The old lady's final statement made Chu Chen feel much better. Her circumstances were indeed pitiful, but just because she was pitiful, did that mean he had to buy her things at an inflated price?
The reason Chu Chen agreed to buy them, aside from the old lady's unfortunate circumstances, was mainly because Qi Baofu had said over the phone that the old lady's entire family were good people with kind hearts. Otherwise, he would never have introduced Chu Chen to her.
Not to mention whether Qi Baofu had judged them correctly, but for his sake alone, Chu Chen was willing to make this modest deal. Fortunately, the old lady was indeed a reasonable person. Otherwise, it really would have seemed that some unfortunate people were also hateful.
Since Chu Chen had been busy setting up the museum, he put the wardrobe aside after buying it. Once he had finished dealing with everything at the museum, he happened to see the wardrobe and became interested, so he carefully inspected it again.
The result of his inspection greatly surprised him. The wardrobe actually had a hidden compartment that was difficult to notice on the surface. When he opened it, he found several ancient books inside, along with a handscroll that looked quite substantial. What was more, the handscroll had actually been written on cocoon paper.
Cocoon paper, as its name suggested, was paper made from silkworm cocoon shells. It had a long history. Liu Yiqing's New Tales of the South stated, "Wang Xizhi wrote the Orchid Pavilion Preface on cocoon paper; the paper resembled leather and was durable," clearly indicating that Wang Xizhi had used cocoon paper when writing the Orchid Pavilion Preface.
Cocoon paper was very thin and smooth on the front, with evenly interwoven fibers and a long resistance