Chapter 25: Dian Cui Chong Ya
Although Zhen Shuwang is not in this line of business, as the grandson of President Zhen, he has heard of the jade market to some extent since he was a child.
Jia Wenyan: "It's so expensive... Anyway, I still can't afford it."
"My first official jade work was a piece of Hetian jade that I bought with my living expenses and scholarship that I had saved for nearly half a year when I was in college."
"I carved it into a jade pendant of Taishi and Shaoshi, which is the video that went viral on D station earlier."
"As soon as I posted the video, I sent the jade pendant back to my grandmother."
"I knew the jade pendant was definitely not worth the loss of the broken bracelet, but that was really the first time I started to feel like I had redeemed myself a little bit."
Jia Wenyan suddenly seemed to remember something when she said this and looked at the exhibition stand below and said, "President Zhen should have mentioned the dragon scale jade to you."
"Yes, I heard that it was the jade you found in the market?"
"Yes, to be honest with you, if Dean Zhen hadn't happened to show up that day and witnessed the moment I opened the spinach green jade, I might have really made the jade into a bracelet and mailed it back to my grandmother."
"Spinach green... your grandmother's bracelet is not an imperial green one, is it?"
Jia Wenyan nodded.
"When I was young, I just thought that good jade was expensive, but when I grew up, I realized that some things are not just expensive, but there is no chance to make up for it at all."
"At first I simply thought it was a very expensive bracelet, but as my knowledge and experience in this profession continued to grow, I began to understand that the value of many things is not solely determined by their market positioning."
"The reason why cultural relics are valuable, in addition to the craftsmanship they represent, is another very important factor, which is the history and past they carry."
"I know that even if I find another bracelet that is exactly the same, it can never completely replace the meaning of that bracelet. So I also hope that I can pay for my mistakes little by little."
"So what I want to do most now is to run the Yong'an Museum as well as I can, and then try my best to find a jade bracelet for my grandma that can make me feel better as compensation."
Zhen Shuwang: "Then... I wish you good luck?"
"Thank you for your good wishes. You should also hurry up. The dean has mentioned your animation to me several times. You really should speed up the progress and catch up with the schedule of this year's Spring Festival."
"Of course I understand this, but some things really can't be rushed. After all, once a movie is released, there is no turning back. I really don't dare to leave myself any room for improvement."
"Understood. If you need any help, just let me know."
After Jia Wenyan finished speaking, she left and returned to her office.
A few days later, as the Mid-Autumn Festival exhibition officially ended, Jia Wenyan also officially packed up the whole set of white porcelain carriages and sent them to the National Museum as a National Day gift. In return, she also got an opportunity from the National Museum that she had never imagined before.
"The Twelve Dragons and Nine Phoenixes Coronet, this is the headdress owned by Empress Xiaojing."
The crown is 32 meters high, 23 meters long and 5.5 meters wide. The entire crown is inlaid with 121 natural gemstones and 3,538 pearls.
Together with the 18 phoenix eye rubies of Jiufeng and the twelve exquisite hollow golden dragons, this extremely luxurious phoenix crown can be said to represent the highest standard in the field of Donghuang jewelry.
The benefit that Jia Wenyan gained in exchange for the all-porcelain Terracotta Warriors this time was such an opportunity to get close to and replicate the Twelve Golden Dragons and Nine Phoenix Crown.
The National Museum promised that after she and the all-porcelain Terracotta Warriors arrived in Yanjing, they would provide Jia Wenyan with the materials to create the Twelve Golden Dragons and Nine Phoenix Crown free of charge as compensation for the purchase of the all-porcelain Terracotta Warriors.
On the plane to Yanjing, Jia Wenyan kept flipping through the information she had collected in advance.
As one of the treasures of the National Museum, Jia Wenyan concluded that this crown of twelve dragons and nine phoenixes must have given birth to a very powerful spirit.
She hoped to inherit the jewelry and kingfisher feather craftsmanship from her. And if possible, she would also like to introduce other top-level artifacts in the National Museum.
This was Jia Wenyan's original intention for visiting the National Museum this time.
Red jade porcelain brocade box, dragon scale jade, Ru kiln celadon, and pottery and porcelain figurines.
Jia Wenyan believes that she has used these works to prove to the National Museum her abilities in jade carving, porcelain, and pottery.
If she could get more help from the Twelve Dragons and Nine Phoenixes Crown, then after she successfully replicated the Twelve Dragons and Nine Phoenixes Crown, she would definitely have the opportunity to expand her field of interest to many cultural relics in the jewelry field.
But the complexity of the craftsmanship of this twelve-dragon and nine-phoenix crown was completely beyond her concept.
The jewels inlaid on the phoenix coronet are relatively easy to deal with, but the most important and difficult part of the Twelve Dragons and Nine Phoenixes Coronet is the kingfisher feathers that are spread all over the coronet.
