Chapter 14

He paid five yuan and pocketed the few small bills he had left.

He even muttered, "I wonder if my elder will like it."

The stall owner took the money, grinning from ear to ear. "Oh, he's sure to like it. You're such a thoughtful young man."

What unlucky family had a kid who spent that much on junk? The boy was asking for a beating.

Gu Jinshui ignored him. He took his purchases and wandered around, spotting a few promising pieces: a Bamboo Carving from Kangxi's reign and a piece of Blood-Infiltrated Jade.

The Bamboo Carving was nothing extraordinary, but the Blood-Infiltrated Jade was remarkable. It dated to the Han Dynasty, and such jade had always been nearly impossible to find. To become Blood-Infiltrated Jade, a piece had to be excavated at the point when the staining had reached its fullest.

Only then would the unearthed jade have that warm luster and vivid red color. Miss the moment, and its appearance would be different.[1]

But who could time the excavation of ancient jade so precisely? Plenty of people in the trade had heard of it, but few had seen it. Many went their whole lives without seeing a genuine piece.

Gu Jinshui's heart burned with excitement. He couldn't resist looking at it a few more times before strolling away as though it meant nothing to him.

With his purchases in hand, he headed not home but to see the Old Master.

The Old Master was sorting through a pile of old books he had acquired. Hearing footsteps, he looked up at Gu Jinshui and raised an eyebrow. He straightened, clasping his hands behind his back. "Found something good?"

"You bet I did."

Gu Jinshui beamed.

He hurriedly pulled out the Guanyin figurine and the teapot. He had been so afraid of breaking them that he had kept both hands over his stomach throughout the bus ride. The other passengers had thought he had a stomachache and given him a seat.

Old Master Xi barely glanced at the Guanyin figurine. He went straight for the teapot.

He saw the thumbprint on its handle and the four-petaled ruyi design on its lid. The body of the pot

was plain, its craftsmanship so subtle it almost looked clumsy. He brushed the dust from the bottom and found Shi Dabin's mark clearly carved there.

Old Master Xi nodded inwardly and set the pot down. "A teapot made by Shi Dabin in the Ming Dynasty. How much did you pay?"

"Master, take a guess."

Gu Jinshui could hardly contain his delight.

He usually made good money trading scrap, grain coupons, and Foreign Exchange Certificates. Some months, he earned more than other people made in a year.

But none of that had felt as satisfying as hearing his master say those words today.

Old Master Xi snorted. "Stop keeping me in suspense. Tell me."

Gu Jinshui didn't mind. Noticing that the charcoal in the brazier was burning low, he went out, brought in a fresh piece of coal, and put it on the fire to keep the Old Master warm. Only then did he recount how he had pretended to be interested in the Guanyin figurine and put on a show until the stall owner threw in the teapot.

Xi Han nodded slightly to himself.

Recognizing a valuable piece was not the hard part. Getting it cheaply was.

If you rushed to ask the price the moment you saw something good, the seller would fleece you.

"Master, how much do you think I could sell it for?"

Gu Jinshui waited for his answer.

Warming himself by the fire, Xi Han said mildly, "If you need money quickly, I can find you a buyer. You'd probably get seventy or eighty yuan."

"Seventy or eighty?"

Gu Jinshui was astonished.

Xi Han looked up and teased, "What, not enough? Less than you make selling scrap?"

"Of course not." Gu Jinshui knew better than that. He had made sixty or seventy yuan in a day, as much as a senior welder earned in a month. Complaining about that would be ridiculous.

"What if I'm not in a hurry to sell?"

Gu Jinshui watched him.

Xi Han said, "Then keep it. Dabin Teapots aren't rare, but I've never seen one in this style. Rarity drives up the price. Find someone who loves this sort of thing, and seven or eight thousand wouldn't be out of the question."

Seven or eight thousand?

Excitement surged through Gu Jinshui.

His mouth hung open for a long while.

Xi Han laughed at his expression. "What did you think the antiques trade was like? You can be poor one day and rich the next. Find the right piece, and forget seven or eight thousand—three generations of your family could live comfortably on it."

