Volume 1 Chapter 35: The Mysterious Qinghua Porcelain (Part 1)

  Chen Jun's eyes flashed with a hint of cunning, and he smiled slyly: "You're not proud of your discerning eye, are you? Let's make a bet that you can pick out the most valuable antiques from Zhang Chen's house."

  At the mention of this, Chen Jun secretly scolded him. This antique has no fixed price, its value lies not only in its own conditions but also in human speculation. Often a modern handicraft can be speculated to be more valuable than an ancient piece from before the prosperous Tang Dynasty. As for its value, it's hard to say whether it's historical value, artistic value or monetary value.

  "You've dug a big hole, antiques are priceless, value varies from person to person and time to time. What I think is valuable might not be as valuable in your eyes. If we're talking about value, should it be based on historical artifact value or artistic monetary value?"

  Zhang Chen had this idea and also wanted to try out Qu Wen's skills. The education and values received by children born into wealthy and famous families are indeed slightly different from those of ordinary people. Many people have inherited their parents' ways of dealing with things, dividing people into three six nine grades, those with power, those without power, those with money, those without money, and those who are useful and those who are useless.

  It's not that Qu Wen is young, and he's also in the antique business, so he shouldn't have much power. As for his financial situation, it's hard to tell for now, because Qu Wen dresses too casually, and there isn't a single brand-name item on him, so I don't know if it's just his style or if he really doesn't have money. As for whether he's useful or not, we'll find out soon enough - being able to become Bao Guoqiang's junior apprentice should mean he has some abilities.

  However, as the host, Zhang Chen didn't want the atmosphere to become too awkward, so he changed the subject: "Brother Qu Wen is right, antiques have no fixed price, and their value varies from person to person and from time to time. It's possible that something worth 100 today might be worth 50 tomorrow. This kind of gamble is a bit unfair. Why don't we bet on real or fake instead? I'll take out ten pieces from my dad's collection, and Brother Qu Wen can try to pick out the genuine ones."

  Ling Kai hastily said: "No way, he's in this line of work himself, how could he not tell the authenticity of antiques? This bet is too easy for him!"

  Zhang Chen smiled and said, "Ping Jin told you to do less exercise and use your brain more, but you didn't listen. This antique is difficult to distinguish between true and false, even if Xiaolin's father came, he wouldn't dare say that every piece is genuine with 100% certainty."

  "But..." Ling Kai wanted to say something else, but was pulled back by Chen Jun on the side, who gave him a strong wink. "Let's do it your way, let him identify the authenticity of the antiques on the spot, and if he makes a mistake within half an hour, he loses, how about that?" He then turned his gaze to Qu Wen.

  No need to say anything else, I'm quite confident in identifying true and fake essays. You can turn on your cheat mode now. He nodded slightly: "Alright, bring out whatever good stuff you have, as long as you admit defeat once, I'll consider myself the loser."

  This is a big boast, the young people present are all from wealthy families and have some antiques at home, or even have experience in antique appraisal. If it's an appraisal master, maybe half an hour to appraise five to eight items is no problem, but appraising ten items, equivalent to one item every three minutes, the difficulty can be imagined.

  The noise in the room suddenly grew louder. Everyone was waiting with bated breath for Qu Wen to lose face, just like they were watching a monkey show.

  Not long after, Zhang Chen and his friends brought back more than a dozen antiques to the hall. In order to let Qu Wen better identify the antiques, Zhang Chen ordered someone to turn off the audio and colored lights, replacing them with normal lighting. Bao Xiaolin's classmates and guests also gathered around in a circle, curiously waiting for Qu Wen to appraise the antiques.

  Chen Jun's father is the boss of a real estate company, with assets over 10 billion. After becoming wealthy, he also learned to collect antiques and calligraphy like others, which not only elevated his personal reputation but also showed his status when placed at home. Recently, he happened to attend an auction with Zhang Chen's father outside, where Zhang Chen's father bought back an antique at a high price. However, after being appraised by a master in Beijing, it was confirmed to be a high-quality fake, which made him so angry that he almost smashed the antique on the spot.

  Fortunately, Zhang Chen's family background was good, and he found the auction house again. The other party returned all the money as before. Because the high imitation antique was finely crafted and had a very high degree of authenticity, it even deceived the eyes of several experts at the auction.

