Chapter 5: Luli Factory Taobao + Lottery in China

  The next day, the siblings set out together to dig for treasures at Liuli Factory. Su Qing even put on Xiao Bai and Feng Huang. Xiao Bai was very sensitive to things with spiritual energy, while Feng Huang was very accurate in judging the age of objects (Su Qing had newly discovered this and had also experimented to verify it). Bringing the two pets along would make their task much easier. The two little creatures burrowed into Su Qing's pockets, one on each side, stretching out their adorable little heads.

  Liuli Factory was built in the Ming Dynasty. After the outer city wall was repaired during the Ming Dynasty, streets gradually formed around Liuli Factory. At that time, there were already streets and alleys such as Tannier Hutong, An'nan Camp, Zangjia Bridge near the east gate of Liuli Factory. Near the west gate of Liuli Factory, Nanliu Alley, Beiliu Alley, Chuntree Hutong and other streets and alleys were formed.

  During the Shunzhi reign, in Beijing, "Manchu and Han people lived separately". Many Han officials lived near Liulichang. Their arrival brought a cultural atmosphere to Liulichang. In addition, the imperial examination was held at the Imperial Academy, and many scholars came to Beijing for the exam. To accommodate these scholars, guildhalls from various regions were built near Liulichang, close to the inner city. Scholars needed large quantities of "reference books" and "four treasures of the study". During the Kangxi reign, the supervisor of the imperial kilns, Wang Wenbo, petitioned the court to build houses on the empty land in front of the Liuli kiln, and rent them out to merchants. As a result, book merchants from all over set up stalls here, selling large quantities of books, and trading in brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones.

  Now the ancient cultural street of Liuli Factory is an old city area, with no modern buildings. There are many small vendors selling handicrafts on both sides of the street. The two of them strolled around for half a day and didn't see anything worth collecting, which was quite disappointing. Just then, the two little guys in her pocket started chirping and asked Su Qing to go to a store across the street. Su Qing scanned the things in the store with her divine sense and could feel a hint of historical weight, so she should have real stuff there, pulling Su Chen along as they walked towards it.

  The store owner was a middle-aged man who saw that the two customers were just kids and couldn't tell the difference between genuine and fake products. They were dressed well, so they must have money. He thought to himself that he could easily cheat them and make a lot of money.

  Su Chen examined a pair of wooden hollow-carved pen holders on the shelf, carved with autumn chrysanthemum and winter plum blossoms. The craftsmanship was exquisite and beautiful, and the wood could be seen to be made of small-leaf purple sandalwood. However, some places were covered with an unknown black substance, greatly affecting its appearance.

  Su Qing stared at a black cat without eyes and was stunned. Such things are also sold as antiques, and children might cry if they see them. But no matter how Su Qing looked at it, she felt that it had a strange aura, and unconsciously put her hand on it to explore its internal situation.

  This look gave Su Qing a big fright, inside was full of golden yellow, this is simply a golden cat, not just the thing that the spendthrift took out to sell. Su Qing's eyes scanned a half-round object in the corner that resembled a jade pendant and then returned her gaze.

  What remained was the time to haggle with the boss over prices.

  "How much is this pen holder and this one-eyed ugly cat together?"

  "This pen holder is made of top-quality small-leaf purple sandalwood, and the craftsmanship is exquisite. This kind of wood material is no longer available now, and this pen holder has a history of one or two hundred years. You can have it for 10,000 yuan. Don't look at this cat as if it's worthless, it's also an heirloom with historical value. Take it back and attach a pair of eyes to it, it will definitely be beautiful. I'll give you a discount, three thousand is fine." The boss said with a very generous tone.

  "This pen holder has some unknown black stuff on it that can't be wiped off, it's so ugly. It's already a good deal for 2000 yuan. This black cat is going to cost another 800 yuan just to get its eyes treated."

  "Let's just give 11,000 yuan then."