Gu Jinshui fell silent for a moment.

Then he asked, "Master, what if I found the Founding Imperial Seal?"

"If you found the Founding Imperial Seal?" Xi Han leaned back in his wicker chair as though giving it serious thought. "Then you'd go home with three hundred yuan and a certificate of commendation."

Seeing Gu Jinshui's eyes widen, he tapped him on the head. "Who do you think would dare buy the Founding Imperial Seal?"

He had a point.

Xi Han's words cooled Gu Jinshui's excitement considerably.

Gu Jinshui took his purchases home, picked up a hundred yuan, and headed to Panjiayuan to buy the Bamboo Carving and the Blood-Infiltrated Jade.

When he arrived, he caught a glimpse of someone familiar hurrying past. Assuming he had mistaken the person for someone else, he gave it no further thought and went straight to the stall with the Blood-Infiltrated Jade.

But when he reached it and looked around, the jade he had seen earlier was gone.

He cleared his throat. "Sir, didn't you have a Jade Cicada here earlier? Where did it go?"

"Oh, young man, you're too late. I just sold it."

The old man sat on a stool, holding a roasted sweet potato.

"Sold it?" Gu Jinshui's heart lurched. Usually so careful to hide his feelings, he now looked visibly anxious.

The old man was no fool. He glanced at him. "What? Was it something valuable?"

Gu Jinshui made up a lie on the spot. "Not really. I just liked the look of it and thought I'd give it to my wife. I went home to get some money. How did it sell so fast?"

The old man knew he was lying but did not call him out. "You came too late. If you'd been here earlier, I could've sold it to you. I've got some other jade here, though. See if any of it suits you."

Gu Jinshui glanced over the pieces.

There were quite a few, and they were genuine, but they were newer and of poorer quality. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been laid out on a street stall.

The more he looked, the worse he felt. That Jade Cicada had been a rare find, and he had missed it. What a shame.

"Sir, do you have anything else good at home?" Gu Jinshui asked in a low voice.

The old man's expression shifted. "What do you mean, anything good? This is all I've got. Buy something or don't."

He eyed Gu Jinshui nervously, as though suspecting him of fishing for information.

Gu Jinshui knew people like him were wary. He had a fair idea where the old man's stock came from. The soil stains on the jade suggested that most of it had come out of the ground—either dug up from tombs or acquired in the countryside.

Either way, its origins were questionable.

Since the old man would say no more, Gu Jinshui left. Still, he couldn't stop thinking about the Jade Cicada. Who had bought it? Who else had an eye sharp enough to pick the Blood-Infiltrated Jade out of that pile?

Preoccupied, Gu Jinshui reached the stall with the Bamboo Carving.

When he asked about it, he learned that the Bamboo Carving, too, had sold.

A few more questions revealed that someone had bought it just moments ago.

Gu Jinshui immediately sensed something was wrong.

He asked about several other pieces he had his eye on. Every one of them had just been bought.

One could be a coincidence. Two might be chance. But this many could only mean someone was working against him.

Gu Jinshui's face went blank. When he sat down to eat wontons with Shanhu and Douzi, he wore a sour expression.

Shanhu and Douzi exchanged looks.

At last, Shanhu couldn't help asking, "What's wrong, brother? In a bad mood?"

"It's nothing. Just a small matter."

Gu Jinshui took a sip of soup and mumbled his reply.

Nothing?

Something was clearly wrong. Even Shanhu could tell Gu Jinshui wasn't making sense.

But if Gu Jinshui didn't want to talk, neither of them could press him.

The Seventeenth Day of Being Overheard

For several days in a row, Gu Jinshui wandered around Panjiayuan examining the wares. There were plenty of good pieces, but perhaps the Blood-Infiltrated Jade had set his standards too high. Nothing else appealed to him except a fine green jade thumb ring from Qianlong's reign that had come out of the palace.

Xi Han introduced him to a man named Chen Dengxing.

