Chapter 212: A Life That Looks Poor to Everyone

In many people's minds, the Longjiang area is a barren land with no historical heritage—but that is not entirely true.

In ancient times, there was indeed little activity or civilization in Longjiang. However, with the rise of the Bohai Kingdom and later the Liao and Jin Dynasties, which had a love-hate relationship with the Song Dynasty for over a hundred years, the economic and cultural development, though not comparable to the South, still left behind many things.

Especially during the Qing Dynasty, as the land of the dragon's rise, Northeast China had the Eight Banners guarding the dragon veins. They even established border military units similar to today's David Guard District and high-ranking officials like the Longjiang General. Later, when the Manchukuo was established, many old items were brought by the remnants of the imperial court from Beijing to the Northeast.

However, due to the invaders' plundering, national treasures that remained were few.

Thus, the characteristics of antiques and cultural relics in Northeast China can be summarized as follows: there are more items from the Bohai Kingdom, Jin Dynasty, and Qing Dynasty. Among these, apart from those from the Manchukuo period, there are fewer official items and more folk items.

Moreover, the Liao and Jin Jurchens, who were always either fighting or on the brink of battle, left behind a particularly large number of weapons and armor, which is quite rare in all of China.

For any central plain dynasty, weapons and armor were seen as strategic tools and unstable factors, so they were standardized and collected for remelting after use.

In the large, twenty-square-meter cellar before Li Xian, the east wall was lined with shelves completely filled with such items.

Li Xian was stunned by the sight before him. After a while, he was jolted back to reality by the big dog sniffing and rummaging around the shelves. He quickly tied the dog tightly to his arm to prevent any mischief and began examining the items with a flashlight.

The weapons were not all made of iron, and there were few large items like sabers. Instead, most were short knives the length of an arm or short swords the length of a forearm. Compared to cleaving and stabbing weapons, there were many items such as horn bow and arrow pouches, round moon-shaped Qing bows, tri-pronged arrowheads, whistle arrowheads, and fire guns. Additionally, there were armors, horses, and various chest protectors. There was a pile of dark chain mail and Qing dynasty eight-banner armor. When he shook off the armor, it gave him goosebumps.

"Oh no," 

Li Xian thought of the character from the film "Happy Ghost Goes to Summer Vacation" who had two silver hairpins stuck in his backside.

Li Xian was never interested in military artifacts.

In contrast, the items on the other three walls were far more interesting.

Clearly, Gao San had placed great importance on the contents of this cellar. Although the wooden shelves were not in great condition, each item was meticulously organized and seemed to be well-maintained.

Perhaps due to a lack of knowledge, the items were somewhat disorganized, appearing to be sorted by type rather than era.

The other three walls were filled with miscellaneous items, with little porcelain or calligraphy. In fact, there wasn't much of such stuff in old Northeast China. During the early days of the northern wilderness, many porcelain pieces were unearthed, but most people at the time believed that excavated porcelain was unlucky and smashed it with a shovel.

However, it must be said that Northeast China had few exquisite porcelain and paintings; if one wanted porcelain, the South, with its many scholarly and cultured individuals, was the place to look.

However, there were many Buddha statues.

The southern wall was almost entirely filled with Buddha statues, including statues of ancestors in Tibetan attire, fierce Vajra figures, and jade Maitreya figures of varying sizes and materials, leaving Li Xian dazzled.

The most interesting were the small miscellaneous items on the northern wall. Many items were immediately recognizable, such as various copper mirrors, exquisitely crafted but seemingly modern snuff bottles, golden phoenix hairpins, women's belly bands, lotus-carved candlesticks, cloud dragon-patterned large flower vases, and various coins whose periods were hard to determine.

But more were items whose use was unclear, but they looked impressive; square pieces with recessed designs resembling coin molds, large plain jars with no patterns but seeming like inflated condoms, and other strange objects.

After studying for a while, Li Xian reached the west wall. He swept his flashlight over the items and was immediately struck by the impulse to stop struggling.

This wall had fewer items, but they were obviously valuable!

In his mind, antiques were generally precious jade and stone items.

He casually put on a green jade ring and, after inspecting a row of jade items, picked up a string of beads that could wrap around an egg and hung around the neck.

He liked this string of beads at first sight.

The beads were blue all over, making the material hard to determine. They were adorned with red agate, with a jade pendant shaped like a peacock feather and a green jade plaque resembling an egg at the bottom. Although long, it wasn't too complicated.

