Chapter One: Perplexity

  After exchanging pleasantries and introducing themselves, the horse owner chatted with Gao Huaiyuan for a while before bringing up the topic of what he wanted to sell.

  Gao Huaiyuan glanced around the store and saw that there were no customers, so he nodded to Xue Yan. Xue Yan carefully placed two sandalwood boxes on the table. Gao Huaiyuan opened one of the boxes, revealing an "inkstone" inside.

  Ma's eyes suddenly widened after seeing the things in the box, his body involuntarily tensed up, and he slightly stood up.

  Gao Huaiyuan immediately covered the box and smiled: "As the saying goes, wealth should not be revealed. There are many people here, I think Master Ma can talk to me in a quieter place?"

  Ma Zhanggui was taken aback at first, then hastily replied: "Of course! Mr. Gao please!" He quickly stood up and ushered Gao Huairen into the inner room.

  Looking at the two strange but extremely rare objects in front of him, Ma Zhanggui carefully took one out from the brocade box with High Hua Yuan's consent, holding it in his hand to examine it carefully. After a while, he said: "May I ask Master Gao, where did this thing come from?"

  Gao Huaiyuan smiled slightly and didn't answer him immediately, instead he asked: "I'd like to ask first, Master Ma, do these two celadon glass bottles meet your standards?"

  Ma Zhanggui held the big-bellied "ink bottle" and nodded repeatedly: "Young Master Gao is joking! Such a thing, I couldn't ask for it even if I wanted to, how could I say it's not worthy of my eyes? But I don't know what price Young Master Gao wants to sell these two bottles for?"

  Gao Huaiyuan still didn't immediately answer his question, but was very satisfied with his reaction. This super failed work of his, when he first brought it out, had made him feel a bit uneasy in his heart, but after seeing Ma Zhanggui's expression, he relaxed and said: "I'm not very familiar with this either, and I'm not in a hurry to sell it. Today I brought it here just to ask you to take a look for me, what price can this thing fetch? If I'm satisfied, selling it to you isn't out of the question!"

  Ma Zhanggui heard this and felt somewhat disappointed. The disappointment was from Gao Huaiyuan's face, he didn't see any urgency to make a move, knowing that if he didn't give him a satisfactory price today, it would be difficult to get these two rare items! So he carefully put the so-called Biyu glass bottle into the brocade box, looked at the other bottle again, hesitated for a moment, and then stretched out two fingers in front of Gao Huaiyuan without saying a word.

  Gao Huaiyuan looked at the two fingers and thought to himself, "You old fellow, you're sticking out two fingers, I know you want to give me either 20 cents or 2 yuan!" He asked with a bit of doubt, "Master Ma, would you mind explaining it clearly to me? After all, Gao is not very familiar with this sort of thing!"

  "Twenty taels!" Ma Jing finally replied.

  Xue Yan's eyes widened in shock, and he secretly exclaimed, "My goodness!" These two bottles were actually opened at a price of 20 guan by this shopkeeper, which was a huge amount of money! Thinking about it, Xue Yan, who used to be a bandit, even felt a little dizzy.

  Gao Huaiyuan also felt his heart suddenly accelerating and jumping, his brain quickly calculating the conversion. In his opinion, the purchasing power of Song Dynasty's money was roughly equivalent to 300 RMB in later generations, so 20 guan would be equal to 6,000 RMB in later generations. Oh my god, these two broken ink bottles, if thrown into later generations, wouldn't even be worth 2 cents, but here they're worth 6,000 RMB! This is more profitable than selling drugs! I'm dizzy! I'm dizzy! He's now even dizzier than Xue Yan!

  However, Gao Huaiyuan didn't show any signs of turmoil on his face, despite the storm raging inside him. Instead, he furrowed his brow and was inwardly bewildered.

  Ma Zhanggui looked at Gao Huaiyuan's face, which seemed somewhat dissatisfied, and then gritted his teeth and said: "Twenty taels for one, if you sell two together, I can give a higher price, I can offer forty-five taels!"

  Xue Yan, who was standing behind Gao Huai, quickly reached out to grab the back of the chair next to him, or else he felt his legs were a bit weak and wanted to find a place to sit down and catch his breath. He really thought he was going to faint!

  Gao Huaiyuan also felt a bit dizzy, like he was surfing, oh my god! Thunder again! Come and strike me once more! Two broken ink bottles, they actually want to sell for 15,000 yuan! This is too outrageous! Does this still allow people to live?!

  After recovering from the shock, he pulled the two boxes back and forth, steadied his mind, and then said to Ma Zhanggui, who was looking at him with anticipation: "The price of these two bottles is not important for now. I didn't come here just for these two bottles! Mr. Gao has something more important to discuss with you! Is this聚宝斋 the only store you have?"

