Chapter 8 He Broke His Promise
Chapter Eight: He Broke His Promise
Aunt's letter poured cold water on Li Yue's hopes. In fact, Li Yue knew that it was really hard to find a job nowadays, and her classmates from the "Old Three Classes" had such a hard life.
After much thought, going to the countryside seemed to be the only option.
Going to the countryside is nothing to her; it took her a long time to adapt to life in this era when she first arrived. Once she got used to it, she had no desires or wants. Everyone was poor, so they just laughed and joked around, finding joy in their poverty.
But Li Yue had a vague feeling that she might not take the path of going to the countryside. Intuition is hard to say, so she decided to take it one step at a time and live one day at a time.
The next day, her cousin asked her what she was going to do that day.
Li Yue said, "I need to go out."
Where are you going?
"bookstore."
My cousin went silent.
My cousin might come along if we go shopping, but she won't go to a bookstore. She dislikes going to bookstores because she doesn't like reading.
At 11 a.m., the autumn sun shone brightly on the earth. Li Yue, with her hair neatly braided, stood outside the family compound, waiting for Ling Jianwei to drive over.
She waited and waited, but the jeep never appeared. Bored, Li Yue kicked a small pebble by the roadside.
Aunt Zhang, who had introduced the girl to you earlier, happened to return and asked, "Yueyue, are you waiting for someone?"
“Yes, Aunt Zhang.” Li Yue nodded.
Aunt Zhang looked at her and couldn't help but ask, "I heard you found a boyfriend?"
Li Yue looked at Aunt Zhang in surprise and denied it: "No."
"Didn't you go to a wedding with a handsome young man from the army yesterday?"
Sure enough, the matchmaker's information network was excellent; she found out in less than a day.
Li Yue smiled awkwardly: "Auntie, he's just a friend, not a boyfriend. They've misunderstood."
“You young people are all dishonest, I can see right through you.” Aunt Zhang had her own judgment. “If you really have a boyfriend, wouldn’t that be great? Then I won’t have to worry about you anymore.”
Although she didn't like the deputy factory director's son who was introduced to her, the aunt was genuinely trying to play matchmaker out of good intentions.
"Okay, thank you, Auntie. I'll definitely let you meet him when I find someone," Li Yue replied.
Aunt Zhang nodded and entered the family compound.
Li Yue continued kicking a small pebble, and after waiting for about ten more minutes, feeling that Ling Jianwei wouldn't come, she boarded a bus and wandered aimlessly.
I wandered around aimlessly, bought a scallion pancake to fill my stomach, and eventually ended up in Liulichang.
The Liulichang area is home to numerous shops selling antique books and periodicals, traditional calligraphy and paintings, the Four Treasures of the Study, antique jewelry, and other cultural artifacts. Before the public-private partnership, these shops were all privately owned, but now shops of all sizes have participated in the public-private partnership.
The city's cultural relics store is also located here; it both buys and sells cultural relics from private collections.
Li Yue wandered around casually and entered a shop specializing in old books. She browsed through a few books on the counter, but amidst the strong smell of ink and paper, her nose started to itch, so she had to leave.
She browsed through another general store, and the shopkeeper seemed to immediately recognize her as someone who was just browsing, neither buying nor selling anything, and gave her a rather unfriendly look...
Finally, Li Yue entered a porcelain shop.
The shelves were filled with various ceramics, the most numerous of which were blue and white porcelain, but they all appeared to be new products or imitations of porcelain from the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Finally, Li Yue's gaze settled on a bluish-green porcelain plate, and she couldn't help but ask, "Is this Ru ware?"
The shopkeeper was a young man in his early twenties. He looked her up and down, and seeing that she was pretty, he finally spoke up: "Ah, you have good taste."
"Were they produced in the last few years?"
"Of course, it must be from the Song Dynasty, in which case it would be very valuable. We wouldn't dare to display it so casually."
Li Yue smiled and said, "Yes, there are only a few pieces of Ru ware from the Song Dynasty in the whole country. If you really find one, it can become a national treasure."
Seeing that she was also witty, the young man nodded: "You do know a little about these things."
Li Yue: "I don't know much about it, but I've seen Ru ware in museums."
“Things are valued for their rarity,” the young man said, taking down the Ru porcelain piece. “This is also Ru porcelain. In recent years, all porcelain produced in Ruzhou has been called Ru porcelain.”
"Let me show you the difference, hold on tight."
Li Yue held the porcelain plate firmly in both hands. The glaze was smooth, and the texture was the common ice crackle pattern. However, it was immediately obvious from handling that the quality was very rough. In terms of craftsmanship, it was incomparable to the genuine article.
Ru ware uses precious agate as its glaze. When the glaze cracks, the clay body and the glaze undergo different volume changes due to thermal expansion and contraction, resulting in a glaze-cracking phenomenon that forms unique textures such as cicada wing patterns, pear skin patterns, and crab claw patterns. The cracks present an unparalleled beauty.
