Chapter 62: The Change of True and False

  "...the painting by Emperor Huizong of Song..." Guo Yichen smiled and said, "Not to mention whether the unsigned and unsealed work is indeed painted by Emperor Huizong, just looking from a distance, everyone can see that the painting is extremely delicate. However, Emperor Huizong's own creations do not resemble the meticulous and delicate style he required of his court painters, but rather tend towards bold and rough ink paintings. Among his extant works, there are many with his signature, but they are relatively finely painted, such as 'Dragon and Stone Picture', 'Peony and Golden Chicken Picture', 'Listening to the Qin Picture', and 'Returning from a Snowy River by Boat Picture' (all stored in the Palace Museum), 'Auspicious Crane Picture' (Liaoning Provincial Museum), and 'Bamboo and Twin Birds Picture' (The Metropolitan Museum of Art). These works have all been identified by experts as being created by skilled court painters. Only two paintings, 'Four Animals Picture' scroll stored in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and 'Willow and Magpie Picture' scroll stored in the Shanghai Museum, have been confirmed to be his own handiwork. Both paintings are ink on paper, with simple and unadorned brushstrokes that achieve a natural charm. The 'Autumn Evening by the Pond Picture' collected by the National Palace Museum in Taipei also belongs to this category."

  "Old Hu, Old Xu, am I wrong?" Guo Yichen said with a self-satisfied look at Hu Zhilin and Xu Shangyue.

  "Professor Guo is right, that painting is too meticulous and delicate, it's definitely not in the style of Emperor Huizong of Song."

  "What style is that? It's totally fake."

  "He put up the screen, as if he wanted to paint a picture immediately..."

  "Haha... You think this is Tang Bohu's painting of Qiu Xiang? You think he is Tang Bohu himself, drawing his own picture."

  "Maybe he's the reincarnation of Emperor Huizong of Song."

  …………

  Because of Guo Yichen's words, the atmosphere outside was ignited again, and people around were talking about it, but no one was optimistic about Zhao Long. At this moment, Liu Liu standing inside was even more embarrassed. He was now standing between Zhao Long and Guo Yichen, and earlier he had also come to take a look at that painting, which was absolutely not painted by Song Huizong.

  It's just that his current position is a bit awkward, but fortunately, everyone seems to have ignored his existence.

  Alas, I'm still young after all. It seems that I might have misunderstood. The cabinet of Shao Yusu has nothing to do with him necessarily; perhaps the corrupt official's family offended someone and was sabotaged in secret, which also counts as Shao Yusu being unlucky.

  "After a while, I can tell what's real and what's fake. There's nothing else to do, so I'll go back first, I'm tired." Xu Shangyue rubbed his temples, looking very tired.

  "Young man, learning is a process, let alone he has a good relationship with the chairman. The murderer who killed the chairman's father-in-law was also caught thanks to him." Hu Zhilin didn't want things to go any further, but they all thought Zhao Long couldn't win. Especially Hu Zhilin, Ping had told him about the situation before, and now in order to avoid Guo Yicheng continuing to investigate, he had to reveal some information.

  "I said so." Guo Yichen finally understood, secretly sneering in his heart, but on the surface he said: "Alright, we don't have to argue with a child, but later he must apologize publicly. I, Guo Yichen, as the vice chairman of Haicheng Antique Association, have never been insulted like this before."

  "I've insulted you, slapped your face, and after slapping the left cheek, I'll slap the right one too." Suddenly, Zhao Long's voice rang out again. He had pushed aside the screen and made a beckoning gesture: "Come on, you three come over here to witness this."

  When Zhao Long's tone was still so strong, and the painting was placed there for everyone to see, the noisy discussion stopped abruptly. The scene became quiet again, and everyone looked at Hu Zhilin and his three men.

  Hu Zhilin took the first step forward, and as soon as he walked to Zhao Long's large office desk, he was stunned. Because the painting placed on that table made his eyes shine brightly, with a rough yet delicate texture, especially the line of characters at the bottom.

  "All night the west wind shakes the windows, a solitary lamp flickers in the desolate inn."

  "Looking back at the hometown three thousand miles away, no geese flying in the south of the mountain."

  Adding his unique thin gold body, Hu Zhilin and others had seen the real thing before, and at first glance, they had a feeling of seven or eight points in their hearts that this was indeed a genuine work by Emperor Song Huizong. Hu Zhilin directly took out a magnifying glass from his body and carefully studied it, and later, Guo Yichen and Xu Shangyue's shock was no less than Hu Zhilin's.

  "How is it possible... how is it possible... no way..." Guo Yichen shook his head more and more, muttering to himself. Because he remembered clearly that the painting just now did not have this poem and inscription by Song Huizong at all, and the overall feeling was completely different.

  The painting they studied before should have been painted by someone in the past twenty years, this paper is definitely from the Song Dynasty, but the painting is new. However, it's completely different now.

  "Something's wrong... look quickly..."

