Xiao Yao didn't expect to be able to see such a hand-me-down wood carving boutique in such a small shop specializing in selling wood carvings, and he was slightly excited.

Judging from the style of carving, this should be a wood carved Buddha statue of the Jin Dynasty.

During the 10th and 13th centuries, Buddhism in the Jin Dynasty was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and between the 10th and 13th centuries, these large-scale painted statues were made in the monasteries of northern China, many of which were vast, ornate in architecture, and scattered gardens, like palaces.

Based on this, the monarchs of the Jin Dynasty gradually accepted Buddhism as the state religion, and under such an atmosphere, the Buddhist temples, tombs, and Buddhist cultural relics of the Jin Dynasty were more rich and colorful. Such a large Buddha statue, vivid and realistic, the color is strong, the gold color is embellished, for the temple in front of the Buddhist shrine mural, accompanied by other gods, Arhat statues, the light is brilliant, gorgeous and extraordinary.

The woodcut Buddhist statue of the Jin Dynasty was deeply influenced by the style of the Gupta Dynasty in India, and also showed the tradition of the Hellenistic era.

The body of the Buddha is thick, the chest is topless, and the waist curve is slightly curved, which is not the tradition of Han statues, and should belong to the exotic style imported from the Silk Road before the Tang Dynasty. The statues of the Jin Dynasty not only draw on traditional materials, but also develop a unique style, the face is more plump and round, the expression is detailed and detailed, and the technique is mature and soft, which integrates the essence of statue art from the 11th to the 12th centuries, showing the extremely high level of artistic and cultural development at that time.

And this wood carving in front of you is one of the fine works, noble and extraordinary, but also quiet and warm, deeply touching the hearts of the viewers, the wood carving of the Jin Dynasty that has been handed down in the world, it is rare to see such a fine product.

And the large Buddhist statues of the Jin Dynasty are mostly collected by museums, and the people can rarely see them. The collection of Buddhist statues of the Jin Dynasty, most of them are Bodhisattva statues, and Guanyin Bodhisattva is the most, and the Buddha statues are very rare, which highlights the preciousness of this wood carving in front of you.

Among the museum's collections, the most famous is the large 11-sided Guanyin statue of Song Zhijin wood carving in the Cleveland Museum of Art. This statue of Guanyin is very similar to the style of the wood carving in front of you, such as the facial description, rich and natural lines, lips, cheeks, eyebrows, are very similar. The carving techniques of the necks and dorpes of the two are also similar, and the muscles and bones are expressed with subtle undulations, as if they came from the same craftsman and workshop.

These details may not be important to the layman, but they are extremely critical to the insider.

With the comparison of similar collections in the museum, the value of this wood carving in front of you will not be underestimated.

Although this wood carving has been for thousands of years, there are still some micro-mineral colors on the Buddha's body, which is very well preserved, which is even more valuable.

The market price of such a precious Jin Dynasty wood carving should be about 30 million yuan, and the boss's asking price is only 30,000 yuan.

After identifying this Jin Dynasty wood carving Buddha statue, Xiao Yao's gaze shifted to the other two wood carvings.

The other two wood carvings are the statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva and the statue of Dashi Zhi Bodhisattva.

The Bodhisattva is in a standing posture, slightly showing three bends. Hold one hand in front of your chest and the other in your streamer. The lower body is tied with a pocket, the upper body is exposed, wearing jewels, the arms are tied with streamers, the eyes are down, the hair bun is towering, and there is a statue of Amitabha Buddha on the crown of Guanyin five leaves.

The general trend is that there is a vase decoration on the crown of the five leaves. The face is peaceful and quiet, and the appearance is solemn.

Although the bodhisattva can be made as a single statue, most of them are presented in pairs to accompany a specific Buddha, that is, "one shop and three statues". Thus, Guanyin and Dashi Zhi Bodhisattvas are generally located on either side of Amitabha Buddha, while in the past Buddha Shakyamuni's attendants to the left and right were Manjushri and Puxian Bodhisattvas, and Medicine Buddha was accompanied by Sun and Moon Bodhisattvas.

