dmims Chapter 62: The Iron Maniac Touches Iron
Chapter 62: The Iron Maniac Touches Iron
The first thing Tie Chi said was to look at his hands, and the aroma of tea in the private room immediately lingered.
Cheng Xiaojin stood at the door without moving, his sleeves hanging down to the back of his hands, his face beaming with the enthusiasm of a street vendor hawking his wares to unsuspecting customers.
"Sir, your procedure is incorrect. Today we're looking at iron. You'll look at my hand first, but then you'll have to look at my birth chart later, right? Birth chart analysis is an extra charge. My destiny is precious; I can't get it for free."
Boss Lin smiled and gestured for him to sit down.
"Old Tie has his own rules for doing things, Boss Cheng, please don't mind."
Cheng Xiaojin pulled out a chair and sat down, glancing at the table out of the corner of his eye.
The fake Zhenhai Iron was on the table.
The base of Tieguai Li's work was made from fragments of an old iron pot from the Qing Dynasty. He put a lot of effort into the shape, weight, rust layer, and dragon roar.
In the first transaction at Houhai, Glasses King passed all three tests, only raising suspicion on a small piece of rusty particles.
But Tie Chi is different; this old man relies on Tie Yi.
He doesn't look at the rust or listen to the sound of the iron; he simply places his hand on it and reads what kind of people the iron has handled, what kind of furnace it has been in, and what kind of soil it has been buried in.
This sounds mysterious, but to Cheng Xiaojin it's just a simple sentence.
Conventional forgery won't work; the only option is to make him misread it.
Boss Lin gave his secretary a wink.
The secretary closed the door, and the bodyguards in black stood on either side. The curtains were half-drawn, and the afternoon light shone through the gaps onto the surface of the Zhenhai Iron, where layers of rust pressed against each other, making it look like a six-hundred-year-old structure.
Iron Man stretched out his hand.
Once those hands left his knees, Cheng Xiaojin could see clearly that his palms had no normal lines; they were covered in calluses and cracks, some so deep they were black and embedded with rust, as if he had spent half his life with iron.
Before touching the iron, the iron fanatic brought it close to his nose and smelled it.
"I've made incense."
Cheng Xiaojin cursed inwardly, "That old man has such a keen sense of smell."
This fake piece was indeed smoked with old incense ash during the rusting process to suppress the new iron smell. Glasses King didn't notice it at the time, but Iron Enthusiast opened his mouth after just one sniff.
The smile on Boss Lin's face faded.
Cheng Xiaojin picked up the teacup and blew on the floating leaves.
"Old Beijing is particular. He smells old things before taking them out, just for good luck. If you don't like it, I'll braise it and make soup next time, and the taste will be even better."
Iron Maniac ignored him and placed his right palm on the Zhenhai Iron.
The private room fell silent.
The steam from the tea rose half an inch before being suppressed by the coolness of the room. Cheng Xiaojin could hear the tiny stinging sensation of the pink powder under her fingernails, and she could also hear the soft sound of Boss Lin's ring touching the rim of the cup.
Tie Chi closed his eyes, and his lips began to move.
"The iron is old, and the furnace opening is incorrect."
Boss Lin's hand stopped at the edge of the teacup.
Cheng Xiaojin's expression remained unchanged, but in his mind he knocked his cigarette three times.
Iron Man continued, "The moisture is heavy, the bottom of the pot is exposed to fire, and there's oil in the ash residue, so clean it..."
His brows furrowed as he read this.
"Qing Dynasty, Daoguang Emperor"
The secretary's shoulders twitched.
Boss Lin didn't say anything, and the politeness on his face lessened.
Cheng Xiaojin reached his left hand under the table, his fingertips slowly touching the protruding corner of the Zhenhai Iron.
He had calculated this angle long ago. With the tablecloth blocking the view, the bodyguards couldn't see it, and even Boss Lin, sitting in the main seat, couldn't see it all. Only the iron enthusiast could feel that there was an extra energy in the ironware. But at that moment, he was reading the ironware with the door open. Once the door was open, he had no choice about what kind of wind was blowing outside.
The pink powder under her nails hurt so much when it touched the iron that Cheng Xiaojin almost crushed the teacup.
The girl's resentment seemed to have found a way out, and it followed his strong aura into the iron. Cheng Xiaojin dared not let it into his palm, but only held it back with his fingertips, as if he were using his own fingers to build a narrow bridge over a ditch.
Iron Man's lips were still moving.
"Traditional iron wok, Hebei ingredients, cooking time and temperature..."
He suddenly stopped.
Cheng Xiaojin put down his teacup and casually picked up two melon seeds from a small dish on the table.
The sunflower seeds were spiced, but the shells were damp, clearly indicating that the club wasn't paying attention.
He cracked one open, making a crisp sound.
"Sir, have you figured out the WiFi password from the Qing Dynasty?"
The secretary was stunned for a moment, and even Boss Lin looked up at him.
Tie Chi let out a low hum, and Cheng Xiaojin chuckled as he spat the sunflower seed shells into a tissue.
