Guanzhong Tomb Robbery Notes

"Dad, I'm fine. This brother has suppressed the spirit-calling bell." Ai Weiguo said hurriedly.

Everyone in the Ai family breathed a sigh of relief.

Especially Mr. Ai, he raised his arm to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

The momentum just now was all fake.

Old Master Ai put away the talisman, bowed to me and said, "We in the Ai family will never forget your life-saving grace."

"Old man, you're too serious. To be honest, this matter was caused by me, so I should help."

"You can't say that."

Old Master Ai shook his head vigorously.

He had long felt that something might happen to the spirit-summoning bell, and repeatedly asked Ai Weiguo to donate it, but Ai Weiguo always disagreed.

He even got stubborn and talked back to Mr. Ai.

"According to the rules, you can't accept things like spirit-calling bells. Someone in my industry once accepted an evil magical instrument, and a family died in the middle of the night without explanation."

"No matter how good or valuable something is, it's taboo and cannot be accepted."

"My Weiguo has never experienced anything so strange, and he's also stubborn... If you hadn't been able to silence the spirit-summoning bell, he might have died inexplicably."

Hearing his old father disparaging him like that, Ai Weiguo felt a little embarrassed.

"Dad, can you please stop talking?"

"Isn't this a lack of experience? I will definitely not accept this kind of thing in the future."

"Humph! Have you forgotten the lesson from your fourth brother?"

Old Master Ai scolded with a dark face.

Ai Weiguo's fourth brother is Ai Wuzhuang's fourth uncle.

The one who went to learn Heishuiwen but died suddenly.

"You all make me worry!"

"If this young man hadn't been here today, my whole family might have been killed by you!"

"Starting tomorrow, go work in the street-run factory!"

Ai Weiguo shrank his neck and dared not speak.

I saw that the atmosphere was a bit awkward, so I immediately tried to smooth things over.

"Mr. Ai, I heard that you used to be a pawnshop owner. I just want to learn some knowledge about antiques. Could you teach me?"

"Why can't I teach this? I'm just worried about who will inherit my skills. These things at home... forget it, just mentioning them makes me angry!"

Mr. Ai was distracted, smiled, grabbed my arm and said, "Come on, let's go to the main room and talk."

"it is good!"

I followed Mr. Ai to the main house and sat down.

"To learn about antiques, you must rely on three things: seeing more, remembering more, and thinking more."

"Most of the artifacts I've seen are from various dynasties and eras. I've seen them all, and at least a few standard artifacts."

"Most of what we remember is the characteristics of the objects we have seen."

"Each dynasty has unique characteristics, and even in the early, middle and late stages of the same dynasty, these characteristics will change."

"Thinking more means being diligent in thinking and summarizing, and discovering characteristics that others have not discovered or summarized. This is also the most important step in preventing counterfeits."

The counterfeiting of antiques began to flourish in the Song Dynasty and has continued to this day.

Because the profit from counterfeits is too huge!

Those who make counterfeits are also constantly summarizing the characteristics of ancient artifacts.

They then apply the characteristics they have summarized to counterfeits to deceive the appraisers.

The two have been fighting each other for thousands of years.

What followed was that the level of counterfeiting became increasingly higher, even to the point where the fakes were indistinguishable from the real ones.

Later, there was a legend that there was a master in Jingdezhen who specialized in imitating Yuan blue and white porcelain. He fired a batch of Yuan blue and white porcelain and mixed it with real Yuan blue and white porcelain, and asked the porcelain identification experts of the National Museum to identify it.

After expert appraisal, it was concluded that the dozen or so pieces of Yuan blue and white porcelain appraised were all genuine.

The master smiled happily.

I told the experts that 80% of them were made by me last week.

The expert took a quick-acting heart pill on the spot and then left in a car.

From then on, museum experts only recognized Yuan blue and white porcelain in official collections, and all Yuan blue and white porcelain in private collections were considered imitations.

This is a portrayal of the confrontation between the counterfeiter and the connoisseur.

That is why Mr. Ai emphasized the need to discover and summarize features that others have not discovered or summarized.

No one else knows but you do, and that is your secret weapon for identification.

"The last point is that even if an object is 99% correct, if there's just one thing wrong, it should be treated as a fake."

"It's better to be safe than sorry. Following this rule might mean you miss out on one treasure, but it will save you from being deceived ninety-nine times."

Mr. Ai didn't hide anything.

Just a few words summarize and explain the secret of authenticity identification.

But these are of little use to me.

Because I'm a tomb robber.

The things in the tomb...should not be fakes.

What I want to learn is to distinguish the dynasty of objects and their value.

"Mr. Ai, I know nothing about antiques. Could you tell me what good things there are from different dynasties?"

"There are so many items here, including jade, bronze, gold and silver, calligraphy and painting, porcelain, lacquerware, wood, and so on. There are many categories."

"Even if I talk for three days and three nights, I still can't finish it."

"But I have some diagrams here. You can take them back and take your time to look at them. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I can also ask Weiguo."

"My boy Weiguo is really obsessed with antiques. In the past, he would have been a good connoisseur, but now..."

Old Master Ai sighed and shook his head.

He really wanted to take Ai Weiguo to a museum or an archaeological institute.

But due to family reasons, this did not happen.

"Let's not talk about this anymore. Go get those maps."

"okay."

Ai Wuzhuang quickly brought over a stack of yellowed books.

"This is the material I've studied since I was a child. It has graphic descriptions of gold, jade, bronze, porcelain, and other categories, as well as methods for identifying authenticity."

"However, these methods of authenticity verification are commonplace, and many counterfeiters have mastered them. In the past, there were many counterfeits specifically designed to target these methods."

"Thank you, thank you so much."

I quickly took the books.

I picked up a book and started reading.

These books are all stereotyped and look very old. I guess they are at least several decades old.

While I was flipping through the book, Ai Wuzhuang took out a list and handed it to Mr. Ai.

"Grandpa, take a look at the things up there, can you help me get some out?"

"Let me consider."

Mr. Ai looked at the list.

Ai Weiguo walked around behind him and stretched his neck to watch.

"Seven Star Nails?!"

"Dad, these seven-star nails are used to prevent corpses from rising, right?"

Mr. Ai nodded slowly: "Yes, but it is more advanced."

"To prevent the corpse from rising, one usually uses seven or forty-nine ordinary nails to nail the coffin."

"But the Seven-Star Nail is different from ordinary nails. It is usually made of gold, square and prismatic, with a pointy bottom and thick top."

"It's often used on the coffins of powerful figures who died unjustly. They're afraid their spirits will linger and rise up to cause trouble."

"However, tomb robbers despise the Seven Star Nail because it is unlucky and would not accept it even if it is made of gold. Therefore, there are very few Seven Star Nails left."

Old Master Ai spoke like he knew everything.

Seeing how detailed he explained it, I felt like there might be a way.

So he asked, "Mr. Ai, do you have a seven-star nail?"

"To be honest, this is a list made by an old Taoist priest for suppressing evil spirits. I'm helping him put together the items."

Mr. Ai smiled and said, "I don't have it, but I know where it is."

“But that’s a Taoist tomb.”

"It is said that hundreds of demons are sealed inside. It is too dangerous!"