Chapter 49: Does the Male Lead Have a Few Too Many Questions? (“Like it. Why wouldn’t I…”)
Helin Flower, Bird, and Antique Market, Antique Miscellaneous District.
Before fully entering the West District, Le Can heard lively sounds coming from ahead.
West and East were opposite directions on the map, and the areas located in these two different directions were similarly two completely different worlds.
Not to mention the obvious level of liveliness, the individually established, beautifully decorated shops in the East District naturally gave people a sense of a high threshold.
And the facts were indeed so. Courage, wealth, professional knowledge… that wasn’t a place where pure interest could support you staying for long.
In his previous life, Le Can had never set foot in such a place. Interest played a part, but it was mostly because he had a very clear understanding of his own wallet.
Laughed at my own poverty.JPG
In contrast, the Miscellaneous District in the West was very approachable and grounded.
The large canopy overhead, sheltering wind and rain, had lost most of its color from sun exposure and rain. On the ground were orderly rows of large-scale street stalls. The stalls were numerous and varied, yet didn’t appear chaotic.
There were only two types of stalls here: those with items laid directly on a mat on the ground, and those with a board or table set up to display things.
Le Can took a rough look. Some stalls had a single type of product, while others had a diverse array with no duplicates.
For the former, some would mark the prices, leaving little room for bargaining. For the latter, the stall owner would quote a price directly. Generally, the prices were falsely high; chopping it in half would still be considered chopping too little.
Most stall owners sat on low stools behind their stalls and wouldn’t actively shout to attract customers. Usually, they would only engage in conversation when passing customers stopped to ask for prices or bargain.
Here, there were many fakes and few real goods. Not only was it a place in the antique market that truly tested eyesight, but once the money and goods changed hands, one was responsible for their own profits and losses.
In other words, if you bought a fake, the seller was not responsible at all.
Similarly, if you got lucky and picked up a real treasure, the seller, even if they lost out, could only swallow their broken teeth.
The hidden gambling nature here was no less risky than stone gambling, where “one cut makes you poor, one cut makes you rich.” Likewise, countless people in this line of work had “punched their eyes” (misjudged) and been swindled into bankruptcy…
As an antique newbie, Le Can didn’t think that just by transmigrating into a book, he would have any earth-shattering improvement or luck in fields he hadn’t been involved in.
He stopped outside the continuously flowing crowd, quietly waiting for his “cheat code” to approach.
Sometimes having long legs wasn’t just about looking good; efficiency in travel was equally outstanding. Le Can didn’t wait long before the person he was waiting for arrived.
But at that moment, Le Can was looking down, studying the items on the stall closest to him.
To be precise, it was the ancient jade occupying almost half the area of the stall. Hmm… on the surface, it should be ancient jade.
The jade on the stall was mainly white jade, interspersed with very little green jade, yellow jade, and black jade/ink jade.
Most of the jade pieces didn’t have pure colors, and the jade quality was mostly rough and rarely fine. Looking closely, one could see cracks and secondary colors (沁色 – induced colors/stains from burial) on the jade surface with the naked eye.
At first glance, it really had a sense of ancient simplicity and roughness.
For example, when Le Can first looked, he felt a strong sense of history rushing towards him. It was as if millions of years of time had washed over these small things before crashing into his eyes.
But careful observation revealed that the carving on many jade pieces was poor. The lines were uneven in thickness and depth, and neither curved nor straight! It was especially stiff at the turns.
Besides that, most of them had strange shapes; many were abstract and dull, while very few were vivid and exquisite. In the handling of certain details, it was exceptionally perfunctory.
Le Can was slightly silent: “…”
Although before coming, he had indeed heard and seen many people say: the antique market, especially the street stall area, was a mixed bag with a lot of fakes.
But he didn’t expect “a lot” to mean flooding like a disaster…
“You like jade?”
A familiar voice sounded in his ear.
The first time, Le Can, slightly distracted, only recognized the person belonging to the voice but didn’t hear the content of the words clearly.
“Ah? What did you say?”
Amidst the noisy background, the recovering young man reflexively tilted his face up. After the turning motion, his eyes rose half a beat slower to look at the man who had just spoken.
Ingenious eye contact was facilitated inadvertently.
The silver-gray light irises seemed to become lighter in the bright environment. If Le Can had to find a similar object to describe it, he felt it looked like a vast snowy plain.
As a child who grew up and lived mostly in the south, Le Can had never seen that boundless silver-white world with his own eyes.
He heard that with every breath there, coolness would soak into the body from all directions. He also heard that exhaled water vapor would condense on eyebrows and hair, creating a spectacle similar to rime ice…
Le Can didn’t deny his yearning for the snowy plains.
Whether it was the icy world of reality or this small “snowy region” before his eyes, they were sceneries he had never seen.
Really, very beautiful…
After being mesmerized for two seconds, within the ambiguous distance and atmosphere, the young man blinked and took a step back first.
The distance between the two, which was less than an adult’s palm width, returned to the personal distance friends usually had.
After standing still, Le Can silently estimated the distance between him and Xi Yun with his eyes. Thinking for two seconds, this time he stepped forward a bit again, the corners of their clothes lightly touching each other.
Under Xi Yun’s gaze, the personal distance that had been pulled to about 0.45~1.2 meters silently returned to the intimate distance within 0.45 meters.
He looked deeply at the person in front of him.
Le Can’s expression was natural, not feeling anything wrong at all, just a faint confusion and curiosity hanging on his half-upturned face.
“The background is too noisy, I didn’t hear. Can you repeat what you just said?”
