Chapter 23 This Warehouse Furniture
Professor Qiao's cousin, Qiao Yisong, was a short, stocky man with the tanned complexion of years spent on construction sites. He wore a loose, gray suit and looked much older than Professor Qiao. He stood outside the yard, directing others to erect fences.
Professor Qiao's business was a small turnkey project, with the cousin taking care of the younger cousin. The design fees were reported as extra expenses for the school project, allowing the construction team to get a bigger share. The client also specifically requested an additional fee for the expensive materials. This was pure lucrative work.
Their construction team of seven people came to Beijing from their hometown. Some time ago, they were just doing odd jobs on other construction sites to get a feel for how construction works in Beijing were done. After learning some experience, they applied it to this new project with great ambition.
They've learned everything about renovating courtyard houses in Beijing, including where to file construction permits in advance and how to save time. For example, fencing is now being built to make the building appear neater and more formal to the city's appearance management department, so they won't find fault with it. It also helps to conceal it from the eyes of others.
Without drawings, they couldn't complete other formalities. They'd just go in under the guise of clearing the site. Besides removing the trash, they could also secretly dismantle what needed to be demolished, digging up the pipes in the yard. As long as the house didn't exceed the height of the fence, and the patrol officers outside took care of it, no one would interfere with their "premature construction."
Professor Qiao is familiar with the procedures for drawings. Many of his classmates now hold important positions in planning departments and construction committees, so it is not difficult for them to ask for favors or use connections.
Professor Qiao also specifically said that he wanted to design this courtyard house renovation project to the level of the International Habitat Award. Such international awards are not just based on drawings, but also require photos of the completed building. Therefore, the architectural level must also highlight the traditional cultural characteristics of our country.
In Qiao Yisong's team, there are carpenters, stonemasons, bricklayers, painters, and even complex classical paintings. It is not difficult to restore a pure courtyard house. On this basis, as long as there is a blueprint, they will add modern plumbing, heating and electricity. With the money and materials in place, they are definitely confident that they can make a fine product.
Now that you have this project as a proof, will you still be worried about not being able to get high-end work in Beijing?
So they had been working hard from the beginning, determined to achieve the highest level of performance and not let Professor Qiao down. Furthermore, the funding provided by the client was so generous, so they naturally had to cherish this great opportunity.
What's the point of working overtime from dawn to dusk? The demolition waste and discarded wood don't need to be told to anyone else; they've already planned to keep anything that can be repaired and reused, saving the owners every penny.
Lin Ruoyan was actually hoping that the courtyard house could be repaired soon. When she took a stroll to the site and saw that the workers were so enthusiastic and the construction site was formal and orderly, she felt relieved.
She was worried that her constant wandering around the site would put pressure on the construction team, so she was thinking of leaving when she heard a worker shout, "Old Qiao, come down and take a look! The basement in this yard is surprisingly large. After demolishing a wall, there's a huge warehouse full of old huanghuali wood furniture."
Lin Ruoyan couldn't leave now. There was actually a basement in the yard, and most importantly, there was a pile of old furniture in the basement. Putting aside the style and workmanship of the furniture, just hearing the material "huanghuali wood" was a precious wood with the scientific name of Dalbergia odorifera, also known as Hainan yellow sandalwood and Hainan huanghuali wood, second only to red sandalwood.
Huanghuali, the primary wood used for high-end hardwood furniture during the Ming and Qing dynasties, was highly prized by craftsmen for its sleek golden color, fine texture, soft grain, and captivating fragrance. However, due to excessive logging, huanghuali was nearly extinct in China by the mid-to-late Qing dynasty, and was gradually replaced by redwood.
People in later generations knew the value of rosewood furniture, but little realized it was simply a substitute for huanghuali wood. In the decade following the millennium mentioned in the book, the price of huanghuali furniture skyrocketed. A simple huanghuali Luohan bed cost over 30 million yuan, while a pair of huanghuali four-foot-tall official hat chairs fetched over 20 million yuan.
So, Lin Ruoyan followed the workers into the basement with a nervous mood, thinking that if there really was any expensive furniture, she must notify the homeowner to take it away quickly.
At first glance, this basement appears to be just an ordinary cellar of about ten square meters. Many old courtyard houses built cellars to store vegetables or ice, so the workers initially ignored this dark space, thinking they would clean it up and use it as a general storage room and equipment room. Unexpectedly, while cleaning the wall, they broke through a brick partition and discovered a warehouse inside.
This warehouse is even bigger, and it is filled with old furniture and other items. There are no doors on the walls, and it is sealed off with bricks from the outside. Perhaps the original owner sealed up the old items and did not want later generations to find them.
The workers searched through several boxes, but found nothing but rotten fabrics. They found nothing else, including paintings, calligraphy, porcelain, gold, or silver. They figured the valuables had probably been taken or sold, and that the bulky furniture was difficult to carry, so it was sealed there.
The company that later took over the site didn't thoroughly inspect every aspect of the house. Living conditions were limited back then, and so was people's knowledge. Even if they found old furniture, they would have discarded it out of ideological taboo. With so many usable rooms above ground, the basement was too cumbersome to carry coal briquettes up and down, so they simply locked it up.
The unit was vacated, and the descendants of the original owner had long since left Beijing and, considering immigrating, hadn't come to look closely. This, however, gave Lin Ruoyan, who had bought a second-hand unit, a good deal.
Lin Ruoyan still clearly remembered that in order to give the homeowner an extra 100,000 yuan, she signed a clause in the house purchase contract stating that all the decorations and furniture in the house belonged to her. Now it seems that it was superfluous.
She had never imagined that such a pile of old furniture lay hidden in the courtyard's basement. The key wasn't the broken tables and chairs, but the huanghuali wood, typical of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Because it had been well-sealed, the underground chamber was dry, and the huanghuali wood itself was insect-resistant and rot-resistant. Even when the walls were peeled back, the fragrance filled the room, tangible from a distance.
After wiping off the dust on the furniture, you can see the color of the furniture itself, which is bright yellow, shiny and with clear texture. When you hold it up to the sunlight, it looks so golden as if it were coated with gold foil.
The carpenters in Qiao Yisong's team looked at the pieces with eyes that shone brightly, repeatedly saying they hadn't seen such fine old furniture in decades. Any piece of furniture in this room, such as the pair of chairs, would be worth tens of thousands at the very least.
Lin Ruoyan mourned in silence, thinking that if it was only worth tens of thousands, it would be fine. But after asking an expert to look at it, the total price was estimated to be over a million. Fortunately, it was not made of rosewood.
Lin Ruoyan quickly contacted Professor Qiao Yizhi and asked him to see if he could find an expert to evaluate the furniture. Then she could contact the original owner and mail the items overseas.
It would have been fine if she hadn't asked the expert, but once she did, new problems arose.
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