Chapter 78: Reverse Scale
The boss asked me, have you thought it through?
"I've thought it through." I said firmly. After going through so many ups and downs, life and death, weird things, it would be a waste of life to go to work from nine to six. This may be an improvement in my values.
Even if I quit my job, I would have about 200,000 yuan in my hand and some savings, so I would have no problem living for a while.
To be honest, if I really quit, I feel the biggest regret is to my boss. When I first entered the department as an intern, my performance was not outstanding. There were many smart and capable interns, all of them were like Sun Wukong, but in the end, the boss only kept me. He just said one thing: I felt at ease watching Lin Cong work.
He is also my mentor and a guide in my career. But how should I put it? I am in a different state now, with a different vision and platform. Although I am grateful, I will not be tied to this place. It is time to change to a broader road.
The boss finally gave me another day off, asking me to think about it carefully and give him an answer after careful consideration.
After hanging up the phone, the sun was shining brightly outside, and I lit a cigarette and smoked it quietly. I wanted to go find Li Daming, but then I thought there was no rush, so I let him enjoy his time in the land of gentleness first, and I would do my own thing first.
After breakfast, I went out and took a taxi to the antique street in the city.
When my father was still alive, he often took me here to hang out. He was well-educated and had studied antiques and second-hand goods. He told me how to tell whether these things were real or fake, and also told me some counterfeiting methods. Most importantly, he took me to visit several antique shop owners, all of whom were his good friends. My father told me that these people had truly reached the realm of doing business and were honest and fair.
I found this antique shop called "Jubaozhai". The owner's surname is Zhou. My father told me that he was in the Beijing antique circle in his early years. At that time, he was on par with a big antique dealer. Later, he returned to Jiangbei from Beijing for other things and opened such a shop. It doesn't look like anything new. The owner is a real master who hides himself from the world.
The door of Jubaozhai was open, but there was no one in sight. I hesitated at the door, but finally mustered up the courage to knock on it and walked in.
When I entered, I found that there were people there. A middle-aged man behind the counter was explaining a porcelain vase to a girl. The vase was so small that it could be held in the hand. The man held a magnifying glass and asked the girl to observe the details.
I was a little embarrassed and coughed a few times because my throat was tight.
The two people behind the counter looked up. The middle-aged man whispered something to the girl, who nodded and went out the back door with the porcelain vase. He turned around and asked, "What can I do for you, sir?"
I took a deep breath and said, "I have something I want to sell, but I don't know..."
"Take a look." The man said, "If the goods are good, we will buy them. But they must be of good origin. Our store is small and we don't want to take any responsibility."
"It must have come from a legitimate source." I hesitated for a moment, then took out the black, hard piece as hard as a fingernail from my pocket. It was exactly the thing I brought out from the bardo.
The man took it, took a quick look, and gasped: "Sir, please sit down quickly."
His attitude changed, no longer as perfunctory as before.
I sat on the wooden sofa and the man called out, "Chunhui, serve the tea."
The girl who had just left through the back door came back and started making tea in front of a special tea set in a corner of the room. I felt a little uncomfortable with what they did, thinking that this boss was too snobbish. Seeing that something good had come to his door, he offered me a seat and tea.
After a while, the girl named Chunhui brought the hot tea to me. I raised my nose and smelled it. It was fragrant but not strong. The tea leaves were standing upright in the water. There was white smoke on the surface of the tea, like a bonsai. Needless to say, it must be a top-grade tea.
I stole a glance at the man. This old fellow was so snobbish. He'd better not swap my things with others. It would be bad if he did.
The man was behind the counter, looking at it repeatedly with a magnifying glass and carefully wiping something on it with a cotton swab. I took a sip of tea and quickly put it down. "Are you the boss?"
"Oh, my last name is Zhou." Boss Zhou came over quickly and handed me his business card. I glanced at it without looking at it carefully, my eyes were fixed on the black hard piece in his hand.
Boss Zhou was indeed very good at dealing with people. He immediately saw my concerns and said, "Don't worry, sir. You don't have to question my professionalism. I will never damage your things. Sir, may I ask your name?"
"Lin," I said.
Boss Zhou said, "Mr. Lin, may I ask where did you get this thing from?"
"Well..." I would never tell him that it was obtained from the bardo. I am not a fool.
I cleared my throat and said, "I don't want to lie, but I can't tell you, so it's better not to tell you."
"Okay!" Boss Zhou nodded. "Mr. Lin is a straightforward person. I'll take the liberty to ask, do you know what this is?"
"What do you think?" I asked back. I guess the general thought I was too naive.
