Qingning Village ushered in the rainy season, and the heavy rain continued for more than half a month, and water would accumulate on the ground from time to time. It was fine that the villagers lived in caves, but the soldiers stationed outside suffered, and a group of people had to run to the villagers' caves to play cards to pass the time during the day, and at night they would rest in the unfinished air-raid shelters wrapped in sleeping bags.

The old couple is still sorting out the antiques brought from the outside world, and the husband is wiping the dust on the cultural relics with a special cloth while telling the story and value of such things; The wife smiled with round-framed reading glasses and neatly made notes on anti-oxidation paper.

Since the heavy rain began, the construction work outside was forced to be suspended, and Shi came every day on time to see the old couple to do the work related to the sorting of cultural relics. Although the old couple is old, their work and rest are still very regular, starting a day's work before six o'clock in the morning, and often busy until late at night.

After a long time, the old couple remembered the person Shishi, and sometimes they would take the initiative to say hello, or ask her if there was anything she didn't understand.

"Wife, these things that I took out today are amazing." The old man picked up the exquisite appearance of the gift box, and the more he looked at it, the more he loved it.

"Plum blossom carving again?" Grandma smiled helplessly, "I will know in my heart as soon as I look at you, and you still want to play tricks with me?" Say, how many years? ”

"Hey." The old man grinned, "You still know me, come and touch this guy's touch, this material is not ordinary wood and jade." ”

Grandma was aroused by her wife's words, gently put down the pen in her hand and walked to the gift box, touched it a few times with her hand, and the more she touched it, the brighter her eyes became: "This is an ivory carving, I remember that since the United Nations promulgated the CITES Convention, ivory carvings have slowly not been sold to the public, and it seems that it was only more than 2,000 AD at that time." In this way, this thing must have a history of at least 4,000 years, and it is quite like the carving style of the Qing Dynasty, how can it be preserved so well. ”

"It's not just this one, you see this is an ivory carved dragon head tripod and double lion ornaments." The old man took out several boxes from the box in a row, and pointed to the last one, "It's a little closer to this age, like the carving style after the Qing Dynasty, but the meaning is very good, it is a combination of the God of Wealth and Pixiu." ”

"Stone, if you want to see it, you can just come and see it, there are no outsiders anyway." Grandma suddenly greeted the stone.

"No need." The stone shook her head, she had already swept the whole thing with her mental power, and the distance was almost the same for her.

The old man touched his beard and explained: "For these carvings, the carving is one, then the selection of materials is two, if you don't feel it once, you will not be able to distinguish it in the future." ”

After being persuaded by the two of them repeatedly, the stone was a little tempted, and slowly walked to the gift box and carefully felt the carving with his fingertips.

"Isn't it very different from the feeling of jade products? Due to the later generations who advocated the protection of elephants, the art of ivory carving gradually disappeared, on the one hand, there was no material, and on the other hand, there were fewer carvers. The old man seemed to recall the past and sighed a little, "When I was young, there was a truce for more than ten years, and I also finished college during that time. At that time, I was studying classical culture at Kyoto University, and my instructor at the time was obsessed with ivory carving, and he loved to take the whole class to visit the Kyoto Museum when he had nothing to do. He simply loves the essence of art and does not advocate that we harm innocent animals. ”

The stone asked curiously, "How did people at that time think of carving it out of ivory?" Is it because the ivory is hard? ”

"Not exactly. I remember that at that time, there was a mighty stone elephant in the middle of the sculpture hall, and the nose was not good. So I asked my mentor why he put an elephant stone sculpture here, and my mentor explained to me that the homonym of 'elephant' is 'auspicious', and the folk have the meaning of Vientiane renewal, and it is still a kind of auspicious beast. ”

"Ji Beast? I thought it was only dragons, phoenixes, and the like. Stone replied ignorantly.

"Silly boy, there are so many auspicious beasts." Grandma laughed, "In ancient architecture, bats, deer, unicorns, fish, monkeys and horses and other auspicious beasts were also commonly used. When five bats surround a longevity character, it is called five blessings to hold longevity; The more deer carve, the more eager the family is for official fortune; The stone carved unicorn is expected to be prosperous for future generations; There is also a saying that the fish jumps the dragon gate; The monkey riding on horseback is also called 'immediately sealed marquis'. ”

The stone memorized all the words of the old couple, as if a new door had been opened: "So that's the case." ”

"The people in the village listen to me talk about the history of cultural relics, at most once or twice and get tired of it, even if they come back later, it's just to have a good time, why did you persist for so long?" The old man asked meaningfully.

"Your lectures are very interesting."

"And what have you learned from me besides today? Do you remember them all? ”

"Yes." Shi affirmed, and didn't react that the other party was planning to test himself, "Before this, I talked about jade carvings and bronzes, there are a total of twenty-four pieces of porcelain, calligraphy and danqing, a total of one hundred and two volumes, but more than half of them are damaged, hundreds of modern medals representing different meanings, letters from different officers and different battles......"

"Not bad." The old man listened to what the stone said, becoming more and more satisfied, and kept looking at his wife and nodding, "Then do you have any questions you want to ask me?" ”

"Yes." Stone paused, and asked, "If these artifacts are so valuable, how did this Overseer collect them?" Did he have a plan to build the 'Wenhua Pavilion' for a long time? ”

"Stone, have you ever heard an old saying? Prosperous antiques, troubled gold. The old man sighed, "Where in the troubled times someone will appreciate antiques, they are all trying to save gold for them, antiques are clumsy and heavy for them, and they have no value." Only we, the Overseers, are willing to take the trouble to collect and spend a lot of manpower and material resources to build such a 'Mandarin Pavilion'. We're not the cheesy people! ”

"And what kind of person is an Overseer?" The stone sounded quietly.

"I only use four words to describe him – he is very polite."

That's a high rating.

Stone didn't say that, but he was curious about the Overseer. His military advisors and commanders are not good things, and this governor is not a special case, right?

The stone was still thinking about his own business, so he didn't notice the eyes of the old couple staying on him for more and more time: "Stone, we asked you something." ”

"Well, you just ask."

The old man was still struggling, he didn't know how to speak, his grandmother cast a disgusted look, and the old man had to quickly continue: "Are you willing to inherit the mantle of me and my wife." Now are troubled times, and there are fewer and fewer people who are willing to calm down and study our industry. We don't want any talented heirs to appear, we just hope to find someone who really loves cultural relics. If you want, in the future, you will call us teachers, and we will definitely train you wholeheartedly, how about it? ”