Chapter 51: You Two… Had a Fight? (You deliver the bowl to Wei Yuan Jing tomorrow…)
Around seven-thirty in the evening.
After the Ru porcelain auction concluded, Yuan Cheng drove Liang Yusheng back to the company to work overtime. Once that was done, he personally drove him home. By the time he returned to the villa, it was already around this time.
All day long, he had been spinning non-stop like a whipped top.
Having finally finished a busy day and stepped through the villa’s gates, the familiar environment allowed Yuan Cheng’s tense nerves to truly relax.
He couldn’t help but open his mouth wide, letting out an image-destroying yawn.
“Ah… Pfft!”
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the scene in the living room, causing the person midway through a yawn to jump in place from fright.
That agile, vigorous, and hair-raising reaction, in Le Can’s eyes, looked exactly like a cat startled by a cucumber. It was just that this cat’s size… was a bit too large.
“Holy ancestors!
Why aren’t you guys sleeping at night? What are you doing here?”
On the enormous living room sofa, the newlywed husbands were sitting in two different directions, separated by a distance wide enough to fit a whole person.
However, Yuan Cheng had nerves of steel and couldn’t immediately detect the undercurrents beneath the calm surface. His gaze swept around and actually landed on the sleek marble tabletop in front of Le Can and Xi Yun.
In that place, which should have been empty, sat several unfamiliar objects.
From left to right: a large square black box, a pitch-black little bowl placed on spread-out old newspapers, and two pieces of jade so small they were almost missed.
Wait, what are these?
Before he could voice his new questions, Yuan Cheng saw his “Dad,” Xi Yun, cast a faint glance over. That look, as always sparing no nonsense, made one involuntarily reflect on themselves.
Did I do something wrong?
Yuan Cheng reflected for two seconds, then slapped his forehead.
The ones acting scary are these two right in front of me; why the heck am I reflecting on myself?!
As for the certain ancestor who ranked even higher than “Dad”?
Le Can was currently nestled comfortably in the newly replaced soft sofa, holding a small, dark object up to the light to examine it.
Hearing Yuan Cheng’s blustering voice, this time the ancestor didn’t even deign to bestow a glance upon him.
Yuan Cheng had worked all day, so his vision had temporarily declined; everything he looked at now seemed to have a soft-focus filter. In short, he couldn’t see clearly. And because of the distance, he didn’t recognize what the small black thing pinched between those slender white fingertips was.
It was the size of a booger, looking a bit like the dried beef jerky distributed at the company today.
Fine, no one is paying attention to me.
Yuan Cheng started moving again, taking the initiative to approach them.
However, his initially large strides became shorter and slower the closer he got.
As everyone knows, things look larger when close and smaller when far away. From a distance, Yuan Cheng didn’t feel much, but once he really got close, no matter how blurry his vision was, he couldn’t miss the palpable distance separating Le Can and Xi Yun.
He wanted to speak but stopped: “…”
Yuan Cheng was an orphan and had been single since birth.
He had no personal experience to reference. Searching through everyone he knew, he could only barely drag out the image of Aunt Liang and Uncle Zhao, a couple over fifty.
Usually, this distance, this look of mutual silence…
Who knows what scenarios he conjured up in his brain, but Yuan Cheng’s legs started to go weak. He practically shuffled over the last stretch of distance.
He lowered his voice and asked with trepidation, “You two… had a fight?”
Under the mix of shock and fear, Yuan Cheng didn’t even notice his voice cracked at the end.
Le Can pulled his gaze away from the charmingly naive black cat jade in his hand and looked somewhat puzzled at the person acting as if the sky had fallen.
His thoughts lagging a beat, he finally realized what Yuan Cheng was asking.
Fight? Who? With Xi Yun?
Le Can couldn’t help but turn his gaze to the side, looking at the person he was suspected of quarreling with.
