Chapter 2: The Great Tang West Market is updated every day at 10 o'clock. If you add it to your collection, there will be more updates. …
"Hello, President Zhen. I am Jia Wenyan from Luojiashan University."
"Oh, Xiao Jia, your professor Su just contacted me this morning and said that you flew to Xian'an as soon as you heard the news."
"I also have to thank Dean Zhen for giving me the opportunity to personally restore newly unearthed cultural relics. This is not something we college students can usually get involved in."
Zhen Yuan said: "From what you said, you are very confident in repairing the dragon-patterned jade pendant."
"I'm not that confident. After all, the dragon-patterned jade pendant is just an incomplete fragment, but I do want to give it a try."
"I have already made a simple sketch of the dragon-patterned jade pendant on my computer on the way here. I would like to ask the dean to review it."
After Jia Wenyan finished speaking, she sent the document on the tablet to Zhen Yuandao.
She thought a lot on the way here. It was true that Dean Zhen's test question was about the dragon-patterned jade pendant, but the dragon-patterned jade pendant at the moment was just a broken fragment after all.
Although it still has a lot of archaeological value, it is really difficult to restore the original appearance of a cultural relic like this one that has been more than half destroyed.
Moreover, the dragon is a totem that exists in people's imagination, and this image itself has many irregularities.
In addition, due to the limitation of pure hand-carving in ancient times, it was impossible for them to find a reference with the same pattern. Not to mention that what they preserved was the dragon body and tail instead of the dragon head, which was the most complicated. Unless someone can travel through time and space, the restoration of this jade pendant can only be deduced by future generations' understanding of historical totems.
This kind of restoration is called repair, but in fact it is a disguised secondary creation. So before that, Jia Wenyan must create another complete template based on her own imagination of the appearance of the jade pendant. And this should be the meaning of the question that Zhen Yuandao wants Jia Wenyan to understand.
Jia Wenyan quickly replied with her answer. As expected, not long after, before Jia Wenyan arrived at the hotel she had booked, Dean Zhen sent her a series of voice messages on WeChat, with an average duration of more than 40 seconds.
"Xiao Jia, you can just go to Yong'an Museum. The workshop there has a full set of tools and dormitories."
"I will send you the keys and passwords of the workshop in a while. If you need anything, you can go to the jade shops in Xian'an City according to the list I sent below."
"As for the fragments of the dragon-patterned jade pendant, they are currently on display in the museum. I will have someone help you get a temporary work permit for the museum later. You can go to the museum to check it out anytime if you need it."
…
"Understood. I will prepare the works for the museum to inspect as soon as possible."
After calculating the time, Jia Wenyan knew that the museum should not be closed yet, so she immediately asked the driver to take her to the Xian'an Museum first.
As the provincial museum of the ancient capital of Six Dynasties, Xian'an Museum has a reserve of cultural relics that is the envy of its peers in countless provinces and cities.
But sometimes the "tycoons" also have their own troubles, such as...
"This artifact has been on a business trip."
"This is a 1:1 replica."
"The original has been out of business for... years; the replica has been out of business for... years."
"This artifact has been on a business trip for ………… years."
"I look forward to meeting you someday."
Behind each of the ridiculous slogans lies the museum’s helplessness.
As the ancient capital of Six Dynasties, Xian'an is a well-deserved magnate of cultural relics, but it is also because of this honorable reputation that all the artifacts collected by the Xian'an Museum are national treasures.
Their level and image meant that they could not display ordinary cultural relics in the exhibition hall, but extraordinary cultural relics could not avoid various business trips and exhibitions. This also meant that there were always a lot of vacancies in the exhibition booth of Xian'an Museum.
Although the museum also regularly produces some imitations to fill the gaps caused by loaned exhibits, it is not so easy to imitate national treasures.
Not to mention how long it takes to create a qualified imitation, the most important thing is that they need to bear the cost themselves.
Who would spend money to imitate something they already have?
What's more, the national treasures here, even if they are replicas, will attract various loan applications. Over time, no museum will do such a stupid thing that is likely to be thankless.
This has also caused the cultural and tourism image of many museums to plummet to a certain extent.
However, it is obvious that the dragon-patterned jade pendant that Jia Wenyan is targeting is not among them.
Although it is also a cultural relic unearthed from the Qin King's Mausoleum, compared with other cultural relics of higher standards, the jade pendant with dragon pattern, which is half broken and even has the dragon head at the head position, has little ornamental value at all.
If the archaeological team had not been careful enough to carefully identify the patterns on it, this broken jade pendant might even have been considered a scientific research waste with little value when it was unearthed.
Not to mention that it was put on display in the museum as a gift less than a month after it was unearthed.
The Xian'an Museum does not have a lot of visitors on weekdays. Jia Wenyan, who had just deposited her luggage at the front desk, quickly found the fragments of the dragon-patterned jade pendant in a corner of the museum.
