Imperial Treasure
Chapter 81 - 69: Antique Street

Chapter 81: Chapter 69: Antique Street

The young man was startled but then smiled slightly, stepped forward, and approached the counter where Sui Yi was placing the book. He said, "I already have the Classic of Mountains and Seas at home. I only picked this copy up because it looked different from the one I have. You should keep it."

After speaking, he pushed the book across the counter, his gaze sweeping over a few other books.

So he liked this kind of thing too?

The young man looked at Sui Yi with more warmth in his eyes.

Sui Yi didn’t look like he was pretending, and he wasn’t coy. "Thank you," he said, putting four books together while the shop owner looked at Sui Yi in surprise.

Eh, he looks like a Second or Third High School student bogged down with studies, picking books like these—could he be a poor student?

Yet his presence didn’t seem to suggest that...

"Ziyi, it’s rare to find someone who shares your taste..."

The young man named Ziyi smiled and was about to say something when he followed Sui Yi’s gaze.

Yhan Qingwu was walking over, surrounded by several boys who were speaking with her.

Looking at the uniform, they seemed to be from No.1 High School.

"Hey, how come you guys arrived so early today?" the shop owner asked.

"Oh, we just had a school exam... The math questions weren’t hard, so we came out early..."

The fairly handsome young man spoke louder than usual.

The math questions weren’t hard... Clearly, he was good at math, which also revealed that other schools, like Second High School, had been put through the wringer by their principals early in the morning.

However, his expression changed slightly when he saw the person next to Sui Yi.

"Su Ziyi..."

Su Ziyi?

Before, Ziyi’s name hadn’t caught Sui Yi’s attention much, but the full name Su Ziyi made her raise her eyebrows slightly.

The top student from No.1 High School?

The consistent top scorer for three years?

And now, Yhan Qingwu was the top student at Second High School.

A confrontation between two top students?

Sui Yi leaned against the counter with interest, watching the two.

Su Ziyi smiled and looked toward Yhan Qingwu, "Hello, Yhan Qingwu."

"Hello," Yhan Qingwu nodded slightly, her expression moderately distant, not showing impatience, but also not overly warm, just mild.

It seemed Su Ziyi didn’t make any particular impression on her.

Such a calm aura!

The shop owner sighed, looking again at the students from No.1 High School and shaking his head.

He blurted out, "Hey, you guys, it’s not easy to chase a top student goddess. Back in my day, I was considered the most handsome guy at school, and still, I died countless times on this path..."

The most handsome guy?

Sui Yi glanced at the shop owner’s bald head and potbelly... and smiled slightly.

--Time indeed is a butcher’s knife.

The students looked embarrassed by the shop owner’s comment, but Yhan Qingwu remained composed and smiled at Sui Yi, "Did you pick out everything you wanted?"

"Yes, yours..." Sui Yi noticed the several test papers and a textbook in Yhan Qingwu’s hands.

"Actually, all of these are yours," Yhan Qingwu placed the book and papers on Sui Yi’s side.

She said she was there to buy books, but in reality, she was helping Sui Yi choose. "Your logical thinking and problem-solving skills are quite good, you just lack a broad range of question types. This one is known for its wide range and typical questions. Just do it once, and that should be enough... and this biology one... They are simple for you, just expanding on question types."

Yhan Qingwu softly and quietly spoke on the side, while Sui Yi occasionally responded. In the eyes of the bookstore owner, these two girls truly stood out.

He recognized Yhan Qingwu, after all, she was famously crowned the beauty of Nanxun, but this girl...

As the shop owner scanned the book codes, he casually asked Sui Yi, "Young lady, your grades must be good too, right?"

"Not good," Sui Yi’s response was too direct, too calm, causing everyone to pause.

Sui Yi methodically flipped through the papers in her hand, "According to your understanding, I suppose I would be considered a poor student..."

A poor student?

Yhan Qingwu smiled sweetly.

"It’s okay, if you can’t be a top student, young lady, you can still be the campus goddess. You’ve got what it takes, uncle here has his hopes on you!"

That tone, much too similar to a creepy guy offering lollipops on the street, made Sui Yi pause in her page turning.

"How much?"

"Ah? Oh...560"

This amount made several people’s eyes jump.

What’s the situation, this is too expensive...

Which students would spend that much money on books at once?

"If you have this kind of book in the future, please give me a call," Sui Yi counted some money from her wallet, laid it on the table, took a piece of paper, wrote down her number and name, pressed it on top of the money, and then picked up the bag full of books, turned around, and left with Yhan Qingwu...

They didn’t even wait for the boss’s response.

So capable and independent was he that the boss rubbed his face, thinking this kid was a little tycoon. He decided he needed to win him over to sell books in the future, so he picked up the note and took a look...

