The three entered the teahouse, booked a private room, and ordered a pot of Middle Stage tea priced at 380 yuan. This was already Chen Mo's limit. His total assets amounted to only a little over 20,000 yuan, so treating the old man and the young girl to tea worth 380 yuan was already a sincere gesture. Even at this price, his heart ached for quite a while. Not long ago, this would have been nearly half a month's food expenses for him.
However, the old man merely smiled without commenting. After the tea master brought the tea over, he calmly picked up his cup and drank, showing no particular reaction. The young girl curled her lips but said nothing. It was only tea, and besides, she was not familiar with Chen Mo. It was enough for her to look down on him a little. A pot of tea costing 880 yuan was considered fairly good, and she had no opinion about the tea itself. Rather, after forming an opinion of Chen Mo, everything about him seemed unpleasant. A young girl's thoughts were just that simple.
Tea drinking in the Guanzhong Region was different from tea drinking in the south. Southerners drank Gongfu Tea, or gathered with three to five Good Friends over a pot and three small cups, calling it tea tasting. Northerners were different. Big Bowl Tea, Gaiwan Tea, Three-Cannon Tea, and the like were northern habits. Large bowls and drinking to one's heart's content were the northern way of drinking tea.
However, as Gongfu Tea had spread in recent years, many Gongfu Tea houses could occasionally be seen in the north as well. Still, although Gongfu Tea had made its way into Guanzhong, tea drinking there was generally more forthright. The tea house Chen Mo had come to suited northern characteristics quite well. What they served were Glass Cups and a kettle. Tea Leaves had already been placed in the Glass Cups, and hot water was poured directly in. Watching the leaves rise and fall in the water had a certain charm of its own.
"How is it? Have you made up your mind?" the old man asked after calmly drinking his tea and setting down his cup.
"Grandfather, how should I address you?" Chen Mo asked. One should show more respect to elders.
"My surname is He," the old man said with a smile.
"Old Man He," Chen Mo called.
The old man merely smiled. He neither denied the form of address nor said anything else. Not just anyone could call him Old Man He. If Chen Mo failed to satisfy him later, it would be better for them to remain strangers passing by on the road.
Chen Mo also sensed the old man's faint distance from the way he addressed him. Still, he did not care about it. He would do what needed to be done. After all, others owed him nothing. If things remained this way after the matter was settled, then they could simply go their separate ways.
"I need to take something out of this wooden box first. If it is not damaged, I'll sell it to you for one thousand yuan. The reason I did not agree to you earlier was, first, because we were out on the street, with people coming and going and too many ears around.
"Second, if I didn't take the item out, I had no way to name a price. But once the item inside is removed, selling this wooden box to you for one thousand yuan won't be a problem," Chen Mo said directly. It might have been a little too blunt for strangers, but they were simply doing business, so there was no need to care about such things. Besides, the old man looked upright, and he had a young girl with him, so there was no possibility of them trying to rob him. Chen Mo was not so easy to swallow either; they had better be careful not to break their teeth trying.
"Oh? You mean there's something hidden inside this wooden box?" The old man was somewhat surprised. He had not expected to encounter such a strange matter, and his curiosity was piqued.
"Hey! You're not in league with those people, are you? Don't tell me this is some kind of double scam!" The young girl's imagination ran wild. She wondered whether he was working with that group from before to deceive her grandfather. Such tricks were not unheard of. And in her eyes, Chen Mo was no good person to begin with, so naturally she suspected him.
Chen Mo smiled. "I don't understand antiques or curios, but I discovered that there was something wrong inside this wooden box, which is why I spent 1,000 yuan to buy it. Once I take out what's inside, I'll sell the wooden box to you. You can simply choose not to buy whatever I take out."
Chen Mo was actually rather grateful to the young girl. Just because she had spoken up for justice earlier, he could tell that she had a good heart. There was no need for him to argue with a girl over a few words. Of course, it was absolutely not because she had bright eyes and white teeth and looked charming and adorable. Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely not! Important things had to be said three times! Well, she was pretty, but making money still came first.
