Ji Xiaolan's inkstone has been confirmed to be authentic. Now only Cao Xueqin's inscription needs to be identified and confirmed. Fortunately, Professor Wu is proficient in history and can recall many key details.
At noon, I had a hot pot meal at Professor Zhu's house. I felt free to eat the mutton. Hot pot on a snowy day is the most enjoyable thing in the world.
In the afternoon, Li Mo chatted with the four professors for a while before leaving and going home. When he walked to the gate of the community, he felt someone was watching him again. He stood jumping and shaking the snow off his body. He took the opportunity to glance around and found a white car parked across the road. His eyes seemed to be piercing through the car.
Calmly walking into the community, he edited a text message and sent it. The content of the message was a license plate number.
The next day, Sunday, it was around 8 a.m. and the snow had stopped. The cleaning uncles and aunts in the community have already cleared the snow on the main passage, and there are several cars on the road outside clearing the snow.
Li Mo's destination today is Liulichang. Due to the weather, Liulichang is also deserted. Except for a few workers cleaning up the snow on the road, many shops are not open yet.
He was not in a hurry. He would go in and browse the open shops one after another, which would last more than ten minutes or leave in two or three minutes.
I visited eight stores in a row but didn't come across anything that caught my eye. The best one was an inkstone from the late Qing Dynasty. Unfortunately, it was badly worn and had little collection value.
At around 10:30, Li Mo received a text message that read: Two people are suspected of following you, and they have all been counter-surveilled.
Replied: Don't alert the snake, collect all the information related to them.
Li Mo held a cup of milk tea and walked into a shop again. This shop made tea and various styles of tea sets. The decoration was light and luxurious, giving people a very high-end impression.
There are three young women standing at the counter in the store, and there are seven customers buying tea. The business looks good. In the tea set area on the other side, there was an old man in his sixties negotiating prices with the men in the shop, and his voice was quite loud.
"Boss, this purple clay teapot of mine has been passed down from my grandparents. I take great care of it when I use it at home. You can see that the entire appearance is not damaged at all. Look at the thick layer of tea dirt on the inner wall of the teapot and smell it. There is still a faint fragrance of tea, which means it has been around for at least a hundred years."
"Look at the unique shape of this purple clay teapot. You only bid 5,000, which is much different than what I expected."
The man was at most forty years old, bald and slightly chubby. He turned around and pointed at several types of purple clay teapots displayed on the Bogu shelf and said: "Look, there are many more exquisite and distinctive ones on the Bogu shelf than the one in your hand. You The purple clay teapot is also because it has been a long time, so I only offer 5,000 yuan. If it is a good person in our store, it is estimated that the price can be 2,000 yuan, which is very good. If you are not willing to make a move, please go to other stores to inquire. Inquiry, I believe my offer will definitely be the highest.”
There was a tangled look on the old man's face. After a while, he sighed and said, "Okay, five thousand is just five thousand. I want cash."
Just as the boss said, he had already inquired about prices in other stores, and 5,000 was indeed the highest price.
"No problem, I have a sales contract here. Once you sign it, I will give you five thousand in cash immediately."
When Li Mo heard the news, he saw that the old man and the shop owner were already going through the formalities. The purple clay pot on the counter was hidden from view by his body. He didn't take it to heart and looked around the store.
"Hello, sir, what kind of tea do you want to buy?" A female clerk greeted Li Mo with a smile. She reached out and handed Li Mo a price list. Different teas and different grades have different prices.
To be honest, the price of famous tea is not much higher than that of Momo. If the quality is really good, it doesn't matter if you buy some for yourself.
"I'll take a look first and let you know after choosing."
Li Mo took the price list and started walking towards the tea set. The old man was counting the cash.
"Boss, it's exactly five thousand."
“A pleasure to work with.”
The old man put the cash in his arms and left the store with a smile on his face. Only then did Li Mo see the true face of the purple clay pot that had been around for more than a hundred years.
The body of the pot resembles the knotted branches of a peach tree, looking old and vigorous. The spout and handle are matched with twigs, which is natural. The sides of the pot are piled with blooming peach blossoms and slender peach leaves, which are so lifelike that they almost look real. Coupled with the dark purple sand, the tone is simple and elegant, and it has the artistic conception of returning to nature.
Li Mo once found a pair of tea sets from the collection of the great master Gu Jingzhou. Compared with the purple clay teapot in front of him, the former is simple and the latter is simple.
If it really has a history of more than a hundred years, then the price of this purple clay teapot will definitely be more than 5,000 yuan, and it can be priced at least 50,000 yuan.
The eyes looked through the purple clay pot, and a blue light suddenly appeared from the pot body, and then a blue light circle spread out, and the eyes seemed to have changed into an ocean world, with waves rising and falling.