First to enter his view was a pair of astonishingly long legs. Clad in well-tailored black dress pants, they were casually positioned in front of him. Paired with thin-soled pointed leather shoes stepping on the rug, it inexplicably made one’s face heat up.
For example… Le Can, whose thoughts were impure.
Moving up, a black shirt with sleeves half-rolled covered a torso with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. The fabric quality was something Le Can had personally tested—light, breathable, and smooth—clearly outlining the man’s perfect inverted-triangle physique.
Le Can, who had been debating whether to let Xi Yun off the hook, suddenly hesitated.
Xi Yun was a good person.
The ink jade kitten, the entire box of empty ring settings… whether it was the thoughtful former or the probing latter, it seemed that the other party treated every word he said with great seriousness.
Treating such a person lightly… it was hard not to feel a sense of guilt.
Le Can even considered issuing a “Good Person Card” and quietly letting this rare guy off the hook.
From the return trip from the antique market until now, his silence was actually because he was pondering this matter.
To avoid distraction, Le Can hadn’t really looked at Xi Yun.
After all, male beauty is beguiling; he was afraid if he looked, he’d have to force the man to submit to him tonight.
However, thinking about it the whole way back resulted in… no result.
Sighing inwardly, Le Can’s gaze swept past the large expanse of gloomy black, continued upward, and finally stopped at Xi Yun’s neck.
Staring at the Adam’s apple slowly rising and falling with his breathing, the sound of his own heartbeat grew louder in his ears. He didn’t move, hesitating whether to continue looking up.
But just as Le Can was about to zone out, that Adam’s apple, which had lingered in his vision for a long time, suddenly rolled twice.
Xi Yun, who was sitting on the sofa holding a tablet, turned off the screen without warning. Then, maintaining his upright posture, he lowered his eyelids and leaned his upper body forward.
Le Can suddenly crashed into a field of silver-gray.
Even after seeing them many times, he still marveled at those eyes that naturally exuded alienation and nobility.
When looking over calmly and plainly, they inexplicably carried a divinity far removed from the secular world.
encountering a god, some feel devotion and prostrate themselves; some breed jealousy and try to drag the god into the quagmire; some are rebellious, delusional enough to want to kill and destroy the god with a mortal body…
Even though he had personally experienced transmigration, causing Le Can to waver on whether gods existed, he did not believe in gods.
He was probably the type of staunch non-believer people talked about.
No, that’s not right either. Le Can believed in himself.
So if anyone equated Xi Yun to a god, Le Can was definitely excluded.
For instance, under the gaze of these eyes at this moment, what he was thinking was: Can such a calm and self-possessed person really get into a fight with someone?
Le Can couldn’t imagine that scene.
He even felt Yuan Cheng’s question was a bit absurd.
“How could Xi Yun and I quarrel?!”
Receiving this incredulous rhetorical question, Yuan Cheng actually breathed a sigh of relief.
After panting heavily, he aimed for the sofa and threw himself into it. The person who had been shrinking back since entering the door now sprawled out his limbs without scruples.
“Then why are you sitting like there’s a Milky Way separating you? Scared me so much I didn’t even know how to walk.”
He had relied entirely on cosplaying a crab to awkwardly shuffle over.
Le Can, who had been self-righteous a second ago, suddenly lost his voice.
He knew the answer to this question, but it wasn’t appropriate for him to answer it.
Answer what? That Xi Yun stayed late at the market with him, then came back to continue working overtime with a meeting?
Answer that during the meeting, sitting next to Xi Yun, the others in the video call kept sneaking peeks, so he silently sat further and further away?
Or answer that the three jade pieces Xi Yun found for him were all genuine ancient jades? Since knowing this, he was even more torn about whether to defile this innocent man?
Le Can couldn’t say any of these things.
Unfortunately, someone not only failed to read his dilemma but also did a carp kip-up to sit upright, eyes full of urgency and curiosity that couldn’t be ignored.
