In the middle of the ring, Meng Zitao remembered that he also had a miniature monitor, which was originally intended to be used on Tian Youqi, but now he can use it first to find out about their situation.

Because the table was right next to the road leading to the bathroom, Mencius pretended to say that he was going to go to the bathroom, calculated the time, and arrived there just in time for a waiter to pass by the table.

Meng Zitao leaned sideways to let the waiter pass first, and he glued the monitor under the table with lightning speed.

After the waiter left, Meng Zitao smiled at the two young men and left.

Meng Zitao didn't take a few steps before he heard the conversation between the two people from the earphones, but the voice was relatively quiet, and he needed to concentrate to hear clearly.

One of them said, "Mike, you think he's going to notice us, he's ...... after all"

"Just a few casual glances at him, how could he possibly notice us. To be honest, I don't believe there are such powerful people in this world. ”

"Don't be careless, the world is mysterious, and no one knows what strange things will happen in the next moment. ”

"John, I think you're too godly to believe in science!"

"You believe in your atheism, please don't interfere with me. ”

"Okay, let's change the subject, what do you think we should do with him?"

"Whatever he wants, as long as he doesn't mess with us. Mike, don't think that in the United States, you can easily solve him, if you think so, you will definitely be unlucky. Moreover, we have more important things to deal with now, and if we mess up and the boss blames it, you should know what the consequences will be. ”

"Okay......"

When the two of them said this, they began to talk about some inconsequential things, and when Meng Zitao came out of the bathroom, they had already settled the bill and left.

Meng Zitao put away the bugging device and returned to his seat.

Through the conversation between the two, he could be sure that these two people should be members of the Black Fire, therefore, he was very curious, what made these two people give up on dealing with him?

It's just that now he is not alone, and he can't do some dangerous things, otherwise he really wants to go and find out in person. Now, he can only send a text message to his colleague to explain the situation.

The next day was Sunday, because He Wanyi was going to return to China first, so this day was set as a shopping day, and under Shu Huijie's suggestion, she bought a lot of things, and even He Wanyi couldn't remember the quantity.

Early the next morning, Meng Zitao sent He Wanyi to the airport, because he was worried that the people of the black fire would be unfavorable to He Wanyi, he also arranged a female bodyguard to escort He Wanyi back to China.

In addition, in order to hide people's eyes, Meng Zitao also bought a ticket for this flight, but after entering the airport, he refunded the ticket, and when he walked out of the airport, he changed his appearance.

"Boss, the guy is gone. ”

"Oh, you read that right. ”

"That's certainly not possible. ”

"Oh, that's good,"

Before the Chinese young man put away his mobile phone and walked a few steps, Meng Zitao leaned in: "Brother, can you borrow a fire?"

The young man looked at the panda cigarette in Meng Zitao's hand, took out his mobile phone and handed it over, and reminded with a smile: "Since New Year's Day, the smoking rooms here have been closed and changed to outdoor smoking places, if you want to smoke over there." ”

"Thanks for the reminder, or I really don't know. ”

Meng Zitao smiled, and then handed a cigarette to the young man: "Why don't you go together?"

"Then you're welcome. ”

The two walked to the smoking place, lit a cigarette, and the young man took two puffs, looking a little intoxicated: "This cigarette is so good, the smoke is full, soft, mellow, charming, and has an indescribable sweetness, it is the best smoke I have ever smoked." ”

Meng Zitao smiled and gave him a thumbs up and said, "Dude, expert!"

"What an expert, it's just that he smokes too much. After the young man finished speaking, he took another deep puff of cigarette and spit it out softly. I only felt that the charming smoke filled my mouth and nose, and the thick smoke slowly diffused into the air with the intoxicating aroma.

After tasting a whole cigarette in silence, the young man smiled: "Brother, this cigarette shouldn't be cheap." ”

Meng Zitao said: "It's okay, but I really don't know how much, it's all given by friends, and I don't usually buy it." If you like it, this box is for you. ”

The young man waved his hand: "How embarrassing this is." ”

"Meeting is fate, what's so embarrassing. And I smoke just cow chewing peonies. Meng Zitao forced the cigarette case into the young man's hand.

"Haha, you're welcome. The young man put away the cigarette case in his heart, and then asked, "Brother, are you coming to New York for business or pleasure?"