Damn it, this is not just a hundred years, it has a history of at least five hundred years. The originator of the purple clay teapot came from the Zhengde period of the Ming Dynasty. He vaguely felt that he had seen an introduction to the shape of the purple clay teapot in some book.
In the first year, this purple clay pot was not simple.
"Sir, would you like to see the tea set?"
The boss was about to store the purple clay pot he had just received when he saw Li Mo walking towards him and asked with a smile.
"Well, it's the end of the year. I'm going to buy some good tea and get a few sets of tea sets. Boss, do you have any high-end tea sets here? Don't recommend ordinary ones. The elders in the family are very discerning and ordinary people can't get into his. Dharma Eye."
Business people like this kind of customers, as long as they are nice and straightforward.
"Sir, the best tea set we have here costs 38,000 yuan. It is made of top-grade Burmese teak wood and is handmade by famous masters. Do you want to take a look?"
Li Mo nodded without hesitation and said: "Take out one set of the best ones, and two sets of the cheaper ones. I'll choose which one is more suitable first."
"Okay, please wait a moment, sir."
Soon the three sets of tea sets were placed on the counter one by one. Li Mo just glanced at them and despised the boss. They were handmade by a famous master. At a glance, he knew that they were carved by a machine. However, he was too lazy to care. The other two sets were also made of teak wood, but the specifications were slightly smaller.
"What's the price for these two sets?"
"The middle set is thirty-three thousand, and the remaining set is sixteen thousand."
"Boss, I need seven sets. Please give me the actual price for these 16,000 tea sets. First of all, let me explain that this is not my first time buying tea sets. If you want to do business with me sincerely, don't be careless with me. As for what you said It's purely handmade, you just have to fool around with it. Give me a real price, and I'll select some top-notch famous teas from you."
"Yes, sir, you are a cheerful person when you say this. If someone else buys this tea set, the price will not be less than 12,000. You can order seven sets at once and I will give you the actual price. How about 8,000 for each set of tea sets?"
"It's almost the same. I'll give you a cheaper price for the famous tea later." Li Mo took out the black gold card from his wallet. The shop owner's eyes were brighter, and his smile became brighter under his eyes as he said, "Sir, this tea set of yours is Those who are going to give them away, say how precious they are, they really have shortcomings, after all, they have not experienced the precipitation of time. If you want to give them to your elders as a gift, I recommend you a better ancient pot with a century-old heritage. "
Li Mo raised his eyebrows. He was thinking about how to bring the topic to the Ming Dynasty purple clay pot. Unexpectedly, his boss was very discerning and recommended it to him directly.
"Oh, a hundred-year-old purple clay teapot is really rare. It allows me to experience it. Money is not an issue, as long as the stuff is good."
The store owner is more happy and likes to hear such words.
"Sir, this purple clay pot is what I want to recommend to you. It has a history of a hundred years and has been passed down for three generations. You can see that the appearance of this purple clay pot is very well preserved, without any wear and tear. If you look at the inside of the pot, a layer of tea has already condensed. "Scale, don't underestimate the tea stain. No matter what kind of tea is brewed in this teapot, the aroma of the tea will increase by 30%, which is very precious. Look at this shape again, it is simple and elegant. It is an extremely rare and top-quality purple clay teapot."
The shop owner started to speak his mind and said that this purple clay pot was unique in the world.
"Boss, let me get started."
Li Mo picked up the purple clay pot on the counter and slowly admired it. His eyes moved around the mouth, bottom, and handle of the pot, and suddenly his eyes focused on the inner circle of the handle, where two small regular script characters were carved: Gongchun.
Oops, Li Mo finally remembered whose work this is. It is really Gongchun, who is known as the originator of purple clay pots.
It is said that Gongchun's original name was Gong Chun, and he was a person from the Zhengde to Jiajing years of the Ming Dynasty. Gongchun was the book boy of an official.
When I accompanied my master to study at Jinsha Temple in Yixing, an old monk in the temple was very good at making purple clay pots, so I secretly learned how to make them.
Later, he used the clay that the old monk had washed his hands and settled at the bottom of the vat to make a pot in the shape of the galls of the big ginkgo tree next to Jinsha Temple, which is also the shape of the tree galls, and carved the patterns on the tree galls. After it was fired, the pot turned out to be very simple and cute, so this kind of purple clay pot that imitated the natural shape suddenly became famous, and people called it the spring pot.
Very few spring pots have survived and are so rare that even the Kyoto Museum only has one in its collection.
This kind of purple clay teapot is famous for its simple and exquisite shape, gentleness and naturalness, pure, thin and solid quality.
There is a saying in history: A pot of spring is better than gold and jade.
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