The suffering of countless national treasures who have been displaced...
Pinot's expression was equally solemn, but for a different reason from Wen Zichuan's.
Qin Zhihan worked diligently abroad for his entire life, and after making various efforts and exhausting all possible means, he finally found those cultural relics that had flowed out of the country. Although there seemed to be a lot of them, they were still just a drop in the bucket compared to the total amount lost abroad.
Pinault was raised by Qin Zhihan and has no idea about her biological father Wen Duo. What she cares about is whether Wen Duo, who has been active abroad for a long time, has caused the outflow of domestic cultural relics and whether he has become an obstacle to Qin Zhihan's career.
"I have some ideas, come with me." Pinot said after thinking for a while.
Wen Zichuan nodded and followed Pinot to the next floor again. He saw her take out a key and open a heavy door made of natural wood.
"This is……?"
Wen Zichuan was truly stunned when he entered this floor. Unlike the fourth floor which was still decorated in a home style, the entire third floor was set up as a storage room. Display shelves were arranged in rows, and various "cultural relics" were placed in a regular pattern on each floor and each grid.
No, that's not right. Their color seems different from the artifacts in the museum.
As if anticipating his confusion, Pinot explained, "They're not artifacts, they're just models. The ones on the shelf to your left are artifacts that Father Qin has already recovered, so they're colored. The last two rows on the right are artifacts that have been tracked down but haven't been found yet, so they're represented by white models."
Wen Zichuan stretched out his hand, but it hovered in mid-air: "Can I touch it?"
Pinault looked over and nodded: "Of course."
Wen Zichuan touched a "porcelain vase" and found it felt frosted, proving that it was indeed not porcelain, but was first imitated with some kind of plastic, and then used the porcelain-like color to confuse him.
"Cultural relic restoration and reproduction technologies are constantly developing. As long as we have the original, we can use 3D printing to create a near-perfect replica." Pinot, familiar with this, spoke calmly. "Look, these are all made using 3D printing, which isn't very popular in China right now."
"Are all these the work of Mr. Qin? Can I know the reason?" Wen Zichuan asked.
"Dad Qin is keeping records this way, hoping to prove that, despite being abroad, his heart is always with his homeland." Pinot led him through the shelves. When they reached the last two rows of white models, his eyes suddenly dimmed. "It's a pity I can't take over his job. I won't live to be over sixty like him, and I don't have such profound qualities and background."
"Pinault."
"Um."
"Have you discovered that you are very familiar with what Mr. Qin was doing when he was alive? If you are willing to continue, you can become his successor. Moreover, the richness of life is never limited to its length, just like fireworks that only bloom for a moment, but are bright and beautiful enough." Wen Zichuan borrowed some sentences to encourage her.
"You're right." Pinot smiled faintly. "Actually, I've slowly learned to reconcile with my illness and my unhealthy body. I don't usually get too sad. Maybe it's because I met you. Thinking that I still have a connection with the world, I can't help but feel a little regretful."
"A very cultured and knowledgeable friend of mine once said something," Wen Zichuan didn't want to mention him, but everything he said was imprinted in his mind and he couldn't forget it even if he wanted to. "If the unknown of tomorrow makes you feel confused, then don't think about tomorrow, but seize the day."
"Okay! Let's seize the day." Pinot finally smiled.
Since the "artifacts" on the shelf record what Qin Zhihan "has recovered" and "has not recovered", there must be more than one model there.
As expected, Pinot turned into the study in the side room, started the computer, and quickly retrieved the cultural relic tracking file left by Qin Zhihan.
"Did he... ever mention which country and city he was in?" The "he" that Pinot was referring to was Wen Duo.
"Senodang?" Wen Zichuan recalled Wei Jing's introduction. "He came back from Sainodang."
When Pinot heard this, he gritted his teeth in hatred, and Wen Zichuan caught the details of his expression: "What's wrong? Is there something wrong?"
"In Senodang," Pinot paused, "there's a huge cultural relics market where you can find all sorts of cultural relics from almost every country in the world. Of course, not every country has thousands of years of history and a rich cultural heritage, so the ancient civilizations have suffered the most from the loss of cultural relics."
She entered the search information, and the computer screen gradually displayed the file page marked with "Senodang".
Wen Zichuan couldn't help but sigh with emotion as he watched and listened to her introduction.
In the past, he had also listened to Cheng Sizhou talk about cultural relics. He said that the country has strict laws and regulations, and any theft and sale of unearthed cultural relics is a crime. Once a tomb robber is caught, a sentence of a few years or even more than ten years is a light sentence.
He didn't expect that the situation abroad was completely different from that at home. After those exquisite and meaningful cultural relics were taken out of the country, they were put out for public sale like radishes and cabbages in a vegetable market.
If you are not careful when reselling from one collector to another, the clues may be lost and it can no longer be traced.
What is even more distressing is that buyers and sellers do not value them, and may even dismantle an item into several pieces for the convenience of loading and unloading.
So the pages before us are not cultural relics archives, but the miserable history of the displacement of thousands of national treasures!
Wen Zichuan didn't know how to describe his feelings. He had been with Cheng Sizhou for more than half a year and had been to the Lantern Festival several times. He was used to seeing the cultural relics appearing gracefully and elegantly in the glass cabinets, so he thought they had always been like this.
