Chapter 53: Chapter 53: Famous Painting “A Thousand Miles on a Single ’Ride

A few minutes later, Lin Yi’s Land Rover slowly stopped in the parking area of Antique City.

Seeing her son’s cheeky smile, Empress Dowager Ye rolled her eyes at him:

“Hmph, just be glad today is your college entrance exam day. Also, if this time your score doesn’t exceed 500, I’ll definitely show you why flowers are so red!”

After saying this, Empress Dowager Ye turned and got out of the car.

In the driver’s seat, Father Lin looked at his wife who had already exited the car, then looked at his son’s sheepish smile and couldn’t help but shake his head with a smile.

Although Empress Dowager Ye usually appears quite fierce and occasionally puts on a solo act, truth be told, she really spoils her son.

Even though she gave Lin Yi a beating for leaving the exam early, she still came with him to the Antique City afterwards.

As the family of three strolled into Antique City, Lin Yi and Father Lin exchanged a glance, instantly understanding each other’s thoughts.

So, after nodding to each other, they headed straight to the stalls selling broken porcelain shards.

Beside one of these stalls, Lin Yi and Father Lin squatted down in front of a pile of broken porcelain and began to sift through it with their hands.

The stall owner just glanced at the father and son duo and spat out four words: “20 per piece.”

After saying this, he resumed lying on his rocking chair, rubbing a walnut.

Faced with such exorbitant prices, Father Lin furrowed his brow and was about to get up, but Lin Yi suddenly pulled at him, then nonchalantly picked up a handful of shards and pretended to inspect them closely.

In reality, Lin Yi was communicating with a system in his mind.

“System, help me see if these can be reassembled into a piece of blue-and-white porcelain from the Yuan dynasty.”

Lin Yi knew that only by stating his request would the system provide an accurate analysis.

If Lin Yi simply asked about the age of these shards, the system wouldn’t respond.

Sure enough, after he said this, the system’s voice rang in his mind.

[After system detection, the nine pieces currently provided by the host are fragments of defective porcelain made in Jingdezhen in September 2017, with no Yuan blue-and-white components, hence reconstruction is not possible.]

Upon hearing this, Lin Yi was speechless; so they were all modern imitations!

Thinking about the high price the owner was asking, Lin Yi immediately understood that the owner specialized in this kind of “business.”

He shook his head helplessly, stood up, dusted off his hands, and continued to the next stall with Lao Lin and Empress Dowager Ye.

Half an hour flew by, and as Lin Yi weighed the only thumb-sized white shard he found, he felt quite helpless.

He had always heard that making counterfeit porcelain shards wasn’t worth it because it wouldn’t recover the costs, but now it seemed to be nonsense.

After visiting over a dozen stalls, more than half of the items were fake, while the few real ones were mainly from the Great Qing or Republic of China periods, not very valuable.

In the end, he only had a tiny shard from a Ru kiln he bought for a yuan.

Of course, such a small shard was worthless now. According to the system, even with system supplementation, you’d need seven such shards for a minimal complete Ru kiln piece.

While he gained nothing, on the other hand, Lao Lin had gathered five or six different-shaped shards.

Of course, according to Lin Yi’s observation, the oldest of these shards was just a regular white porcelain piece from the late Ming.

It’s not that Lin Yi didn’t warn Lao Lin, but he simply didn’t believe Lin Yi.

As Lao Lin would say, “Kid, I taught you this stuff. How could you be better than your teacher?”

Not to mention these things cost little, but they made Lao Lin happy, so Lin Yi didn’t interfere.

Now Lin Yi was really curious about how Lao Lin managed to find those genuine blue-and-white shards from the Yuan with such luck.

“Are you two done yet? I really don’t get what’s so great about these broken shards.”

Finally, after circling around with them, Empress Dowager Ye lost her patience, seeing the duo treasure those broken shards and getting visibly upset.

“Hehe, Empress Dowager Ye, that’s where you’re wrong. These are like money! Without these shards, where would your son have gotten his first pot of gold?”

After hearing this, Empress Dowager Ye realized it made sense, and the lecture she was about to deliver to the duo was dismissed.

“Brother Wu, do you still accept items here?”

Just as the family of three was chatting, a somewhat obsequious voice came from the stall behind them.

Turning around, they saw a short middle-aged man holding a cloth bag, chatting with the vendor from whom Lin Yi had purchased the Ru kiln shard.

Upon hearing this, Boss Wu raised an eyebrow and said:

“Yo, Monkey! Have you been digging out old stuff in the countryside again? Come, let me see what goodies you’ve found this time.”

Apparently, this owner knew the skinny middle-aged man, and from the tone, this fellow seemed to be a countryside antique picker.

Instantly, Lin Yi and Father Lin focused their curious gaze on the long cloth bag in the middle-aged man’s hand, which looked like a rolled-up painting.

As the vendor moved, Lin Yi could clearly see the contents inside the cloth bag; it was indeed a painting.

However, the deteriorated state of the scroll made it uncomfortable to look at, especially with the obvious wormholes on it, which made one worry about its contents.

Yet, as the vendor unfurled it, a crowd gathered, but once the painting was revealed, everyone burst out laughing.

Even the vendor looked annoyed, casually tossing the scroll back to Monkey:

“Are you trying to amuse me? Even a three-year-old could tell this isn’t an antique. Just look at what it’s depicting!”

It’s not that the painting was riddled with wormholes, but the content was simply mind-boggling.

At first glance of the painting, everyone thought of a popular internet meme:

It was Lord Guan riding a ’28 bicycle’ titled ‘A Thousand Miles on Single Ride.’

The painting in front of them was practically identical…

[To be continued…]