  "Didn't you just say it was fake? How can this be happening again..."

  "It's too mysterious, and I don't know what's going on at all."

  …………

  At this time, the onlookers outside also discovered that something was wrong. If it were the painting from earlier, Hu Zhilin and his friends wouldn't be acting like this.

  Zhao Long didn't need to say anything on the side because they were also experts.

  "Hmph." Guo Yichen looked at it for half a day, then stood up and glared at Zhao Long: "You think you can just pass off this high-imitation work as the real thing? We've seen Song Huizong's genuine works before. What you did may look similar, but there are still differences. Song Huizong liked to paint flowers and birds, but take a closer look here - even if it wasn't specifically a flower-and-bird painting, the brushstrokes may be similar, but they also have some problems. Most importantly, hmph, this isn't even the same painting as before! You want to play tricks like switching the beams or deceiving heaven and passing it off as something else? In front of me, you're still too inexperienced."

  "Let's first talk about the authenticity of this painting. Below is the signature of Song Huizong, which has a very distinctive feature. It looks like a "heaven" character, but the first stroke of this "heaven" character is separated from the one below it by a short distance. This implies "the only person under heaven". His paintings emphasize realism, especially in flower and bird paintings, with great attention to detail. Look closely at those dead flowers and birds on the snowy ground. Although the flowers have withered and the birds are dead, the painting skill remains unchanged. This was his last work before he died, and I don't need to explain the profound meaning behind it."

  "As for stealing the beam and replacing it with a pillar, deceiving heaven and crossing the sea." Zhao Long looked at Guo Yichen with disdain: "Are you sick in the head? I take out a painting worth tens of millions myself, and then exchange it for a worthless painting. Is this what they call stealing the beam and replacing it with a pillar, deceiving heaven and crossing the sea?"

  Hu Zhi Lin said, slowly standing up, with a mix of excitement and loss in his gaze towards Zhao Long: "That's right, this should be the painting by Song Huizong. Although it's slightly different from before, it shouldn't be wrong. This brushwork is unique throughout history, I've seen it before, and I'm ashamed to say that I didn't recognize it earlier."

  "Emperor Song Huizong was in power, indulging in excesses, squandering the seventy percent of the world's wealth left to him by his father, and bringing the country to ruin. However, his paintings indeed have a high artistic conception. If I were to look at this painting, it should be his, but there is still something unexplained. Previously, we haven't seen this inscription and some other things, why is that?" Xu Shangyue also looked at Zhao Long and asked.

  "Old Hu, Old Xu, don't be deceived by him. There must be something wrong here, we can't fall into his trap." Hu Zhilin had long since retired and was not easily summoned by ordinary people. Xu Shangyue's roots were in Beijing, while Guo Yichen was different from them. He was now active outside, these two old men didn't care about their reputation, but he still did. So he would rather die than admit that he had misjudged, insisting that it was Zhao Long who designed the trap to harm them.

  "There's a special layer on this painting that covers up these characters, and it looks like it was just painted not long ago. I just used some special methods to get rid of them." Zhao Long didn't bother to respond to Guo Yichen, but seeing Hu Zhilin and Xu Shangyue being so frank, he felt a great deal of admiration for them, so he also answered their questions very seriously.

  In the antique world, there are many such situations where fake ones are passed off as real, and sometimes, real ones are made to look like fakes.

  Watching Hu Zhilin and Xu Shangyue both believe in Zhao Long's explanation, nodding their heads, Guo Yichen was even more anxious.

  "This is just your family's words, I will contact Mr. He and also invite experts from all over the country to come and identify it, only then can we say whether it is true or false." At this time, Guo Yichen would rather die than admit that it was true, he decided to go back and make some more statements after all, antiques are hard to tell whether they are real or fake.

  "It seems that Professor Guo doesn't even believe what you and Old Hu said." Xu Shangyue suddenly spoke up, looking at Guo Yicheng with extreme displeasure.

  Hu Zhilin also frowned, Zhao Long had expected this shameless guy to do so, he had already prepared some wood shavings in his hand. At this time, all of them were rubbed into powder between his hands, and suddenly Zhao Long sprinkled these powders onto the painting, while also re-inputting the dragon energy that had just been withdrawn from the painting.

  In an instant, the painting had become the same as before, and the inscription on top had also disappeared. Hu Zhilin, Xu Shangyue, and Guo Yichen all saw this scene, staring blankly in shock.

  These wooden shavings, Zhao Long had absorbed the weak wood aura from them, so those things that fell on top quickly turned to ashes. This scene seemed even more magical, as if these special wooden shavings reacted with the things in the painting.

  Then Zhao Long picked up the painting again and gently shook it, causing the ashes to fall off. Seizing the opportunity, Zhao Long absorbed the dragon energy into his left arm once more, and the painting was restored.

  "You, get out. You're not welcome here." Without saying anything else, after doing all this, Zhao Long directly pointed at Guo Yichen, then pointed at the door.