dmims Chapter 38: The Noodle Shop
Chapter 38: The Noodle Shop
Cheng Xiaojin was stunned for a moment.
"Teacher Wang, calling so late shows your sincerity."
"I wouldn't call it sincerity; I'm a person who values efficiency, and dragging things out is pointless."
"So, how would you like to arrange this?"
"Tomorrow at noon, I'll treat you to a bowl of noodles at the Lao Shan Noodle Restaurant on Gulou East Street. Just the two of us, no guests."
"OK."
Cheng Xiaojin hung up the phone and immediately called Master Ma, repeating what the Glasses King had said.
Mr. Ma was silent for a few seconds on the other end of the phone.
"go."
"Alright, Mr. Ma, that's what I think too."
"But you... go with your ears, and come back with your mouth."
"Okay, I understand. Listen more and talk less. I'll report back to you when I get back!"
At noon the next day, Cheng Xiaojin pushed open the glass door of the Lao Shan Noodle Restaurant.
The noodle shop was small, with seven or eight tables, greasy menus on the walls, and a fan whirring overhead.
King Glasses sat in the innermost corner against the wall, with two bowls of oil-splashed noodles in front of him, his chopsticks untouched.
Cheng Xiaojin walked over and sat down.
The man with glasses looked thinner than when he saw him in Houhai. His eyes behind thick lenses were small and bright, his hair was slicked back and shiny, he was wearing a faded blue polo shirt, and his nails were neatly manicured.
"Boss Cheng, the noodles won't taste good if they're clumped together, eat first."
Cheng Xiaojin picked up his chopsticks and stirred the noodles a couple of times, but he couldn't eat much of them.
"Teacher Wang, what you said on the phone last night was quite harsh. I think we should clarify things before we eat noodles."
King Glasses pushed up his glasses and put down his chopsticks.
"Okay, then I'll just say it directly."
He picked up the vinegar pot in front of him and poured a little vinegar into the bowl of noodles. His movements were slow, as if he was finding a rhythm to start talking.
"On the day of the inspection at Houhai, I went through three tests: magnifying glass, acid test, and hand weighing. I passed them all. To be honest, I couldn't find any major flaws in the workmanship and rust."
"Then that settles it?"
"That can't be done."
King Glasses put the vinegar bottle back.
"You stopped me at the final hurdle."
"No, no, no, I didn't stop you. It was Master Zhou who said that knocking on things would disturb the spirit of the feng shui town, which is bad luck. That's the rule."
"Boss Cheng, don't try to intimidate me with the rules."
The King of Glasses maintained his steady, unhurried speaking pace.
"I've been in this line of work for fifteen years and have examined no fewer than three hundred pieces of iron and bronze artifacts. Not a single one of them has had its spirit damaged by tapping. This kind of talk might fool laymen, but it's not quite convincing enough to fool me."
Cheng Xiaojin crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair.
"Then why do you think I wouldn't let you knock?"
"Two possibilities."
The man with glasses held up one finger.
"First, the item is genuine, but you're worried that if the sound is too good after tapping it, the people on the scene will get greedy, be unwilling to raise the price, and directly snatch the item away. You want to close the deal and leave quickly."
The second finger is held upright.
"Secondly, if there's a problem with the item, tapping is the only way to expose the problem, so you must skip that step."
Which one do you prefer?
"I don't favor any particular approach because I haven't tried it myself, so I can't draw any conclusions."
King Glasses picked up the bowl of noodles, took a sip of the soup, put the bowl down, and wiped his mouth with a tissue.
"But I have a question."
"What's suspicious?"
"Feel."
King Glasses placed his right hand on the table, fingers spread.
"When I picked up that thing, the weight was right, and the shape was right, but there was a subtle difference in the tactile sensation transmitted back to my fingertips."
"What's wrong?"
"When ironware is left out for a long time, the oxide layer on the surface will form an uneven roughness. Genuine old iron feels like it has a random, irregularly distributed grain texture."
