Golden Fishing Village

The wood is not big, about the size of a child's palm, relatively thick, purple-red in color, some places are dark purple, and the surface is shiny. When it is placed in the sun, it shines.

Seeing this piece of wood, Ao Wenchang was a little excited and said, "Mr. Yun, is this small-leaf red sandalwood?"

The old man wiped his beard and smiled, "Yes, come and appreciate it yourself."

The wood is very beautiful, and the observation process can indeed be called appreciation.

The four people gathered around the wood to look at it. Ao Muyang asked in a low voice: "What are we looking at? Who knows about small-leaf red sandalwood?"

Ao Wenchang rubbed his hands and said: "I know a little bit. From the appearance, this piece of wood is indeed small-leaf red sandalwood. You can see that its new cross-section is orange-red, and the appearance is purple-red to dark purple after a long oxidation period. It's a pity that we don't have time. Otherwise, we can also stick an opaque tape on the newly made red sandalwood, and tear off the tape after a week. The area covered by the tape will be obviously different from the surrounding color."

Seeing that the four people were just looking at the wood, Mr. Yun smiled slightly and raised his hand and said: "Young friends, don't be polite, just try it and take a closer look."

The four people took turns to pick up the wood to study, but in the end there was no result.

Ao Wenchang simply said: "Mr. Yun, I have heard of your name and I trust your character very much. How about you introduce us?"

Mr. Yun laughed immediately: "I am deeply honored by your words. In fact, it is reasonable to say that buying and selling depends on the buyer's own eyesight, and we sellers are not convenient to say more. But you and I hit it off, so let's say a few more words. You can just take it as a reference, okay?"

Ao Wenchang and his wife nodded, and the old man picked up the piece of wood.

He said: "Let me say first, the most impersonated small-leaf red sandalwood in the market is African big-leaf red sandalwood, so let's rule out this possibility first."

"From the appearance, small-leaf red sandalwood is purple with patterns and glossy, while African big-leaf red sandalwood is purple and black without gloss. This is very clear in the sun, right?"

The sun shines through the window onto the wood, and a glossy light spreads on its surface.

Ao Muyang stretched out his right hand and touched the wood. It felt very good. The sun also shone on the agarwood on his wrist. It also had an oily sheen, but it was very light and inconspicuous.

Mr. Yun continued: "The grain of small-leaf red sandalwood is not obvious, and some are almost invisible. The grain of large-leaf red sandalwood is coarser, and there will be obvious wood lines after polishing. This has a special name in our circle, called 'brown eyes'."

"In other words, large-leaf red sandalwood usually has coarser fibers. After drying and shrinking, there will be some gaps formed by different shrinkage degrees of different organisms. This is commonly known as 'cow hair pattern' in our circle. It is the existence of this cow hair pattern that causes its value to drop sharply."

He waved his hand at this point, and the young man took out another piece of wood. The color of this wood was slightly lighter than the small-leaf red sandalwood in the old man's hand. The surface was rough and dull, and the appearance was far worse.

"This is large-leaf red sandalwood. You see, the difference is huge, right? This can rule out that this piece of wood is not large-leaf red sandalwood, right?" The old man said with a smile.

Ao Wenchang nodded: "Yes."

"The identification of small-leaf red sandalwood can be done by smell. Come on, everyone come closer," the old man said, scraping some wood powder from the wood with a knife, "Smell it."

Ao Muyang came closer to smell it, and a fresh and elegant fragrance came into his nose.

Ao Wenchang couldn't hide his excitement after smelling this fragrance: "Yes, this is the smell of small-leaf red sandalwood."

Ao Muyang wondered, have you smelled small-leaf red sandalwood before? Do you know what the real small-leaf red sandalwood smells like?

Old man Yun said: "Let's continue the identification. Another method is scratching. When small-leaf red sandalwood is scratched on white sandpaper, there will be orange scratches..."

The young man handed over a piece of paper, and the old man pulled it hard, and indeed a scratch appeared.

"There is also 'weighing', which is also an important testing method. You should know that this small-leaf red sandalwood has a fine texture. You have received higher education and know that such items have a large specific gravity, so you can use your hands to weigh the specific gravity of the object to see if it reaches the level of red sandalwood."

As he said, he handed the wood to a few people.

There is no need to test this. Ao Muyang had already discovered when he used it before that this piece of wood is indeed heavier.

Mr. Yun said, "The density of small-leaf red sandalwood is extremely high, and its specific gravity is greater than that of water. If you put this wood in water, it will sink quickly. This is definitely no problem. Let's not try it, otherwise it will be wet and ugly."

"In addition, if you put small-leaf red sandalwood beads into a cup filled with alcohol, red things will seep out of the red sandalwood in the form of smoke. This is red sandalwood. Similarly, we will not try it. If you don't believe it, you can try it. I can guarantee this..."

The young man next to him said, "Mr. Yun, let's try it. It won't hurt to cut off a little bit to try."

Mr. Yun hesitated for a moment and nodded, "That's right, cut a little bit."

The young man took a bottle of alcohol and poured it into a transparent glass. He cut a little bit from the corner of the wood and put it in. Soon, a very light pink mist appeared.

Ao Wenchang nodded excitedly: "That's right!"

Old Master Yun pursed his chin beard and said: "Of course it can't be wrong. There are too many fakes on the market now. It's not easy to get a piece of real small-leaf red sandalwood. In addition, there is a saying in our circle that nine out of ten red sandalwoods are hollow. Look at this piece of wood. It is hollow inside. This is its signature feature."

Ao Wenchang said gratefully: "Thank you, Mr. Yun, for your help. It's a fate to be able to contact you. I really want to thank God for blessing me."

The old man smiled and said: "This is indeed fate. You don't know how lucky you are. Our shopkeeper also came across such a piece of old house demolition material temporarily. An old house in the capital was demolished and a lot of this wood was demolished, but most of it has been used by the people in the capital. The bookmakers took it away, but we, the shopkeeper, started late and only got this piece."

"How long has this piece of wood been around?" Su Xiuxiu asked subconsciously.

The old man nodded and said: "It must be so. In fact, the older the small-leaf red sandalwood is, the better. The ones that can be traced back to the Tang and Song Dynasties are of excellent quality. And the original wood that can be preserved from that time must be It’s an old demolition material, and if it’s left outside, it will definitely be polished and carved by craftsmen.”

Hearing this, Lu Zhizi frowned slightly and said, "Mr. Yun, I have a question. Since small-leaf red sandalwood has ten sandalwoods and nine hollows, how do you build a house with hollow sandalwood?"

Mr. Yun was stunned and said: "Oh, the main beam of that house is not made of small-leaf red sandalwood, but just decorated with small-leaf red sandalwood. Of course there is no problem."

Lu Zhizi added: "However, according to my country's cultural relics law, houses made of rare wood such as red sandalwood are nationally protected cultural relics and must be included in the cultural heritage list. How can such a house be demolished?"

She asked two questions in succession, and the atmosphere at the scene was a little stagnant for a while.