Boss Zhou smiled, put the hard disk on the coffee table, and sat opposite me: "Mr. Lin, this thing is called dragon scale. The name is very appropriate, it is the scale of a dragon."
The girl named Chunhui was so surprised that she said, "Dad, these are dragon scales. Are there real dragons?"
It can be seen that Boss Zhou dotes on his daughter very much. He nodded and said, "Dragons do exist, but they are invisible and it is difficult to see them without a great opportunity. Some pseudo-scientists speculate that dragons fly without wings and are creatures from another dimension. I won't go into these speculations one by one. In Chinese legends, a dragon has horns on its head and eyes like a rabbit, especially with 9981 carp scales on its back, which represents the number 99. If I am not mistaken, what Mr. Lin brought was a scale from the back of a dragon."
I heard a chuckle, "Boss Zhou, have you ever seen a dragon ?"
Boss Zhou smiled and said, "I am young and unlucky, so I have no chance to see a dragon. But I have seen dragon scales. There is a collector in this city who specializes in collecting these things. Mr. Lin, since you are not an expert in this field, it is okay to tell you. The grandfather of the collector was from Yingkou, Liaoning. He was lucky enough to see a flying dragon falling to the ground and even splashed water on a dragon from a close distance. So his family has a connection with dragons. This collector has had the ambition to collect things from dragons since he was a child. He may even be lucky enough to see a dragon. If I give this thing to him, it will be worth a lot of money."
"Well." I coughed twice: "How much?"
Boss Zhou pondered, "Mr. Lin, I won't cheat you, and you shouldn't ask for an exorbitant price. We are both honest. I will buy your scale for 100,000."
To be honest, 100,000 is fine, but I am still a little disappointed. This is not an ordinary dragon scale. I made it in the bardo realm after a narrow escape from death. I almost didn't die.
Seeing that I didn't say anything, Boss Zhou said, "Mr. Lin, this is just a scale. It is valuable if you say it is valuable, but it is also worthless if you say it is worthless. What can you do with it? It is nothing more than selling it to connoisseurs."
What he said seemed to make sense. Dragon scales are valuable, but they cannot be priced like ordinary antiques. It is completely a seller's market and the price is determined by whoever says it is.
I was silent, and Boss Zhou said, "Mr. Lin, if you really want to sell it for a good price, this dragon scale is not good enough. If you can get something from the dragon, it will be worth a lot of money."
"What? You won't ask me to saw off a dragon's horn?" My throat moved.
Boss Zhou laughed, "It's not that exaggerated. It's also dragon scales, but it's special. It's called reverse scales. There's a palm-sized white scale under the dragon's neck, in the shape of a crescent. That scale is valuable, and its value is beyond imagination now."
I was deflated when I heard that. It would be worse to saw the dragon's horn than to touch its reverse scale. I have heard of the name "reverse scale" after all. It is not an ordinary thing. Touching the reverse scale usually means offending the emperor. If the emperor makes a distorted smile, the whole family will be executed. Who dares to do that?
Boss Zhou and I haggled for a while, and he thought for a while and said, "How about this, I'll add another 20,000, 120,000, that's it. If you feel you're losing money, go look at other stores."
"Okay, that's it," I said.
This week the boss was hesitant during the negotiation, showing his true businessman nature, but once the price was settled , he paid very happily, asked me for my bank account, and immediately asked his daughter to operate it.
Not long after, I received a text message reminding me that my 120,000 yuan had arrived.
I breathed a sigh of relief, felt relaxed all over, and drank two more cups of tea.
Boss Zhou kept me to chat, and we had a pleasant chat. I asked him who the collector was, and I knew it was a bit presumptuous as soon as I said it. Boss Zhou laughed and said, "Mr. Lin is an outsider, and he may not know the rules of our industry. If I tell you the previous buyer, how can I, as a middleman, make a profit? Haha."
At noon, he wanted to keep me for lunch, but I declined. I walked out of the antique shop lightly, feeling relaxed and sunny.
I found a way to make money, which is to enter the bardo realm, or even the underworld, bring out the things inside, and then sell them in the world of the living!
What happens to things from the underworld when they are brought to the living world is not something I consider at all. Even if I am very good at doing things, I will not cause an imbalance between the Yin and Yang worlds. It is useless to think so much. I just want to make some money.
One dragon scale sold for 120,000 yuan, plus the previous 200,000 yuan, I suddenly had a lot of money. The next step is to pay my mother's medical expenses, and then consider buying a house. I found a way to make money, and my life will get better and better in the future.
