The street vendor picked up a small porcelain bowl, tapped it twice, and spoke to the young couple squatting in front of his stall.
“Take a look. This is Ru ware. Listen to that sound…”
Shen Sangyu glanced at it.
Ru ware?
It was probably kiln-fired brick for all she knew.
There was an unwritten rule in this business, you didn’t interfere when someone else was examining an item, so Shen Sangyu kept her mouth shut.
Clearly, the young couple didn’t believe the vendor either. They simply held hands and walked away.
The antique street in Haishi stretched for roughly two kilometers from one end to the other.
The stalls were filled with all kinds of antiques and collectibles, including paintings, calligraphy, porcelain, handicrafts, and more.
Aside from the street stalls, there were also quite a few small shops built in traditional Chinese architectural styles.
Those were generally higher-end antique shops, such as Uncle Li’s Qibaozhai.
Shen Sangyu slowly wandered along the street, attracting quite a few curious glances.
She had deliberately dressed as inconspicuously as possible today.
She was worried that the vendors would see how young she was and deliberately take advantage of her because of the quality of her clothes.
But Shen Sangyu was tall and slender.
Even though she was wearing an ordinary long black down coat, her height of 170 centimeters still made her stand out among the petite women common in southern China.
And then there was her fair, delicate little face.
The contrast between her pale skin and black coat made her look even more striking.
Shen Sangyu stopped in front of a relatively quiet stall.
“Little miss, what are you looking for? A jade bangle or a ring?”
The middle-aged vendor hurriedly greeted her when he saw a pretty young girl crouching down.
Usually, young girls who came to the antique street were looking for pretty jewelry.
“Uncle, can I take a look at this ring?”
The middle-aged man seemed rather shy and honest by nature.
He didn’t actively approach customers or hawk his wares.
Compared with the surrounding stalls, his little corner seemed especially deserted.
But the items spread across the waterproof tarp were certainly varied.
Shen Sangyu pointed at a gold ring near the edge.
“Of course. It’s from the Jiaqing period. Take a look.”
As he spoke, the vendor picked up the ring and placed it in Shen Sangyu’s palm.
She didn’t activate her relic eye immediately.
Instead, she examined it carefully.
The ring was engraved with the words, “The Great Qing Unites All Under Heaven in Peace.”
The craftsmanship certainly looked consistent with the Jiaqing period.
Shen Sangyu turned the ring over several times.
Seeing how interested she seemed, the middle-aged vendor couldn’t help saying, “What do you think, little miss? If you want it, I’ll sell it to you for fifty thousand.”
Fifty thousand was actually a fairly reasonable price for a piece of Qing Dynasty imperial jewelry.
However…
This gold ring was a counterfeit!
The lettering and craftsmanship looked flawless on the surface.
But Shen Sangyu had worked at the Beijing Museum for several years in her previous life.
During exhibitions and dismantling displays, she had handled countless handicrafts and antiques, while also learning from numerous professors and experts in the field.
The weight of this gold ring was clearly wrong.
After thinking for a moment, Shen Sangyu had a pretty good idea of what she was looking at.
The ring was probably made with a copper base, coated with gold, and then artificially aged.
Gold and copper had vastly different densities, with gold being nearly twice as dense.
The weight should therefore be significantly different.
Shen Sangyu weighed it in her hand a few more times.
She was almost certain of her guess.
Then she quietly activated her relic eye and focused on the ring in her palm.
Sure enough!
There wasn’t even the slightest trace of object aura.
It’s fake!
It’s not a Jiaqing-era antique at all.
It’s modern!
Shen Sangyu reached her conclusion silently.
Even though she had already identified it as a counterfeit, she still played along with the vendor.
“Uncle, how about thirty thousand? And you can throw that in with it. I think the design is pretty unique.”
Shen Sangyu blinked her light brown eyes and held up three fingers.
Then she pointed at the irregular piece of “wood” weighing down one corner of the waterproof tarp.
It was pitch black and completely inconspicuous.
Unless someone looked carefully, they could barely notice it.
The vendor was stunned.