Li Yue said, "This is done rather casually."
The young man said, "There's nothing I can do. Restoring this thing to its original state is really not easy."
As they were talking, a middle-aged man walked in: "What do you want to restore?"
The young man called out, "Manager."
He then introduced, "This is our manager, who is actually the original boss."
“I was just talking to this girl about Ru porcelain,” he explained.
The owner, surnamed Zhong, sized up Li Yue and asked, "You want to restore Ru porcelain?"
“No.” Li Yue looked at the other person. “It’s not easy to restore it, boss. Is this porcelain plate made of bean green glaze?”
Mr. Zhong took the porcelain plate from her hand and smiled, "You have a good eye for quality."
"It's certainly not easy to restore it. Over the past thousands of years, the craftsmanship has been lost, various environments have changed, and some raw materials are different. More than ten years ago, the national leaders assigned the task of restoring the production of Ru porcelain to the Ru porcelain factory. Later, they tried their best to restore only one type, which is a bean-green glazed porcelain with a similar color. However, after the experts studied it, they only dared to give the conclusion that it was 'basically restored'."
Li Yue was unaware of these things and listened attentively to what the boss had to say.
Mr. Zhong smiled again: "I visited the large porcelain plate on display as a gift, and to be honest, in my opinion, it wasn't very good at first glance."
"Is it very different from the authentic one?"
"Of course not."
Seeing that Boss Zhong was very talkative, Li Yue couldn't help but ask, "Was this shop yours before?"
"Yes, our ancestors were quite wealthy," he said. "You're so young, and you're interested in this?"
Li Yue studied fine arts and crafts design. When she was planning to specialize in ceramic design, she ended up transmigrating because of a porcelain exhibition. Naturally, she felt that she had a connection with porcelain.
She responded, "I mainly think Ru porcelain is very beautiful, but now that it's been restored, you can immediately tell that something is missing."
The shopkeeper held up a pea-green glazed plate and handed it to her: "Take another look, can you spot any other colors?"
Li Yue held the plate up to the light and examined it carefully: "Nothing."
"That's right," the shopkeeper said. "Authentic Ru ware from the Song Dynasty, even in its celadon or bean-green glazes, can reveal a subtle red undertone if you look closely. That's from the unique red agate added to the glaze, but we don't have that kind of red agate anymore."
Li Yue asked, "Aren't red agates from other places acceptable?"
"It's probably not just a matter of the agate itself, but also the combined effect of various factors such as the kiln temperature to produce the desired effect. So, restoring it would be really difficult."
She wanted to chat some more, but someone came in to discuss business. Li Yue thanked the shop owner and left the porcelain shop.
Walking down the street, Li Yue suddenly had a brilliant idea: if she could design and fire Ru porcelain herself, it would be of great significance.
However, she now thinks it's best to just think about it.
Back at the residential compound, her cousin saw her from afar and asked, "Sis, where did you go? Why are you only coming back now?"
"I went to the bookstore and took a stroll around the streets while I was there," Li Yue replied.
"A man has come to see you."
Li Yue: "Who?"
"He said his surname is Ling. Is he the man Sister Yanmei was talking about yesterday?"
Li Yue: "Oh, it must be him. What time did he come looking for me?"
My cousin replied, "When it was almost 1 o'clock, I waited for you for half an hour."
At that moment, she was chatting with the shop owner about Ru porcelain when Li Yue asked again, "Did he leave a message?"
My cousin said, "He said he'll come back at the same time tomorrow and asks you to wait for him."
"oh."
Seeing that she still looked calm and collected, her cousin couldn't help but worry: "Why aren't you worried at all?"
"Why should I be in a hurry?" Li Yue asked, puzzled. He stood her up, so he came to find her and asked her to meet him again the next day. Wasn't that normal?
"Sister, is he really your boyfriend?" my cousin asked anxiously. "It seems like some of the adults in our neighborhood also know something. After he left, they all came to ask me about it, but I told them I had no idea."
“No, of course not. He saved me, that’s how we met, and then he came with me to the wedding just to kill time,” Li Yue denied. “Their family has such high standards, they would definitely find someone of equal social standing.”
"But I don't think things are that simple."
Li Yue looked at her cousin speechlessly: "You're overthinking it."
My cousin shook her head: "I think if you really find a man that handsome, at least the people in the neighborhood won't gossip anymore. I really don't want to hear them say that you'll end up marrying an old, poor, and ugly man."
Li Yue couldn't help but burst into laughter. She patted her cousin on the shoulder and said, "Why are you so worried that your sister will marry an old, poor, and ugly man? Have some faith in me, okay?"
Du Qinglan said expressionlessly, "After all, if a beautiful flower is stuck in cow dung, we'll stink along with it."
Li Yue was both annoyed and amused, and assured them, "Don't worry, I haven't fallen to that level yet."
...
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