Meng Zitao said with a smile: "Let me ask you a question, if there is grass and grass roots in front of the horse, which one does it choose to eat first?"

Hardware said directly: "Of course, it's eating tender grass." Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info"

Mencius said: "Isn't that enough, no matter how tall the grass is, the horse starts eating from the grass a little, and since it starts eating from the grass, why is it eating with its eyes closed? And the wild horse eats grass with its eyes closed, is it not afraid of encountering danger? As for eating grass in the trough, it is even more fine, because it is all 'inch grass' that has been drilled, and it is not afraid of stabbing its eyes at all." ”

After listening to Meng Zitao's explanation, the hardware felt quite reasonable.

I heard Mencius continue: "It is impossible for a court painter not to understand this truth, and there must be something wrong with that painting." ”

Hardware nodded again and again, expressing his approval, after all, as a court painter, he should be very experienced, and it is impossible to make such a mistake, and he also felt a little strange about this painting, because other animals take auspicious meanings, and this painting is a white horse eating grass, compared with the artistic conception of other paintings, it is a little strange.

Thinking so, the hardware also felt that the painting might be a backup, and then, he felt that Yang Ruifeng was very pitiful, and spent a lot of money to buy a set of problematic screens, although this is so, the screen is still very precious, but compared with the whole device, the value is too small.

At this time, Meng Zitao opened his mouth and asked, "I don't know how much you know about this surnamed Yang?"

Hardware shook his head: "I don't know much about him, but this person is still quite mysterious, few people in my friends know about him, and as far as I know, he doesn't do other business, and I don't know how he usually makes money." ”

In the antique industry, the word mystery more or less represents the problem, because the antique circle attaches the most importance to communication, a person is famous, everyone knows you, will bring good things to you, and the more news you get.

Therefore, like Yang Ruifeng, it is obviously not very reasonable. Thinking of Yun Dingsong and them again, Meng Zitao had some vague guesses in his heart, so he decided to ask people to investigate him, after all, this is also one of his current jobs.

Out of the villa, the hardware made a phone call, and when he hung up the phone, he said to Meng Zitao with a smile: "Shopkeeper Meng, I'm really embarrassed today, my friend here also has some good things in his hands, I don't know if you're interested?"

Meng Zitao didn't want to go home empty-handed, and asked, "What is it?"

Hardware said: "It's basically a literary game." ”

"Okay, where's your friend?"

"My friend is not far from our location now, or let's go to a teahouse not far in front of him and wait for him, which will take less than ten minutes by car. ”

"Okay......

Guided by hardware, Mencius's car stopped in front of a Chinese teahouse, modeled after an ancient Chinese court, which looked extravagant and intricate, as gorgeous as the court.

But when you walk into the teahouse, you can feel the cultural atmosphere everywhere, and some modern and fashionable colors and accessories are also appropriately added, and the elegant carpet makes the whole space shine.

In the selection of decoration materials for the tea house, traditional wooden materials are used here, which makes people feel strongly the traditional traces and rich cultural heritage, but at the same time, it abandons the complex texture and decoration of the past classicism and simplifies the lines.

To put it simply, the decoration style here should be a modern Chinese style, and it is designed by a master, and the details are not perfunctory, very tasteful.

Meng Zitao and Hardware followed the waiter into a private room, only to see that the tables and chairs inside were made of mahogany tables and chairs imitating the Ming and Qing dynasties, and then arranged with elegant calligraphy banners, Chinese paintings with far-reaching artistic conceptions, green potted plants with pleasant scenes, and antique purple sand ceramics, which immediately created a gentle and harmonious taste.

In addition, the tea list here is also very special, using the bamboo slip style, which looks exquisite, cultural, interesting and clean, so that guests can't bear to release the volume.

All of these reflect the taste of the owner of the teahouse.

After ordering tea and snacks, Meng Zitao praised: "The owner here is very elegant." ”

Hardware said: "Indeed, he is a member of the Gusu Calligraphy and Painting Association, and he has a lot of research on Chinese painting. ”

Meng Zitao smiled and nodded, indicating that he could understand.

After a while, a middle-aged man who was nearly fifty years old walked in with the waiter with something in his hand.

"Lao Luo, long time no see. Hardware stood up and said hello to the man.

The man joked: "No way, who made your hardware boss a busy man?"