  Twenty-five hundred

  Ten thousand

  Both sides haggled back and forth, eventually paying 5,000 yuan. Su Qing casually picked up a semi-circular jade-like pendant from the corner and said to the boss in a casual tone, "What's this thing? We spent so much money, give it to me as a gift."

  The boss saw that it was a piece of unknown goods, and he had made more than 3,000 yuan from the two siblings, so he agreed with a good mood: "Give it to you."

  On the way home, Su Qing played with this small ornament and saw: The body is flat and thin, semi-circular in shape, with a straight edge and a recessed carving of an animal face in the middle. The eyes are double-ringed, protruding from the eye sockets, forming a double relief, with two rings drilled out with a pipe drill. The outer side of the eye circle is decorated with dense spiral patterns, connected by multiple arc lines. The nose is rectangular, decorated with dense spiral patterns. The mouth is slightly open, with two fangs exposed outside the upper and lower teeth, and the top is decorated with a dense straight line pattern. Each end has a relief carving of a side-viewing beast face pattern. Outside the beast face pattern, it is fully decorated with spiral patterns, cloud patterns, and return patterns, among which the upper limbs connecting the beast face can be vaguely seen, resembling human arms. The back is carved with dense shaded lines. This is an ancient jade pendant.

  Back home, Su Qing asked her brother to use sandpaper to polish the cat's body, while she herself used a cloth dipped in spatial water to wipe the pen holder. Su Chen didn't know why his sister was asking him to do such strange things, but he still did as told.

  Su Qing had just wiped a pen holder clean and put it on the table when she heard Su Chen excitedly shouting "Qingqing, come quickly to see that this cat is made of gold."

  "Oh, I see." Su Qing already knew the result and wasn't surprised when she heard it again. She picked up another pen holder that hadn't been wiped clean from the table and started wiping it with a cloth.

  "How come you're not surprised at all, did you know it already?" Su Chen was convinced that her sister had known all along, otherwise she wouldn't have brought back a black cat. It's strange how Su Qing discovered it, the thing had been in that store for quite some time, and the owner hadn't noticed.

  "There's a place where the paint has fallen off, and the gold inside is exposed. I found it and bought it." Su Qing seemed to have heard her brother's doubts and gave an explanation. Although this answer was false, she couldn't say that she had special abilities.

  Su Chen wiped the paint clean and took the golden cat over to show Su Qing. As she approached, she saw that Su Qing was holding a pen holder in her hand, which was confirmed to be the one she had bought. However, now it had been wiped clean and the floral pattern on the pen holder looked even more beautiful and clear. Su Chen couldn't take her eyes off it.

  In short, both siblings thought that this trip to Liulichang was a complete success.

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  A few days ago, a TV report said that a farmer from Shanxi won over a million yuan in the lottery, triggering a nationwide lottery-buying craze. In the past few days, Su Chen has also talked about classmates buying lottery tickets when he went home, but none of them have won yet. Originally, according to probability theory and scientific calculations, the chances of winning are extremely low, no one is a god who can predict the future, whether or not you win is just luck.

  Today, Su Chen and I went to the supermarket to buy things back home, passing by a lottery ticket sales point. Su Qing saw her brother's eager expression, using the excuse that she wanted to buy lottery tickets, pulled him in. The lottery tickets were two yuan each, and each person bought five sheets before leaving.

  In the evening, Su Chen was a bit distracted. Su Qing smiled and said that her brother was too concerned about the investment of 10 yuan. She stared at the TV screen without blinking, watching the winning numbers, and then compared them with the lottery tickets in her hand. First, she looked at the five one-yuan tickets she had bought, but none of them had won. Su Qing just treated it as a donation for doing good deeds. When Su Chen was comparing his own lottery tickets, he was obviously more excited than before. After a while, he held up a ticket and smiled slyly at Su Qing. Su Qing snatched the ticket from him and took a look, then suddenly let out a loud cry, which attracted their parents' attention. The numbers on the ticket were exactly the same as the first prize of 5 million yuan. Su Chen had won the first prize, his luck was really good, but why hadn't he even won the lowest prize? This investment of 10 yuan had a huge return, even more amazing than playing stocks.

