The small shop is filled with antiques, both real and fake; the people coming and going are customers buying or selling; lying on the counter is me, half asleep and half awake. www.

Before I opened the store, I always laughed at the big gold tooth who was lucky and would not enjoy it. After all, he was a wealthy man. It was fine if he didn’t buy a car or a house. He didn’t even open a store.

Now that I have become a shop owner, I realize that it is not so easy to open a small shop. Especially in an antique shop like ours, there seem to be a lot of people coming and going, but those who actually spend money to buy a gadget are...

There's not even a chance of picking one out of a hundred, it's a typical hectic job.

Just like this, you can be bored when you are free, but you can't make money when you are busy, so why bother working so hard! Speaking of which, Da Jinya is a smart guy. Although squatting on the street stall is a bit harder, the profit is high and there are many people.

At least it's fun.

I held my chin in my hands and thought haphazardly for a while, then started to feel sleepy again. I lay down on the counter and was about to take a nap when a middle-aged, wretched man suddenly walked in and wandered around the store with his hands behind his back.

Okay, I couldn't sleep again. I could barely hold up my eyelids that were constantly fighting, and just watched him looking here and there, looking around at everything in my store.

Is this the kind of person who really wants to buy something? Qingqing came for another "walk". After I came to the conclusion, I immediately felt uninterested, so I simply didn't look at him. I lay on my stomach and stretched out my index finger to trace the new shopping mall.

The edge of the inkstone I bought has circles drawn back and forth.

"Boss, this inkstone is pretty good!" He flashed out like a wretched man and pointed at my inkstone.

"I like it! Pick it up and take a look."

"That's a good thing, so I won't be polite." The wretched man carefully held the inkstone in his hand, touching it here and there and praising it, "What a good thing! Look at the material, the carving, and the

The shape, this creativity, it’s really a good thing, it looks like it’s old at first glance…”

Having said this, the wretched man happened to turn over the inkstone to see the year mark. At a glance, the smile on his face suddenly froze, and he was speechless.

I suppressed my laughter, took the inkstone from his hand, rubbed the nine characters "Made by Beijing Luoshui Inkstone General Factory" engraved on the back, and said in a very sincere tone: "You are really discerning, Luo Shui."

Water inkstones are the best."

His face was serious, but he was laughing so hard that his stomach was in knots. There are really all kinds of people these days. Do you really think that all the antiques in the antique shop must be antiques?

I bought this inkstone for five yuan from a nearby store. I had no other intention. I just wanted a place to grind my ink when practicing calligraphy. I didn’t expect that five yuan worth of rubbish would come to this man’s mouth.

It has become a treasure with excellent material, carving, shape and creativity. When it comes to the mouth, I think it is not inferior to the big gold tooth.

"Brother, I have something to talk about. I'm sleepy!" I yawned and stretched.

"I've got something, I've got something, do you want to collect your things?" the wretched man said in a low voice.

I slapped my forehead and was speechless. I said you sell things just sell them, no matter how big-tailed the wolf is, this has been dangling in front of my eyes for a long time.

I spread my right hand flat and said feebly: "Bring it here, let me take a look."

I'm a guest here, so I just want to entertain him casually. I really don't believe he can come up with anything good. Just based on the sharp eyesight he showed just now, I don't have much confidence in him.

The wretched man took out the scroll from his bag, and then hurriedly peeled off at least four layers of newspapers, only to reveal the original appearance of the thing - it was a picture scroll.

Seeing how cautious he was, I felt embarrassed to be too negligent, so I took it with both hands and unfolded it gently.

A painting of a lady in palace attire, initially dated to the Tang Dynasty. The brushwork is average, but it is extremely attentive and pays great attention to the details. Although it misses the artistic conception and is inferior to the original, it is still passable.

But it's not these that attract my attention, but the ancient woman herself. If she changed from palace clothes to modern clothes, and then replaced the sadness in her eyebrows with innocence, she would look like a person I knew many years ago - Lin Ling.

That was more than ten years ago. At that time, Professor Chen and I went to the Mu Us Desert for archeology with two oil bottles, a man and a woman, and our guide Tana. The man was called Fang Cheng, and the woman was Lin Ling.

I remember that I got along well with her. She was a pretty cute girl. I wonder if she is married now? Haha, how could she not be married? I am really confused. Counting it, it must be 13 or 4 years ago.

, the little girl at that time is now running for three jobs. If she is not married yet, she really can’t get married.

I have to call Professor Chen another day and ask for this girl's contact information.

If I have a chance to meet the little girl in the future, it would be a good idea to give it as a gift! Although I have already made up my mind to buy this painting, I have been doing business for such a long time, and it is still a basic skill to be indifferent to likes and dislikes.

of.

Without rolling up the painting, he just put it on the table and asked in a very casual tone: "At what price do you want to sell it?"

"Ten thousand", the wretched male lion said loudly.

"One hundred", I responded immediately.

He immediately softened and said, "Boss, you can't be so cruel. This is an heirloom of my family, from the Tang Dynasty!"

I picked up the paintings scattered on the table with my little finger and said: "It is really from the Tang Dynasty, but the brushwork is rough. The painter... Meng Chongzhi? Which onion is this? He is just an unknown person."

"For a painting like this, if you dare to ask for 10,000 yuan, I will pay you 100 yuan."

The wretched man's face collapsed, and he said with a stinky face: "Boss, please give me a real price!"

