Chapter 174

Qingning Village has ushered in the rainy season. It has been raining heavily for more than half a month, and water will accumulate on the ground from time to time.It’s okay for the villagers to live in the caves, but the soldiers stationed outside suffered. A group of people had to go to the villagers’ caves during the day to play cards to pass the time, and at night they wrapped up sleeping bags and rested in the unfinished air-raid shelters. .

The old couple is sorting out the antiques brought in from outside every day. The husband wipes the dust on the cultural relics with a special cloth and tells the story and value of such things; Records are made on anti-oxidation paper.

Since it started to rain heavily, the construction work outside was forced to suspend. Shitou came here on time every day to see the old couple sorting out cultural relics.Although the old couple are getting older, their schedules are still very regular. They start working before six in the morning and are often busy until late at night. Shitou has gradually maintained the same routine as the old couple.

After a long time, the old couple remembered Shitou, and sometimes they would take the initiative to say hello, or ask her if there was anything they didn't understand.

"My wife, the few things I took out today are amazing." The old man picked up the exquisite gift box.

"Plum blossom carving again?" Grandma showed a helpless smile, "I knew it when I saw your eyes, and you still want to play tricks on me? Tell me, how long ago?"

"Hey." The old man grinned, "You still understand me, come quickly and feel the texture of this guy. This material is not ordinary wood or jade."

Grandma was aroused by her wife's words, she gently put down the pen in her hand and walked to the gift box, touched it a few times, her eyes became brighter as she touched it: "This is ivory carving, I remember that since the United Nations promulgated CITES After the Convention, ivory carvings were gradually not sold to the public. At that time, it seemed that it was only more than 2000 A.D. In this way, this thing must have a history of at least 4000 years. It is quite similar to the carving style of the Qing Dynasty. How can it be preserved so well? of."

"It's not just this one. Look, it's an ivory dragon-headed tripod and a pair of lions." The old man took out several boxes from the box in a row, pointed to the last one, and said, "This is a little closer, like after the Qing Dynasty. Sculpture style, but the meaning is very good, it is a combination of God of Wealth and Pixiu."

"Shitou, if you want to see it, just come and take a look, anyway, there are no outsiders." Grandma greeted Shitou suddenly.

"No need." Shitou shook her head, she had already scanned the whole thing with her mental strength, and the distance was about the same for her.

The old man stroked his beard and explained: "For these carvings, the carving technique is one, and then the material selection is the second. If you don't experience it yourself, you still won't be able to tell the difference in the future."

After repeated persuasion by the two, Shi Shi became a little tempted. He walked slowly to the gift box and carefully felt the sculpture with his fingertips.

"Is it very different from the feeling of jade products? Because later people advocated the protection of elephants, the art of ivory carvings was gradually lost. On the one hand, there was no material, and on the other hand, there were no carving craftsmen." The old man seemed to recall Thinking about the past, I sighed a bit, "When I was young, there was a truce for more than ten years, and I also finished college during that time. At that time, I was studying classical culture at Kyoto University, and my tutor at the time was particularly obsessed with ivory sculptures. It's okay. He likes to take our whole class to visit the Kyoto Museum. But he just loves the essence of art and does not advocate that we harm innocent animals.”

Stone asked strangely: "How did people at that time think of carving with ivory? Is it because the material of ivory is hard?"

"Not exactly. I remember that there was a very powerful stone elephant standing in the center of the sculpture hall at that time, and the nose was too long. So I asked my teacher why he put a stone sculpture of an elephant here, and my teacher explained to me, The homonym of "Xiang" is "Xiang", and the folks have the meaning of renewing Vientiane, so it is still an auspicious animal."

"Auspicious beasts? I thought only dragons and phoenixes counted." Shitou replied ignorantly.

"Silly boy, there are so many auspicious animals." Grandma laughed. "In ancient buildings, auspicious animals such as bats, deer, unicorns, fish, monkeys and horses were often used. When five bats surrounded A word of longevity is called Wufu Pengshou; the more deer carvings represent the family's desire for official fortune; Feng Hou'."

Shitou memorized the words of the old couple, as if a new door had been opened: "So that's how it is."

"People in the village will get bored of listening to me talk about the history of cultural relics once or twice at most. Even if they come back later, it's just to join in the fun. How did you persist for so long?" the old man asked meaningfully.

"Your lectures are very interesting."

"Then besides today, what else have you learned from me? Do you remember?"

"Remember." Stone said affirmatively, without realizing that the other party was testing him, "Before this, I talked about jade carvings and bronze wares. There are a total of 24 pieces of porcelain wares. A total of [-] volumes of calligraphy and Danqing were transported, but only half All of the above are damaged, hundreds of modern medals representing different meanings, letters from different officers and different battles..."

"That's right." The old man became more and more satisfied after listening to Shitou's words. He kept looking at his wife and nodding, "Then do you have any questions to ask me?"

"Yes." Shitou paused and asked, "Since these cultural relics are so precious, how did the warlord collect them? Did he plan to build the 'Wenhua Pavilion' very early?"

"Stone, have you heard an old saying? Antiques in prosperous times are gold in troubled times." The old man sighed, "In troubled times, no one appreciates antiques. They always try to save gold. Antiques are clumsy and heavy for them. Any value. Only our warlords are willing to take the effort to collect and spend a lot of manpower and material resources to build such a "Wenhua Pavilion". We warlords are not that vulgar people!"

"Then what kind of person is the Overseer?" Shito asked calmly.

"Describe him in four words—gentle and gentle."

This is highly rated.

Shi Shi didn't say this, but he was quite curious about the warlord in his heart.The military divisions and army commanders under him are not good people. This superintendent will not be a special case, right?
Shi Shi was still thinking about his own affairs, so he didn't notice the eyes of the old couple lingering on him for a longer and longer time: "Shi Shi, we asked you something."

"Well, just ask."

The old man was still struggling and didn't know how to speak. Grandma cast a disgusted look, and the old man had no choice but to continue: "Would you like to inherit the mantle of my wife and me? It's a troubled time, so please calm down and study our business." There are fewer and fewer people. We are not looking for any talented descendants to appear, but only hope to find someone who truly loves cultural relics. If you want, in the future, you can call us teachers, and we will go wholeheartedly. How about cultivating you?"

(End of this chapter)

Tap the screen to use advanced tools Tip: You can use left and right keyboard keys to browse between chapters.

You'll Also Like