Is that porcelain gui real or fake?
The recording work on the second day went on until very late, and once Wen Zichuan got into work, he often didn't even have time to eat or drink water.
Cheng Sizhou was making sweet soup at home. As soon as he received the message "almost done" from him, he put it in a thermos and went to the bathroom for the second time.
After sitting in the tea room for a short while, An Jie and Wen Zichuan came over one after another.
"Cheng Sizhou." An Jie smiled and took the initiative to greet him.
"Teacher An." Cheng Sizhou shook hands with him. In fact, he was still a little dazed. How did the gold medal tour guide of the Lantern Expo suddenly transform into a voice actor star who was popular among thousands of girls?
"Well, you guys chat," Wen Zichuan picked up the thermos, "I'll go eat over there."
In order to maintain his condition, he usually doesn't eat before finishing dubbing. Cheng Sizhou brought food over, which was naturally for him to fill his stomach.
For the two of them, this was a very ordinary part of life, but in Anjie's eyes, it seemed too intimate.
"I heard from Zichuan that you have something to ask me?" An Jie got back to the point.
"Yes, about an artifact from the Lantern Festival." Cheng Sizhou pulled up the photo Xu Yang had sent him. "Teacher An, are these your notes from back then?"
An Jie narrowed his eyes, was silent for a while, and then said "hmm".
"I want to know why you think this six-handled porcelain gui is fake, and what exactly happened between you and my master."
Anjie did not answer directly, but asked him: "Do you care about what happened back then?"
Cheng Sizhou's expression suddenly grew serious. "Perhaps what I said might make you think I'm naive and childish. However, a museum is a place to popularize scientific knowledge and promote culture to the public. If I put a fake artifact there, wouldn't that be misleading?"
An Jie laughed when he heard him say that. "You are neither naive nor childish. Most people who are able to get into museums and are willing to sit on the bench are those who are seeking truth from facts."
"So, can you tell me, Mr. Gu?" Cheng Sizhou changed the address. Although calling him by his stage name sounded more respectful in the second tone, if we talk about his original intention, he is An Jie and also Gu Yanxun.
"Actually, I'm not sure whether it's real or fake." Gu Yanxun's eyes were far away. "I hosted a foreign tour group that year. They were very interested in this piece and asked me a lot of questions. I'm sure you're also aware that this porcelain gui has a unique shape and there's still no academic consensus. I didn't dare to speak rashly, so I wrote down the questions and asked my colleagues in the exhibition department."
However, the exhibition department is not clear about its origins. The only information is the name of the cultural relic, the time of excavation and the place of excavation mentioned on the exhibit sign.
Gu Yanxun, unwilling to give up, tried to find the archaeological report, but the paper files from the 1990s couldn't be easily retrieved. Finally, an older colleague told him that the Mutao Ancient Kiln Site was excavated under the leadership of Director Zhang, and if he really wanted to know the details, he should ask the director.
Having said that, Gu Yanxun was very hesitant.
No matter how skilled he is in his profession, he is just a tour guide.
The job of a tour guide is to impart relatively simple and universal knowledge to the audience in accordance with the propaganda needs of the Social Education Department. What is behind an inconclusive cultural relic is the business of experts and professors, and it is not his business to ask.
"My colleague told me that when explaining something, if you come across an inconclusive artifact, just tell the audience that it needs further research. Most people won't dig into it." Cheng Sizhou remembered Xu Yang's words.
"I did the same. But not long after, the tour group came again and asked me to give the tour," said Gu Yanxun.
Time has passed, and he no longer remembers the details of the tour group. However, he remembers that when they passed the six-handled porcelain gui again, a blonde woman in the group pulled out a photo. In the photo, there was an identical six-handled porcelain gui!
Gu Yanxun's first reaction was to compare the background and confirmed that they were not the same bottle.
"Mr. Gu, do you find this strange?" the blonde lady spoke fluent English. "We have one exactly like this in our country. Are you sure the one here is the real one?"
Gu Yanxun couldn't answer, and there was hesitation and panic in his eyes.
At that time, he was still using an old Nokia mobile phone without a camera function, so he quickly borrowed a camera from the department, took a copy of the photo, developed it, and took it to the director's office.
Zhang Hongliang has always been kind and unassuming. After seeing the photos, although he was tinged with anger, he spoke with great restraint: "The tour group is from abroad. Do you fully understand the forces behind them and their intentions? How can you be so sure they're real and we're fake based on just one photo?"
Cheng Sizhou is a restorer and knows more about the reproduction and imitation of cultural relics than Gu Yanxun.
"If they could get a relatively high-resolution, full-angle photo, using the technology from six years ago, they should be able to create a replica that's 70% or 80% like the original. However, it's not legal."
"Our laws don't apply to foreigners. To be frank, I was fooled by them, but I still took it seriously," Gu Yanxun laughed self-deprecatingly. "Right?"
Cheng Sizhou shook his head. "No. Everyone's environment and the information they receive are different. You don't know much about it to begin with, and the tour group's deliberate guidance can easily lead people into misconceptions. Isn't there a similar term now? It's called the 'information cocoon.'"
Gu Yanxun remained noncommittal. Perhaps he really hadn't thought that much back then, and wasn't mature or tactful enough, so his pursuit of the truth seemed to others like he had low emotional intelligence and didn't know the difference between the important and the unimportant.