After thinking it over, the young girl found that he was right and nodded. The old man, however, had remained silent, watching with a faint smile as his granddaughter worried about him. That was a kind of happiness too. He would not say anything unnecessary. No matter what happened, just as Chen Mo had said, if the item was no good, they simply would not pay. Given his influence, who could possibly deceive him? Even if someone managed to deceive him, he would make that person cough it back up afterward. He was not so easy to fool.
Chen Mo took out a flathead screwdriver and a Utility Knife from his backpack. Those tools had not actually been in the small backpack; they merely concealed the fact that he had taken them out from Inside Universe Bead. He had gradually bought those tools while renting his old place. When he moved out, after obtaining the Universe Bead, he naturally took away everything he could. He had paid for them, after all, and throwing them away would have been a waste. He had not expected to use them before even getting home. It seemed he had been quite farsighted.
There had originally been a Storage Bag as well, but it was Master Ye Shang's token of love. Out of respect for the deceased, after taking everything else out, Chen Mo left only a lock of hair inside the Storage Bag and placed it within the Universe Bead. If he had the chance, he would return the Storage Bag to its original owner, thus settling a part of Master Ye Shang's lingering affection.
He picked up the wooden box and examined it carefully, finally finding some clues. The porcelain it had contained was a vase, so the box itself was fairly large—more than thirty centimeters long, fifteen centimeters wide, and around twenty centimeters thick. There was soft padding inside, but it did not fit the object very well. It seemed to have been added later. The wooden box was also quite old, with the scorched, smoke-stained look of something exposed to fire.
Chen Mo did not understand how Old Man He had determined that this was from the Republic of China era, or how he had identified the wood as Chicken-wing wood. He rather admired the old man's sharp eyes. Chen Mo had examined it several times and still could not make sense of it. To him, the thing was just a battered wooden box. If not for his Spiritual Sense, he would never have noticed what was inside. Suddenly, he thought of something. Could his Spiritual Sense be used for Stone Gambling? Didn't novels often describe things like that?
He shook his head. This was not the time for such random thoughts. The task at hand was more important. He removed the porcelain fragments, the padding, and the yellow silk cloth, then carefully examined the wooden box with his Spiritual Sense.
"Hey! Why are you shaking your head? Could it be that you didn't find anything? Aren't you just wasting time?" The young girl had little patience. Seeing Chen Mo shake his head at the wooden box, she asked boredly and shot him a disdainful glance. Yet his heart trembled slightly. Her whites were snowy, her large black eyes were moist and lively. Even when she looked down on someone, she somehow looked pleasing. She was just so adorable! Damn! Was he going too far?
Chen Mo did not answer. He raised his head to glance at the girl, then quickly lowered it again. Otherwise, he would not be able to focus on examining the wooden box in his hands. Suppressing the stirrings in his heart, he studied the wooden box carefully and finally noticed something.
He lightly scored a seam along the bottom with the Utility Knife a few times. After testing it, he scored it several more times, then switched to the small flathead screwdriver and gave it a push. Under the curious gazes of the old man and the young girl, he slowly pushed out a thin wooden strip from one side of the bottom. It was about as thick as a matchstick. Once he removed the strip, a board on the rear side could be pulled out. The small wooden strip served as a wedge.
He turned the wooden box upside down on the table and slowly pulled open the board at the bottom. Only then did the old man and the young girl discover that this board and the three side panels all had grooves, fitted together seamlessly and tightly, forming a wooden box with its sides wrapping around the base. Both the bottom board and the side panels were extremely thick, each over a centimeter thick. No wonder it had survived until now. If they had been thinner, Chen Mo would have discovered the hidden item long ago.
The detachable board and wooden strip had been crafted with exquisite care. If Chen Mo had not scraped away some of the buildup along the side of the wooden box, no one would have noticed that it possessed such a mechanism. The small wooden strip was also extremely tiny; after enough time passed, it would become impossible to see anything unusual. If not for someone like Chen Mo, who possessed Spiritual Sense, no one could have discovered with their eyes that this wooden box could conceal something inside.
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