Xi Yun, who was asked, was silent for two seconds, seemingly carefully distinguishing Le Can’s words amidst the noise, or perhaps waiting for something else.
Some shallow doubts bubbled up in Le Can’s heart.
“I was just asking, do you like jade?”
The timely answer dispelled the doubts that hadn’t yet formed. Le Can lowered his eyes to think for a moment, and his attention turned back to the ancient jade.
However, considering he was still standing next to someone’s stall, it wasn’t good to criticize right to their face. So, he pulled Xi Yun’s wrist and slowly walked into the crowd.
Only when they were some distance away did Le Can relax his facial expression and spit out his answer.
“Like it. Why wouldn’t I?”
Records of jade could be traced back thousands of years. It wasn’t just Le Can; human ancestors similarly favored such agile and meaningful beautiful things.
No, actually, it could also be simple and sturdy, exquisite and ingenious, elegant and gentle… It was hard not to feel appreciation and love for such unique, changeable, and charming existence.
“Beautiful things always attract longing; this is human nature.”
Although limited by financial power in the past, Le Can hadn’t owned a piece of ancient jade, but this couldn’t erase his love for jade stones.
Just as he was a poor designer who liked various “stones,” Le Can equally loved Cornflower Blue Sapphires, Pigeon Blood Rubies, No-Oil Emeralds, Blue/Red/Pink Diamonds…
Poverty used to be like a Milky Way, drawing an insurmountable chasm between him and these jewels and jades.
But after transmigrating into the book, through his own efforts, plus the funding from the contemporary God of Wealth male lead, Le Can gradually obtained the purchase tickets to acquire these treasures.
At this moment, Le Can sincerely thanked Xi Yun and felt that the future main stones in his new safe were missing basic mounting components…
“So if there’s a chance, will you buy a piece of jade?”
Le Can grabbed the person in his hand, taking him slowly past stalls selling bamboo carving brush pots, snuff bottles, purple clay teapots, seals, and Bodhi bracelets, not feeling the other party’s desire to stop at any stall at all.
After hearing Xi Yun’s question, Le Can turned his head in some wonder.
He found that the male lead today seemed to have a few too many questions?
But the other party’s questions didn’t involve deep personal privacy; they were all small questions. Le Can found it strange for a second, then answered smoothly.
“I will! But I don’t know much about ancient jade. The probability of buying a fake here should be very high, so that idea will probably be put on hold.”
“If I encounter one I like in the future, and the price is affordable, I will take it home.”
Home. Xi Yun lowered his eyes and silently repeated these two words.
“For other things you like, will you also be so certain about taking ta [him/it] home?”
Le Can thought the ta he heard referred to things similar to jade, like the Cornflower Blue Sapphires, Pigeon Blood Rubies, No-Oil Emeralds, Blue/Red/Pink Diamonds he had just missed in his heart…
Le Can said categorically: “Of course!”
“Life is short, meeting things you like isn’t easy. In the future, whatever I want, whatever I want to do, I will spare no effort to obtain and practice it!”
Xi Yun opened his mouth silently, finally hiding the sentence he wanted to ask most.
So, regarding fulfilling the marital duties, is the starting point also… that you want to do it?
“Hey hey hey, there, there!”
The young man, who was speaking logically a second ago, suddenly excitedly grabbed Xi Yun’s wrist and shook it.
He pointed to a stall not far away with one hand, while his other hand slid down the man’s wrist, spread five fingers to interlock with the other’s fingers, and dragged him towards the direction of the stall.
“I was just thinking that with so many miscellaneous things here, there might be this. I didn’t expect to see it directly in the next second!”
After squeezing to the stall, Le Can glanced quickly at Xi Yun. Confirming the person was by his side, he let go of the hand holding the other party and impatiently picked up a small silver thing.
“Xi Yun, wait for me a sec.”
On the two merged low tables that weren’t very big, a ring display stand that looked out of place was placed in a corner. However, inside were not complete rings, but beautiful and exquisite ring settings (empty mounts).
Le Can noticed that behind the stall sat two people, one old and one young.
When the young girl saw him browsing the ring settings, a nervous expression appeared on her face. The older one just glanced once and withdrew his gaze.
It went without saying who the real seller of the ring settings was.
Under his hand, although there were only four rows of ring settings in the display stand, each one had the designer’s little ingenuity. One glance and you knew effort had been put in; they weren’t wholesale small commodities.
Counting them up, there were only thirty-something, but Le Can was still very satisfied.
Picking out an orchid-shaped one he liked the most, Le Can faced the young girl looking eagerly at him, chuckled lightly, and prepared to ask the price.
If the price was fair, he wouldn’t ask specifically about the others he liked one by one; he’d just tell the little stall owner to wrap them up.
But the moment Le Can reached out his hand, a force suddenly pushed him from behind!
The young man’s knees knocked against the edge of the table. He hissed softly, his body losing balance and about to plant face-first onto the table surface…
Suddenly, a strong arm extended from the side, scooping the young man up by the waist.
Le Can abruptly felt both loss of balance and weightlessness.
But this feeling didn’t last long. The power clamping his waist steadily brought him into a warm yet hard embrace.
In a trance, Le Can heard a crisp “ding-dong” sound.
He subconsciously turned his head to look in the direction the sound came from.
He saw the orchid-shaped ring setting he had just held in his hand bounce twice inside a pitch-black bowl before coming to a stop.
“Huh?”
Human vision is very wide; it’s easy to see other things while looking at one thing.
For example, right now, Le Can saw a black jade piece next to the small black bowl.
Xi Yun, following Le Can’s gaze, fixed his eyes on the black bowl under the ring setting, frowning slightly.
That was…
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