Folklore and Strange Tales: At the Start, You Retrieve the Sea-Suppressing Black Iron

Zhou Banxian's voice still echoed in the room, and Boss Lin listened intently, tapping the handrail with his fingers at an increasingly rapid pace.

Cheng Xiaojin seized the opportunity, bent down, opened the canvas bag, took out something wrapped in black cloth from the innermost layer, and placed it flat on the velvet cloth of the rosewood table with both hands.

He untied the cloth very slowly, holding the corner of the cloth with his left hand and peeling it off layer by layer with three fingers of his right hand.

When the black cloth was lifted to the last layer, the fake Zhenhai Iron was revealed.

Tieguai Li's craftsmanship is truly exceptional; the mottled rust exudes a heavy sense of age, and it looks even more authentic when placed on velvet than on a workbench.

Boss Lin leaned forward, his eyes fixed on the ironware.

Fatty Sun also craned his neck, but the bracelet stopped spinning.

"Mr. Lin, please take a look."

Cheng Xiaojin withdrew his hand, sat down in the chair, and made an gesture as if handing over the item meant it was no longer his concern.

Boss Lin didn't rush to start, but first turned his head and glanced at Glasses King.

Glasses King put down his teacup, took out a pair of head-mounted magnifying glasses from the inside pocket of his gray jacket and put them on his forehead, then took out a pair of white cotton gloves from his trouser pocket and put them on. He wiggled his fingers a couple of times before standing up and walking to the large table.

Cheng Xiaojin observed the order in which these tools were taken out and how they were worn, and mentally checked off the information about Tieguai Li.

King of Glasses is a connoisseur who follows the rules, completely different from those dabblers who draw conclusions after just a few glances with a magnifying glass.

He bent down, flipped the magnifying glass over and placed it on his eye socket, bringing his face less than two inches away from the metal object.

The room quieted down, with only the sound of the teapot bubbling away in the corner remaining.

Cheng Xiaojin's back began to sweat, and a surge of heat rose from his lower back, but his hands remained motionless on his knees, and the expression on his face was no different from when he was watching Zhao Defa fiddling with his pile of fake pastel bowls.

King of Glasses started looking at the ironware from the upper left corner, his gaze sweeping along the rust layer bit by bit to the right, then turning back to move down one line at a time, without missing a single line.

He turned the iron over to look at the bottom, the magnifying glass almost touching the rusty surface.

Cheng Xiaojin's fingernails dug into the seam of her trousers, turning her fingertips white, but her thighs didn't move, and her breathing remained steady.

A few minutes later, Glasses King straightened up and pushed the magnifying glass to his forehead.

"The rust layer is fine."

The heat on Cheng Xiaojin's back dissipated almost completely, but he didn't say a word.

Boss Lin nodded in his armchair without saying a word.

King Glasses then pulled a small glass bottle from his gray jacket pocket. The bottle contained a pale yellow liquid and the opening was sealed with wax.

"Dilute hydrochloric acid."

Zhou Banxian whispered something to Cheng Xiaojin beside him.

Cheng Xiaojin knew exactly what was going on. Tieguai Li had given him instructions beforehand, and he was confident that the acid test would pass. The rust-removing agent used was genuine rust powder, with the same chemical composition as 600-year-old rust.

Glasses King used his fingernail to pry open the wax seal, took out a cotton swab from his pocket, dipped it in a small amount of liquid, and gently wiped it on an inconspicuous corner of the bottom of the ironware.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on that corner.

A ring of extremely fine bubbles appeared on the rusty surface. The bubbles were dark green in color and the reaction was neither fast nor slow. They lasted for about ten seconds before disappearing on their own.

The man with glasses leaned closer to smell it, then dipped a cotton swab in the remaining liquid and examined the color.

"The reaction is normal, it has the characteristics of an old piece, it's not newly cast."

Cheng Xiaojin silently kowtowed to Tieguai Li.

After passing the first two levels, the third level came quickly.

King Glasses took off his white gloves, stretched out his bare hand, held the iron object in his right palm, spread his fingers slightly, and weighed it up and down a couple of times.

"The portion is sufficient."

King Glasses nodded and put the ironware back on the velvet cloth.

After saying that, Cheng Xiaojin felt the sweat on his back had soaked through the inner layer of his shirt, making it feel cool against his skin, but he felt a great sense of relief.

Having passed all three trials, Tieguai Li's statement that he couldn't distinguish between truth and falsehood wasn't just boasting.

Boss Lin tapped his fingers twice on the armrest.

"What does Mr. Wang think?"

King Glasses stood beside the large table without returning to his seat, his hands behind his back.

"The rust layer, acid test, and hand weight all show no problems."

He paused for a moment, but his voice remained calm and unhurried.

Just as Cheng Xiaojin was about to speak, the Glasses King slowly pushed the magnifying glass off his forehead and placed it on the table, then looked up at him.

"Boss Cheng, everything is fine up ahead."

"The last one, I want to hear a sound."