"Don't get me wrong, I'm just a studious person. If we could connect, wouldn't data traffic have been expensive during the Daoguang era?"
This sentence punctured the tension in the private room, but the next moment, a fine ripple appeared in the water in the teacup.
Iron Man's hands were still pressed against the iron. His face turned from yellow to white, and sweat beaded on his forehead. The sweat trickled down his wrinkles, reaching the corners of his eyes, then stopped, as if frozen by the cold.
He saw it, and Cheng Xiaojin was also drawn to see a little bit of it.
The water tank is closer than it was last night.
The girl's face was pressed against the water, her eyes were open, and her hair was spread out below the surface. She couldn't speak and could only look at the two faces above her.
The woman, wearing a red plastic bracelet on her wrist, cried as she said, "Daughter, Mom has no choice. Your brother's hand is going to be chopped off."
The man cursed and told her to hold on tight and not let her struggle. He said if the insurance company came and asked, she should say that she slipped in by herself.
Water poured in through my nose, blocked my throat, and I couldn't get enough air in my lungs.
The girl gripped the rim of the vat, her fingernails curling up, blood flowing down the vat's walls. She grabbed a pair of chopsticks, the ends of which pierced her palms, blood seeping into the wood.
Blood seeped from Cheng Xiaojin's fingernails. He gritted his teeth and pushed Xin Jin forward.
The resentment traveled along the iron and entered the door that the iron enthusiast had opened.
Tie Chi's lips parted, and his voice changed.
"Don't press me..."
Mr. Lin's eyelids twitched.
"Old Tie?"
Iron Maniac didn't hear him. He gripped the Zhenhai Iron, the veins on the back of his hand bulging as if he wanted to crush the iron.
"Mom, it hurts..."
The secretary took a step back, her heel hitting the chair leg, which made a creak.
Cheng Xiaojin moved the plate of sunflower seeds closer to himself and cracked open another one.
He was chewing very slowly, his fingers hurt, and his chest felt tight.
But the more you try to blend in, the more you need to get by.
"Sir, your 'Iron Memory' service is quite immersive, the customer experience is top-notch, but the storyline is a bit tedious. Could you skip it? GG?"
Boss Lin looked at his face.
Cheng Xiaojin also looked at Boss Lin, still smiling, but the finger under his sleeve was already soaked with blood, red, pink, and bluish-black, all mixed in with the gauze.
Iron Man started to tremble.
It wasn't the shivering from the cold that made him feel cold; it felt like someone was pressing him down into a water tank, and he was desperately trying to breathe, but no air was coming in.
He raised his other hand and grabbed at his neck.
"I didn't sign... I didn't put my fingerprint on it... I won't pay any compensation..."
Upon hearing this, the expressions of the bodyguards around him changed.
Boss Lin finally couldn't sit still any longer and raised his hand to have someone pull Tie Chi away, but Cheng Xiaojin was faster than him, pulling the finger under the table back half an inch.
The resentment hasn't completely dissipated.
A small tail remained, still tangled in the door that Tie Chi had opened. Tie Chi made a gurgling sound in his throat, and water dripped from the corner of his mouth.
There is real water, not saliva.
Grayish liquid, carrying the muddy smell of the bottom of the water vat, dripped from the corner of his mouth, staining the front of his jacket and leaving a dark mark.
Cheng Xiaojin cursed inwardly, "This time I've really messed up."
The girl in the red chopsticks harbored even more resentment than he had anticipated. She used the iron-loving man's door to climb out, intending to drag everyone in the room into her vat.
Cheng Xiaojin held the Qianlong Tongbao coin in his pocket with his right hand, pressing his fingertips against the edge of the coin.
Copper coins are made of metal, and they can ward off resentment. He lightly flicked the edge of the coin with his fingernail.
Hey~
A soft sound fell into the aroma of tea.
Iron Man tilted his head back as if he had heard something, and his eyes rolled out from under his eyelids, the whites of his eyes covered with bloodshot veins.
He let out a woman's sobbing sound.
"Is it tasty?"
No one in the private room dared to answer.
The voice asked again, "Does the blood-soaked bun made from your own daughter taste good?"
Cheng Xiaojin slammed the copper coin down on the table, and Xin Jinqi pressed down along the table.
"Girl, every wrong has its perpetrator, and every debt its debtor. Your parents aren't at this table today, so don't start eating just because you see people."
Iron Maniac's fingers dug several white marks into the Zhenhai Iron, his fingernails split in the middle, and blood flowed down the rust.
Mr. Lin's secretary finally spoke up.
"Old Iron!"
Tie Chi opened his eyes abruptly, and a scream burst from his throat.
His hands were separated from the Zhenhai Iron, seven of his ten fingernails were broken, and he fell to the ground along with the chair. Gray water was coming out of his mouth and nose, and white foam mixed with blood was flowing from his mouth.
Cheng Xiaojin withdrew his hand from under the table; the gauze inside his sleeve was already stained red.