Just as Jia Wenyan judged, this jade pendant with dragon pattern was not made of Lantian jade, the most representative jade of Xian'an City, but was made of Hetian jade, the first of the four famous jades of Donghuang.
The so-called Hetian jade refers to cryptocrystalline jade in which tremolite accounts for more than 98 percent.
However, at this moment, the dragon-patterned jade has changed color due to oxidation. Jia Wenyan initially estimated that this was probably because the jade was contaminated with too much dirt and dust after being removed from the container, which caused such a significant color change over the years.
Judging from the little bit of "bright color" that remains, the predecessor of this jade pendant should have been a piece of jasper with very fine quality.
That is to say...
"QAQ This expense is too high."
Jia Wenyan sighed, saying that although what she had to make now was just a template to serve as a restoration example, in order to be able to demonstrate a texture that would be recognized by experts and scholars in a short period of time, she had to produce a work with a certain texture no matter how much she cut corners, in order to be recognized by the museum.
But when she thought of the huge fluctuations in price indicators in the jade market, Jia Wenyan began to feel the pain unconsciously.
The main colors of Hetian jade are divided into red jade, yellow jade, mutton-fat jade, skin-colored seed material, infiltration-colored seed material, bright white seed, mountain water, jasper, cuttlefish and green jade.
Although jasper ranks only eighth among them, the value of color is only one aspect. The real absolute price is always the purity and color of the jade.
Especially for jasper, as the color that best fits the public's impression of "jade", the market price of jasper is subject to great fluctuations.
In addition, she was not in the northern border area, which was the main production area of jasper. The cost of buying materials here would be even higher than she expected.
When Jia Wenyan thought of this, she began to look unconsciously at the list of stores sent by Dean Zhen.
Sure enough, the test that Dean Zhen gave her was definitely not just about technology.
The selection of materials for the restoration of cultural relics is also a very important key.
If Jia Wenyan guessed correctly, there should be materials in these shops that were favored by Dean Zhen, or even arranged by him.
Which piece is a trial work and which piece is used for formal restoration and reproduction, Dean Zhen probably already set various scoring standards for each piece of jade.
A huge pressure began to linger in Jia Wenyan's heart. She looked at the area sign on the side, and after confirming that taking photos was not prohibited in this area, she turned off the flash on her mobile phone for fill light, and took pictures of the fragment from as many angles as possible.
After doing all this, she immediately rushed to the jade shop shown on her phone. Little did she know that the moment she turned around, the damaged and oxidized jade pendant suddenly flashed a green fluorescence.
"Legend of Jadeite, Datang West Market, Lantian Jade City, Meiyutang...Tianshi Jade Crafts Shop."
There are a total of nine jade shops that Dean Zhen sent me, and most of them are very famous jade sales outlets in Xian'an City.
During this period, except for Lantian Jade City, which is obviously the main store of Lantian jade, other stores have certain possibilities.
Calculating the time, Jia Wenyan planned to start from the Datang West Market. Not only because the Datang West Market included the three stores on the list, but there was also a very important reason, which was that she wanted to take advantage of the time to buy more supplies for her daily handicrafts.
"Master, please go to the Tang West Market."
"Xishi, the little girl is here for a trip."
"No, my mentor arranged for me to come to Xian'an for an interview. If I'm lucky, I should be able to stay in Xian'an City to work in the future."
"I see. From your appearance, I thought you were a high school student who just graduated and is traveling here?"
"College graduate? There shouldn't be many jobs here that would appeal to southern girls like you."
"No, sister, you are wrong. My situation is special. My major in college is archaeology and cultural relic restoration."
"That's great. We don't have many museums in Xian'an City. Does the girl have a boyfriend?"
"No, but the teacher said that he would introduce his grandson to me after I settle down here."
The taxi driver was very talkative and soon started chatting with Jia Wenyan about family matters, and Jia Wenyan automatically turned on her response radar to avoid certain "sensitive" topics.
Along the way, the elder sister chatted with her in a casual manner, from which museum in Xian'an City had the best business, to the various tricks some unscrupulous antique dealers in the West Market of the Tang Dynasty used to raise prices in disguised form when they saw outsiders.
Especially when the eldest sister learned that the purpose of Jia Wenyan's trip was to purchase jade materials for the restoration of cultural relics, she reminded Jia Wenyan with caution that it would be best to just take a look today, and then go there later accompanied by local elders.
She knew that as a student majoring in cultural relics restoration, Jia Wenyan must understand the ins and outs of these jade articles, but everything has two sides. After all, Jia Wenyan was a girl who looked only 17 or 18 years old. Even if she knew a lot, she would be maliciously bid up by those shady businesses.
However, what she didn't know was that since Jia Wenyan dared to come to the market, she naturally had her own plans.
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