Removing the ring, Li Xian wrapped the string of beads around his wrist.

Among all the items in the house, apart from a set of sixteen pieces of ink and seal with red Hu Kaiwen stamps, he had not seen any similar stationery items that Gao San had given him.

When he got here, he realized that Gao San's visit might have been an attempt to settle things.

However, it was meaningless to think about it now—the man was already cremated on the seventh day.

Li Xian could only look at the antiques in the cellar, with a tearful farewell, saying, "Farewell, Third Brother."

The tears were scant, and the excitement of having hit the jackpot was genuine.

But even this brief moment of tears passed quickly. Seeing the big dog, which had not found the ivory and appeared slightly frustrated, Li Xian instantly forgot any previous grievances.

From this moment on, he found the dog more and more pleasing to the eye.

Look at those little green bean eyes, so spirited!

Look at that dog's nose and mouth, so well-defined!

Look at that sturdy and majestic back!

That sneaky look, just look at it.

This little thing… truly fascinating.

"Well done, tonight I'll treat you to a big feast." Li Xian patted the dog affectionately, earning a series of eye-rolls from the dog, who was still upset about not finding the ivory.

Li Xian didn't want others to know the secrets of the house. He didn't even use Zhou Yong's car this time, but rather drove the Cherokee himself, claiming it was for practice.

He couldn't leave these things here any longer. After some thought, he took out his mobile phone and called Su Hui.

This kid was tight-lipped and could keep a secret.

After managing to calm Su Hui's astonishment and ensuring he would keep the secret, Li Xian sorted through the cellar, packing the most valuable items onto the car. He then secured the large pot, locked the door with the big padlock Su Hui had brought, and returned to the house.

While everyone else in the house was asleep, he and Su Hui moved everything into the safe in his room.

He wasn't worried about leaving it here.

Since Yang Shuzhen's kidnapping, the police had set up a station in Zhu Mao Tun, right across from his house.

With more than ten officers stationed outside, and people always living in the house, if something went missing here, Li Xian had nothing to say—just to consider himself unlucky.

For the next three days, Li Xian and Su Hui worked day and night. While the Gao brothers were fighting like crazy, they, like moles, moved all the items from the cellar back to the house.

After confirming that not even a single iron wire was left, Li Xian hired a bulldozer and directly flattened the entire row of flat-roofed houses. Perhaps no one would ever know that beneath an unremarkable small house, there once was a treasure trove...

After a few days of sorting, Li Xian categorized the antiques again. Due to his limited knowledge compared to Gao San, he sorted them by category.

The tally included more than thirty swords and knives, seven complete sets of armor, five fire guns, nine saddles, and over fifty arrowheads. There were thirty-three snuff bottles, six old-style pocket watches, over sixty Buddha statues (including twenty gold statues, seventeen jade and agate statues, and the rest mostly gilt). There were more than three hundred ancient coins from various dynasties, and a large number of miscellaneous items—135 pieces, most of which were hard to determine their origins or purposes. The jade items totaled forty-nine, and their value was also uncertain.

Among all the antiques, Li Xian especially liked a dragon-patterned white jade plaque the size of a baby's palm, which had a simple and ancient design, with a seal reading "Heavenly Gate Military Seal" engraved in clerical script, and a string of court beads he had already worn on his wrist.

Although he could not determine their exact value, the quality and appearance suggested they were not ordinary items.

Thinking that keeping it low-profile was wise and that the dispute over Gao San's inheritance had not yet settled, Li Xian dared not make a show of it. He hid these items in his cupboard and planned to wait for the situation to settle before taking a few out to see how much they were worth.

But the more he thought about it, the more anxious he felt.

It was a bit like finding a shiny ring on the street and wondering whether it was a zircon worth a few hundred yuan or a natural diamond worth hundreds of thousands. The uncertainty was troubling.

Thinking about this, he couldn't resist picking up his phone and calling Zhou Yong.

"Let's go to the city; I'll treat you to beef hotpot."

"Wait, are you serious?" Zhou Yong was surprised on the other end. "Don't fool me. The last time you invited me, you suddenly started talking about Jiayin and Changsheng, and my wife is still mad at me for it."

"Not this time, just hotpot." Li Xian smiled. "Aren't you familiar with someone who knows about antiques? Bring him along; I have something to show him."

Zhou Yong was immediately delighted and agreed without hesitation.

After hanging up, Li Xian walked over to the dog, who had just caught a mouse, and gave it a quick pat on the head.

"You're coming too."