Fooled

"It's over! Five years of hard work have gone down the drain in an instant!"

Chu Chen's face was ashen, and regret surged through him.

Five years ago, at sixteen, after graduating from junior high, Chu Chen had come to the capital with two thousand yuan to make his way in the world. Relying on what he had learned, his sharp and studious mind, and his cautious personality, he had gradually learned from antique dealers and veterans of the trade. He had transformed from a naive village boy into a small-time antique peddler with a decent eye in Panjiayuan.

The effort and sweat he had poured into those years were truly too much to put into words.

The antique trade was a deep pool filled with "land mines." During that time, Chu Chen had suffered countless losses and been fooled many times. But that was only natural. How could anyone grow in this trade without being fooled a few times?

Fortunately, Chu Chen was cautious by nature and not greedy, so his losses had been minor. Moreover, his eye had steadily improved, and his luck had been decent. He had found several valuable treasures, and after five years, he had saved four hundred thousand yuan in the bank after covering his living expenses.

Yet that hard-earned money had vanished in an instant because of the mistake he had just made!

It was 2001, and housing prices in the capital's CY District were only a little over four thousand yuan per square meter. Chu Chen had originally planned to buy a two-bedroom apartment not far from Panjiayuan. After all, running an antique business was somewhat inconvenient from a rented place.

Besides, after five years in the capital, he had developed some affection for the city. And as a lone bachelor, settling down there and living a cozy life with a wife and children was his most urgent wish. Now, with this setback, who knew how long it would take him to achieve that dream by running a street stall?

The circumstances behind this mistake were actually not complicated. In April 2000, a pair of rare Tang Sancai pottery horses collected by a Hong Kong tycoon had been sold at Sotheby's New York auction for more than 1.5 million dollars to a Jewish businessman.

That news had caught Chu Chen's attention, causing him to start watching and becoming obsessed with Tang Sancai.

Tang Sancai was a type of pottery popular during the Tang Dynasty. It was a general term for the low-temperature glazed pottery of that era. Yellow, green, white, blue, ocher, black, and other basic glaze colors were interlaced on the same object, creating a dazzling artistic effect. Since three colors were most common, people later habitually called this type of pottery "Tang Sancai."

Tang Sancai was vivid and lifelike, brilliantly colored, and full of the breath of life. Along with silk as radiant as clouds, dazzling murals, glittering gold and silverware, and an open society, it formed a magnificent picture of Tang culture.

Tang Sancai had achieved great artistic heights, and it had also made enormous contributions to later ceramic craftsmanship. Its brilliant decorative techniques broke the dominance of monochrome glazes, developing from single-color glazes to multicolored ones and laying the foundation for the birth of later painted porcelain.

After the Song Dynasty, most varieties of low-temperature colored glazes and overglaze painted porcelain developed from the foundations laid by Tang Sancai.

Precisely because Tang Sancai possessed such a high artistic standard and unique status, and had been exported overseas from the very beginning, it was deeply loved by people in foreign countries. After being rediscovered at the start of the twentieth century, it attracted increasing attention. Especially over the past twenty years, as domestic and international markets opened up, more and more people had taken an interest in collecting Tang Sancai.

Tang Sancai had been used as burial objects. Because its body was fragile and its water resistance poor, it was extremely difficult to preserve. Moreover, foreigners were particularly fond of its forms, allowing it to fetch astonishing prices at auctions.

For example, on December 12, 1989, a Tang Sancai black horse sold by the international Sotheby's auction house went for 3.74 million pounds in London, England. Sales prices ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars were also common, greatly igniting collectors' enthusiasm.

Ever since learning about Tang Sancai, Chu Chen had seemed possessed. He was always fantasizing about obtaining a beautiful piece—not only would it be pleasing to look at, it could also bring him enormous financial value.

Marx had once said, "If twenty percent profit is available, capital becomes restless; if fifty percent is available, it takes risks; if one hundred percent is available, it dares to risk the gallows; and if three hundred percent is available, it dares to trample every human law underfoot."

Since the 1990s, reform and opening up had achieved many successes, and people's living standards had steadily improved. As a result, related entertainment and cultural industries had flourished as well. As the saying went, gold thrived in chaotic times while antiques flourished in prosperous ones. The number of people entering the collecting trade had increased geometrically.

Naturally, some unscrupulous individuals had set their sights on this treasure trove. Zhenzhen, there were all sorts of monsters and demons, and countless experts in aging and counterfeiting had crowded into the field. Since Tang Sancai was so valuable, it was bound to attract their greedy hands.

Because Tang Sancai was low-temperature ceramic, its production process was not particularly complicated. The raw materials could be found everywhere, and the body and glaze formulas had long been made public. Counterfeiting experts had emerged one after another, some of them even specialists in Tang Sancai research.

It could be said that ninety-nine percent of some high-quality imitations were identical to genuine pieces, completely capable of passing off the false as the true. Only one percent consisted of relatively special characteristics that could not be imitated because they had formed naturally over thousands of years.

Because of that one percent, even the works of certain master counterfeiters could not necessarily be identified unless examined by a veteran with especially rich experience.

Fortunately, Chu Chen had always been cautious, and the experience he had gained during his five years as a peddler was exceptionally rich. Although he had encountered many high-quality counterfeit "land mines," he had carefully stepped over them all. Even so, his dream of owning a fine piece of Tang Sancai had not faded. On the contrary, it had grown even stronger.

Three days earlier, an opportunity had appeared before Chu Chen—he could buy a fine Tang Sancai camel at a bargain price.

