Back to the 60s: The Struggle Career of a Charmed Wife
Chapter 908 - 0908: Visiting Relatives and Friends 6

Chapter 908: Chapter 0908: Visiting Relatives and Friends 6

Stepping into the grass-thatched warehouse of the scrap station, Feng Qingxue’s mouth hung open in amazement.

The amount of scrap now piled up was ten times more than what she had ever seen before! It was truly piled up like a mountain.

In the past, based on what the elders and Lu Jiang’s father had said, Feng Qingxue knew that many valuable items were pocketed by the officials charged with the confiscation during raids, but now she could turn that assertion on its head.

The reason was simple: more than a decade had passed since the founding of the nation, traditional culture hadn’t been promoted, and those students simply didn’t recognize the value of the items!

Not recognizing their value, they acted on impulse to beat, smash, burn, and tear things apart, piling them up in the courtyards and setting them ablaze without realizing the inestimable treasures they were destroying.

Items that hadn’t been destroyed in time were seized and flowed into various scrap stations to be used for national construction.

Furniture was made of wood, which could be used for papermaking, and the same went for books, paintings, and calligraphy that could be recycled to make paper. As for bronze and iron artifacts, needn’t mention them. The nation had a great demand for paper and needed metal resources like gold, silver, copper, and iron to support national construction.

Those who knew their worth were dealt with by the cultural relics department, which would export confiscated items like books, paintings, and porcelain in exchange for foreign currency.

Many collectors of Chinese descent in Hong Kong, Macao, Malaysia, and other places were happy to make purchases.

This was something Feng Qingxue had recently read about in some materials. Not to mention those from afar, a large portion of Fu Nansheng’s collection came in this way. His family had money, and they were still wealthy in Hong Kong. It was said his son became an official there, which led Fu Nansheng to vigorously acquire collections, becoming a well-known collector in the art collecting world decades later.

Therefore, there was an especially large and varied assortment of items in the waste procurement station.

What did this indicate? It showed that during the early years of the nation’s founding, when class divisions were made and landlords were targeted, only a portion of people’s wealth, like that of major landlords and capitalists, was confiscated. Those from the academic world with numerous cultural relics managed to preserve their family’s possessions.

The moment Feng Qingxue clapped eyes on a carved rosewood bed frame, she longed to take it home!

Lu Jiang noticed Qingxue’s gaze and cracked a smile, "Later, I’ll ask the staff if we could buy this bed and take it home. We have many children and can’t cut down trees to make furniture ourselves."

"Okay!" Feng Qingxue was more than willing.

Uncle Li was still working here, now as the person in charge, and he was familiar with Qingxue. She had just secretly given him a packet of yak jerky because she thought of the children at home, and Uncle Li, against his better judgment, had hidden it away.

When he heard the couple’s conversation, he couldn’t help but whisper, "Take whatever you fancy, just quietly, without drawing attention. The bed frame will need to be dismantled before it can be taken out. I’ll charge you the price of scrap. Anyway, everything sent here is counted as scrap. I’ve also taken a few pieces of furniture home to refurbish, and they’re much sturdier than the ones sold in department stores. Of course, I paid for them by weight."

Upon hearing this, Qingxue quickly thanked Uncle Li, "Thank you for your trouble, Uncle Li. We’ll look carefully to see what we need."

"Take your time," Uncle Li said as he hurried off to attend to another batch of items being delivered.

Qingxue let Lu Jiang use the tools Uncle Li had lent them to dismantle the bed frame while she hunted for treasures in the pile of waste paper. Officially, she was collecting textbooks, but whenever she spotted valuable books or paintings, she directly stored them in her space, sweating profusely and covered in the dust floating in the air, her face turning into a dust-smudged canvas.

As the bed frame was being dismantled, Lu Jiang suddenly called out to Qingxue, "Come here quick!"