He hadn’t expected the plainly dressed young girl to agree so readily.
At small street stalls like this, buyers usually bargained prices down by half.
So the vendor wasn’t upset at all by her offer of thirty thousand.
As for the extra item Shen Sangyu had asked for…
The middle-aged vendor didn’t care about it in the slightest.
He didn’t even remember when or where he’d picked up that thing.
He had always used it to hold down his waterproof tarp.
It had never been something he intended to sell.
The vendor solemnly raised the ring in his hand.
“Little miss, let me make one thing clear first. Thirty thousand for this ring. Once it’s sold, there are no returns or exchanges!”
He was making sure she understood that once the transaction was completed, he wouldn’t accept any refund simply because she was a minor.
Shen Sangyu felt rather helpless.
If she’d known this would happen, she should have dressed more maturely.
Maybe she should have worn a long, wavy wig and some lipstick.
“Uncle, this is money I’ve saved from my allowance. I can spend it myself.”
“All right, deal!”
The vendor immediately relaxed when he heard that.
Haishi was one of China’s major economic hubs.
It wasn’t particularly unusual for a child from a wealthy family to have tens of thousands in spending money.
Without another thought, he opened his payment QR code and happily handed the gold ring to Shen Sangyu.
“As for that, you can take it yourself.”
He pointed at the irregular piece of “wood,” wider at the top and narrower at the bottom, and waved it off without a second thought.
After paying, Shen Sangyu casually slipped the gold ring into the pocket of her down jacket.
Then she carefully picked up the lump of black “wood.”
Seeing how seriously she was treating it, the vendor found it amusing.
Kids these days really do like strange little things, he thought, silently shaking his head.
What he didn’t know was that Shen Sangyu had been after this piece of “wood” from the very beginning!
The ring had merely been an excuse.
Even the extra item she’d asked for was just a way to disguise her real intentions.
Because heaven knew, what she was holding could be a priceless piece of rhinoceros horn!
The moment Shen Sangyu had arrived at the stall, she’d noticed it.
It wasn’t very large, only about the size of an adult man’s palm.
But through the thick layer of dirt covering its surface, she had vaguely noticed some fine patterns underneath.
Perhaps because she’d been staring at it for a while, the miraculous relic eye in her right eye had automatically activated.
Golden object aura was swirling around the black piece of “wood”!
That was why Shen Sangyu had deliberately crouched down and pretended to examine the ring.
In reality, she had been observing the “wood” beside it.
If she’d openly said she wanted this piece from the beginning, then regardless of whether the vendor had originally intended to sell it, he would definitely have tried to fleece her.
Still…
From the vendor’s perspective, Shen Sangyu had just spent thirty thousand on a fake ring from the modern era.
She probably looked like a rich fool with more money than sense.
Shen Sangyu couldn’t care less what anyone else thought.
The moment her fingers touched the piece of “wood,” the golden object aura in her right eye flowed along her fingertips.
The lotus flower in her dantian absorbed it.
A bead of nectar condensed at the tip of the lotus bud.
And the lotus bud opened a little wider.
Shen Sangyu didn’t notice, however, that the tiny red mole beneath her collarbone had become extraordinarily vivid at the exact moment the lotus bud absorbed the object aura.
It looked both demonic and ethereal.
The other vendors had seen Shen Sangyu casually spend thirty thousand yuan.
And once they noticed that she was just a young girl, they immediately began trying to attract her attention.
“Little miss, come over here! I’ve got a glass-type jade bangle with excellent translucency. It’ll look wonderful on a young girl like you!”
“Hey, hey, take a look at mine! This is a Tang Dynasty gold hairpin. Don’t young girls these days love wearing Hanfu? This would go perfectly with it…”
And so on.
Shen Sangyu finally understood.
In the eyes of these vendors, a gullible fool with money to burn was nothing less than a walking ATM.
But she didn’t pay any attention to them.
She pulled up the hood of her down jacket and hurried back the way she’d come, keeping her head down as she walked.
She was eager to return home and confirm her theory.
She didn’t have time to deal with these vendors.
“Sang Sang?”