Back to 80: My Literary Life

"Real or fake?" Fang Minghua took Zhao Hongjun's flashlight and looked at the painting carefully. The scroll was about two feet long, and it painted shrimps. But he was an outsider, and he would never be able to recognize a genuine fake with his eyesight.

Fang Minghua wanted to ask the middle-aged man where the painting came from, but he held himself back.

According to the rules of the ghost market, buyers are not allowed to ask sellers about the origin of goods.

It’s okay if you don’t buy it, but you absolutely can’t ask.

Fang Minghua knelt down and took a closer look. There was Qi Baishi's seal on the scroll. Of course it was not clear whether it was genuine.

"50 is too expensive, 20 yuan." Fang Minghua returned the price.

"Twenty yuan is too cheap!" The other party refused.

"25"

"No, the minimum is 40!"

"Let's see, I can give you 30 at most! If you buy it, I'll take it. If you don't buy it, forget it." Fang Minghua finished speaking and was about to leave.

"Okay, okay, just 30. If you look like a scholar and can treat this painting well, I'll sell it to you."

Fang Minghua really couldn't understand, how could he see that he was a scholar?

But I was too lazy to ask these questions, so I gave the other party 30 yuan, carefully rolled the painting, tied it with twine, inserted it into my schoolbag, and then pushed the bicycle away.

At this time, Zhao Hongjun spoke: "I'm Ming Hua, why did you buy this thing? Is a piece of waste paper worth 30?"

"You mean it's a fake?" Fang Minghua asked.

"I didn't say it was a fake, but even the real thing isn't worth much! Qi Baishi is not Xu Beihong, let alone Zheng Banqiao. His paintings are really worthless!"

"Buy it for fun and give it to Tangtang." Fang Minghua replied casually.

"Giving this to a girl? It really belongs to you." Zhao Hongjun shook his head.

In fact, what Zhao Hongjun said is right.

In the early 1980s, Qi Baishi's paintings were really worthless.

It’s not as good as paintings by artists such as Li Keran, Wu Zuoren, Jiang Zhao, etc. in the same period, but who would have thought that the price would increase by tens of millions or even hundreds of millions per painting?

If it were truly authentic, I would have made a fortune just from this painting without doing anything!

Of course, we can't say this now.

The two of them walked around happily again, and Fang Minghua unexpectedly found two more paintings by Qi Baishi, one of which was of birds and the other of flowers. They bought them first regardless of whether they were genuine or fake. They spent a total of 50 yuan.

It was already one o'clock in the morning when he returned to the work dormitory. After washing, Minghua lay on the bed. Now what he has to consider is, how to identify the authenticity of these three paintings?

If it is false, it will be set on fire.

It really needs to be stored well.

Who to look for?

He knew no one in the world of antiques, calligraphy and painting.

But he knew a writer who liked calligraphy and painting-Jia Pingwa.

Jia Pingwa has been fond of calligraphy and painting for a long time. Later, in addition to collecting celebrity calligraphy and painting, she also wrote and painted paintings and sold them for a high price.

As for the artistic value, it is not clear.

Of course, now Jia Pingwa is still a scholar who loves literature and lives a relatively poor life, but I heard that she has close contacts with some collectors in the Xijing calligraphy and painting circles. How can she find someone through him to help?

Now that he had decided, Fang Minghua called Jia Pingwa shortly after going to work the next morning to explain his intention.

Jia Pingwa agreed happily: "Okay, come here this Sunday with the painting, and I will find an expert for you to take a look at it."

On Sunday, Fang Minghua took the scroll and rode to the Nanyuanmen municipal party committee family building where Jia Pingwa lived early in the morning to find himself.

The family of three were all there. Fang Minghua said hello and took out the scroll. Jia Pingwa carefully spread the scroll on the desk and looked at it carefully before saying.

"It looks like a real thing. Look at the shrimps in this painting. They look like real ones. But I'm just a layman and I'm just guessing. Come on, I'll take you to see a real expert."

Following Jia Ping'an out of the family courtyard, Fang Minghua rode his bicycle and asked who he was looking for.

"Xiao Fang, have you heard of the Yan family in Xijing?" Jia Pingwa asked after taking a puff of cigarette.

