After settling an investment deal, Chu Chen picked up the three famille-rose porcelain pieces from earlier and headed toward Da Sha's stall. Of course, walking straight over would make his purpose too obvious, so he did as before and strolled over while looking around.
Walking a few steps and stopping every now and then, Chu Chen soon reached Da Sha's stall.
At that moment, Da Sha was persuading a young man about Chu Chen's age standing in front of the stall to buy something from him. When he saw Chu Chen approach, he greeted him with a smile and gestured for him to look around freely, then continued talking.
"Little brother, we're all ordinary people. We don't have the kind of deep pockets other people do, or we wouldn't usually buy porcelain fragments for research and study. But although researching porcelain fragments has many benefits, it does have its drawbacks too."
The young man's attention shifted to him. "What drawbacks?"
"Researching porcelain fragments can lead you to generalize from a limited example. It has its advantages, but it also has its shortcomings. The shortcoming is that one leaf can block your view of the forest."
Da Sha spoke at length. "When researching a kiln or the porcelain of a particular era, the shape of the vessel is extremely important. When many experienced experts appraise a piece of porcelain, they look at its shape first. If the shape is wrong, there's no need to examine anything else. But when you study porcelain fragments and generalize from a limited example, you can't see the shape of the original vessel. That's extremely detrimental to researching porcelain."
"Little brother, you have no idea how badly I suffered because of this. I couldn't afford complete pieces before, so I bought porcelain fragments to study. Once,