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One remark made the stall owners and shopkeepers watching nearby cast strange looks at Old Huang.

Old Huang's expression changed. At the critical moment, someone squeezed out of the crowd—it was the man who had tipped Old Huang off earlier. "Misunderstanding, misunderstanding. He's an old buddy of mine, and these are the younger members of his family. We're all in the same trade, so let's not have the flood wash into the Dragon King's temple."

The tattooed young man chuckled. "As the old saying goes, those in the same trade are natural enemies! It's not that I don't want to give them face—they've stepped all over my head."

The man who had come later smiled apologetically. "It was just one thing leading to another! No one did it on purpose—"

"Cut the useless crap." Before he could finish, the tattooed young man turned hostile. "A debt must be repaid, plain and simple. Even if the Heavenly King himself showed up today, anyone who broke my things would have to compensate me at full value."

The Bai couple looked down at the broken porcelain shards on the ground, then at Gu Jiuque standing nearby. Their eyes lit up. "Didn't you just break a lousy bowl? We'll hire someone to mend it for you. That bowl was already broken to begin with. The restoration master we hire will definitely be better than whoever you find."

Without waiting for the tattooed young man to react, the Bai couple hurriedly turned to Gu Jiuque. "Have your grandfather..."

Gu Jiuque said blandly, "If you want my grandfather to do the work, the restoration fee is also five hundred thousand."

Bai Yanliang's expression changed. Pointing at Gu Jiuque's nose, he cursed, "You little brat, you're taking advantage of the situation!"

Gu Jiuque remained calm and composed. "It depends on the person."

Knowing full well that those people had come for Bai Yuesheng, Gu Jiuque would have had water in his brain to let his grandfather wade into this mess.

The neighbors watching shook their heads. Everyone knew that the Bai family had thoroughly offended the Gu family this time.

As for the tattooed young men, their expressions eased slightly when they heard Gu Jiuque's words. They had clearly recognized who Gu Jiuque was.

Bai Yuesheng's breath caught when he saw Gu Jiuque, then he said excitedly, "Gu Jiuque, you came too! I knew you cared about me. What you said just now was only said in anger, right? If you didn't want to help me, why would you have come here with Uncle Huang and the others to find me?"

Gu Jiuque broke into a smile but neither confirmed nor denied it.

Bai Yuesheng, however, carried his armful of antiques and collectibles over to Gu Jiuque and asked smugly, "Gu Jiuque, look at what I collected. Is it enough to compensate your family for the more than sixteen million?"

Gu Jiuque lowered his eyes to the three items in Bai Yuesheng's arms: a Qing-dynasty Bamboo and Rocks Painting by Zheng Banqiao, a Qing Xianfeng-era yellow-ground famille-rose openwork hat stand decorated with cloud and dragon patterns, and a gold-inlaid jade snuff bottle. Some were genuine and some were fake, yet they were exactly the same as the things he had picked up as bargains on the antique street in the west of the city after intercepting Jade Celestial Pivot in his previous life.

The circumstances of his two lives had been completely different, yet the opportunities had still collided with such uncanny similarity. It would have been one thing if Bai Yuesheng truly understood antique appraisal. But he knew absolutely nothing about it.

Gu Jiuque gave Bai Yuesheng a meaningful look and asked curiously, "How did you pick these out?"

Bai Yuesheng blinked, full of self-satisfaction. "Don't worry about how I picked them. Just tell me whether they're worth sixteen million!"

At Bai Yuesheng's words, the eyes of the tattooed young men gathered nearby went wide. Before they could get excited, Gu Jiuque let out a long sigh and pointed at the Bamboo and Rocks Painting and the yellow-ground famille-rose cloud-and-dragon openwork hat stand in Bai Yuesheng's arms. "Fake."

"Fake?" Bai Yuesheng's eyes widened in disbelief, and he shrieked, "How is that possible? I clearly followed your—"

"Followed what of mine?" Gu Jiuque asked with interest as he watched Bai Yuesheng cut himself off abruptly.

Bai Yuesheng shuddered in alarm and stammered, unwilling to continue. He only kept muttering, "How could that be? How could they be fake? This has to be a lie, right? They're obviously real!"

He remembered it clearly. These things were supposed to be genuine!

Curious, Old Huang asked to inspect the items. After examining them repeatedly, he finally sighed. "The Bamboo and Rocks Painting and the hat stand are indeed fake. Only this gold-inlaid jade snuff bottle is real. It's probably worth around two hundred thousand."

Gu Jiuque added meaningfully, "Perhaps they were genuine when you looked at them, but by the time they reached your hands, they weren't anymore."

This sort of thing happened often in antique markets. The goods a shop owner showed a customer were genuine, but when it came time to make the deal, they would be swapped for fakes. Bai Yuesheng had somehow gotten wind of the information and come to hunt for bargains. Judging from what happened in his previous life, his information should have been accurate. But Bai Yuesheng had information without discernment. He had rushed in recklessly to pick up bargains, only to be tricked as an easy mark.

Gu Jiuque guessed that the other party had switched the genuine items while Bai Yuesheng wasn't paying attention. Bai Yuesheng lacked experience and had not noticed at all.

Hearing Gu Jiuque's analysis, Old Huang nodded. The neighbors who had come along also said, "That should be what happened."

The tattooed young man who had been tangling with Bai Yuesheng for so long was so angry that he pointed at Bai Yuesheng and cursed, "Who cares whether they're real or fake? You smashed my things, so pay up!"

Naturally, Bai Yuesheng refused to pay. Not to mention that this bunch had deliberately crashed into him to extort money; even if it really had been Bai Yuesheng's fault, he had yet to repay the Gu family's sixteen million. How could he worry about anyone else?

"First come, first served, understand? I still owe the Gu family money! If you've got the guts, go ask the Gu family for it!" Bai Yuesheng's eyes darted around as he pointed at Gu Jiuque, trying to shift the trouble onto him.

Gu Jiuque had enjoyed the show, but he had no intention of joining their performance. Hearing that, he immediately smiled. "He owes my family money and refuses to pay, so my family has already sued him. You can sue him too."

The tattooed young man: "..."

In the end, with neither side willing to back down, they could only call the police. Under police mediation, the Bai couple had no choice but to pay fifty thousand yuan to the tattooed stall owner. They also cleaned up the broken porcelain shards from the ground, packed them up, and took them away.

The Bai couple still wanted to ask Grandpa Gu to repair this wide-mouthed bowl with lightly painted blue-and-white decoration. After all, Old Huang had said that if it could be restored, it would still be worth some money.