Fang Minghua shook his head.

"There are many cultural relics in Xijing, so there are also many collectors, and one of them should be the Yan family. No one can tell how many antiques the Yan family has collected." Jia Pingwa said while riding his bicycle.

"It is said that when Mr. Lu Xun came to Xijing, he visited the Yan family. At that time, the owner of the Yan family was called Yan Ganyuan. He asked people to take out all the collections for the literary giant to see. They were so full that there was no room for them to stand!"

"So many?!" Fang Minghua was surprised when he heard this.

"Later on, after going through ups and downs and the current situation being turbulent, I lost a lot."

Fang Minghua was speechless.

Now the Yan family has moved to a yard in Baoji Lane, Nanyuanmen, not far from Jia Pingwa's house. The two knocked on the door. Not long after, the door opened. It was a lean old man in his seventies or eighties. I am relatively familiar with Jia Pingwa.

After mutual introduction, Fang Minghua learned that his name was Yan Bingchu and that he was the son of Yan Ganyuan. When he heard his intention, the old man warmly welcomed the two of them into the house and made tea for them.

Fang Minghua took out his scroll and the old man spread it on the Eight Immortals table and looked at it carefully.

Fang Minghua took a sip from the tea cup and looked around the room again. There were basically no modern appliances, and they were all old-fashioned furniture that looked very simple. But who knew if there were any antiques in there?

Not long after, the old man raised his head and said to Fang Minghua: "Editor Xiao Fang, the two paintings here are genuine works of Qi Baishi. They are his works in his later years. The artistic level is relatively high, and the other one is fake."

He said and pointed to the painting with shrimps.

It turned out to be the one I bought for the first time!

fraud! Damn it!

Fang Minghua cursed secretly in his mind.

But it’s okay, two of them are real and that’s enough!

Ha ha!

Found a treasure!

Just these two paintings will cost tens of millions in the future!

However, he remained calm on the surface.

"Thank you, Mr. Yan." Fang Minghua carefully rolled up the three paintings.

"Editor Xiao Fang, do you like to collect Qi Baishi's paintings?" Yan Bingchu asked in confusion.

"Mr. Yan, to be honest, I am a layman when it comes to calligraphy and painting, but I really like to see his paintings of flowers, birds, insects and fish, which are lifelike." Fang Minghua's words were half true and half false.

Yan Bingchu nodded after hearing this: "Qi Baishi can do fine brushwork, and he is better at freehand brushwork. The level of his paintings is relatively high, but from the perspective of collection value, it is not too high. I don't want these things. Xiaofang, you can buy it with more money. of?"

"In the ghost market, a painting costs about 30 yuan."

"It's a bargain. The price of these two authentic works on the market should be around 200-300 yuan," Yan Bingchu said.

200 or 300 yuan on the market?

How much do I want? !

After the business was done, the three of them started chatting. In fact, Yan Bingchu was mainly talking.

The old man talked about the distant family history, the ups and downs of collectors, and the knowledge of cultural relic identification and collection and preservation. Fang Minghua listened with relish.

"Xiao Fang, the chair you are sitting on is a mahogany chair from the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty." Yan Bingchu said with a smile, and pointed to the tea bowl he just drank from: "This was used by the imperial court during the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty."

Damn it!

They are all antiques.

Fang Minghua was surprised. If he accidentally broke the tea bowl just now, wouldn't tens of millions be gone?

But it's not worth that much money these days.

When Jia Pingwa next to her heard this, she saw a special-looking cat food plate next to the table and asked, "Mr. Yan, what kind of porcelain is that?"

"Old Yaozhou Porcelain from the Qianlong Period".

That morning, the sun was shining brightly, and a few beams of light came through the lattice windows of the Golden Chain Lock Plum. There were living things flying there. Fang Minghua and Jia Pingwa admired Shi Tao, Zhu Da, Zheng Banqiao and others taken out of the camphor wood box. Looking at Zhang Daqian's works one by one, he was dizzy.

The old man was very interested in what he said, and finally said to the two of them: "You like calligraphy and painting so much, and the literati do not do business, so I will give you half a three-foot-long painting of Zheng Xie's "Ink Bamboo Picture" for 3,000 yuan. How about it?"