Before the Song Dynasty, most of the Buddhist statues in China were carved in stone or bronze. At the beginning of the Common Era, due to the imperial court's large-scale ban on Buddhism, in addition to confiscating the land and property of the temple, the tax reduction and exemption for Buddhism was also greatly reduced, and a large number of monks and nuns were ordered to return to the laity, so after the middle of the ninth century, the power of Buddhism in China was much less than before. In view of the drastic decline in the temple's accumulated wealth and annual income, wood became the preferred choice for statues from the late ninth century onwards, as it was cheaper than bronze and easier to handle than stone carvings. Before the Song Dynasty, although there were also wooden Buddha statues, few of them have been handed down to this day, so most of the surviving Chinese wooden Buddha statues are works from the 10th century onwards.

The two statues, like most early Buddhist stone and wood carvings, were supposed to be decorated with fresh mineral pigments, and generally the robes and drapes were mostly orange, blue, and green, the beads were mostly gilt, the skin was pink or white, and the hair was black or occasionally blue.

In fact, many of the works have traces of painted paint and white putty. Putty can not only ensure that the surface of the wood and stone is flat, but also the gray and white background can make the pigment more vivid and clear. Among the early statues in China, the best example of the original painting is the Buddhist statue in the Mogao Grottoes, but many wooden Buddha statues from the Song Dynasty, Liao Dynasty, Jin Dynasty and Yuan Dynasty also have traces of painting, as evidenced by the famous Nanhai Guanyin statue in the Nelson-Atkins Art Collection in Kansas City, Missouri, USA.

The two statues in front of you are in the same vein as the statues of the Tang Dynasty.

However, the shape of these two statues is slightly thick and heavy, such as the short neck, the small head according to the proportions of the body, and the long body and the proportions of the legs are particularly slender, which by all indications suggest that these magnificent statues should be the work of the Northern Song Dynasty or even as early as the Five Dynasties.

In addition, the two bodhisattvas have square faces, which are very different from most Tang Dynasty statues with full moon faces, and the pattern of their crowns and silk wrapping from the waist to the elbow is also consistent with the style of the 10th and 12th centuries.

The reticulated ornamentation of these two statues is more elaborate than the usual Tang Dynasty style, but it coincides with the wood carvings of the Northern Song Dynasty, which can be seen in the case of a standing statue of a bodhisattva in the New York metropolitan collection.

The closest example to these two statues is a painted wood sculpture at the Fujii Arikan in Kyoto City. The faces of the statues in the adjacent pavilion are similar to those of the two statues in front of them, but their body is slightly thicker, their torsos are fuller, and their legs are not as slender as those in front of them. The mesh of the three is much the same, as are the pleats that fall down the legs. In terms of style and overall appearance, the close proximity of the two statues in the collection of the Neighbouring Museum means that they are likely to be the work of the same workshop or even the same craftsmen.

This is very important and directly determines the value of the two statues in front of you.

In addition to the collection of the adjacent museum, according to Xiao Yao's knowledge, the British Museum in London also has two wood carvings of the five generations of Bodhisattvas, and their styles are also similar to the two statues in front of him, which can be regarded as evidence that the two statues in front of him are dated to the statues of the five generations. However, the difference between the two batches of works is that the wood carvings in the British Museum do not have a specific statue-making ritual, and the two bodhisattvas have the same posture with their arms down, that is, the right arm is hanging down and the left arm is raised as the chest. Even so, the Bodhisattva in the British Museum's collection is slightly elongated compared to the two statues in front of him, and his folds of his clothes hang down his legs.

In addition to the collections of the Neighbouring Museum and the British Museum, there are four wood carvings from the Metropolitan Collection of New York. Two of these are a pair of coercion bodhisattvas, which were once dated to the Tang dynasty but have been corrected to be Northern Song wood carvings from the 10th to 11th centuries AD. The third approximate example in the Metropolitan Collection is a reticulated statue of a Bodhisattva dating from the 10th to 11th centuries AD and in the same style as the two statues in front of you, and a fourth is a statue of Manjushri dating from the late 10th to early 12th centuries AD.

Xiao Yao knows very well that these two statues are the works of the five dynasties, but the dating cannot be based on his cognition, and there must be examples to be convincing.

With the above examples, coupled with carbon-14 detection, the two statues in front of me are dated to five generations, and no one can refute them.

The carving of these two statues is extremely exquisite, and the preservation is very well-preserved, coupled with the scarcity of surviving materials, the market price of these two statues should be about 70 million yuan.

Coupled with the Buddha statue of the Jin Dynasty, the market price of these three wood carvings has exceeded 100 million yuan!

Although there is still a big gap between this harvest and Xiao Yao's expectations, this morning's time was not wasted.

