Chapter 18 (1/2)

Zhou Shuming's brows furrowed. It had been said that the most precious things in the world were the gold in a turbulent time and the antiques in a peaceful one. In 1927, when the Revolution of 1911 had been over for just 16 years, and the bodies of the scholars that had taken pride in selling works to royal families had hardly been cold yet, since both guns and rice were more useful than books, book collection was not as popular as before, and the prices of the rare editions and best editions which had been invaluable were much lower. Dilapidated private libraries were everywhere. There even were unworthy descendants who treated and sold the precious books as waste paper.

These twelve books in the caskets had cost Zhou Shuming only 4,000 silver dollars. He had bought them from the private library of the Zhou Family. Back to forty years ago, even his master who had been a Juren1 would have been willing to trade one thousand dans of rice for them. Thinking this, Zhou Shuming sipped a mouthful of tea, raised his head and said to Huang Xuan, ”If Mr. Huang is dissatisfied, I can go find others. Please keep the grains for a few more days for me.”

”Only one day.” Huang held out one finger arrogantly. ”I am in a huge rush and can't wait.” Pointing to the last casket, he added, ”You can also take these two books of the Confucian Canon during the Spring and Autumn Period of the Song Dynasty back. Thus, in addition to the book written by what-d'you-call-him Emperor, there are six books. You can pick up 900 dans of grains from the warehouse for all of them or 1,500 silver dollars for each. What do you think?”

Huang Xuan had calculated at the price of 12 yuan per dan, but on the market, the price of brown rice had risen to over 18 yuan per dan. Of course, Zhou Shuming would rather choose grains. He opened his mouth a little and shut it. He understood that nowadays the one who had grains had the say. He folded his hands in front and said, ”Then, an old fellow like me will start transporting these grains. Mr. Huang, please wait for my good news.”

Hearing him call himself an old fellow, Huang Xuan scorned. After putting the books in the caskets together, he left before Zhou Shuming did.

The news that a stupid son of rich parents was purchasing rare editions at a price ten times higher than the market price was traveling as fast as the speed of plane travel. Very soon the whole city had heard of it. At that turbulent time, this kind of news would be exaggerated by countless people.

”Have you heard? The prices of books will go up! The ones who have ancient books will become rich!”

”It is said that the national government is going to build a library, like the foreigners. The money has been spent on the books is enough to buy tens of thousands of guns.”

”I've heard that the foreigners want to buy antiques from China. One of my townmates said he had seen several s.h.i.+ps loaded with antiques.”

Since that afternoon, people had asked for an interview with Huang Xuan one after another. Only Jiang Yisheng was with him, which wasn't enough to handle the situation. Huang Xuan had to ask shopkeeper Zhu for help. On the other hand, most of the people had come to take their chance. Some even tried to w.a.n.gle a sum of money by a dishonest approach. Shopkeeper Zhu was worried and tried to invite Huang Xuan to the town, but Huang Xuan declined. He had kept meeting people for nearly seven hours before finally all the grains and most of the silver dollars were gone.

At last, the bosses of several shops were financially strong and kept many rare editions. Huang Xuan had spent so much time picking books that he didn't know which to pick anymore. He listened to Rolin's evaluations mechanically and eventually managed to pick five more, after which, only hundred-odd silver dollars were available in his hands.

A sound of sweeping was heard from inside the wide-opened warehouse. Huang Xuan looked at Jiang Yisheng again, the reserved middle-aged man still wearing the worn-out blue cloth jacket with patches carefully sewn on the cuffs.

The books in hands, Huang Xuan was ready to go home. At the point of leaving, he started to regret not having had a good look at this magic era, which he didn't know whether he would have a second chance to do in the future and which he thought would be the least possibility since the teleportation function of Rolin's was so backward.

Having put the left silver dollars away and wrapped the books in yellow silk and satin, Huang Xuan fixed his appearance and said to Jiang Yisheng, ”Brother Jiang, I apologize for the inconvenience I have put you to in the past two days.”