"But when I weighed it that day, there was a small area where the graininess was too uniform, as if it had been artificially processed."
Cheng Xiaojin's expression remained unchanged, but her heart sank.
Tieguai Li's rust-making skills were already top-notch; it had even passed acid tests, but this person noticed a small area with an off-textured feel.
"Of course, this could also be me overthinking it."
King of Glasses pushed up his glasses again, making Cheng Xiaojin feel uneasy. He thought to himself, "If these glasses aren't the right size, you should get a new pair."
"The rust layers on genuine ancient ironware vary greatly. Some areas, having been infiltrated by minerals in the soil, can be particularly uniform, which is not impossible. That's why I say I have no conclusions, only doubts."
"So you came to see me today just to discuss this point of doubt?"
Not entirely.
Glasses King folded the tissue and placed it on the edge of the bowl.
"I want to ask you a question, but of course... you don't have to answer."
"Please ask."
"Do you still have something in your hand?"
Cheng Xiaojin looked at him but didn't reply.
"I've been around Panjiayuan for fifteen years, and I know exactly what kind of people I've seen and what kind of goods I've seen."
"You're just a street vendor, 26 years old, yet your skills are unbelievably sophisticated. Putting aside whether the item you sold to Boss Lin was genuine or not, your performance during the inspection process alone is something that not just anyone could do."
King Glasses leaned forward slightly.
"Your tactile perception is among the top three I've ever met. You can't learn this skill by setting up a street stall; it's a family tradition. Someone with this kind of foundation wouldn't only have one item."
Cheng Xiaojin picked up the bowl of noodles and took a sip of the soup; it was incredibly salty.
"Teacher Wang, even if I have something in my hand, what does it have to do with you?"
"It's very important."
The King of Glasses lowered his voice a little.
"Let me tell you the truth, Fatty Sun came to me and gave me three thousand yuan for appraisal, asking me to help him check if there was anything fishy about that thing in Houhai. Three thousand yuan, that's like giving money to a beggar."
"Then why did you answer it?"
"Because I'm curious."
King Glasses placed his hands on the table, his fingers long and slender, with not a speck of dirt under his fingernails.
"In our line of work, what we value most isn't money, but genuine products."
"In the past fifteen years, I have handled no more than twenty genuine high-quality items. The rest are all imitations, fakes, alterations, or pieces pieced together. My eyes are tired from seeing them all."
"I want to see truly good stuff, the kind of stuff that you can tell at a glance is completely different from a fake."
"So your condition isn't money?"
"I don't mind having too much money, but you don't have much to offer when we talk about money."
King of Glasses is very frank.
"My condition is that I can see the items... If you have any genuine ancient ironware or talismans, let me examine them once. The complete appraisal process includes tapping them. I will only look, not buy, take photos, or record videos. What you do with them after I've seen them is none of my business."
"In exchange?"
"In exchange, I'll tell Fatty Sun that I haven't found any obvious problems with the things in Houhai, and tell him to stop messing around."
Cheng Xiaojin put down the bowl of noodles and stirred it with his chopsticks.
"Teacher Wang, I need to think about it."
"Sure, but don't think about it for too long."
King Glasses stood up, took out two banknotes from his pocket, placed them on the table, and paid for the noodles.
He took two steps toward the door, then stopped and looked back at Cheng Xiaojin.
"Oh, right, there's something I forgot to tell you."
His voice was still in that unhurried tone.
"Boss Lin's secretary called me yesterday and asked me to fly to Penang next week for a full re-examination, including all items such as tapping."
Cheng Xiaojin stopped using her chopsticks.
"They'll cover all the airfare and hotel costs, and the authentication fee is $50,000. They'll pay regardless of whether the result is true or false. Boss Cheng, do the math. You have seven days left starting today."
After saying that, the bespectacled man pushed open the glass door and left.