“Sir, are you selling it?” The female clerk’s voice trembled slightly as she looked at Zhang Jun with envy.
“I am!” Zhang Jun answered without hesitation.
It didn’t take long.
One hundred thousand yuan was transferred into Zhang Jun’s account.
He glanced at the bank notification, then slowly turned around to look at Ding Lan, whose face was deathly pale and whose eyes were vacant, as if she were questioning her entire existence.
“See that?” Zhang Jun’s voice was calm, yet his words were like an icy awl, stabbing deep into Ding Lan’s heart. “I picked it out of a garbage dump. Sold it for a hundred thousand.”
He took a step forward, closing in on Ding Lan, and enunciated every word. “So I’m the one who should be glad—glad I saw what kind of person you were early on. You thought I was poor? You’re the one who was blind. I’ve gotten really good at bargain hunting now. I won’t get fooled again, and I can make hundreds of thousands every day. I’ll make even more in the future. If you weren’t blind to what was right in front of you, what were you?”
Ding Lan’s lips trembled violently. She wanted to argue, to scream, to tear apart Zhang Jun’s calm yet mocking face, but it was as if something had lodged itself firmly in her throat. She couldn’t utter a single word.
The shock of a hundred thousand yuan, along with the certainty and contempt in Zhang Jun’s words, struck her like two heavy slaps, leaving her face burning with pain.
A fierce, uncontrollable regret suddenly coiled around Ding Lan’s heart like a cold snake, leaving her almost unable to breathe.
If she had held on for just one more month and not cheated on Zhang Jun with Gong Wei, could she have waited until today, when Zhang Jun had become an expert at bargain hunting and was making hundreds of thousands a day?
“Zhang Jun, don’t get too smug. You just got lucky and found something worth a hundred thousand. That doesn’t mean you can find something worth that much every day. Make hundreds of thousands a day? Do you think I’m an idiot?”
Ding Lan forced down her regret and spoke in anger and humiliation. Then she abruptly turned and rushed out of the jewelry store as if fleeing, disappearing into the crowd outside in the blink of an eye.
Zhang Jun watched her disappear through the doorway, feeling neither sorrow nor joy. She was just an insignificant passerby.
As he walked out of the jewelry store, a dizzying, surreal mix of overwhelming elation and the cruel whimsy of fate swept over him once more.
“Oh my god…” Zhang Jun murmured. “Today I just wandered around a garbage dump, and I found a hundred yuan in cash and 200 Gold Candy Wrappers. I made a killing—one hundred thousand and one hundred yuan! The Dragon Pearl’s treasure-finding ability is ridiculously powerful!”
He pinched his thigh hard. The pain brought him back to his senses.
This wasn’t a dream!
He walked into a breakfast shop and, feeling flush with money, ordered a bowl of beef noodles and an egg.
After eating his fill, he felt his strength return.
He eagerly made his way to Antique Street.
The street, paved with blue-gray stone slabs, wasn’t very wide. On either side stood rows of antique-style buildings with sweeping eaves, red-lacquered wooden doors, and signs bearing names like “XX studio,” “XX Pavilion,” and “XX Hall,” all steeped in old-world charm.
Most of the street, however, was lined with densely packed open-air stalls.
Patches of coarse cloth in various colors were spread across the ground, piled high with all kinds of “old treasures”: yellowed thread-bound books, rust-spotted copper coins, dull silver dollars, porcelain vases and bowls in assorted shapes, mottled bronze vessels, gleaming wood carvings, strings of Buddhist prayer beads, and jade and jadeite whose authenticity was hard to tell… Under the sunlight, they reflected a dazzling yet somewhat gaudy array of colors.
The stallholders called out in accents from all over the country, loudly touting the origins and value of their wares.
Buyers gathered in groups of three or five, crouching or standing as they examined items of interest with magnifying glasses and high-powered flashlights. They spoke in hushed tones at times and haggled fiercely with the stallholders at others.
Among the crowds were plenty of foreign tourists, some fair-haired and blue-eyed, others with different complexions. They curiously examined the objects steeped in Eastern mystique, occasionally raising their cameras to take pictures or asking the prices in heavily accented Chinese.
The air was thick with the musty smell of old books and newspapers, the smoke of sandalwood incense, and the scent of dust, along with the subtle atmosphere unique to an Antique Market—a mix of anticipation, greed, caution, and hope.
Zhang Jun began walking slowly along one side of the street, anticipation written all over his face.
He passed the first stall. Nothing.
The second was just as quiet.
He passed the third, then the fourth… After more than a dozen stalls, the objects that looked old and had been praised to the skies by their sellers felt like dead things to him, stirring not the slightest ripple.
Zhang Jun’s heart gradually sank.
So, on this bustling Antique Street that seemed to be teeming with “treasures,” genuine items among the street-stall wares were probably one in a thousand!
The vast majority were modern crafts or forgeries made to look old, designed to fool novices and bargain hunters hoping to strike it lucky.
Getting rich overnight through bargain hunting here would be no easy feat.
After browsing another dozen or so stalls, he finally found one that gave off Treasure Sense.
A faded blue cloth, washed nearly white, was spread across the ground, covered with a dense, chaotic heap of copper coins of all kinds.
Some were strung together, others piled haphazardly, and some were in plastic boxes. Most had simply been dumped straight onto the cloth, forming a small “mountain of coins” that glimmered with a faint metallic sheen.
There were many kinds of copper coins, in all sizes. Some were mottled with green patina, some were dark and glossy, and some still had dirt clinging to them, giving off a faint earthy smell.
Besides the copper coins, a few porcelain bowls and one or two rusted bronze trinkets were scattered across the stall, but the main attraction was undoubtedly these “square-holed coins,” weathered by the passing years.
The stallholder was a lean man in his fifties, squatting behind his wares with a cigarette in his mouth. He watched the passersby through narrowed eyes, his face marked by the shrewdness and mercenary air of someone who had seen it all.
There were hundreds, even thousands, of Treasure Sense readings, like fireflies in the night, coming from the many copper coins on the stall before him.
But one reading from the bulging burlap sack was far stronger than the rest, like a beacon in the night.
Zhang Jun suppressed his excitement, slowly crouched down, and pretended to be interested in the copper coins as he casually picked up a few to weigh and examine.
“Young man, into coins?” Seeing Zhang Jun crouch down, the stallholder’s eyes lit up. He blew out a smoke ring and greeted him in heavily accented Mandarin. “The copper coins I’ve got here are all old! From Song Dynasty Coin to Qing Dynasty coins, from local mints to the central mint—I’ve got everything! Some are in better condition, some worse, but they’re all genuine! The price is reasonable, too: a hundred yuan each. Pick whichever you like!”
Zhang Jun sneered inwardly.
A hundred yuan each?
Apart from the “treasure” in the sack, those copper coins on the stall that gave off even the faintest readings were probably worth thirty yuan at most on the market.
The stallholder was taking him for a fool and trying to fleece him.
But Zhang Jun kept his face composed, even showing a hint of hesitation and interest. He picked up a rusty-looking Qianlong Tongbao, examined it, then put it down.
Then he pointed to the copper coins on the stall and said, “Boss, your prices are a bit high. How about this: I’ll pick ten for thirty yuan each. Deal?”