Riding the wind of rebirth

"Come on, come on, we have to set up this dragon gate formation." Fei Guan was very excited: "It's also good luck. Master Yang sent a batch of apprentice work to Gongmei yesterday. We haven't seen each other for a long time, so we had a meal together, and then you mentioned that you were going back to Shudu, so I hurried over with Tieguai."

"You don't know, but so many people have called you these days to ask about you when a great mounter and restorer will emerge in Shu," said Zhang Cheng.

"And Old Zheng from Shibi's family is so regretful that he said he didn't know there was a great man like you in Shu, and he regretted not meeting you earlier." Fei Guan said, "I don't care. Today you must take out the painting and let everyone see it. It will be considered as hush money for Tieguai and me!"

Zhou Zhi didn't waste any more time talking to the two of them, and said directly: "Let's go to the restoration room. It's a good opportunity to show Master Yang some things."

Suihuaxuan has a separate living area for Zhouzhi. In addition to the warehouse, there is also a large restoration room, which is directly connected to Zhouzhi's room.

The restoration room and the warehouse are both underground. When passing by the koi aquarium, Zhang Cheng inadvertently looked at the stones under the water: "Huh? I didn't see these last time I came here. Why are there more red ones?"

The koi pond in Suihuaxuan is very large. It has now become a place for Zhouzhi to store mineral materials. In addition to the earliest Hetian jade seed materials and jade materials such as snowflake cotton, blue water, and ice materials, there are now 95 mountain materials and Nanhong raw stones.

The other types of stones are fine, but Nanhong is made of agate and is hydrophilic, so it needs to be soaked in water for maintenance, otherwise it will easily crack.

Among all the stones, the Hetian seed material has a skin, or it looks like a small stone and is not very eye-catching. The unprocessed jade material is actually very ugly before it is illuminated by the light. The best-looking ones now are the 95 mountain material and the Nanhong raw stone that have not yet grown moss.

But Zhang Cheng was obviously mistaken. After all, the 95 mountain material was very complete and huge, so big that Zhang Cheng did not dare to guess that it was a pure first-grade mutton-fat white Hetian jade. Through the light green pool water, he only dared to guess that it was marble, so he did not pay attention to it. Instead, the bright red Nanhong caught his attention.

"That is a kind of stone I found in Lianhe Township. Its composition is the same as agate, but its colors are varied. Most of them are not like the common agate texture, but more like flowing flames. The glue evenly distributes cinnabar particles, red water plants and flowers, etc. The purest one is similar to Gannan red. I have asked several masters from Suzhou Jade Carving Factory to make some handicrafts. If it can be popular in the Hundred Flowers Awards, it is estimated that my country will have another category of stone carving materials."

"Don't forget us when the time comes." Fei Guan agreed with Zhou Zhi: "Although I am no longer in Gongmei, the feelings are still there. Now Shuzhong Gongmei has begun to control the inventory of antiques and reduce exports. The remaining antiques are all traditional craft products that cannot be sold. Except for Master Yang's Shu embroidery products, there are really not many that can be shown off."

"Brother Fei is exaggerating." Zhou Zhi said with a smile, "Let alone other things, just designing a panda doll is enough for you to make a living for the rest of your life. It's because you haven't opened your mind yet."

At present, there is no concept of "cultural and creative" in arts and crafts. The design is very rigid and old-fashioned. They only add panda embroidery on the bags. No one would think of leaving only the head of the panda doll, hollowing out the inside and adding a chain to turn it into a cute little bag.

I never thought that a black and white travel canvas bag would be designed to include panda elements, but the way of expression is quite clever.

"Really? Then you can teach me a lesson later." Fei Guan knew that Zhou Zhi had many ideas, which were generally quite effective: "I'll take them back to deal with them."

"In fact, I still admire Mr. Zheng from Shibi's family." Zhou Zhi said: "Although they are missing the inheritance of the art of mounting and repairing now, that is only because they have to cut off the unprofitable projects to cater to the market."

"In the profitable business of pens, ink and paper, they have also grown bigger and stronger, becoming the only one in the southwest. This is also quite remarkable." "It will be easier with your words." Fei Guan said, "Old Zheng has told me several times before, and his words and deeds all want me to introduce him to you. If you don't mind meeting him, I will ask him out some other day. We can have dinner or tea."

"Let's talk about it later." Zhou Zhi smiled and said, "I'm just passing through this time. I'm going back to Manzhou soon. After remounting the painting, I have to go to Lianhe Township to continue my research."

"Does your research have to be transferred?" Zhang Cheng asked puzzledly: "Elbow, if you want to stay in Shudu, we can go to the house to explore and so on. How fun is that?"

"I'm taking advantage of this." Zhou Zhi said, "Brother Cheng, don't forget that I'm a graduate student now. Graduates need to submit a thesis and can only get a degree certificate after passing it. With Master's demands, can he let me go so easily?"

"So I wanted to try my luck. Yi script is older than oracle bone script, so I wanted to see if I could use it to interpret the runic symbols unearthed from a line of Neolithic culture in the Jianghan River Basin before the oracle bone script appeared."

"No one has ever done this before. If it succeeds, this paper will be worthy of a doctorate, not to mention a master's degree!"

"You are so poorly read..." Fei Guan shook his head after hearing this: "I can only say that those who are capable can do anything."

Arriving at the studio, Zhou Zhi opened the big box, took out the microphone specially customized in the capital to protect the scroll, took out the paintings inside and pressed them one by one on the whiteboard with magnetic wall nails: "These are the ones."

Although Fei Guan made a big fuss, he was actually just a layman when it came to appreciating calligraphy and painting. The main reason he wanted to see these paintings was not to appreciate their aesthetic achievements, but because he wanted to see what these extremely valuable, rare and exquisite paintings looked like, just like a car fan going to a car show to see the finest luxury cars.

Zhang Cheng and Master Yang are much better, especially Master Yang, who has a solid foundation in art.

Zhou Zhi mainly talked about his adventure at the auction at the New York airport, the causes and consequences of such an opportunity, the methods used in the appraisal of these paintings in the capital, and the features on which the experts based their appraisal opinions.

The knowledge contained here is also enormous. Except for the decline of the traditional identification method of looking at qi, the "leaders" of the other two technical and academic schools are all present. What they say are all profound knowledge.

Except for Zhang Sengyou's "Han Wu Shooting a Dragon", which was identified as tending to be approved, the other three paintings could be confirmed as authentic or copies of authentic works based on various evidences. With Zhou Zhi's explanation, the other people in the room also listened with great interest and were completely enlightened.

After he finished talking about all this, Zhou Zhi took out some large photos from his other suitcase. The photos were all framed brocades with original calligraphy and paintings. Next to each type of brocade was a standard color card. This was to prevent color cast during the photo development process and was placed next to the actual object for comparison and adjustment.

This time Zhou Zhi also brought some samples for inspection. Zhou Zhi also took them out and showed them to Master Yang for his own eyes, leaving an intuitive impression. Then he said: "The importance of these paintings is self-evident, so they need to be copied."

"The National Museum and Rongbaozhai are in charge of the reproduction of the painting and the inscriptions, while the mounting work is handed over to the Palace Museum. Our specific task is to prepare the silk and brocade for the reproduction. Master Yang, I can only leave it to you." (End of this chapter)