  At night, Su Qing entered the space to cultivate and was still complaining that her luck index was much worse than Su Chen's. Moreover, she felt a little puzzled, always feeling that the small balls in the self-selected machine used to announce the lottery results tonight were a bit strange, but couldn't find the reason. After focusing on cultivation for a night, when preparing to leave the space, Ziwang Wang appeared in front of her like a child who had done something wrong.

  "Xiao Zi, what's wrong? Did Xiao Bai and the others bully you?" As soon as he finished speaking, he felt that this possibility did not exist.

  "No, I wanted to talk to you about the lottery. I saw that you bought a ticket and then a small bee snuck into the drawing machine and tampered with it to help you win."

  "Why don't you help me get two more?" I really didn't expect that this time's win wasn't because of Su Chen's good luck, but rather it was man-made, no, bee-made.

  "The balls were rolling around inside, and Little Bee eventually passed out."

  "Haha, it's really interesting. Don't be like that, I still want to thank you for helping me earn five million"

  The next day, a TV report flashed by saying someone had won the $5 million lottery, but there was no follow-up report. After all, nobody likes to become the target of thieves and robbers, although they are not afraid of them, but don't like having flies buzzing around themselves.

  During this period, the Su family's property increased dramatically. Just from stock speculation and lottery alone, they had over 150 million. Having a lot of money but not using it is also meaningless, so now the Su family is considering where to use this money.

  In the end, everyone decided to move into a bigger house so that Grandma and Grandpa could live with them and take care of each other. Considering the two elderly people were used to rural life, Su Qing also liked being close to nature in a natural and pastoral residence, they finally decided to buy a siheyuan near Beihai.

  The so-called "four combined", "four" refers to the east, west, south and north four sides, "combined" means that the houses on all four sides are surrounded together to form a structure in the shape of the character "口". After hundreds of years of construction, Beijing's quadrangle courtyard has formed a unique style of Beijing from its plane layout to its internal structure and detailed decoration.

  Beijing traditional quadrangle courtyard is generally located in the east-west direction of the hutong and sits north to south. The basic shape is divided into four sides: the northern house (main house), the southern house (opposite house) and the eastern and western wing houses, surrounded by high walls to form a quadrangle, with one gate. The main gate is located at the southeast corner of the "Xun" position. The total number of rooms is generally 3 main rooms and 2 ear rooms in the northern house, 3 rooms each in the eastern and western houses, and 4 rooms in the southern house (excluding the main gate), including the main gate and the flower door, totaling 17 rooms. If calculated at 11-12 square meters per room, the total area is approximately 200 square meters.

  In the center of a Beijing siheyuan is a courtyard, with a spacious yard and a garden in the middle. Generally, there are crabapple trees planted, stone basins for scenery, large vats for raising goldfish, symbolizing good fortune, making it an ideal outdoor living space, like a big open-air living room, bringing heaven and earth closer to people's hearts, which is what people love most. A siheyuan is a closed-style residence, with only one street entrance, when the door is closed, it becomes its own world, having very strong privacy, making it extremely suitable for single-family dwellings. Inside the courtyard, all four houses face towards the yard, a family lives in harmony and happiness, their joy blending together.

  Due to the spacious courtyard, trees can be planted and flowers can be grown inside the yard, birds can be raised and fish can be bred, and rocks can be stacked to create a landscape. The residents not only enjoy comfortable housing but also share a beautiful piece of nature.

  Although she knew that her father had asked someone to inquire about the house, Su Qing felt that the bee's investigation would be faster and more comprehensive. In the dark night, a pair of bees flew swiftly in all directions, filling the sky with a dense blackness.