Not long after the three roommates left the dormitory, Cen Sui received a call from Chen Danuan.
Chen Danuan could not hide the excitement and delight in her voice as she asked, “Sui Sui, where are you right now?”
Cen Sui spun her chair around to face the balcony. “I’m in the dorm. What about you guys?”
Chen Danuan’s voice was still bright. “We’re at school too. Come out for lunch. Let’s go to the Sixth Cafeteria…”
Before Chen Danuan even finished, another voice came through the phone. Tao Miner had clearly snatched her phone and spoke hastily into the receiver. “Sui Sui, did you really think it through this time? You won’t regret it again, right?”
Cen Sui did not react for a moment and naturally asked, “What are you talking about?”
Tao Miner’s tone grew slightly anxious. “Dumping Chen Yu, of course! Someone from your department recorded a video. We’ve all seen it. You were absolutely stunning. Chen Yu’s face turned green on the spot. Watching it was so satisfying!”
Cen Sui let out a small laugh. “I’ve thought it through very clearly. I won’t regret it again.”
Tao Miner finally felt relieved. “Then hurry and come eat. Danuan, Erbao, and I are waiting for you at the Sixth Cafeteria. They recently opened a new food counter there and it’s apparently really popular.”
Cen Sui gave a brief reply and hung up the phone. She stood up, tidied herself a bit, and headed toward the Sixth Cafeteria.
She lined up with Tao Miner and the other two. While they were waiting, Tao Miner said to her, “Lunch break is a bit short, and Danuan has something to do later. So tonight I’ll arrange a gathering to celebrate our Sui Sui finally standing up for herself.”
Cen Sui smiled and nodded. Thinking back, she really had been on her knees long enough.
For someone like Chen Yu, even giving him her heart and soul had not been enough, and she had nearly thrown away her entire life.
Now she had taken the initiative to cut all ties with Chen Yu, and that very afternoon he would meet his destined heroine, Lin Yuxi, at the campus singer competition. From then on, there would never again be any connection between her and Chen Yu. That was indeed something worth celebrating.
The four of them all ordered clay pot rice from the Sixth Cafeteria. After getting their food, they sat down in the dining area.
Tao Miner pulled Cen Sui and the other two into another round of discussion about the gathering that evening. They eventually settled on booking a suite in a high-end hotel and inviting a group of girls they each knew to drink and dance.
Tao Miner, Chen Danuan, and Zhou Erbao all had plenty of friends and mixed in many social circles.
Only Cen Sui had spent all her time and energy on Chen Yu. Aside from these three, she barely had any other friends.
After they finished planning the celebration, their conversation shifted to casual small talk.
Cen Sui remembered how the three of them knew so many people, so she looked at them and asked, “By the way, do you know any graduate students from the School of Jewelry at the University of Geosciences? I’m planning to take the postgraduate entrance exam. I want to find someone to guide me a bit, ask about how to review, what study materials to buy, things like that.”
Zhou Erbao stared at her for a moment in surprise. “Postgraduate exams?”
Cen Sui nodded. “You all know I’m the only daughter my parents have. I can’t keep drifting like this. I have to think about the future. I don’t have any foundation right now and I don’t really want to study abroad. I’ll switch majors and finish graduate school first.”
The three of them spent their days playing around and had never really thought about their futures.
Now that the conversation had turned serious, they did not have much to add. Chen Danuan said, “We’ll ask around. If we know someone, we’ll give you their contact information. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
Cen Sui smiled and nodded at them. “Thanks in advance.”
Chen Danuan shot her a sideways glance. “We’re practically sisters. What are you being polite for?”
*
The three girls had things to do that afternoon. Some had errands, some had classes. After eating, Cen Sui returned to the dormitory alone.
None of her three roommates came back. Only Cen Sui was there.
With nothing to do, she lay on her bed and dozed for a while.
Unable to sleep, she sat up and picked up her phone. After unlocking it, she scrolled through Weibo, then browsed through her Moments.
She had not read any of the messages Chen Yu sent her earlier. She could not even be bothered to respond.
Now that she had a bit of free time, she calmly tapped on Chen Yu’s profile picture, then tapped Delete Friend. Out of sight, out of mind.
After scrolling on her phone for a while, she still felt bored, so Cen Sui got out of bed.
She had already finished reading Record of Treasures and her hands were itching again. She thought that maybe she should go take a look around the Antique Street.
Since she had unexpectedly acquired such an ability, she had to test how effective it was.
If she was lucky, she might even stumble upon something valuable and earn enough to buy herself a new bag.
Cen Sui fixed her hair and makeup, changed clothes, slung her bag over her shoulder, and headed out to catch a ride to Chenggu Road.
Chenggu Road was the largest antique market in Su’an City. Several streets crossed and intertwined, lined with countless shops that together formed a full antique district. It had even become something of a tourist attraction.
It was not peak tourist season and not a weekend, so there were not many people coming and going in the antique city.
The early spring afternoon sun was warm and gentle, making one’s bones feel soft. Many of the vendors running stall tents were nodding off with their heads lowered, still holding their phones in their hands.
Cen Sui bought a magnifying glass at a shop on the outer street, placed it in her bag, and headed to the inner street to browse the stalls.
The goods on the stalls were varied: gold pieces, jade pieces, porcelain, all sorts of things. Every stall also had a few shallow, wide-rimmed plates with various old coins scattered inside, sometimes mixed with broken shards of porcelain.
Cen Sui walked past the stalls slowly, scanning them with her eyes. They were basically all counterfeits.
