just because the old house belonged to Zhao Zhonghou didn't mean the things they dug up also belonged to him. They wanted the three brothers to divide the property equally, but Zhao Zhonghou refused and tried to sell the items secretly.
Some people approached him privately, wanting to buy these old items, but he was afraid of being cheated and didn't dare to sell them. He then found out that antique shops also buy old items.
The antique shop was a state-owned enterprise, so he naturally trusted state-owned stores more. He secretly brought the item to the antique shop, but somehow his two brothers found out and came after him with their men.
In just a few words, the two sides started arguing, their voices growing louder and louder, loud enough to lift the roof off.
Yan Ruyi had never seen such a scene before, and she leaned over the counter to watch the spectacle, while Xu Qingmei was a little annoyed by the noise.
She's been in the antique shop for several years now, and she sees this kind of drama several times a year. People fight and struggle over a little money, and even fathers and sons can turn against each other, let alone brothers.
She was already tired of watching it, and the two sides were pushing and shoving each other, looking like they were about to fight.
Then he shouted at the top of his lungs, "If you want to argue or fight, go outside! Can you afford to pay for anything in this house if you break anything?"
Wang Aizhen said, "That's right. They don't even know if the items are valuable, but they're already arguing. Maybe it's just a pile of scrap metal. Is it worth arguing like this?"
After they said that, those people really didn't dare to argue anymore.
They were afraid that if someone couldn't resist pushing and shoving, and something was actually damaged, they really couldn't afford to pay for it.
Moreover, after Wang Aizhen said that, Zhao Zhonghou and the others also started to have doubts. What if those things were really not worth much money? Wouldn't they be laughed at if the three brothers fought tooth and nail over them?
Zhao Zhongfa, Zhao Zhonghou's elder brother, said to Zhao Zhonghou, "Third brother, take out the things and let the experts take a look."
Now that things had come to this point, Zhao Zhonghou couldn't very well take the bag away. He could only open it, take out the items one by one, and carefully place them on the counter.
There were bronzes and porcelains, and Yan Ruyi could tell at a glance that they were mostly from the late Qing Dynasty, and their condition was not top-notch.
It's not exactly scrap metal, but it certainly doesn't have much collectible value.
To put it bluntly, it's worthless.
Xu Licheng and Jiang Dongming came over when they heard the commotion, and Wang Aizhen made room for them.
Zhao Zhonghou and the others realized that Xu Licheng and Jiang Dongming were in charge of the shop, so they stared at the two men nervously. "Comrades, could you please tell me how much this is worth?"
Xu Licheng picked up a pair of pure brass wine cups with dragon and phoenix motifs, looking at them as he asked, "Where did they come from?"
Zhao Zhongfa said, “To tell you the truth, my father used to be a craftsman who made wood carvings. He was quite famous in our area, and many wealthy families would hire him to do their work. He made some money. He didn’t have any other hobbies, except for buying old things. When I was a child, I remember he had a lot of them in his house, but then they disappeared. When we asked him, he was getting old and a bit confused. He said he had sold them all, and we believed him. But we didn’t know he hadn’t sold them. He had buried them all. When we were rebuilding the old house, they dug up the foundation and found them all. Comrade, can you take a look and tell me how much these things are worth? I heard that old things are very valuable now. Even a tiny one can sell for several hundred yuan.”
Zhao Zhongfa's eyes lit up as he spoke.
He heard that even a tiny one could sell for several hundred, so a whole bunch of them could probably sell for tens of thousands!
Even if the three brothers split the tens of thousands of yuan equally, each of them could get three or four thousand yuan, which is equivalent to their family's income for more than ten years!
Jiang Dongming glanced at the items; there were quite a few, but none were rare, and their condition wasn't particularly good. He shook his head and casually picked up a copper pot.
There was a small, bluish-green porcelain shard under the copper kettle, about half the size of a baby's palm, which he didn't notice.
Yan Ruyi glanced at it casually and saw a line of small golden characters flash across the broken porcelain: 856.
She was no longer surprised by this, and calmly calculated that 856 years ago was during the reign of Emperor Huizong of Song, and she remembered that Song celadon was this color.
Yan Ruyi's heart skipped a beat, and she picked up the fragment.
Although it is a fragment, the glaze is smooth and warm, and the glaze is even and elegant.
Yan Ruyi's heart pounded, and she asked Zhao Zhonghou, "Was this also dug up from your house?"
A plump woman next to Zhao Zhonghou said quickly, "This wasn't dug out of the old house. The ones dug out of the old house are all whole, not broken, and none of them are this color. This must have been picked up at Xiaobeipo. You can only find these kinds of broken porcelain pieces at Xiaobeipo."
The woman, Liu Chunzhi, was Zhao Zhongfa's wife. She took the opportunity to speak ill of Zhao Zhonghou, saying, "Third brother, how could you mix in such unwanted scraps? What, are you trying to cheat the government?"
Zhao Zhonghou's face turned red.
He had heard that some broken porcelain shards were quite valuable, so before coming here he went to Xiaobeipo to pick up a shard, put it in his bag and brought it over, wanting to see if it was really worth anything.
If they were valuable, he would collect all the broken porcelain shards on Xiaobeipo and sell them, thus making another fortune.
It's not a big deal if it's worthless; he can just throw it away, and he won't lose anything.
Now that Liu Chunzhi had said that, he felt a little embarrassed and stammered, "I didn't notice, Qiangqiang probably just put it in there."
Liu Chunzhi snorted, "You dare to do it but not admit it? Qiangqiang won't take the blame for this."
He then explained to Yan Ruyi, "Qiangqiang is his eldest grandson, only 10 years old. If the kid found a piece of porcelain, he would just skip it in the river. How could he have put it in his bag? You're just making things up."
Feeling guilty, Zhao Zhonghou forced himself to defend himself, "There are plenty of these fragments on Xiaobeipo, and they're worthless. Why would I take them?"
Ignoring their bickering, Yan Ruyi said to Xu Licheng with certainty, "Director Xu, this is Song Qingci."
Her words shocked not only Xu Licheng, but also Jiang Dongming.
Song Dynasty celadon is a national treasure among national treasures. Very few pieces exist in the world, and even broken pieces are priceless.
Shen Zhimin thought Yan Ruyi was probably crazy.
Even if this were Song Qingci, she wouldn't be able to recognize her at a glance.
Even an expert like Jiang Dongming would probably need to conduct repeated examinations before daring to draw a conclusion, but Yan Ruyi only glanced at it and immediately identified it as Song Dynasty celadon, without any ambiguity.
She's probably gone insane and started talking nonsense because he dumped her.
Shen Zhimin, “You just spout nonsense. Which eye of yours saw any record of celadon kilns in Ningyi County in the Song Dynasty history?”
After saying that, she smiled broadly again, "When we were studying the History of the Song Dynasty, you weren't sleeping the whole time, were you?"
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