Cheng Xiaojin tightened her grip on her crossed fingers.

He knew this hurdle was coming sooner or later. Tieguai Li had also explained that the carbon content of the counterfeit product was a fraction of a percent higher than that of the genuine product, and the sound produced by tapping it had a shorter aftertaste, lacking the long, resonant echo of a dragon's roar that lingered within the body.

But he didn't reveal a single flaw on his face, and even leaned back in his chair.

"Mr. Wang, I have to stop you from doing this."

The Glasses King frowned slightly.

"What's wrong?"

"The Zhenhai Iron is a feng shui object used to suppress evil spirits; striking it is a major taboo, this is an old rule."

King Glasses pushed up his glasses, and finally his eyes behind the lenses became clear—small, but very bright.

"What rules? I've been appraising ironware for fifteen years, and I've handled thousands of pieces of bronze, porcelain, and miscellaneous items. Tapping and listening to the sound is the most basic method. I've never heard of anything that can't be tapped."

"That's because you haven't handled any Zhenhai Iron."

Before Cheng Xiaojin could finish speaking, Zhou Banxian chimed in.

"Mr. Wang, if I may say something..."

Zhou Banxian stood up from his chair, rolled up the sleeves of his Zhongshan suit, revealing a red string wrapped around his wrist.

"The Zhenhai Iron Lock is the water vein of North China. Before each piece of Zhenhai Iron Lock is buried, the craftsmen use a secret method to seal its energy. The energy that suppresses the vein is sealed inside the iron body."

"If you had hit it somewhere else, it would have been fine. At most, the metal would have lost some of its strength, but it could have been repaired later."

"But look at where this place is."

Zhou Banxian pointed one finger out the window.

"Houhai is part of the Shichahai water area, and it is connected to the third branch of the northern branch of the waterway in Beijing."

"If you strike a piece of Zhenhai Iron here, it's like creating a disturbance next to the water vein's outlet, disrupting the energy field of the water vein within a three-mile radius."

"I can't say what the consequences will be if things get chaotic."

Zhou Banxian's reading glasses slid down a little, and he tilted his head to look at Glasses King from above the frame.

"But if the water level of Shichahai changes later, can you take responsibility?"

The King of Glasses' lips twitched down slightly, clearly not believing in this.

"Mr. Zhou, we're doing appraisals, not engaging in feudal superstition."

Fatty Sun scoffed and chimed in.

"Exactly, stop with all this nonsense. Just do the testing. What's a piece of iron going to do to capsize the entire sea?"

Cheng Xiaojin ignored him and stared intently at Boss Lin's face.

Boss Lin's fingers stopped on the armrest, and the ouroboros ring on his ring finger spun half a circle under the light.

"I understand what Mr. Zhou is saying."

Boss Lin's voice was slow and deliberate, with the last syllable rising in pitch.

"Similar taboos exist for talismans in Southeast Asia. For example, when opening a tin mine talisman in Penang, even an iron hammer is not allowed to be brought into the room."

"but."

His gaze fell on Cheng Xiaojin's face.

"Something this expensive needs some kind of verification method. If you don't want to knock, give me an alternative."

The room fell silent.

Sun Pangzi, Glasses King, and Zhou Bansian all looked at Cheng Xiaojin at the same time.

Cheng Xiaojin tapped her knee twice with her fingers.

He stood up, walked to the large rosewood table, and reached out to pick up the fake iron from the velvet cloth.

He held the iron object in his left palm, raised his left hand to his ear, and extended his right index finger, his nail pressed against the side of the iron object at an extremely tricky angle.

The angle is very important, about forty-five degrees along the tangent of the curved surface of the ironware.

The force is more refined; it's not a tap, but a friction, with the edge of the fingernail sliding along the iron surface at a uniform speed, moving centimeter by centimeter.

A very low, muffled sound emanated from the iron body, deep and short, circling the room for a short while before dissipating.

The muffled sound dissipated in less than a second, but it was enough to show that the internal crystal density of the iron was far greater than that of ordinary ironware.

Cheng Xiaojin put the ironware back on the velvet cloth and took a step back.

"This is called the friction conduction sound method. It doesn't involve striking or vibrating the iron; it only measures the density of the iron. As you can hear, the internal crystals are dense and there are no pores. This is something that cannot be made from pig iron castings."

Mr. Lin leaned forward for a full five seconds, leaving a mark on the armrest with his silver ring.

He slowly leaned back and nodded.

"Can."

As soon as those two words landed, Cheng Xiaojin's toes dug into the ground inside her shoe, almost causing her to buckle.

King Glasses stood motionless beside the large table, his gaze shifting from the ironware to Cheng Xiaojin's right hand, staring at the fingernail of his index finger for a long while.

Cheng Xiaojin put his hands in his pockets and was about to turn around and go back to his seat.

The voice of the Glasses King drifted from behind, so softly that only Cheng Xiaojin could hear it clearly.

"Boss Cheng, you didn't learn these skills at a street stall in Panjiayuan, did you?"