The shopkeeper did not know the true value of the three statues, and Xiao Yao finally bought them in a package for 30,000 yuan.

Coming out of this wood carving shop, Xiao Yao transferred a few more shops, but there was no big harvest until noon, and in the next hour, he only missed a piece of ancient jade from the Han Dynasty worth more than 3 million.

After a few simple bites at noon, Xiao Yao gave up the idea of picking up leaks in the antique market and began to try the second plan.

His second plan was to go to the jade market to gamble on stones.

Xiao Yao had already consulted someone in advance about the shops that could gamble on stones, and he went to the door one by one according to the addresses he got in advance.

It turns out that with his existing plug-in, there is no problem in making a lot of money by gambling stones, but it seems unrealistic to greatly increase his financial fortune. At least in the jade market in the magic capital, it is not realistic, maybe go to the domestic jade distribution center, or simply go to Myanmar, his idea can be realized.

Although his plug-in is very powerful, there is not much real value in the jadeite rough, and the lucky thing that a piece of glass can appear when a piece of jadeite rough is cut at random can only appear in literary works.

He turned 5 stores in a row in one afternoon, but he only found a total of 7 pieces of jadeite rough stones with high value, if all of them were sold, these 7 pieces of jadeite rough should be able to bring him more than 60 million income.

Judging from the practice in the afternoon, it is certainly possible for him to make a small fortune by gambling stones, but if he wants to greatly increase his own financial fortune, this plan is also not advisable.

Unless he has the opportunity to go to Tengchong or Burma in the future, his plug-in may bring him a lot of money and achieve his overly ambitious and idealistic goals.

But after all, that is the plan for the future, and during this time in the magic capital, the plan to increase one's fortune by gambling stones obviously does not work.

The gap between the first two options and his imagination was too large, and he can only hope for the third option now.

Xiao Yao asked Tian Ye to collect information about the rental of old bungalows, and he was going to take time to go around these rented old bungalows.

There are very few old bungalows for sale, but there are many for rent.

After making an appointment with the real estate agent to see the house in the morning, Xiao Yao took the field and rushed to the agreed location.

What he is about to see is a garden house on Wuyuan Road, with a construction area of about 500 square meters, a monthly rent of 120,000 yuan, and it is said that there is a 200-square-meter garden, and there are two fixed parking spaces.

Of course, these are not the main ones, there is only one piece of information that really interests him in this garden house, and that is that this garden house was built in 1938.

There are still many old houses in the magic capital, and some of the owners of these old houses were business tycoons during the Republic of China, and some were celebrities from all walks of life. During the period of the Republic of China, wars were frequent, and there was no fixed residence, until the period before the founding of the People's Republic of China, the owner of each old house did not know how many times he changed.

Because of the war, a small number of old houses will inevitably store a small number of belongings that are not easy to carry. These belongings, in general, will definitely be taken by the original owner after life is settled. But if an accident happens to the original owner, the hidden belongings become ownerless.

In the next few decades, some of the things that were not so tightly stored must have been found by the later owners of the old bungalows. But there is always a part of it that is well hidden, and it is likely that it is still hidden somewhere, and has never been discovered.

Xiao Yao's purpose is the hidden treasures hidden in the old bungalow, which have never been discovered.

For others, this is simply a needle in a haystack and simply unrealistic. But for Xiao Yao, who has a plug-in, whether there is any hidden treasure in the old house that has not yet been discovered, he only needs to turn around to know.

If it weren't for the sudden idea of this, Xiao Yao really didn't know that there was still such a place in the magic capital.

The road he is stepping on now is narrow, and it is one of the few roads in the magic capital that is not connected to buses, connecting Changshu Road at one end and Wukang Road at the other, and it takes less than ten minutes to walk from the beginning to the end.

A Urumqi road passes through the middle, and to the east is full of market gas, with cigarette paper shops, rice noodle shops, and real estate agents lining up the street.

A few years ago, there was an open-air vegetable market here, and it is said that you can buy high-end food that is not common in ordinary vegetable markets.

Walking on Wuyuan Road is like strolling through the arched green corridor, and the quiet and lazy atmosphere is blowing in your face. In addition to the grocery store at the entrance of the alley, the simple barber shop and other small shops, Wuyuan Road is full of residences, garden houses, high-rise residences and new alleys, with different architectural styles and different years.

However, even the newest house here is quite historical compared to the ever-changing magic capital.