  This auction house has counterfeit goods, which is not a new story. More cautious collectors will often participate in the pre-auction first, determine the authenticity of the goods through their own eyes, and then bid on the actual auction day.

  The auction activities have different degrees of new and old goods, and for the fake goods and quality problems that appear during the auction process, the Consumer Protection Committee has not yet been involved in the auction field at that time, so it is still a blank in this aspect. Only then did the auction meeting openly sell fake goods happen.

  Compared to the several experts who were walking by, Qu Wen was much too young. Even if you have a gift for it, the antique industry isn't one where you can succeed just based on talent. Earlier, Zhang Chen had snuck him a glance while speaking, probably because he had mixed in that high-quality fake piece, and with so many items, even an extremely experienced expert would find it difficult to distinguish between real and fake within such a short period of time. As a result, the chances of Chen Jun's success increased greatly, and naturally, they wouldn't say anything else, just standing off to the side sneering in secret, waiting for Qu Wen to make a fool of himself later on.

  He followed Fan Yongcheng, Gu Quan and Bao Guoqiang to learn antique appraisal for several months. With Qu Wen's hard work, he is now considered a novice in the field. When he gets his hands on an artifact, he can generally tell its era and characteristics.

  The most difficult thing about antique appraisal is that theory is easy to understand, but practice is hard to clarify. Often, the characteristics mentioned in books are all present, but ultimately, it's still a fake that has been tampered with. Without years of accumulated experience, reading many books is not enough to become an expert or master.

  But Quwen is different from ordinary people, with the combination of Xianjia's magical powers and theories, it is equivalent to opening a super plug-in in an invisible way, and the extra advantages are not just one point. Ten objects were swept away like a broom, and within ten minutes or so, two modern imitation artifacts were picked out one after another, but he stopped at a Qinghua porcelain vase for a long time, unable to move his feet.

  Looking at Qu Wen, Chen Jun's face revealed a hint of a smile. This Ming Qinghua was a high-quality imitation that had deceived many appraisal experts. Qu Wen's inability to determine the authenticity of this Ming Qinghua seemed to be within his expectations. If he were to guess, Qu Wen and his chances of winning or losing were about even, with neither side having an advantage. However, there were still three more artifacts waiting to be appraised, and time was not on their side.

  Victory's scales had imperceptibly tilted in Chen Jun's favor.

  Zhang Chen was surprised by Qu Wen's speed in identifying antiques, it seemed he really had some skills. However, when they arrived at Ming Qing Hua, he was forced to stop in his tracks. A hint of disappointment involuntarily appeared on his face.

  The antique industry is indeed still about age and experience, at Qu Wen's age, being able to do this much is already quite rare, but there is still a considerable distance from becoming an expert master.

  "Director Qu, why have you stopped? Let me be more generous and spare you the trouble of appraising this one piece. This Qinghua vase doesn't need to be looked at; it was bought back by my father from an auction house at a high price, and the appraisal documents are all here."

  Zhang Chen said, taking out an appraisal document and placing it on the table, almost making Chen Jun so angry that he spat blood. He had been counting on this high-quality imitation Qinghua vase to defeat Qu Wen. But Zhang Chen was willing to give up his great opportunity and offer it as a gift to the other party, losing the gamble and allowing him to go and report his grievances. As for Zhang Chen's family background, it was too deep, and not something that his own family could compare with - even if his own father met Qu Wen's father, he would have to look up to him. It seemed that this dumb loss was inevitable, and all he could do was grit his teeth and swallow the bitter pill.

  "Who would have thought that Qu Wen actually waved his hand and smiled faintly, saying: 'No need, since we've made a bet, backing out now wouldn't be very manly. We agreed to appraise ten items, so we must finish appraising all ten. It's only been over ten minutes, there's still plenty of time.'"

  When Chen Jun heard Qu Wen's words, he actually felt a sense of gratitude and his eyes welled up with tears. What a good man, what a true hero! Although they were enemies, he was still worthy of admiration. If it weren't for Qu Wen's integrity, tonight's striptease would have been unavoidable.

  It's better for you to die than for the enemy to die, since you're willing to rush into the muzzle, we can't stop you, and can only hypocritically praise you in our hearts.

  Chen Jun's face showed a triumphant smile again, thinking that it was no big deal to let Qu Wen leave her underwear for a while.

  Thank you for Liu Shu Zhen's reward. Please brothers and sisters look at it later and lightly click on the collection, thank you!