Sister Yang, Yang Xiuli, even said to him privately, "Can't you just work properly? How dare you question the director to his face?"
Finally, when it came time for performance evaluation at the end of the year, his name was no longer on the list.
Gu Yanxun was dissatisfied and went to ask Sister Yang, but the reply he got was: "Since you joined the company, you have been rated as excellent every year. Can't Teacher Gu be more generous and give others a chance?"
That winter was very cold, and water would freeze into ice. His girlfriend took a fancy to a heater that cost more than 500 yuan. The two of them hesitated for a long time and were reluctant to buy it.
Gu Yanxun told her to buy it after receiving the bonus, but if she didn’t get an excellent rating, she wouldn’t get the bonus.
That year, his girlfriend developed frostbite on her hands, which was itchy and painful. It took until the beginning of the next spring for the frostbite to heal completely, leaving a few ugly scars on her white and tender knuckles.
Dengbo’s salary was low, Cheng Sizhou felt the same way and understood why Gu Yanxun resigned.
"Looking back, that was the most destitute time in my life." Gu Yanxun let out a long sigh, then sat up straight and said with spirit, "Master Jiang probably didn't tell you that it was your master and mistress who helped me when I was at my lowest point."
"My master, and his wife?"
"Yes. Mr. Jiang has a good relationship with the director. He has been helping me clarify that I didn't get the award because I offended the director. He saw that I didn't even have a decent down jacket in the middle of winter, and guessed that I was broke, so he recommended me to the dubbing job for the intangible cultural heritage promotional video at your teacher's wife's workplace."
"My wife worked at the Cultural Center before she retired... Was that when you started dubbing?"
"Well, they not only helped me when I was in the most difficult time, but also gave me an opportunity to leave Dengbo and enter a new industry. I have always been grateful to them."
After listening to this story, Cheng Sizhou was thoughtful.
Gu Yanxun is much younger than his master. They are in different departments and have little interaction, nor can they be said to be very familiar with each other. However, his master and his mistress are still willing to lend a helping hand when Gu Yanxun is in the most difficult time. They are really very kind people.
But why is it that the master is always as kind as a spring breeze to others, but extremely strict with himself? If he finds the slightest mistake, he will make a big deal out of it, criticizing, scolding, and punishing him by making him stand in the rules?
Cheng Sizhou touched his face. He was not uglier than Teacher Gu.
"As for the notebook, I might have left it behind when I was packing up, but it doesn't matter." Gu Yanxun's voice was so nice that it pulled Cheng Sizhou back to his senses.
"I'm so sorry for chatting for so long and delaying your get off work." Cheng Sizhou looked at the neon lights outside the window, smiled apologetically, and then pulled Wen Zichuan, who had been silent for a long time, out to talk. "Has Zichuan made any progress recently? Have I caused you any trouble?"
"Brother Zhou!" Wen Zichuan thought to himself, are you a parent here to pick up your child from kindergarten? Why are you asking the teacher if you've made any progress?
"No way! Zichuan has made great progress," An Jie smiled and gave him a thumbs-up. "As those fan girls would say, his future is promising!"
Wen Zichuan was flattered: "Teacher An...! I, I still have a lot to learn."
Having worked with him twice, An Jie was already very familiar with him, and they would occasionally joke around in the studio: "Don't be so modest, Mr. Wen! Now everyone is vying to work with you, I have to wait in line!"
Wen Zichuan was happy but also embarrassed after receiving the compliment. Seeing that they had finished their conversation, he packed up his thermos and prepared to go home.
After saying goodbye to An Jie, Cheng Sizhou and Wen Zichuan went home together. In a place where no one could see them, they held hands from time to time, with their fingers entangled.
"Brother Zhou, Dengbo's salary is not high, right?" Wen Zichuan heard that An Jie said he couldn't afford a 500 yuan heater back then.
"Yeah, I can't get rich, but I can't starve to death either." Cheng Sizhou held his hand tightly, as if afraid that he would suddenly run away. "Do you dislike me?"
"No," Wen Zichuan shook his head like a rattle, "I will work hard to return the 50,000 yuan to you first, and then..."
"And then what?"
"Then live a good life with you."
When it comes to working hard, there's absolutely no ambiguity.
During the recording of "Xiao Chongshan", Wen Zichuan was always the first to arrive at the recording studio. During his breaks, he would repeatedly study the script. When he encountered something that was not well handled, he would take the initiative to ask to re-record a few more takes as a backup.
As time went by, he stayed in the studio the longest and became more and more familiar with the recording director and post-production "Brother Ji" Pei Dongdong.
"Brother Ji, I brought you rice balls!" It was another overtime day. Wen Zichuan went downstairs to buy something and brought some food to Teacher Pei.
Pei Dongdong sat behind the equipment, touching the still-warm rice ball. "I heard you went to the Guohua Music Society for a training course. How was it?"
"It's pretty good. I feel like I've learned a lot." Wen Zichuan said with a smile.
"Mu Cen is an academic, professional, and demanding person." Pei Dongdong couldn't stop eating. "He has been working in the imperial capital for more than ten years. He is well respected in the industry. Many schools and institutions even hire him to give lectures."
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