"Sui Yi? That’s an interesting name."

Su Ziyi and the other students all stared in surprise.

"Sui Yi, that Sui Yi from Third High School!"

"Sui Yi!"

"Isn’t that..."

Rumors about Sui Yi were abundant and varied. Many students had seen her photo, but just...

"Our school website had your photo... but just this morning it suddenly got hacked, and the entire post vanished~~ we didn’t see the photo... now here we are seeing you in person." A boy pushed up his glasses and muttered.

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After parting with Yhan Qingwu, Sui Yi tied her book bag to the back seat and rode her bike to the antique street.

Although Nanxun Town is not a small town, it is, after all, just a town, and Sui Yi reached her destination in just over ten minutes by bike.

Conveniently, this place was not far from Yantang Studio.

The antique street of today, much like a hundred years ago, still dealt with antiques. The streets were full of shops, either selling jade or old decorative items. Naturally, such places were bustling with people. With the recent rapid development of tourism in Nanxun Town, there were many tourists, and Sui Yi couldn’t ride her bike any further, so she had to push it...

The street was lined with rows of camphor trees and was bustling with noise: vendors calling out and people haggling, noisy like a marketplace, yet with a hint of mystery and charm.

As Elder Tang would say, haggling at a market requires loud voices and eloquence, but haggling on Antique Street relies on your eyesight.

If your eyesight is poor, you can only be fooled and stripped of your fortune!

In recent years, the antique collection industry had boomed, and many people had become wealthy overnight. Even if they hadn’t struck it rich, the value of their collectibles had increased hundreds to thousands of times, possibly due to currency devaluation, but the increase in value was indeed real. As a result, numerous treasure identification programs had become popular, driving many people with the dream of finding treasures...

Essentially, everyone visiting Nanxun had to walk through here once.

And then, obediently get fleeced.

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Most of the shops’ architecture still bore the Ming and Qing style, although renovated. As Sui Yi passed by some buildings, she used her Magnetic Sensation to inspect, discovering that a few of them still retained a faint blue magnetic energy...

Sui Yi naturally collected this magnetic energy and continued deeper into the crowd.

There were many young people like her, who made up a large part of the crowd, mostly students or couples out for fun, or tourists with not much spare money, buying not-so-valuable items.

In contrast, it was the middle-aged tourists or older people with magnifying glasses looking professional who were the main consumers.

After a few steps, Sui Yi found it quite challenging.

Too many people and too inconvenient to get through with a bike.

She needed to lock her bike somewhere first.

Sui Yi glanced around.

There were places like KFC and upscale coffee shops around; Sui Yi led her bike to the front of a supermarket and locked it, stowing her books in the storage box...

As she was leaving.

"Sui Yi?"

Someone nearby softly called out her name. Sui Yi turned her head and saw Su Ziyi standing in front of the neighboring coffee shop, watching her in surprise.

A coincidence?

Indeed, it was quite a coincidence.

After asking, Sui Yi learned that Su Ziyi’s grandfather had a shop nearby, and he had come to buy some food to take back.

"Are you here to just hang out? Do you want me to show you around?" Su Ziyi said with a smile.

Youth are always passionate about like-minded individuals.

Sui Yi didn’t have a bad impression of him, and since Su Ziyi had grown up here and knew the area well, Sui Yi nodded her head after he invited her.

There were far too many young people like them around, immersed in the crowd, hardly making a splash as they quickly blended in.

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The most common items on Antique Street were calligraphy, paintings, and porcelain. Firstly, because of the history of Pottery Kiln-like folk kilns in Nanxun, and secondly because the literary culture flourished in the Jiangnan District, where many scholars and literati lived back in the day, leaving behind their valuable works.

However, as time went by, distinguishing real from fake became difficult.

A nine in ten chance of finding a fake was almost miraculous, in most cases, it’s rare to find a genuine piece!

Walking down the street, Sui Yi hadn’t seen a single real item.

Initially curious, she began to study the porcelain and paintings with a learner’s attitude, but after a while, she grew tired of it.

Replicas were mostly the same kinds, and once she had learned their typical fake points, there was no need to look closely anymore.

Sui Yi quickly used her Magnetic Sensation to scan through them...

Her pace was fast.

But this also matched the behavior of young people. Su Ziyi just thought Sui Yi’s behavior was normal, as even he considered this place just for fun. If one really wanted to treasure hunt, as his grandfather said, either a fool with money or someone desperate would spend freely.

Of course, when his grandfather said that, it was undoubtedly because professionals like them who were deeply involved had had too many such experiences.

Those who drowned were usually good swimmers, and those who were conned the worst were often those who knew the trade well. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for it at qidian.com, your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users please visit m.qidian.com to read.)