Chen Dengxing had once managed an antique shop at Liuli Factory. Before Liberation, his employer had set him up and cheated him out of everything he owned. All he had left was a one-story house where he lived with his entire family.

At the time, everyone had said Chen Dengxing had terrible luck.

But who could have guessed that losing his fortune would spare him trouble after Liberation, when landlords and capitalists came under attack? His former employer was the one who suffered. He had blood on his hands and had preyed on the locals, and he ended up before a firing squad.

"This jadeite thumb ring has decent clarity. If you want to sell it, I can offer you this much."

Inside Gu Jinshui's sleeve, Chen Dengxing traced a seven with his fingers.

Gu Jinshui understood at once. "Master Chen, that's a little low. Could you add something? If this were an ordinary green jade thumb ring, I'd accept without a word. But this one has a history."

Chen Dengxing looked up at him and stroked his beard with a smile. "A history? What history?"

Gu Jinshui picked up the ring and turned it toward the sunlight. "Perhaps your eyes missed it. Forgive me for speaking out of turn as your junior, but hear me out. If I'm right, you can raise your offer. If I'm wrong, consider it a joke I told you today."

"All right." Chen Dengxing's interest was piqued.

He had heard that Xi Han had taken on an apprentice. There had been no formal ceremony, but the fact that Xi Han had recommended Chen Dengxing to Gu Jinshui showed how pleased he was with him.

Gu Jinshui slowly turned the ring. "The four characters carved on this green jade ring mean 'boundless longevity,' and the landscape is that of the Central Plains. During Qianlong's reign, I'd say only Qianlong himself was worthy of a ring like this."

"So you're saying it was made for Qianlong? Then I misjudged it." Chen Dengxing smacked his lips. "If it really was his personal thumb ring, it wouldn't come cheap."

Gu Jinshui grinned and cupped his hands. "Master Chen, don't tease me. This could hardly have been Qianlong's personal ring. For one thing, he'd never have accepted jade of this quality. Besides, the ring's design is wrong, and the workmanship doesn't resemble that of the palace's Ruyi Workshop. My guess is that a minister presented it to Qianlong as tribute. Whether Qianlong ever wore it is another matter. Either way, passing through the palace gives it a touch of prestige."

With jade, value generally depended on more than quality. Its history mattered even more.

Two ancient jade pieces of equal quality could fetch very different prices if one had belonged to a famous person and the other to an ordinary owner.

Find a collector devoted to such pieces, and the price could easily rise four- or fivefold.

Chen Dengxing nodded inwardly, though his expression gave nothing away.

"Then how much more do you want?"

Gu Jinshui said nothing. He took Chen Dengxing's hand and traced a figure inside his sleeve. Chen Dengxing nodded. The young man wasn't greedy; he knew his limits.

"That amount it is. Sit here a moment while I go inside."

Gu Jinshui was delighted, but he kept it from showing.

He had made a tidy profit today.

Chen Dengxing went inside and returned with a cloth bundle. He counted out twenty ten-yuan notes for Gu Jinshui, along with seven or eight grain coupons.

Putting the thumb ring away, Chen Dengxing said with admiration, "You've got a good eye. You even managed to find a piece like this."

"It's all thanks to my master's teaching—and your good fortune rubbing off on me. I got lucky today."

Gu Jinshui eagerly picked up the kettle and poured Chen Dengxing a cup of water.

Chen Dengxing chuckled. "You certainly know what to say. That part's nothing like your master."

Gu Jinshui only smiled and did not respond.

Chen Dengxing noticed and smiled again. "If you have anything else to sell, bring it to me, especially jade. That thumb ring of yours was still a little lacking in quality. If it had been white jade or jadeite, it would have fetched at least three times as much."

"What about Blood-Infiltrated Jade?"

The question slipped out as an idea struck Gu Jinshui.

Chen Dengxing froze, then excitement lit his face. "You have something as rare as Blood-Infiltrated Jade?"

Gu Jinshui smiled without answering and changed the subject. "Master Chen, what does Blood-Infiltrated Jade go for these days—"