"You just bury me!" Hardware smiled, and then introduced to both parties: "Lao Luo, this is what I told you, shopkeeper Meng......"

"Hello. ”

Meng Zitao stood up and shook the man's hand.

The two sides exchanged a few words and got down to business.

The man's name was Luo Jihui, and he put the box in his hand and opened it on the table, and saw four or five unique objects in the box. There are seals, gourds, hanging beads, and a string of eye-catching handholds.

In fact, the difference between "handheld" and "bracelet" lies in the difference in quantity, we generally have 12-13 bracelets enough, more than 13, obviously more than the wrist, can not be worn directly, can only be held by hand, we can call it "handheld", "handheld" is actually used to record the number of times to chant the Buddha.

"Hand-held" is actually a kind of Buddha beads, which is an extension of the "bracelet", if it is a single item, we call it a "hand-held piece".

The reason why this string of hand-held beads is eye-catching, because it can be clearly seen that the hand-held beads are made of old chess, which is extremely oily, soft silk, and the pulp is warm and moist, supplemented by one of the seven treasures of Buddhism, turquoise beads, which are in perfect condition and worthy of collection.

However, to say that the most eye-catching, but also a piece of water weed pattern sprinkled with golden skin and Khotanese seed material handle.

Maybe some friends don't know much about what is the water weed pattern and Khotanese seed material, a simple explanation, I don't know if you have heard of silicified jade?

It's just a piece of wood, soaked in water, and after a long time, it becomes "jade". That's because the silicon ions in the water replace the original components of the wood and turn into stone. Because it is beautiful, it is called siliconized jade. Actually, it is not jade, it is similar to agate. Then it also shows a truth: ions in water can be accumulated and replaced.

So, when jade is soaked in water, will it produce similar changes in its weak spots? Everyone has seen snowflakes, right? As a result, the "manganese" ions in the water, after tens of thousands of years of experience, will slowly accumulate and crystallize, and after crystallization, they will produce something like snowflakes. Because it is black, the crystals take on the shape of black snowflakes.

This is the proof that it has been in the water. Then the crystallization of this snowflake, many people have given it a different name. Aquatic weeds, centipede legs, manganese crystals, etc.

These names all have a sense of scattered crystals. And not a clump with neat borders. This is important when authenticating, and the genuine product must have antennae and spread out.

Moreover, this aquatic weed pattern generally grows in the place of the crack. And definitely to the roots that grow to the fissure. If it's just at the edge of the crack and not inside, then you have to be careful. Because there is a possibility of artificial planting.

The so-called sprinkled gold skin seeds, because Hetian jade seeds are mostly distributed on the terraces on both sides of the riverbed or the middle and lower reaches of the riverbed, some seeds are oxidized on the surface with local color, such as lightly sprinkled with a layer of gold on the skin, this kind of seed material is called sprinkled gold skin seeds.

Sprinkled with gold skin and water grass patterns, and it is also a single seed that has not been carved, Meng Zitao fell in love with it at a glance, and after asking Luo Jihui, he hurriedly took it in his hand and used the tools to appreciate it.

If you use a magnifying glass to observe, the surface of this kind of jade, the color of the cracks on the surface and the color of the surrounding area transition are natural, compared with the surrounding color knowledge is slightly deepened, if it is artificially dyed, then the transition between the gaps will be obvious, the gaps are deeper, and the periphery is shallow, and the contrast is obvious.

In addition, the surface of the sprinkled gold skin seed material has a pattern formed by the long-term erosion of running water, which is consistent with both aspects.

Meng Zitao checked other characteristics, and it can be basically determined that the seed material is real, and there is basically a ninety percent probability that it is genuine.

Then, he looked at the characteristics of the water weeds, and they were all natural.

After playing with it a lot, Meng Zitao returned the handle, and then, he identified the other four things, all of which were genuine.

This result made Meng Zitao a little curious, who is this Luo Jihui, why does he have so many good things in his hands, is he, like hardware, is he in the brokerage business?

Meng Zitao didn't care about him, and then discussed the price with Luo Jihui, the things are good, everyone is in the industry, and there will basically not be much coming and going in terms of price, and in the end, the five things were rounded up and sold for two million.

Luo Jihui was a little busy, negotiated the price, and didn't sit down to drink tea, he wanted to go to the bank to transfer money.

