Tang Qin?

When Chu Chen finished, Wu Ke smiled and interrupted him. "Achen, that's not quite right. I once heard the teacher who taught me guqin say that the reason cracks appeared on guqin made during the Republic of China or through certain traditional techniques was that the makers used poor ash bases. They used nothing but tile ash, so of course cracks would appear."

Tile ash could be found everywhere. Combining it with raw lacquer to make the ash base was entirely a matter of production cost, which was why many guqin made among the people used this kind of base. Tile ash became especially common after the Ming Dynasty and was even more widespread during the Qing Dynasty. Its characteristic was that it produced a sound that loosened and carried easily. Since the lacquer and ash could easily flake off, collectors disliked guqin made this way.

Chu Chen laughed. "What you said is indeed true, but I mean that the causes of cracks are complicated. They're often related to how the lacquer base was handled during production and the environment in which the guqin was preserved afterward. So we should analyze them carefully. We can't see tortoiseshell cracks and immediately claim that a guqin is extremely old. You should know that some cracks on guqin today are still fakes."

"Even the cracks are fake?" Wu Ke found it unbelievable when she heard this.

Chu Chen smiled. "Wherever there's profit, people will naturally find a way. Besides, the practice of forging cracks had already appeared in ancient times. There were quite a few methods, such as roasting the guqin over a fierce fire and then shocking it with ice and snow to make it split; or mixing egg white into the ash before applying the lacquer, then steaming it in a