Chapter 69: Ghost Market (2)

  Good heavens, I've gotten all muddled and actually forgotten a chapter in the middle. I'm really sorry, everyone!

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  "That's right, this is Ghost Market! The first time people see Ghost Market, their expressions are all about the same as yours!"

  Wu Xiaoli smiled softly and said, "As more and more people play with collecting things, the number of people who know about Ghost Market and go to Ghost Market to dig for treasures is also increasing. In the past few years, especially over a decade ago, Ghost Market usually started in the second half of the night and ended before dawn, but now it starts from midnight."

  "Go on, take a look inside!"

  Zheng Kaida rubbed his hands together, his face full of excitement. He hadn't bought anything good in the antique city, so he had pinned all his hopes on this ghost market. Plus, with Li Yang following him, Zheng Kaida was extremely confident at this time.

  As soon as Li Yang entered the ghost market, he furrowed his brow. The stalls around him gave off a faint, hard-to-describe smell that was very unpleasant.

  "There are also many counterfeit goods in the ghost market, but these counterfeits have a certain level of quality, unlike those in the antique city who directly pass off handicrafts as antiques to cheat newcomers to the collecting world!"

  As they entered the ghost town, Wu Xiaoli immediately began to quietly explain things to Li Yang. As she spoke, her voice became even softer, almost to the point where only the two of them could hear it.

  Wu Xiaoli stopped in her tracks, crouched down in front of a stall and examined a Qinghua porcelain vase for two or three minutes before lightly shaking her head and standing up to leave.

  Wu Xiaoli walked a few steps and squatted down at another stall to examine an ancient jade.

  Li Yang followed suit and squatted down, this stall had some ceramics in addition to the ancient jade. Wu Xiaoli didn't ask any questions, and the boss of the stall also didn't speak, he just smiled at them with a smile that wasn't quite a smile.

  Li Yang carefully examined the several pieces of ancient jade in front of him, and finally shook his head with a bitter smile. As for new jade, whether it was soft or hard, he could still roughly identify it, but these were ancient jades, and he really didn't know if they were genuine or not. Anyway, they all looked like the real thing to him, yet somehow seemed fake at the same time.

  "At least these things should be jade!"

  Li Yang thought to himself that even if the ancient jade was fake, it must have been made from real jade, so no matter how fake these ancient jades were, they still had a certain value.

  There were about thirty ancient jade pieces in front of him. Li Yang simply opened his special ability to cover these thirty or so ancient jade pieces, and at least use his special ability to distinguish whether they were genuine or not, he was accurate with just one pick.

  A few dozen ancient jade pieces, the internal three-dimensional structure immediately appeared clearly in Li Yang's mind. Li Yang sat there stupidly, his face still with a hint of disbelief.

  Almost half of these things that looked like jade to his eyes were not actually jade at all, and the level of artificial forgery was too strong. Even Li Yang's eyes were deceived by them. If it weren't for this special ability, these fake jades could have been passed off as new jades instead of ancient ones and still would have fooled Li Yang.

  Apart from this, one-third of them are very poor-quality jade that Li Yang has not seen before. The internal arrangement is extremely messy and basically worthless.

  The last few remaining ones turned out to be real jade, Li Yang glanced at Wu Xiaoli quietly and found that what he was observing were these few ancient jades. After a few minutes, Wu Xiaoli shook his head and left again.

  The last true jade was also shot by Wu Xiaoli, actually it was Li Yang himself who had felt something was wrong earlier, he always thought that these were not the real ancient jades, and Li Yang himself did not know why he had this feeling.

  They walked two stalls ahead and stopped, Zheng Kai Da was standing there carefully observing a calligraphy painting. Sima Lin stood beside him with his hands behind his back looking at the words on the painting. He didn't know if it was an old painting or not, but he quite admired the writing.

  "How about it, Xiaoli? Have you set your eyes on anything?"

  Li Yang and Wu Xiaoli walked by just as Zheng Kaida had finished collecting his calligraphy and paintings and handed them over to a nearby vendor.

  "It's getting worse and worse every year!" Wu Xiaoli sighed, Zheng Kaida nodded in deep agreement.

  Nowadays, there are more and more people playing with collections. However, in the antique world, those collectibles have mostly been taken by people who took the lead, leaving only a few to be found in the vast crowd, making it difficult for you to stumble upon them. Therefore, examples of successful collections are becoming more and more common, but stories of finding hidden gems are becoming less and less frequent.

  Li Yang didn't even bother studying calligraphy and painting, he was too lazy to waste his energy using special abilities to observe them, anyway observing wouldn't reveal anything.

  "Let's go back and take another look, things like this can't be rushed, let's just take it slow!"

  Zheng Kaida walked ahead again, and in the end he didn't mention the painting, but Li Yang had already understood that there must be a problem with the painting, otherwise Zheng Kaida wouldn't have left so quickly.

  The more you walk forward, the more people there are. Time slowly slips away and before long it's already past midnight. The stalls in the ghost market have basically all been set up, with people speaking many different dialects constantly haggling over prices or arguing with customers, making it seem like a huge mixed market.

  Li Yang activated his special ability twice during this period, once to observe the ancient jade and another time to observe a batch of root carvings, wanting to see if he still had good luck to discover some treasures from the root carvings. The result was naturally a thorough disappointment.

  These two observations caught Li Yang's attention, both the ancient jade and the root carving had a faint yellow glow on their surface, just like the cat's eye diamond he saw before. However, these yellow glows were not all the same, a few of them looked slightly thicker, with several layers visible.

  Li Yang remembered again, the first time he observed those thirty or so ancient jades were also like this, no matter what was inside, the outer layer of light yellow halo all showed the same, a thin layer.

  Whether it's a single layer or multiple layers of light yellow halo, it can only be seen under Li Yang's special ability, and only under special abilities can the layered middle of this light yellow halo be distinguished. The thin layer is thinner than hair, if not for the exceptionally clear three-dimensional view plus Li Yang's careful observation, Li Yang almost missed it.

  Li Yang was thinking about whether there was any connection between these layers of light, when Wu Xiaoli and Zheng Kaida suddenly looked at the same ceramic horse at the same time. The horse didn't seem to have anything special, Li Yang felt it wasn't even as good-looking as the big one his family had at home when he was a kid.

  "Xiao Li, you look first, I'll go ahead!"

  Zheng Kaida suddenly laughed and both of them found that they were interested in this thing. Zheng Kaida took the initiative to make concessions.

  "Okay, thank you Brother Zheng, I'll take a look and come find you later!"

  Wu Xiaoli was not polite, this ceramic horse is indeed good, and Wu Xiaoli basically saw that it was a authentic Tang Sancai, she finally met an old thing that could be appreciated tonight.

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