This is a treasure whose extreme luxury can be easily felt even through photos and videos.
The pearls and jade on her head sparkle brightly, and the delicate gold threads outline the kingfisher feathers on her crown.
This is the culmination of Donghuang's various jewelry crafts.
To be honest, when Jia Wenyan proposed this condition, she never thought that the National Expo would agree.
She merely used the opportunity to closely replicate the phoenix crown as a psychological preparation before having the "main course".
She thought that as long as she passed this condition, she would be able to provide more possibilities for the subsequent main dishes. However, who would have thought that when she proposed to exchange the all-ceramic car figurine for this opportunity.
Not only did the National Museum agree to the request, it even allowed the Twelve Dragons and Nine Phoenix Crown to be sent to Xian'an for reproduction.
This was something Jia Wenyan had never dared to imagine at first, but the Phoenix Coronet was too valuable. Even though she was very interested in it, she did not dare to let the Phoenix Coronet experience any risks in transportation.
So she chose to go to the National Museum by herself. In her eyes, this was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but when she thought of the craftsmanship behind the Twelve Dragons and Nine Phoenix Crown, Jia Wenyan suddenly felt overwhelmed.
Inlaying kingfisher feathers, this is a field that she is familiar with but also completely unfamiliar with.
This is the perfect combination of metal craftsmanship and feather craftsmanship in Donghuang’s traditional culture. No Donghuang girl can ignore the charm of inlaying kingfisher feathers.
It's a pity that the beauty is so cruel. The kingfisher feathers are called kingfisher feathers.
The most classic raw material for kingfisher feathers to date is the feathers from the white-breasted kingfisher.
Although in the eyes of many people, bird feathers are already a very common material.
Feather dusters, down jackets, embroidery, masks, it seems that many daily craft works cannot be separated from the support of bird feathers.
But the problem is that unlike other birds that can be kept in large captivity, the kingfisher is a small and very temperamental bird.
They will have a great stress response after being captured, and some will even starve to death after being captured.
This is a bird that cannot be domesticated. In addition, the number of feathers that can be extracted from each kingfisher is very limited. Therefore, the development of the kingfisher feather inlay technology has directly led to a sharp decline in the number of kingfishers.
In recent years, our country has directly recognized it as a national second-class protected animal.
This has almost cut off the source of most kingfisher feathers. Therefore, if you want to reproduce this technology, you can only improve goose feathers, peacock feathers or parrot feathers by dyeing.
This is the main development direction of modern kingfisher darts. Such improvements have largely prevented the further decline in the number of rare birds.
But can the kingfisher feather inlay made with goose feathers really meet the craftsmanship requirements of the Twelve Dragons and Nine Phoenixes Crown?
Even if she could make a one-to-one replica of it, the technique of inlaying kingfisher feathers in history was to emphasize the feathers of the kingfisher. She was worried that the substitution of goose feathers would affect the Phoenix Coronet Spirit's judgment of her.
So as early as when she got permission from the National Museum, she asked the museum whether there was any channel to obtain feathers that died of normal natural causes from the zoo.
But such a thing is obviously a fantasy, not to mention whether there would be anyone who would collect these feathers for no reason.
Even if there was, she would still have to consider whether the feathers of a kingfisher that died of natural causes would still be of sufficient quality to represent the beauty of kingfisher feathers.
Besides, kingfisher feather inlay is not like ceramic jade. Jia Wenyan had a basic knowledge of the above techniques. But she was a complete novice in kingfisher feather inlay and metal crafts.
Putting aside the issue of financial conditions, her time alone would not allow her to practice these less popular techniques.
So until Jia Wenyan arrived in Yanjing, she was full of worries about whether she could be recognized by the Twelve Dragons and Nine Phoenix Crowns.
Under the guidance of the staff, she came to the storage room of the National Museum.
As most people guess, the one currently on display in the museum is a replica made later.
Jia Wenyan didn't know what other people thought of such a treasure trove that was full of mystery to most people.
But what she was sure of was that long before she entered the storage room, she had already sensed a large number of extremely active spirit auras in the storage room.
Although they have not appeared in front of Jia Wenyan at this moment, she can almost be sure that there are probably no less than a hundred cultural relics spirits living in this storage room.
This was almost a convenient place for her to study.
She muttered to herself in her heart that she wanted to enter the spirit space here through the resonance of spiritual power, just like she did before in the Xian'an Museum.
However, who would have thought that from the moment she entered the door, even though she had clearly sensed several weapon spirits around her that were powerful enough to create personal space.
But the entire National Museum storage room seemed to be covered by a ban similar to the one she had at the Beilin Museum, hindering her communication with the spirits of the instruments.
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