The Great Era of Siheyuan

Li Wenqiang was now waiting in the yard for the old lady to take out the things, but his eyes unconsciously looked at a porcelain vase with ice cracks in the corner. The sky-blue porcelain was covered with cracks like ice cubes. The irregular cracks looked beautiful and sad, with an indescribable special beauty.

This is a big-bellied vase with a wide opening, but unfortunately part of the mouth of the vase is missing. There are a few aquatic plants in it. He recognized what they are. They are lush and green and look pretty beautiful.

"Look at this stove. It's made of copper and weighs at least 15 to 20 pounds. Take a look at how much it's worth. If you want it, pay a good price and take it away!"

After a while, the aunt brought out a stove. It was a trough stove. Its shape was like a trough, square and looked quite heavy.

"Let me see, the copper in your furnace is not very pure, 80 cents a pound, do you think it's okay?"

Li Wenqiang weighed it and gave a price that he thought was appropriate.

If it were collected as an antique, this stove would definitely be worth more than this price. But to be honest, it would be difficult to sell it. Now everyone is hungry and trying every way to make money to buy food. Most people would not think of collecting this broken thing. They would just sell it as scrap copper to junk collectors, which would save them both trouble and effort.

"It's too little, you can add more! One dollar, one dollar per pound and I'll sell it, otherwise I'll take it somewhere else to sell it!"

When the aunt heard the price, she was very dissatisfied, thinking it was too low.

"Okay, one dollar is enough, just consider it as a start-up!"

Hearing her say this, Li Wenqiang agreed immediately. This was actually a common price-cutting technique used by businessmen.

"Sure, you can take it if you pay! This thing is good for storing incense ash, but now that my family has no money, I can only sell it to exchange for some food."

The aunt said this with some melancholy.

Li Wenqiang was too lazy to think about her. The people at the bottom of society were all the same. Wrong, it should be said that the people in the old city were all the same. The peasants outside the city might still be hungry!

"Seven pounds and six ounces! Can you check the scale to see if there is anything wrong?"

Li Wenqiang put the copper furnace directly on the scale and weighed it and said.

"It doesn't matter whether you look at it or not. 7.6 jin is 7.6 jin. Give me the money!"

The aunt said indifferently.

Li Wenqiang could understand it. He looked at her surroundings and old objects, combined with her appearance and behavior, and guessed that this old lady probably had a Tongtian pattern, which was passed down from her ancestors. This made sense why she had so many antiques, because these things were impossible for ordinary people to have.

"Okay, I'll give you eight dollars and you can give me 40 cents in change! How about this, I think that little bottle in your yard is pretty good, I'll take it back and plant some flowers, and you don't have to give me the change for the rest, okay?"

Li Wenqiang came up with an idea at this time, pointing at the Ru kiln ice-crack porcelain bottle in the corner.

It has to be said that there are really a lot of old things nowadays. To what extent are there so many? If you randomly pick ten or eight households on the street, at least six or seven of them have old items, and the remaining few must have moved in from outside.

"What are you talking about? This bottle was left by my old partner when he was alive. My grandson accidentally touched it a few days ago. I think it's very beautiful. It would be a pity to throw it away. If you like it, you can take it!"

The auntie said casually that she got 40 cents for a broken bottle, which was a profit no matter how she looked at it.

Li Wenqiang finally understood why such a good thing was thrown away. It turned out that the boss left and only this spendthrift woman was left!

"Okay then, I'll take the stuff away. Is the missing part still there? I'll see if I can glue it on!"

Li Wenqiang picked up the thing carefully with a smile. He had a porcelain like this before, a plate, which cost him nearly tens of millions, but it was still incomplete and even worse than this one. It was a big bargain he found today.

"Look! It's in the corner! If you hadn't asked, I would have forgotten to throw it away. It would be bad if it stabbed someone!"

The aunt pointed to a corner under the stairs, where a piece of bottle mouth was lying together with some leaf dust.

The old lady thought he really liked the bottle, but she didn't know that if the bottle was in the hands of someone who liked it, it would be worth at least several hundred yuan. Li Wenqiang took it away for a few cents and made a fortune.

This thing would be wasted if she kept it in her hands. If she didn't take it, its next fate would probably be in some garbage dump. It would be better to let him pick it up at a bargain price.

Li Wenqiang carefully picked up the bottle mouth and pieced the bottle together. He found that the integrity was very good, which meant that no small pieces had fallen off. If a few small pieces had fallen off, he would have been really troubled, as this thing was too difficult to repair.

"I've taken the things. Please keep the money. If you need any old items or junk, you can come to me. I'm often around here, so you'll definitely be able to find me!"

As he said that, Li Wenqiang handed the money to her, and then reminded her with a smile, who wouldn't like such a big fat sheep, but she must not lose it.

"Okay, young man, I have a lot of old stuff. I'll find you next time I want to sell something!"

The aunt happily put the money away. Eight dollars was equivalent to ten days' salary, which was not a small amount.

Li Wenqiang picked up the copper stove and porcelain bottle, then turned and left.

Since this family has started selling their ancestral property, it probably won’t take long for the next time. Anyway, he is in charge of this part, so he is not afraid that she will run away.

In fact, in the memory of his predecessor, Li Wenqiang had received similar metal utensils many times, but they were all collected as scrap copper and rotten iron. After receiving them, they were directly taken to the scrap yard, and when the quantity was enough, they were sent to the smelter to be burned. No matter whether it was gold, silver, copper or iron, as long as it was in the garbage dump, it would be smelted into steel!

Except for a few people, most people have never seen gold in their lives. Many times they mistake it for brass, otherwise he would not have picked up such a big bargain yesterday.

"Collecting junk~! Exchange for matches~!"

Li Wenqiang continued to ride his bicycle forward!

"Junk collector, here, here! You just said you were collecting old stuff, right? Come over and take a look at this thing of mine. It was passed down from my great-grandfather. It's definitely an old thing!"

Li Wenqiang had just taken a few steps when a sloppy and mean-looking young man from next door blocked his way with a chair.

Li Wenqiang was thinking that he was lucky today as someone came to sell things so quickly, but when he took a look, he was immediately disappointed.

"Two cents!"

"What? My great-grandfather only paid 20 cents for his chair. Are you sick? What's that look? Look carefully before you speak!"

When the young man heard the price, he said indignantly that buying a new chair would cost more than this, but he was only given 20 cents. Isn't this bullying?

"You heard me wrong. I mean if you give me two cents, I'll take it away for you!"

Li Wenqiang rolled his eyes and said impatiently. What a joke, you want to sell a broken pine chair as an antique? This thing is no more than a hundred years old, it's still too old!

"I still need to give you money? Are you crazy about money? I don't want to sell it anymore, I don't want to sell it anymore, leave now!"

The man ran away angrily with the stool.

Li Wenqiang didn't care. He would use these things as firewood, so it didn't matter whether he took them or not. He would take these two things to Liulichang later. He also needed to order a batch of bottles, so he could just get rid of them.