Old Xiang, a professor in Capital University's history department, had spent many years dealing with historical artifacts and was therefore especially fond of antiques. After retiring, he often visited Antique Street to hunt for various objects. He was a regular there, and unless the wind was blowing or rain was falling, he would inspect the street every day. As he put it, "Antiques are my second spring."

Because he had dealt with historical artifacts for years and possessed a solid education, Old Xiang had occasionally been fooled, but his collection also contained no shortage of fine pieces. Among them was an exquisite Tang Sancai camel.

Honest business, never cheating or falsifying—Chu Chen had maintained this principle throughout his five years in the trade. It was the fundamental reason a young man like him had been able to establish himself on Panjiayuan Antique Street. Old Xiang was a regular customer at his stall and had also found several bargains there. After interacting repeatedly, the two became familiar and eventually formed an unlikely friendship.

Thus, Chu Chen had been fortunate enough to see that Tang Sancai camel. It was a Bactrian camel, its entire body primarily covered in brown glaze, with green, white, and yellow glazes applied between them in varying shades.

Its head was tilted slightly upward, its front legs crouched and its rear legs standing. Its mouth was wide open, as though calling out to something, and its expression was remarkably vivid. A pack hung between its two humps, with silk, a water flask, and other objects hanging from either side.

The glaze and patina on the Tang Sancai camel were natural, and its fine, even crazing was beautiful. It also displayed lead-returning. Like some genuine Tang Sancai pieces, traces of brown, black, and other colors had seeped into the glaze. Although its rear legs had suffered some minor damage, its overall appearance was exceptional. It could be called a masterpiece among Tang Sancai works.

The first time Chu Chen saw it, he fell in love with it. At that moment, his eyes held nothing but the camel, and "unable to bear to part with it" described his feelings perfectly. He immediately asked Old Xiang whether he could sell it to him, but Old Xiang shook his head repeatedly and refused no matter what. He then explained the reason.

Old Xiang had seen the camel in an antique shop during a trip to Xi'an the previous year. Like Chu Chen, he had been unable to bear to part with it and had finally talked the shopkeeper into selling it to him for 420,000 yuan.

But after returning home, he always felt that something was missing when he handled the camel. Alarmed, he immediately invited several authorities in the field to examine it. Only two of them were uncertain about the Tang Sancai—but those two happened to be the most influential veterans in the Antiques world. They were Old Liu and Old Qian.

Old Liu's real name was Liu Zhihe. He was eighty-two years old and had been born into a family of antique collectors. Broadly learned, he had begun appraising cultural relics for the country in the early years after liberation and had once served as a senior official in the Ministry of Culture. His experience in antique appraisal was extraordinarily rich, making him a leading figure in the antique-collecting world.

Old Qian's real name was Qian Zhiyan. He was seventy-one years old, the chairman of the BJ Collectors Association, and had worked at the National Museum for many years. He was an expert consultant to the Forbidden City Museum and was likewise highly influential in antique collecting.

Although these two veteran figures of the Antiques world had not concluded that the Tang Sancai was fake, neither had they confirmed it as genuine. Their reason was the same: the Tang Sancai camel seemed to lack a certain charm, yet they could not determine exactly what was wrong.

Old Xiang usually supported his collecting habit by selling pieces from his collection, but he had one quirk: if one of his pieces was faulty, he would rather smash it than pass it on to someone else. Now that he had doubts about the Tang Sancai, he certainly would not sell it, which was why he had refused Chu Chen no matter what.

Chu Chen was deeply moved after hearing this. Since ancient times, people in China had regarded honesty and fairness toward everyone, young or old, as standards of personal virtue. In recent years, although economic conditions had improved with reform and opening up, morality had failed to keep pace and had even declined somewhat.

With a piece like this Tang Sancai, many collectors today—especially newcomers—would not be as scrupulous as Old Xiang. As long as the profit satisfied them, they would not care whether the object was good or bad, so long as someone was willing to take it. Such behavior had, to some extent, encouraged counterfeiters' arrogance.

Chu Chen was much the same. He still believed that the Tang Sancai was genuine. After all, neither Old Liu nor Old Qian had been able to say what was wrong with it. And how could a feeling be considered conclusive?

This did not mean Chu Chen disrespected his elders. It was simply the normal mindset of a young man around twenty. Besides, he believed that after years as a peddler, his eye was no longer poor, and he had never suffered a major loss. As a result, he had grown somewhat conceited.

People were sometimes like that. Once they took a liking to something, they could become utterly obsessed. Their eyes would be filled with nothing but its virtues. Chu Chen was exactly like this now. He could not stop thinking about the Tang Sancai camel and dreamed of owning it.

Now, an opportunity had arrived. Old Xiang's only son had studied in England years ago, then settled there, married, and had children. He had repeatedly wanted his father to move to England and live with him, but Old Xiang had always refused. A few days earlier, his son had issued an ultimatum: if he did not come, they would sever their father-son relationship. Faced with that, Old Xiang had no choice but to agree.

However, the older generation generally remained deeply devoted to their homeland. Thus, Old Xiang planned to dispose of his many years of collecting in China, with one condition: none of his collection could be sold to foreigners.

Chu Chen was thrilled when he heard the news. Now he should be willing to sell me that Tang Sancai, right? He then pestered Old Xiang relentlessly. Despite Old Xiang's repeated attempts to dissuade him, Chu Chen refused to give up. In the end, Old Xiang had no choice but to sell him the Tang Sancai for its original purchase price of 420,000 yuan.

After obtaining the Tang Sancai camel, Chu Chen no longer had the heart to run his stall. More than fifty hours had passed since the camel came into his possession, and aside from eating and sleeping, he had spent all his time handling and admiring it. In the end, he even used a magnifying glass to examine every inch of the camel. But that examination revealed a major problem.

And that was how the scene just now had come about.