Le Can smiled lightly. Just as Yuan Cheng’s brows relaxed, thinking he would get an answer, Le Can suddenly held up the object in his hand.
“Do you know what this is?”
Yuan Cheng’s attention was instantly drawn away. His bright, piercing eyes stared tightly at the small object swaying left and right until they became dizzy and glazed over.
He was completely led by the nose. “What? What is it?”
Hearing this, Le Can quickly glanced at Xi Yun.
The male lead had already put away his work devices and was silently watching the interaction between him and Yuan Cheng.
Thinking of what he was about to say, Le Can’s fingertips holding the ink jade tingled slightly, and he quickly withdrew his gaze.
“Ink jade carved in the shape of a black cat, a jade artifact from the Tang Dynasty.” He paused hesitantly for two seconds, then quickly added, “Xi Yun gave it to me.”
Meaning, a Tang Dynasty jade artifact that didn’t cost him a cent.
“Tang, cough cough cough…”
Yuan Cheng was startled into choking on his own saliva.
Wei Yuan Jing was an auction house. Although Yuan Cheng’s main job was Xi Yun’s bodyguard, he had been influenced by what he saw and heard, gaining quite a bit of knowledge related to auction items.
Gold and silver wares were prevalent in the Tang Dynasty; surviving jade artifacts were extremely rare. And in this industry, rarity represented value. After all, rare goods could be hoarded for high prices.
“How much did it cost?”
Yuan Cheng only wanted to know this answer now.
Quarrels or no quarrels had long been thrown to the back of his mind. Husbands, right? Everyone fights at the head of the bed and makes up at the foot of the bed. It’s just a small squabble; once they merge, they make up.
Le Can slowly raised two fingers.
“Oh, two million… that’s okay, reasonable, reasonable.” Muttering to himself, Yuan Cheng justified the logic.
He vaguely remembered that a Tang Dynasty white jade bi disc carved with chi dragon patterns at De Caesar Auction House had a final transaction price of over six million.
The audience for this small black cat was much smaller than the former, and whether in size or carving, the entire jade piece was far inferior to that jade disc.
Two million was a reasonable, slightly expensive price, but if kept for a while, the value would always rise.
Le Can raised the corners of his eyes in slight surprise.
He knew Xi Yun had good taste and strong ability. Picking up leaks (finding hidden treasures) in the fake-filled antique market might be as hard as ascending to heaven for others, but for him, it was a common occurrence, a daily meal.
But a ten-fold price difference, wasn’t that a bit excessive…
Seeing Le Can also wearing a look of disbelief, Yuan Cheng’s lips went dry, and his head buzzed. His voice was very light, “Wait… isn’t it two million?”
Le Can nodded heavily, “It was two hundred and fifty thousand.”
Yuan Cheng couldn’t catch his breath, his face full of hypoxia, looking in urgent need of medical attention.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand. This Tang Dynasty carved black cat ink jade, two modern white jades, plus a black pottery bowl whose background can’t be seen from the outside.”
Yuan Cheng stopped clowning around, his brows showing traces of distress and doubt. “Can’t see the background? Black pottery?”
“Mn.” Le Can pursed his lips and looked at Xi Yun, who hadn’t spoken a word.
Working overtime for a meeting was actually only a small part of the reason he and Xi Yun stayed in the living room. More so, Xi Yun was waiting for Yuan Cheng to personally hand over this small black bowl to him.
“You will deliver the bowl to Wei Yuan Jing tomorrow.”
Xi Yun finally spoke his first sentence of the evening.
Immediately after, he looked heavily at the unremarkable appearance of the pottery bowl and added, “Find Yuchi to strip off the surface layer. Add the item inside to the Spring Auction to fill the last vacancy.”
“Strip off?!”
Le Can and Yuan Cheng spoke in unison.
They looked at the roughest item on the table simultaneously, wishing they could immediately break open the disguise and see the true appearance inside.
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