"1,000 yuan, whether you want to sell it or not, I dare say that in the entire Panjiayuan, you will never get a higher price than this." I quoted the price.

"Okay!" The wretched man hesitated for a while and finally agreed.

After the money and goods were settled, I carefully rolled up the painting and put it away without even looking at the wretched man.

"Bah bang!" A crisp sound of applause sounded. I looked up and saw Hellen leaning against the door frame in the dazzling sunshine, smiling brightly and clapping her hands.

"Boss Zhang's abacus is really good, he made a lot of money, right?" Hellen joked and walked towards me.

"How can I make money? What I'm selling is the real price." I moved my butt and patted the chair next to me to signal her to sit down.

"Really or not, I've seen it all! You cut it from ten thousand to one thousand and you still haven't made any money?" Hellen said as he naturally sat down close to me.

"The most it's worth is this much. He just opened his mouth like a lion."

"Huh? You still buy it if you don't have any profit?"

"Haha, it's boring if you don't talk about this. Why is Miss Helllen free to come to the humble house today? Is there anything you can do for me?" What should I say? You can't say it's for another girl, right? Isn't that making you feel uncomfortable?

!

"I can't come to you if I have nothing to do. I was so bored that I came out for a walk. Haha, I didn't know why I ended up here. Maybe it's because of the feng shui here, right?"

When she spoke, there was always a faint smile in her big, crystal-clear eyes, making her look extraordinarily playful and cute. This was the first time for me to appreciate the look in her eyes so close.

Everyone always says that there are three things good friends in the world have: "We went to the same school together, we went to the countryside together, and we fought against guns together." Now I think we can add another one: we fought together.

Wild animals have a sense of territory, and they will fight when they cross the boundary. This is actually a behavior caused by a sense of self-protection. We humans also have this awareness. Unless we are familiar with each other to a certain extent, people will naturally keep a certain physical distance. If you get too close suddenly, it will feel quite unpleasant.

Unless there is a blood relationship, it is impossible to achieve that kind of natural closeness without long-term running-in or the test of iron and blood. The inverted fight is the best way to provide these two tests. With the last time After the experience of fighting together, the differences and differences between Hellen and I disappeared. It was impossible to tell that we had known each other for less than a month.

"By the way, I was here in the morning, why aren't you here?" Hellen picked up the paperweight on my desk and played with it, and asked casually.

"I went to attend a friend's funeral, and I went right away. There are fewer and fewer old friends." I feel a little sad when I mention it. It's really because of this that I want to reconnect with my old friends.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know."

I waved my hand to show that I didn't mind.

"Is he very close to you?" Hellen asked cautiously.

"Yeah, pretty good buddy."

"Has the fat man gone?"

"Of course I went. Fatty is a little more familiar with him. After all, we are just kids in a compound, playing with their bare buttocks in the mud." Fatty is still feeling miserable at home!

"Oh, what about the big gold tooth?"

"It's not bad, we can be regarded as buddies." I think back then, that buddy was Da Jinya, whom I met through a connection, and he was also a prodigal who sold antiques.

"Then why didn't he go? I heard from Sister Huang that he took the morning train for a long trip."

"I asked Da Jinya to help me go to Guangzhou to investigate something. The affairs of the living are more important than the dead!" Hellen can't understand the life-changing friendship between us brothers, so he likes to get to the bottom of things when he has the opportunity. .

Alas, talking about these life-and-death matters is boring. I was just about to change the topic and talk to Hellen about life or something. Before I could open my mouth, the troublemaker came to the door.

A Persian cat in his early 20s walked into my shop, stared at an incense burner on the shelf for a long time, and even touched it curiously.

"whatisthis?" she turned and asked in English.

"Censer." I don't understand English, but I understand this sentence quite well. It is one of the "Business English" taught to me by Da Jinya.

"What?" The foreign girl still looked confused.

That's it, I met someone who didn't understand Chinese, and now it's a chicken-and-duck conversation. The word "incense burner" is too difficult, and even my teacher Da Jinya wouldn't be able to explain it. After thinking about it, I decided to use gestures to express it, no. Say, are gestures common to humans all over the world?

I held my left hand in a ring shape, raised an index finger on my right hand to represent the incense stick, inserted it into the circle formed by my left hand, and looked up at her expectantly.

Still confused.

Not giving up, I raised my hand and repeated it again.

What stunned me was that the Persian cat suddenly turned red, spit, and then looked at the incense burner in disbelief.

Although I can't read minds, I can guess exactly what the Persian cat is thinking. After all, this look is too common. Most girls are like this when they meet gangsters, and their movements and expressions are exactly the same.

Could it be that this foreign girl thinks that the incense burner is for inserting...

This is a big joke. I swear to my ancestor, I have never thought about it in that direction.

Hellen was laughing so hard that he could hardly stand upright. It took him a long time to calm down and said to the foreign girl: "This is a shameburner."

Then she stepped forward and introduced the function of the incense burner to the foreign girl in fluent English. After a while, the foreign girl opened her mouth and asked: "How much?"

I understood this sentence, he was asking about the price! Then Hellen spit out a series of words in his mouth, and I was dumbfounded. No one had heard of it, so I just stood aside and watched Hellen fool around. But I have never eaten pork and I have never seen it.

Are the pigs running all over the mountain? Look at Hellen's English, which is infinitely better than the big gold tooth.

In less than five minutes, the foreign girl dropped the money and walked away happily holding the incense burner. Is this a deal? It’s quite efficient!
To be continued...