"It's mainly for tourism, but also for a New Year's auction. ”

"Oh, brother interested in antiques?"

"The antique market is so hot right now, and I don't know if there are any good antique stores in New York. Meng Zitao pretended to be distressed.

The young man was overjoyed and said, "I happen to know a few of them, there are all kinds of them, I don't know which category you like?"

Meng Zitao said happily: "As long as it is a good thing, I like it, of course, I only have some research on porcelain, buddy, do you have any good introduction?"

"Okay, I'll take you to a very nice antique shop that specializes in porcelain. ”

"So what are you waiting for, let's go......"

On the way, Meng Zitao chatted with the young man, and learned that others called him Xiao Zhao, and his profession was an antique consultant, and to put it bluntly, he was a broker.

This Xiao Zhao is very treacherous, originally Meng Zitao wanted to use him as a breakthrough to find out Tian Youqi's news, but he didn't expect to mention this topic and talk about him left and right, in order to avoid startling the snake, Meng Zitao didn't ask.

Originally, Meng Zitao had already taken him to Tian Youqi's shop, but he didn't expect to take him to another antique shop.

The layout of this antique shop is also typical of the American style, the owner is a middle-aged man in his forties, surnamed Chen, with a goatee and wearing a Tang costume, much like the master of the old society.

Xiao Zhao introduced the two parties, and after a few polite words, at the request of Meng Zitao, Boss Chen went to bring his treasure, a Kangxi colorful porcelain.

In a sense, the five colors of the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty are the five colors of porcelain in the real sense. Because the Ming Dynasty Wucai, if it did not use underglaze blue and white, it was actually red, green, and yellow on the glaze; and the biggest feature of Kangxi Wucai was that it used blue and black colors on the glaze, forming a variety of colors such as red, green, yellow, black, ochre, and blue.

Boss Chen brought a typical Kangxi colorful landscape figure elephant leg bottle, which was named because of its shape like a thick elephant leg.

This piece of colorful porcelain decoration pen atmosphere is smooth, Seiko is elegant, the color is ancient and heavy, bright and vulgar, quite the essence of Kangxi porcelain painting.

It's just that Meng Zitao glanced at it, and shook his head secretly, if this is a real Kangxi five-color porcelain, it is undoubtedly quite precious, but on this porcelain, there is one point that has been ignored by the imitators.

That is the painting method of porcelain figure landscape, in the real Kangxi five-color porcelain painting, the characters imitate the painting method of the famous calligrapher and painter Chen Hongshou in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, and the landscape imitates the "Four Kings Wu Yun" in the early Qing Dynasty, etc., and its painting style should be roughly similar. The faces of the characters are not upright, only outlines are drawn and not colored.

However, although this elephant leg vase has sophisticated brushstrokes, exquisite composition, and a very flexible glaze luster, this point is the only one that he has overlooked. Perhaps this is a deliberate attempt by the imitator to show his painting skills, because the painting level of this porcelain has also reached a certain level.

However, although the painting is good, it is like the idiom painting a snake, and putting such a style on such a piece of porcelain seems a bit nondescript.

Boss Chen asked, "Mr. Jiang (the pseudonym taken by Meng Zitao), I don't know if you still like this thing?"

Meng Zitao smiled slightly, and when he was about to speak, a voice came from not far away: "Hey, Lao Chen, you are too uninteresting, a few days ago I asked you to take this elephant leg bottle out to appreciate it, you said that it has been sold, why has it appeared again now, is it possible that it has been returned by the seller?"

Meng Zitao turned his head to look and found that the person who spoke was a short Chinese with a full face and dark skin.

Boss Chen was also a little embarrassed when he saw that it was him, and said: "Mr. Lan, it's not that I deliberately didn't show you, it was indeed someone else who decided it first, but I didn't expect him to want it again, so I took it out." ”

"Okay, okay, anyway, the mouth grows on you. Mr. Lan spoke a little politely, and then said to Meng Zitao: "Little brother, I wonder if you can let me see this porcelain?"

Meng Zitao said that there was no problem, he just moved his position and let go of the Kangxi colorful elephant leg bottle, and Mr. Lan pounced on it anxiously, and while looking at it, he was still amazed in his mouth.

After about ten minutes, Mr. Lan said to Meng Zitao: "Boy, how about giving me this elephant leg bottle?"