In fact, behind their graceful and elegant appearance, there are countless archaeologists excavating and researching them, countless patriotic Chinese like Qin Zhihan fighting for the return of overseas cultural relics, countless craftsmen like Cheng Sizhou and Yu Ming repairing and protecting them, and countless people like An Jie in the past and Xu Yang later promoting and appealing.
They united and went to a war without the smoke of gunpowder. If they fell, their successors would carry on their legacy and go to the front line again.
Wen Zichuan once asked Cheng Sizhou if he could stop sitting on the bench and find a job with higher salary and more social status.
But now, he just felt that he was thinking too shallowly. He regarded Cheng Sizhou's beliefs and responsibilities as his foolish filial piety and compromise to his original family. He thought he understood him and accommodated him, but in fact, he had been forcing him to make choices that went against his original intention and mission.
After all, people should have higher pursuits in life. If they are limited to petty love and affection, it is really vulgar.
"Smell..." Seeing that he was lost in thought, Pinot waved his hand in front of him, "Um...can I call you brother?"
"Ah? Yes, of course!" Wen Zichuan knew that she had no sense of belonging to the Wen family, and originally did not want her to change her address.
But Pinault is very divided on this issue. She believes that it was her biological parents who abandoned her, and it has nothing to do with Wen Zichuan, who was also a child at the time.
After all, Chinese culture places great emphasis on fate. She feels that being able to reunite with Wen Zichuan in this way also proves the unspeakable fate between blood relatives.
"Brother, you have to forgive me. I can't call Wen Duo dad." Pinault looked over.
"It's okay. You don't have to feel ashamed about this. He just gave birth to you, but he didn't raise you," Wen Zichuan said with a helpless smile. "Isn't there an idiom called 'destroying relatives for the sake of justice'? If he did something wrong, we can't pay for his mistakes."
Since everyone else is the heir and he is not, he must at least make everything clear and hand the criminal over to the victim. Only the victim can choose to forgive or not.
"Brother, look, I've found all the information related to Sinodang, but there are too many local companies engaged in the cultural relics trade, and there's no way to lock down a specific person."
"His name abroad shouldn't be Wen Duo. His English name seems to be... Aldrich."
Pinault shook his head in confusion. "It's different abroad than back home. There are many people named Aldrich throughout Senodang. Well, I want to call Aunt Sally and ask her to keep an eye out."
"Aunt Sally is...?"
"Sally is Qin's father's assistant. She worked at Sinopharm for a few years, helping Qin's father acquire cultural relics. But Aunt Sally is old, and sometimes she can't remember things clearly."
"What we need to figure out now is what Wen Duo's identity is abroad, right?"
"Yes, even if we want to negotiate with him, we must get more bargaining chips. This is what Qin's father taught me."
"Wait for me a moment."
After meeting Cheng Sizhou last time, Wen Zichuan also learned about the group of "tomb robbers".
If the people who looted the ancient tomb in Longji Mountain were the same group that kidnapped Jiang Anyi and demanded the six-eared porcelain gui, then can we skip Wen Duo and identify the identity of this group of tomb robbers?
Wen Zichuan opened the photo album on his phone and showed Pinault the photos of the purple-gold-glazed six-eared porcelain gui and the photos of the broken porcelain pieces sent by Cheng Sizhou. In fact, he had long wanted to ask her, since she was able to donate such a large number of cultural relics to the Dengyuan Museum, whether she was also very knowledgeable about cultural relics.
But by then he had already left Er Sheng, and soon signed with Xingyu Feiyu. He joined the crew the following year and was so busy that he had no time to spare.
After listening to his story, Pinot looked at the photo of the six-eared porcelain gui and said, "What a strange porcelain."
"Can you see any special meaning in it?" Wen Zichuan asked.
"It's not a regular shape, and I haven't seen it before. But its glaze color is purple gold glaze, right? Among the cultural relics I donated to the museum last year, there were also several pieces with purple gold glaze," said Pinot.
She operated the computer, opened another folder, and retrieved the archive of donated cultural relics.
"What's so special about these pieces of purple-gold-glazed porcelain?" Wen Zichuan asked again.
"These pieces are common Song Dynasty porcelain shapes. If I had to say anything special, Qin's father mentioned that although they were not produced in the official kilns, their glazes are particularly beautiful, and they must have been produced by very advanced folk kilns."
When it comes to the shape and glaze color of porcelain, Pinot's knowledge is far less than Qin Zhihan's, so it is difficult to say that it is comprehensive.
Wen Zichuan calmed himself down and drove this thought out of his mind. If clues could be found from the porcelain alone, Cheng Sizhou and Yu Ming should have discovered it long ago, so the key should be people rather than objects.
If he wanted to work on people, he had to find a way to meet Wen Duo again.
"I want to borrow something."
"What?"
"Something that can make Wen Duo confess his identity."
"Take the initiative to confess your identity?"
"Back then, he wasn't content to be an apprentice in the Lin family shop and went abroad for both fame and fortune. If he had achieved both fame and fortune abroad, he probably wouldn't have returned. And as soon as he returned, he met Mr. Wei, likely motivated by both fame and fortune. Mr. Wei doesn't keep idlers, so if he wants to gain a foothold in China, he must prove himself, right? Let's give him a chance to prove himself."
"I understand. Come with me."
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