So, Meng Zitao went to settle the account, but when he walked to the door of the teahouse, he found that Luo Jihui was talking happily with a middle-aged man with a personable demeanor and an elegant temperament.

Through the introduction, Meng Zitao learned that this person was Dai Guanglan, the owner of the teahouse.

Dai Guanglan is more amiable, but when he was greeting, he looked at the box that Meng Zitao was carrying from time to time, which still gave Meng Zitao a headache, because from the introduction of Dai Guanglan by hardware, as well as the decoration and furnishings of the teahouse, it was known that Dai Guanglan was likely to also like to play with literature.

Especially the seed material playpiece, Meng Zitao believes that Dai Guanglan will also like it at a glance, and it will inevitably be troublesome at that time.

Sure enough, after a while, Dai Guanglan implicitly asked Meng Zitao if he could play a few pieces of literature for him to enjoy. Meng Zitao wanted to refuse directly, but there was no way, who called him now in the other party's territory, and Dai Guanglan was not annoying, and it would be too rude to refuse, so he had to agree.

Dai Guanglan looked very happy, and everyone came to his office, invited everyone to take a seat, and asked the waiter to serve tea to everyone.

may not want to show himself too eagerly, at this time, Dai Guanglan did not rush to let Meng Zitao open the box, but took out a painting for everyone to enjoy.

Before opening the scroll, Dai Guanglan said with a smile that this is a picture of Guanlu Ji's "Golden Chicken" that he recently obtained, please take a look, right?

Of course, everyone knows that this is Dai Guanglan's modest statement, and it must be impossible to imitate it with his identity.

However, it is precisely because of this that everyone is somewhat excited.

Because, this Lu Ji is a famous court painter in the Ming Dynasty, good at flowers and birds, and also works trees and stones. The style of painting is rich and splendid, ancient and dazzling, the fine brush outline and the ink and wash freehand are both capable, and the part-time work is written, the pen and ink flow, and it has the wonder of creation.

He first learned the brushwork of Bian Jingzhaogong, and was also influenced by Lin Liang's ink painting, and later came to the famous deeds of the Tang and Song dynasties. He contributed to the development of flower and bird painting.

Lu Ji's works are also very popular in the auction market, such as "Red Plum Turtledove" is one of Lu Ji's masterpieces.

This work was unveiled at the autumn auction of a domestic auction company in 1997, when the work was estimated at 50~800,000 yuan, and finally only sold for 517,000 yuan.

In 2002, when it was launched again on another auction company, the estimate was as high as 2.60~3.6 million yuan, although the estimate was much higher than the original transaction price, but in view of the fact that the price of ancient calligraphy and painting in China has shown a sharp rise, and because Lu Ji's works are very scarce in the private circulation, the "Red Plum Turtledove Picture" was finally auctioned at a high price of 2.816 million yuan.

If Dai Guanglan takes out the real handiwork, the current market situation, in general, is worth at least millions, such a masterpiece, how can you not be impressed?

When Dai Guanglan carefully opened the scroll, everyone saw that the painting was a pair of dark brocade chickens, with fine brushwork, but the color was still dominated by ink, only the eyes and claws of the brocade chickens were bright red.

Meng Zitao put on gloves, held the tools, and began to appreciate them carefully.

Lu Ji's painting style has two kinds of western appearances: in the early years, it was fine in the style of Bian Jingzhao, and after being influenced by Lin Liang after the painting of fine brushwork, it gradually became bold and light ink coloring, and its fine brushwork was rich and beautiful, and many phoenixes, cranes, peacocks, mandarin ducks, etc., supplemented by trees, slopes, stones, beaches, and flowing springs, which were both legal and full of vitality.

On the other hand, as much as possible, he paints freehand ink and chalk, concise and unrestrained, close to Lin Liang's style. He is also good at figures, landscapes, patriarchal Southern Song Dynasty Ma Yuan, Xia Gui painting methods. His style of painting flowers and birds had a great influence both inside and outside the court at that time.

After observation, Mencius found that this painting also conformed to the characteristics of Lu Ji's later years, with rich craftsmanship and great pleasing to the eye, and the painting method of mountains and rocks and flowing water obviously had traces of Ma Yuan and Xia Gui in the Southern Song Dynasty.

However, what made Meng Zitao feel strange was that there was nothing wrong with this painting, but he always felt that there was a sense of unfinished energy on the aura...... (To be continued.) )