Chapter 97

The third household was the young man they met at the village entrance.

He was very热情地招待, but Yang Bo did not want to stay too long and went straight to the bronze tripod.

After a moment, Yang Bo left.

The fourth household…

The fifth household…

It was not until the sixth household that Yang Bo finally had some success, but the owner of the bronze tripod was a thirty-something ruffian named Ma Lian who had no wife.

Ma Lian rolled on the ground and shouted, "This tripod won't be given away for less than ten million! You won't be able to take it away without paying! Our Wang Miaodian has over a thousand people, and we won't let you leave with it!"

"You shouldn't think I'm lying. I, Ma Lian, always speak the truth, and I'm as good as my word! Damn it, if anyone dares to take my things, I'll chase them down and kill their whole family!"

Yang Bo looked at the situation, his brows furrowed. The previous four households had yielded nothing, and no one would have thought that the genuine item would be in a ruffian's home.

Lu Dongxing patted Yang Bo's shoulder, "You go to the next household. I'll handle this. You don't have the experience to deal with this kind of situation."

Yang Bo didn't hesitate, "Alright, I'll go to the next one. I'll leave this to Mr. Lu."

Yang Bo and the old man walked out and headed to the next household. The old man was also frustrated, "Ma Lian's father was a good man, always friendly to everyone. Who would have thought his son would turn out like this! Sigh, he's just a scoundrel. Why can't we get the tripod from another household?"

The old man also noticed Yang Bo's unusual behavior. The idea of looking once and then making a decision was just a pretext. Otherwise, they wouldn't be so eager to get the bronze tripod from Ma Lian's household.

Yang Bo smiled, "To ordinary people, they might look the same, but there are still some differences. I want to gather some items. Let's go to the next two households and see if we can find another one!"

The old man didn't ask any more questions. They visited two more households, but found no genuine items.

Yang Bo was puzzled and turned to the old man, "Is that all we have in the village? No more?"

"There are only eight and a half now," the old man nodded.

Yang Bo caught the meaning in the old man's words, "Now? So there used to be more?"

"At its peak, the village had eleven. Three of them were sold at the beginning of the year!"

Yang Bo understood. The last genuine item must be one of those three. Thinking about the transaction on the night they arrived, one of them must have been a fake, so one of the remaining two must be genuine!

The two returned to Ma Lian's house and found him sitting quietly on a chair, not daring to move.

Yang Bo noticed a bruise on Ma Lian's lip but didn't ask, "Did you reach a deal?"

"It's done, already resolved," Lu Dongxing said. "How about your side?"

"It's already sold," Yang Bo shook his head and explained, "Time is tight, we can't afford to waste it. We need to take these two tripods as soon as possible!"

Lu Dongxing pulled Yang Bo aside and whispered, "The exit routes out of the province are being checked. The local authorities are unhappy about the cross-provincial investigation and are negotiating to get the bronze tripods back. It's a challenge to figure out how to get these two tripods back!"

Yang Bo knew Lu Dongxing wanted to take the two items, "Then we'll have to go through the mountains and across the sea!"

Lu Dongxing was slightly taken aback, "How do we do that?"

"Buy two large trucks of pears! It's almost Mid-Autumn Festival, and Xusheng Real Estate should give some benefits to the employees. For this, the CEO even went to the famous pear capital, Dangshan, to buy Dangshan pears!" Yang Bo said casually.

Lu Dongxing smiled, "That's a good idea! It will be a stealthy way to transport them!"

Next, they organized the logistics. The trucks needed time to arrive, and Lu Dongxing gave the old man a red envelope to help find some strong men to buy the pears at a high price!

Yang Bo helped with the weighing and pricing on the spot, while Lu Dongxing supervised, standing aside and occasionally smoking.

They worked until it was dark, and a family brought the pears back. The middle-aged man was busy moving the pears, sweating profusely. Seeing Lu Dongxing smoking, he couldn't help but say, "Boss!"

Yang Bo could feel Lu Dongxing's body tremble beside him, and ash fell from his cigarette.

Lu Dongxing paused and turned to look, "Do I look like a gangster?"

The middle-aged man was a bit nervous, waving his hands, "No, no, it's just that you remind me of a former boss! You have a commanding presence!"

Yang Bo interjected, "Which boss, so impressive that he looks like Mr. Lu?"

The middle-aged man rubbed his hands, "It's been ten years. The factory outside the village, you should know about it. Ten years ago, they made bronze artifacts, all kinds of replicas. I used to work there! It was tiring, but I made money! But it soon went bankrupt!"

"Ah," Yang Bo responded, not asking more. "Alright, that's 876 pounds. You can check if it's accurate."

The middle-aged man waved his hand, "No need to check, I trust the boss!"

They worked until past eleven at night, without resting, and rushed back to Jinling.

The two tripods cost two million, and the two trucks of pears cost about three to four million. Lu Dongxing had invested a lot.

The trucks passed through the checkpoint without incident, partly because Yuan Yezhi had drawn most of the attention. They arrived in Jinling, unloaded the pears, and handed the two tripods to the police. This left only one of the nine tripods of Emperor Huizong!

The cultural heritage departments of Huizong and Jiangsu provinces continued to negotiate, involving disputes over the ownership of the artifacts. Yang Bo couldn't participate and didn't interfere. He returned home, washed up, and went to bed.

The next morning, Yang Bo found a bank message on his phone, showing a deposit of 600,000 yuan!

According to the agreement with Lu Dongxing, he would receive 100,000 yuan per day, totaling 300,000 yuan for three days. He also received a commission of nearly 10% for the batch of miscellaneous items and the two bronze tripods!

Yang Bo wasn't overly excited. He knew this was due to the small transaction amount. When the transaction value reached hundreds of millions, the commission would be smaller. However, the extra income made him happy, at least solving his immediate financial needs!

Yang Bo got up, washed up, and had breakfast. Then he took out the crystal cup from his suitcase.

The crystal was clear and hard, and had been discovered early, but a crystal item of this size was extremely rare! Especially in ancient times, it couldn't be synthesized and could only be carved from a single piece of natural crystal, which was even more incredible!

Yang Bo was certain that this was a crystal cup from the Warring States period!

Yang Bo carefully prepared a solution and placed the crystal cup in a basin to soak.

After ten minutes, Yang Bo gently wiped it with a soft cloth, and the dust fell off, leaving the crystal clean and bright!