Chapter 11
ter.I said: "Li Zheng, that thing is indeed in my possession, but it's not with me right now. I have entrusted it to a friend's house."">"Oh I see..." Li Zheng perhaps knew that what I said wasn't tru...After hearing my complaints, Wang shook his head and said, "Yunfeng, you were reckless this time. Those of us in this line of work must be careful, very careful, lest we be caught by the authorities."
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I apologize and said, “Sorry for that, I’ll be more careful next time.”
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" Let me know if you have any other text you'd like me to translate!
Wang lifted his teacup to his lips and blew on it, then frowned. "But you're still my man, Yunfeng. What do you say Want to make up for that"
I didn't hesitate, instinctively blurting out, "Think, put your head down. I feel like I'm getting the short end of the stick."
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Wang took a sip of tea and covered the cup. "We just established our base yesterday, so we have to keep a low profile now. My personal suggestion is to lay low for a while, wait until after we finish this job and leave Shun De. Then I'll get in touch with Yizhi, she has connections."
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I immediately nodded and agreed.
In the small storeroom of the inn we rented, there were still several bags of white clay. However, Wang kept me from spreading it out. He arranged a different task for me in the afternoon. Wang made me follow Old Sun and help him deal with yesterday's batch of bronze artifacts.
As I walked towards the warehouse, I suddenly smelled a strong scent of cumin seasoning. On closer inspection, it turned out that someone had set up a charcoal grill at the entrance of the warehouse. There was meat grilling on the rack and it was covered in plenty of seasoning.
Sun Lao Da is responsible for monetizing things, of course, before monetizing, it's important to do the work first.
"Sun ge, I'm Yunfeng. Let me help with this," I knocked on the warehouse door.
Son Lao Da opened the door for me. He was wearing a white protective suit, gloves, and plastic goggles at the time.
Entering the warehouse, several bronze artifacts were laid out on the ground. Beside them sat a large white leather bucket containing half a bucket of translucent liquid that smelled pungent.
He threw me a set of protective gear and said, "Yunfeng, put it on."
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Although I don't understand, I still put on the protective gear.
"Big brother, what are you doing" Seeing him toss a red-spotted mercury rust bronze cup into the bucket, I asked in confusion.
The rusty bronze object started to bubble furiously as soon as it touched the liquid in the skin bucket. The pungent smell intensified, somewhat like that of urea.
"Sun Lao Da pointed at the bronze goblet submerged in liquid, saying: 'Yun Feng, in our line of work, I call this move 'Sha Qing' now. The chemical formula ratio of this water was concocted by a top expert."
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"What does 'kill the shoot' mean, big brother"
Sun Laoda smiled and said, "Killing the green means going to the black skin. The mercury rust in the water pit is bone-piercing, and this kind of bone-piercing rust covers a large area, which will very easily conceal some textual inscriptions. If that's the case, we would suffer a great loss."
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Sun Lao Da continued, “People in the south call this kind of work 'killing rust,' while we in the north call it 'killing green.' Yun Feng, remember this: for bronze vessels from the Western Zhou and Warring States periods, square ding are five times more expensive than round ding. Those with inscriptions are ten times more expensive than those without. For each additional character beyond five, the price increases by 30,000 yuan. This tomb dates back to the early period of the Western Zhou Dynasty. Judging by the style of the zun and its burial layout, it's clear that the owner was a petty king from the south at the very least.”
“Son the oldest, you know a lot, analyze this for me.”
"If we find inscriptions identifying the tomb's owner, and if we're lucky enough, this minor ruler will have a name in history books. That would be the real jackpot!"
After listening to Sun Lao Da's explanation, I suddenly understood. There was so much more to it than I thought, and even the barbecue stall outside earlier—I now realize that it was Sun Lao Da intentionally setting it up to mask the stimulating smell from the filming wrap party.
I'm wearing these gloves because the water is corrosive. It's to protect myself. This water used for patinating bronze, if it gets in your eyes, it's much worse than those copper-nickel alloys. It can blind you!
Soak for twenty minutes or so, then scrub the rust with a hard bristle brush. Don't scrub too hard, and don't remove all of the mercury rust. Just make sure the un-inscribed area is clear and stop scrubbing.
I wore gloves and held the shoe brush, brushing several bronze pieces carefully for quite a while. But I didn't see even one inscription symbol. This made me feel utterly dejected all of a sudden.
When Sun Lao Da saw me like this, he brushed a piece of bronze grain and said, "Yun Feng, don't be so discouraged. This stuff is all about fate. When fate comes, you'll have it, and if fate doesn't come, you can't force it."
At that moment, I was brushing a small bronze bean with a shoe brush inside. After rubbing it a few times, I don't know if it was my eyes playing tricks on me, but I seemed to see a faint golden stroke beside the character.
"Huh What's this" I picked up the bronze bean and rubbed it vigorously a couple of times.
"Big brother! Big brother, look quickly! I got words out of it! There's an inscription inside this bronze bean! The strokes are very complex! It looks like ghost writing," I excitedly shouted to Big Brother Sun.
He took the bronze bean and glanced at it twice.
Sun Lao looked at the few gilded inscriptions on the surface of the bronzeware, and frowned: "This.... This inscription is not bird script, nor is it oracle bone script. It's even older than oracle bone script, the ancient Jinwen Liu Die Zhuan..... How could it, how could it appear on a bronzeware from the Western Zhou Dynasty" Sun Lao's eyes were full of bewilderment.
The ancient gold script is not the script of the Jin Dynasty, it is an ancient script, its origin can be traced back before oracle bone script, which means it predates the Shang and Zhou dynasties.
Sun Lao Da, with his extensive knowledge, immediately determined that the script on the bronze bean was not Bird Seal Script but Liú Dié Zhuàn, a type of ancient goldscript.
After a frown, Sun Lao Da said excitedly, "Yun Feng, you continue to brush the rest. These ancient gold inscriptions in six layers of seal script are too rare, and there are very few people in the world who can translate this kind of text. I must seize the time to find someone to help me. Find someone to help translate what these inscriptions mean."
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Elder Sun put the inscribed bronze artifact into a wooden box, then he took the box and left directly.
Later, until I finished cleaning everything up, I didn't brush out any more bronze objects with inscriptions, only that one.
During the day we do this, but at night we have to do more serious things. After everyone else is asleep, we go down into the tombs at night. But Big Sun ran out in a hurry this afternoon and hasn't come back yet. If Big Sun doesn't come, there will be one less person to keep watch. This is very dangerous. Old Headmaster doesn't dare take that risk.
That night, Sun Lao Da didn't return until after 12 o'clock. He was panting heavily and clutching a wooden box in his hands. I knew that the box contained the bronze bean with an inscription.
Sun Lao Da didn't even bother to speak. He rushed to the table, picked up the teapot, and gulped down half a pot of tea water.
Wiping his mouth, Sun Lao looked at Wang Ba and said, "Wang Ba, I found some connections at the archaeology institute. They've translated those six-section seal inscriptions."
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"Oh What did you write" Wang tilted his head and asked.
Master Sun opened the wooden box and touched the bronze beans inside, his face cold as he uttered four words.
"May I have your name"
">bald man in his fifties with a northwestern Chinese accent.This person gives me the first impression of being a tomb robber, a colleague in the trade.This person has a certain "earthy" quality about t...