"Sure, I'll take a look first."
Xia Xu smiled and lowered his head, continuing to look through the other items.
Qianlong and Cixi were historical figures on Blue Ocean Star, so those weren't typos. Their counterparts hardly needed introducing, and their lives had followed much the same course.
But as for those inscriptions, Qianlong was one thing, but Cixi hadn't actually proclaimed herself emperor like that empress surnamed Wu. Her name certainly couldn't serve as a reign mark. Even an antiques novice like him could tell at a glance that the thing was fake.
Of course, Xia Xu wasn't here to appraise antiques. He simply wanted to use the plot to snag a bargain. So although he appeared to be examining the antiques, he was actually studying the construction-site old man's status panel.
[Name]: Qian Chenghe [Life level]: 1 [Fate potential]: [Supporting character: "The Dying Man"] [Talent potential]: Disguise (2 stars); persuasion (1 star); antique appreciation (1 star) [Special]: None [Obsession]: Don't get found. [Affinity]: 0
That was the status panel of the construction-site old man in front of him.
First of all, there was no doubt that this old man wasn't a construction worker who had genuinely dug up antiques, as Xia Xu had previously guessed. He was a seasoned practitioner of the classic construction-site old man scam.
His talents alone practically confirmed it: one-star persuasion, and even a full two stars in disguise.
If plot characters didn't apparently display only their plot-related fates, Xia Xu had no doubt that this old man's fate potential would include something like "con artist."
Still, that last talent, antique appreciation, came as a small surprise. He hadn't expected the old man to possess some genuine expertise.
Zhang Jianmin had actually managed to snag a bargain from someone who knew his stuff?
Although it was only one star, Xia Xu understood that having a talent displayed at all already meant a respectable level of ability. After all, people without talent could still muddle through all sorts of professions. Anyone with talent would naturally stand a cut above the mediocre.
But that didn't pose much of a problem for Xia Xu.
All he had to do was look and see exactly how Zhang Jianmin had snagged that bargain.
His gaze settled on [Supporting character: "The Dying Man"]. Sure enough, another section had been added to the text he had seen on Zhang Jianmin last time.
["The Dying Man": An old man dressed as a construction worker stopped Zhang Jianmin, peddling antiques he claimed to have just dug up. Zhang Jianmin had little interest at first, but he suddenly paused when his gaze landed on a Guanyin Statue. Thinking that he might as well pray to the gods and Buddha before he died, he decided to buy the Guanyin Statue. After several rounds of bargaining, he finally settled on a price with the old man. He was just about to buy it when an antiques expert who lived nearby and happened to be out for a stroll stopped him...]
Once again, it ended abruptly with an ellipsis.
Just seeing that punctuation now made Xia Xu's balls ache. It was second only to rows of question marks in sheer annoyance.
"An antiques expert. So this scene is still missing an important supporting character, which means I can't see the subsequent plot involving him..."
Once he understood the reason, Xia Xu felt utterly helpless.
The plot of The Dying Man was already fairly clear. Following the usual storytelling conventions, he could roughly guess where it was going. This scene with the construction-site old man should indeed involve snagging a bargain.
But rather than subverting the construction-site old man scam by having him encounter a real construction worker, Zhang Jianmin would genuinely get lucky and snag a bargain from a seasoned scammer. The antiques expert was presumably there to highlight and reinforce that development.
The problem was that without seeing this character, he couldn't see the subsequent plot. Although it seemed very likely, the current synopsis didn't let him be completely certain that Zhang Jianmin's bargain was the Guanyin Statue. He couldn't even be sure this was definitely a bargain-hunting scene.
Even if all of that held true and every guess he made was correct, he still had no way of knowing how Zhang Jianmin had turned the Guanyin Statue into money, or where its hidden value lay.
Qian Chenghe did, after all, have a one-star talent for antique appreciation, and this was his line of work. Calling him a knowledgeable dealer certainly wasn't overstating things. How could snagging a bargain from him be so easy?
The fact that he had put this Guanyin Statue up for sale practically guaranteed it wasn't authentic. If the plot simply forced him to overlook its authenticity while even antiques experts failed to recognize it, that would be far too contrived. Most likely, its real value lay somewhere other than in being an "antique."
Oh well. There's no such thing as an absolutely risk-free deal. The chance of being wrong is negligible. I'll buy it first.
Although it still irked him a little, he naturally wasn't going to abandon a deal with such negligible risk. He decided to buy it first. At worst, he could buy everything.
He could take it home and study it at his leisure. If he really couldn't figure it out, he could come back and look for the antiques expert from the plot. Since the synopsis said he lived nearby and took walks around here, a few days of searching should be enough to run into him.
"Sir, how much for this Guanyin?"
Having made up his mind, Xia Xu had also finished looking over everything on the ground. Finally, he let his attention settle naturally on the Guanyin Statue.
"Hey, young fellow, what do you mean, 'how much'? This is a Buddhist statue. You're supposed to say you're inviting it home."
Qian Chenghe put on a superstitious, agitated expression and scolded him.
Xia Xu acted unimpressed. "Come on, I'm just buying it for fun, not taking it home to worship. What's all this about inviting it home? You dug it up anyway. Just name a price."
"Well, I won't ask too much. Eighty thousand."
Qian Chenghe was putting his acting skills to work too. Looking disgruntled and impatient, he held up his right hand to signal eight.
"Wait, boss, you're not seriously buying this, are you?"
Before Xia Xu could speak, Yang Bowen grew anxious at the price and tried to dissuade him. "You can tell at a glance this thing's fake. I've seen something almost identical at a relative's house."
"That's right, young man. It's obviously fake, just a modern decorative piece. At most, it dates back to the sixties or seventies. If you spend tens of thousands buying it as an antique, you really will be making yourself a sucker."
Just then, an elderly voice joined the conversation.
Qian Chenghe bristled at those words. "Hey, what's that supposed to mean? What gives you the right to smear me? I dug all these things out of the ground myself. How could they be fake?"
Xia Xu, however, was delighted by the warning from behind him. He turned to see a refined old man with graying temples, dressed in a long black gown and patterned cloth shoes.
[Name]: Lin Zhengping [Life level]: 1 [Fate potential]: [Supporting character: "The Dying Man"] [Talent potential]: Antique appreciation (3 stars); calligraphy (1 star) [Special]: None [Obsession]: I hope my wife gets better soon. Please don't... [Affinity]: 5
After opening the status panel of the old man in the black gown, Xia Xu broke into a smile.
"Thank you for the warning, sir. I wasn't planning to buy it as the real thing. I just happened to see it and liked the look of it, so I thought I'd take it home as a decoration."
Xia Xu gave Lin Zhengping a friendly smile, then hurriedly stopped Qian Chenghe, who looked furious enough to roll up his sleeves and start swinging. "Let's talk this out. Let's talk this out."
Only after stopping Qian Chenghe did he smile and say, "You're not being very fair either, old man. Do you think I'm stupid? That shabby figurine on the ground even has 'Made during the Cixi reign' stamped on it. All this stuff is obviously fake. Forget eighty thousand; I'd think eight hundred was too much.
"How about this: four hundred. Take it or leave it. Consider it your first sale of the day."
"No way. Don't listen to his nonsense. This Guanyin Statue of mine is a genuine old piece."
Qian Chenghe looked thoroughly incensed. "Four thousand. That's my lowest price. Any less and I can't explain it to my coworkers. Buy it if you want. Otherwise, forget it."
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