Originally, Meng Zitao could be kind, but this Mr. Lan's high-minded appearance when he spoke made him disgusted, so he said he could.

"Young man, I have this love for you in my heart. Mr. Lan smiled and patted Meng Zitao's shoulder.

Meng Zitao smiled and pouted in his heart, this guy knew at a glance that he was an empty lord.

Next, after some bargaining, Mr. Lan bought the thing for 50,000 US dollars.

Meng Zitao chuckled: "It's like this these days, many half-people, thinking that they are experts after reading a few books, they don't know how to pretend to understand, and in the end they all give themselves to the pit." ”

Boss Chen saw that Meng Zitao had given things to Mr. Lan so easily just now, and he already had some guesses in his heart, so he was not surprised when Meng Zitao said this, but he definitely wouldn't admit it: "What do you mean by this?"

Meng Zitao said: "We Mingren don't say dark words, don't tell me, you can't see that there is a problem with the painting style." ”

Boss Chen laughed: "Mr. Jiang is an expert." ”

"I've seen a lot of good things, and I won't be able to. Boss Chen, ask a question, where did that thing come from, I see that the painting and workmanship are quite good. Meng Zitao asked casually.

Boss Chen said: "You are an expert, I won't hide it from you, those things are all imported from China, in fact, the price is not cheap, one will cost tens of thousands." ”

"It's tens of thousands of RMB. Meng Zitao smiled, and then said: "Boss, please take another one that looks right for the eye." However, let's put the ugly words in front, forget the one just now, if we take another one to fool me, we won't be so easy to talk about. ”

"Rest assured, you are satisfied. Boss Chen said with a smile, but before leaving, he also made a look with Xiao Zhao. They thought they were hidden, but they didn't know that they were all under Mencius's eyes.

Meng Zitao thought about what tricks they were going to do, and saw Boss Chen coming over with two pieces of porcelain.

The two pieces of porcelain are a Ming Jiajing blue and white Yingluo seahorse pattern jar, which is decorated with blue and white throughout the vessel, and the color is heavy and purple. The edge of the mouth is painted with a double-chord pattern, the neck is decorated with a lotus pattern of entwined branches for a week, the neck and shoulders are painted with a ruyi head pattern, there is a Yingluo pattern hanging from the shoulder in the middle of the abdomen, which is decorated with miscellaneous treasures and lotus patterns, and the lower abdomen is painted through the five seahorses between the waves of the sea, the posture is different, and the spirit is flying.

The other is the Ming Wanli five-color peony pattern plate, the color is strong, the composition is dense, the pen is bold, the lines are clumsy, and it is also a very exquisite porcelain.

When Meng Zitao saw these two pieces of porcelain, he also pretended to make his eyes shine, and shouted "It's the right one".

Meng Zitao's heart is undoubtedly quite calm, after identification, he confirmed that one of the two pieces of porcelain is genuine in the Jiajing period, and the other is a very high-quality imitation porcelain with a very high level of production, and at the same time very realistic, and Meng Zitao can confirm that the author of this porcelain is the person he is looking for.

But if it was really from the same person's hands, Meng Zitao felt a little troublesome, because Wucai was obviously better than blue and white, and he would have to spend a lot of time identifying it, let alone others.

Meng Zitao suppressed the urge to ask, and said with a smile: "I like these two pieces of porcelain very much, please ask Boss Chen to give a price." ”

Seeing Meng Zitao say this, Boss Chen breathed a sigh of relief, immediately became happy, and said, "Just apologize for what happened just now, count you 180,000 US dollars, how about it?"

Meng Zitao nodded slightly: "This price is good, but I have a question for you." ”

"What's the problem?"

"I wonder if you can provide such porcelain for a long time?"

Boss Chen was stunned: "Mr. Jiang, can you make it clearer?"

Meng Zitao said: "That's the case, you also know, because of historical reasons, there are a lot of domestic antiques scattered in the United States, as far as I know, there are not a few such antiques, especially some ancient porcelain, which is very popular with Americans." ”

"In addition, in recent years, there have also been a lot of domestic antiques that have flowed into the United States through some illegal channels, and as far as I know, the US law stipulates that antiques are tax-free, so antique dealers can openly sell these contraband goods in their stores. What I want to do is to sell some of these valuable porcelain in China. ”