Everything was far too new. She did not even need to pick them up and feel them. One glance was enough to know they were fake.
The stall owners did not call out to attract customers. It was as if they already knew she would not spend money on anything.
Which made sense. A young girl who looked barely of age would hardly be interested in antiques, and these items were not exactly in line with a young lady’s taste.
Cen Sui glanced over each stall. If she did not see anything interesting, she did not bother walking closer.
She finished browsing one street, then continued onto the second.
After checking the first few stalls on the street, her gaze was finally drawn to an eight-sided vase with looped handles, its entire surface covered in crack patterns. Only then did she crouch down beside the stall.
Once crouched, she focused solely on the eight-sided vase. After examining it for a moment, she lifted her head and asked the stall owner, “Can I pick it up and take a look?”
The stall owner was a middle-aged man with thinning hair, his skin dark and dry, and he had an honest, plain look about him.
He handed her a small stool and replied readily, “Take your time. Look as you like.”
Cen Sui took the small stool and sat down. She pulled the magnifying glass from her bag, carefully lifted the eight-sided vase, and examined it attentively.
From afar she had thought it looked genuine, which was why she bothered to come closer for a detailed look.
Because she was young, and a girl at that, sitting there acting like an old scholar, the scene was inevitably a little amusing.
A few stall owners nearby turned to look at her. They found her quite entertaining. They did not tease her openly, but the smiles tugging at the corners of their mouths showed they were watching her for fun.
The stall owner in front of her had held the same attitude at first.
He did not believe she would actually buy anything, so he could not be bothered to talk much and simply let her look on her own.
But after watching her for a while, his gaze fell on the diamond-studded gold bracelet on her wrist. Realizing with surprise that this little girl was actually wealthy and that buying an antique for fun would be nothing to her, he immediately changed his mind.
He could not tell much from clothes or bags, but gold was something he could recognize at a glance.
And if real gold was set with diamonds, how could those diamonds be fake?
That bracelet had to be at least thirty to forty thousand.
Seeing Cen Sui pick up the eight-sided vase from his stall and examine it closely under the magnifying glass with apparent interest, he immediately spoke up. “This is the golden-thread crackle from the Ge kiln. The young lady has a good eye. Do you also dabble in this trade?”
Cen Sui gave a small smile, still keeping her head lowered as she looked. “Not really. I just got started.”
The stall owner’s eyes curved with a smile, making him look even more honest than before. “Then you must have been born with good vision. The Ge kiln is one of the Five Famous Kilns, and the golden-thread crackle is especially renowned. There is even a historical story about it and its counterpart, the Di kiln.”
After examining the base of the eight-sided vase carefully, Cen Sui had already determined that it was a counterfeit.
Although the shape and crackle pattern of this eight-sided vase with looped handles were done quite well, and the rim even had artificially created water stain marks, and although the thickness of the walls and the overall weight of the vase were almost indistinguishable from a genuine piece, the base had flaws. In order to cover the original body after artificially aging it, they had smeared purple-gold clay over it.
Someone who had never seen a genuine Ge kiln piece might really be fooled.
Cen Sui had never imagined she would one day become someone with such knowledge and depth. The feeling was actually quite pleasant.
Combined with the stall owner’s words, she immediately realized something. The stall owner was trying to scam her.
Seeing her play with a fake piece for so long, and noting how young she looked, he had decided she did not understand the trade and would be easy to trick. So he deliberately praised her eyesight, then tried to use some legendary stories about antiques to coax her into paying.
One of the essential skills in selling antiques was the ability to tell stories.
Sometimes, if the story was good enough, even the fakest counterfeit could be sold.
This trade ran deep, and there were truly not many who could recognize genuine pieces. Plenty of people had been deceived.
Cen Sui did not expose him. Holding the eight-sided vase in her hands, she looked up and asked with curiosity, “What historical story?”
The stall owner still wore that honest and simple expression. He adjusted his tone into that of a storyteller and began. “It is said that during the Southern Song dynasty, there were two brothers surnamed Zhang who built kilns and made porcelain in Longquan County of Zhejiang. The elder brother, Zhang Shengyi, built a kiln called the Ge kiln. The younger brother, Zhang Shenger, built a kiln called the Di kiln. It is said that the elder brother’s skills in firing porcelain were very high, and his reputation spread far and wide. Because of that, the younger brother began to feel jealous.”
Cen Sui looked at him and prompted, “And then?”
The stall owner picked up his cup and took a sip of water. “The younger brother was so jealous that his eyes practically bled from envy, and his heart was vicious. He wanted to ruin his elder brother’s reputation. So he sneaked around and secretly added a lot of plant ash into his elder brother’s glaze vat. Truly malicious beyond words.”
Cen Sui blinked her large eyes with long lashes, waiting for the stall owner to continue.
The stall owner, encouraged by her interest, went on. “The elder brother really fell for the trap. When he opened the kiln after firing, he saw that the glaze on all the porcelain pieces had cracked. The cracks were dense and everywhere. He was so anxious he cried on the spot. But he had no choice. The pieces had already been fired, so he could only take them to the market and sell them at a low price. There is a saying that human plans can never match the will of heaven. No one expected that this type of celadon with crackled glaze would feel very novel to people. The scholars and refined gentlemen of that time all grew very fond of it and it became famous overnight. The younger brother probably never imagined that his sabotage would help his elder brother create a unique new style of porcelain. Quite amusing.”
After finishing the story, he pointed at the eight-sided vase in Cen Sui’s hands and said with a smile, “And this is what came from the Ge kiln, the golden-thread iron-wire crackle.”