Reborn As Super Heiress

Chapter 471: Chapter 467: A Chest of Dowry

”What’s so pretty and not pretty about it, it’s just a broken bowl.”

The old man was surprised as he looked at the bowl in Huo Sining’s hand, with its bottom full of cracks. He really couldn’t understand how the bowl could have anything to do with the word ”pretty,” so he said nonchalantly, ”Young lady, if you like it, just take it.”

”Uh...”

Huo Sining was at a loss for words. She had originally wanted to pick up a bargain and buy it for a low price, but seeing the old man’s enthusiasm and his honest and straightforward appearance, she started to feel a bit guilty.

She felt perfectly justified picking up a bargain from the unscrupulous dealers on Antique Street, but facing this honest and simple old man, she felt that taking advantage of him seemed somewhat unconscionable.

Although the old man had poured water for the four of them, the bowls they used were all different, and only the one in Huo Sining’s hands was a white-glazed porcelain bowl.

Ji Kun and Xie Daoyuan had been mixing in the antiques circle for many years and were naturally shrewd. Seeing Huo Sining suddenly ask about the bowl, they knew there had to be something to it and turned their attention to the white bowl in her hands.

The bowl was about ten centimeters tall and had a dull color. Its shape didn’t look very eye-catching, but Ji Kun and Xie Daoyuan knew that Huo Sining had an extremely high talent in appraisal. Since she had asked about it, she definitely had a reason.

”Huo girl, let me take a look at your bowl,” Xie Daoyuan said directly.

In the antiques world, it’s considered impolite to interrupt others when they are examining items, but Xie Daoyuan didn’t bother with these niceties and made a direct request to see the bowl.

Huo Sining, new to the antiques world, didn’t observe these formalities either. Seeing that Xie Daoyuan wanted to look, she handed over the bowl immediately.

However, she had made up her mind that no matter whether Xie Daoyuan could identify the peculiarity of the bowl, she would buy it later, even if the price was a bit steep.

Mainly because she had seen a lotus flower blooming at the bottom of the bowl through her Heavenly Eye, and this made Huo Sining feel that there might be much to discover within this bowl.

Once the bowl was in Xie Daoyuan’s hands, Ji Kun and Ding Liang couldn’t help but stand up and gather around, the three of them scrutinizing it carefully.

After nearly ten minutes of looking, Ji Kun’s brows were twisted into knots, but he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the bowl.

”Strange, truly strange.”

Xie Daoyuan, however, carefully compared the base clay of the bowl with its cracked walls, and suddenly spoke up, ”No! The porcelain base of the bottom of the bowl is consistent with that of the cracks on the walls.”

Upon hearing this, Huo Sining greatly admired him. Xie Daoyuan really was an old expert, and his sharp eye for even such subtle anomalies was probably not much inferior to a detector.

In fact, Huo Sining might have overestimated Xie Daoyuan. If Huo Sining had not been particularly interested in the bowl from the start, causing Xie Daoyuan to notice, he might not have examined such an inconspicuous bowl so carefully in usual circumstances.

The bowl was indeed very deceptive; people generally believe their first impression, which is actually a kind of mindset in antiques appraisal that can affect the professional judgment of an appraiser.

”Did you figure it out?” Huo Sining asked.

Ding Liang, who was beside them, was becoming more and more confused, ”Is there something wrong with this bowl?”

Xie Daoyuan replied, ”Of course there is a problem. The porcelain base being different means the bottom and the walls of the bowl are not from the same era. The clay of the crack in the walls appears very new, like a modern creation, but the deep-glazed foot and base suggest that this bowl is actually an old item. Such a contradiction itself poses a big problem.”

Ding Liang looked at the bowl in surprise and asked, ”Are you saying that this bowl has been made to look old?”

Xie Daoyuan nodded and said, ”This bowl seems to be a household porcelain bowl made in a workshop, but upon closer inspection, it looks like an old piece. When you touch it, it feels almost like new porcelain. It’s very hard to appraise because it’s difficult to distinguish the real from the fake.”

With that, the frown on Xie Daoyuan’s face never relaxed. He stared at the bowl in his hands with a puzzled look and said softly,

”This bowl must have employed the Hidden Mist technique, but I haven’t yet discerned what special method was used. However, I suspect that there is a layer of special material covering the bowl, similar in color to the bottom of the bowl’s wall.”

Hidden Mist technique again!

Upon hearing the term Hidden Mist technique, Huo Sining suddenly became startled, reminded of the ”Li Duanduan’s Registration Picture” she had uncovered herself at Diecuiyuan.

This was the second antique Huo Sining had encountered that used the Hidden Mist technique to appear aged, but compared to the ”Li Duanduan Drawing”, the technique used on this white-glazed porcelain bowl was much more complex.

Xie Daoyuan then flipped the bowl over to look at its bottom and continued,

”I believe this bowl is at least from the Qing Dynasty; otherwise, they wouldn’t have gone to such lengths. But as to what exactly it is, I can’t determine. To see the true appearance of this bowl, we must find a way to remove this layer from the wall of the bowl.”

Seeing these city folks staring intently at his bowl, the old grandfather thought it strange and finally couldn’t help but ask Xie Daoyuan cautiously, ”Brother, is there something wrong with my bowl?”

Xie Daoyuan looked up at the old grandfather, smiled, and after weighing his words, asked, ”Old man, may I ask you a few questions?”

The old man nodded and readily answered, ”Please, ask away!”

Xie Daoyuan pointed to the bowl and asked, ”Where did you get this bowl?”

The old man was taken aback, as if he had remembered something, and a shadow crossed his eyes, ”That was part of my wife’s dowry. Her family was originally a well-off landlord family, but then came the land reform. The landlord’s property was confiscated, and her family also suffered disaster. In the end, she married me.”

”At that time, my father-in-law couldn’t take out anything valuable for a dowry, so he gave my wife a chest full of plates, dishes, pots, and jars as her dowry, and this bowl was among them.”

A chest full?!

Huo Sining was immediately alight with excitement at these words, and she exchanged a glance with Ji Kun, a wave of excitement passing between them.

Xie Daoyuan, too, was startled, and he stared intently at the old man as he asked, ”What about the rest of the items? Are they still around?”

The old man looked puzzled at Xie Daoyuan and shook his head,

”It’s been over sixty years, how could they all still be around? Although those items were part of the dowry, they weren’t worth much money. When my wife married me, she took them out to use right away. After all the years, with some breaking and some getting lost, only this bowl for holding water remains.”

The old man’s response undeniably doused Huo Sining and the others with cold water, as their initial anticipation suddenly turned into profound disappointment.

Yet this response seemed reasonable; the old man was just a common farmer, unaware of antiquities.

And since his father-in-law, the landlord, hadn’t made it clear, he had simply used the chest full of bowls and dishes as everyday utensils, hadn’t he? After five or six decades, it was already quite fortunate that this single bowl had survived.