  Ma Zhanggui stared blankly for a moment before responding, "Young Master Gao asks this? Although our Treasure Gathering Shop is not the strongest in the industry at present, it has some reputation in our Great Song Dynasty. To be honest, our boss's business is not limited to this shop alone. We have branches of Treasure Gathering Shop in many places, and I am just the manager of this branch in Daye County. What's the purpose of Young Master Gao asking about this?"

  Gao Huaiyuan nodded in satisfaction and said, "Of course it's useful. If I were to tell you that there will be more of these bottles or items made of such materials in the future, would your Treasure Pavilion be interested in cooperating with me?"

  This time it was Ma Zhanggui's turn to be stunned, my goodness! What kind of background does this young master have?! He actually said that there will be more of such things in the future, and that having two of them is already rare. What on earth does he do?! However, he also seemed to be a worldly person and quickly understood Gao Huaiyuan's meaning, so he hastily asked: "Is what Young Master Gao means to say that you have more of these things or are they something you've made yourself?"

  "Haha! This is not important, what's important is whether your honorable shop is willing to take on this deal!" Gao Huaiyuan said with a smile, looking at Ma Zhanggui who was also starting to get dizzy.

  "Of course! That's a given! If Master Gao is willing, although I, the shopkeeper, don't dare to say that I have complete authority, but today I can say with certainty that there will be no problem at all. As long as Master Gao has goods, our Aggregation Pavilion is willing to take them all in. But I wonder how much goods Master Gao actually has? And what conditions does Master Gao have for cooperating with us?" Manager Ma replied nervously.

  "As for the goods, I can't say much about it now, but it will definitely increase gradually in the future. For now, my condition is simple: all my goods can be handed over to you, Jibao Tang, for sale. As for the price, you can set it, but at least I must get 60% of it. And another thing, no matter who asks, don't mention that these things come from me, otherwise, I will immediately change partners and find someone else to cooperate with!" Gao Huaiyuan replied.

  Ma Zhanggui heard that Gao Huaiyuan wanted 60% and his eyebrows furrowed slightly, but he quickly agreed. As for Gao Huaiyuan's request not to reveal to anyone that the goods came from him, this was exactly what Ma Zhanggui had been hoping for. He couldn't have asked for more, and he didn't have any objections. The more people who knew about this matter, the less likely it was that someone would come to sabotage them.

  After the two parties reached an agreement, they drew up a written contract. Ma Zhangang dared not sign on behalf of his master and said that he had to ask his master to review it before signing. Gao Huaiyuan did not mind and left the contract as well as two large inkstones after receiving 45 taels of silver. He departed with a smile, leaving behind a remark: "Let Jibaozhai wait for the next batch of goods!"

  "Master! Please forgive my ignorance, this Ju Bao Zhai is not the most powerful antique dealer in this area. There's another one called Duo Bao Zhai that's much bigger than them. Why did you choose to cooperate with Ju Bao Zhai?" Xue Yan finally asked on their way back.

  "You don't understand this, although the reputation of Duobao Zhai is bigger and it seems that cooperating with them would be more promising, but actually not! As one of the most powerful companies, they must have a lot of good things in their hands, so our things, in their eyes, may not receive much attention. When negotiating, we may not be able to get many benefits."

  While this Treasure Pavilion is indeed weaker than the Multicolored Pavilion, once we cooperate with them, they will surely place great importance on our goods and make them their mainstay. In order to compete with the Multicolored Pavilion for exclusive sales rights, they will definitely make concessions and be more sincere than the Multicolored Pavilion. Therefore, we can obtain even greater returns! Moreover, in terms of future sales channels, they will surely invest great efforts in promotion. Why worry that our Luliu Fang won't have a steady stream of wealth flowing in?" Gao Huaiyuan smiled and replied.

  After listening to Gao Huaiyuan's explanation, Xue Yan suddenly enlightened, patted his head and said: "Young master is indeed wise! I didn't know there were so many subtleties here, I've wasted my years! Following you can really learn a lot of things!"

  "Actually, you don't know that when I was choosing the pawnshop, I also did something else. I asked Xing Bao and others to discreetly investigate the reputation of these shops for me. The owner of Duobao Pawnshop is arrogant because he's wealthy and does big business, but from time to time, there are some fake goods mixed in, so his reputation is really not good enough. On the other hand, Julibao Pawnshop has never had such a situation before, which shows that the owner attaches great importance to reputation and is a trustworthy person. That's why I finally decided to cooperate with Julibao Pawnshop! When doing anything, you must investigate and confirm first before making a decision. Otherwise, you may be blinded by immediate benefits and end up losing out yourself!" Gao Huaiyuan continued to say to Xue Yan.

  The two walked and talked, with Gao Huairen talking incessantly, and it seemed more like a master teaching his apprentice, while Xue Yan, an adult, had become his student.