Hook said goodbye quickly, and he needed to go back to the company to discuss with him carefully what to do next.

"Leonard, what is the "The Gravel Worker" that Pierre just mentioned?"

In this sentence, Leonard was burnt on the outside and tender on the inside, and almost hit the car in front.

"Xiao, a painting by Courbet, can be said to be one of his important representative works."

"Who is that in his hands? What is the estimated price?"

Leonard smiled bitterly:

"Xiao, that painting is not in anyone's hands. It turns out that the painting was in the Dresden National Gallery. Some people say that it was destroyed by the Dresden bombing during World War II, and some people say that it was blown up by the Allied forces when it was transported to the Conesi Fortress in Dresden."

From this sentence, Xiao Yifei heard the familiar words. The Dresden bombing refers to the large-scale strategic bombing of the Allied forces on the eastern German city of Dresden from February 13 to 15, 1945. This large-scale bombing caused heavy losses to Dresden's civilians, 80% of the houses were damaged, more than 50% were razed to the ground or seriously damaged, and the death toll was about 35,000 to 135,000.

The last owner of the space, German SS Lieutenant Colonel Hans, wrote in his diary that his last mission was to escort the artwork that was supposedly destroyed by the bombing of Dresden to bury. During the mission, he also stole 200 kilograms of gold and ten oil paintings.

"Xiao, unfortunately, it seems that this business has failed. Maybe it might be better if I didn't agree to Christie's intervention."

"Leonard, you don't need to comfort me. It's my fault. I shouldn't exchange the euro for US dollars without authorization."

There is a big difference between 10 million euros and 10 million U.S. dollars. 10 million U.S. dollars are only more than 7 million euros. It is obvious that Christie's price is higher than this price. According to Pierre's complaint, Christie's may offer a price of 8 million euros. Maybe Xiao Yifei will open 10 million euros, and that won't be a breakdown in one go.

"It's okay, what else do you want to buy? You can tell us that we will give you discounts."

"I want you to ask for help me find out about Qianlong's seal that was auctioned a few years ago."

Qianlong used many seals throughout his life, so many were lost overseas. In 2006, a 4.7 cm high seal was sold for 880,000 euros in France. In 2008, Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty sold for 5 million euros in Toulouse. Since the beast leader failed, he bought more seals from the Qing Dynasty emperor, plus the throne and screen, which also had a good effect.

When he returned to the hotel, Xiao Yifei became more and more upset when he thought about it. He opened the web page casually and entered "The Quarryman". The result that the jump came out gave him a huge surprise.

I saw two ragged men, one of whom was wearing hats, knelt on the ground with one knee, holding a hammer with both hands, and smashing hard at the stone. Another young man was holding a basket of gravel with force, and there were some rice cookers and spoons on the ground in the distance.

Xiao Yifei was not surprised because the picture was very delicate and belonged to the kind he liked, but because he had seen this oil painting.

Xiao Yifei hurried into the Osiris space and roughly pried open the large wooden box with a black Nazi eagle printed on it. Sure enough, he found "The Quarryman" from the ten oil paintings.

"So your name is "The Quarryman."

This is not a fault for Xiao Yifei. Who made these painters like to write the names of oil paintings on paintings? The names of many famous oil paintings are not the names that people have more oil painting content. At that time, Xiao Yifei thought that this oil painting represented the work of geological prospectors or early miners.

After carefully comparing the online pictures with the oil paintings in my hand, I measured the width of the oil paintings, which really fits the description online.

Xiao Yifei was very proud:

"Hahaha, God has helped me like this. It seems that the beast leader can't escape from my palm this time."

But he immediately thought of a question, what should I do about this oil painting, and I went to exchange it directly? How is it possible, let’s not talk about who is valuable to the oil painting or the beast head for now, how to explain the origin of the painting? With Pierre’s big mouth, someone asked him who the beast head was sold to and how much it cost, and he would definitely tell the matter. Then Xiao Yifei explained to outsiders this oil painting that was recognized as ruined by World War II to him?

Xiao Yifei thought for a long time and decided to take a gamble.

After finally waiting until the next day, Xiao Yifei called Leonard.

"Xiao, there is a little bit of clue about the seal. We have found the buyer at that time based on the auction records. We are contacting them."

Leonard thought Xiao Yifei was asking about the progress of the seal, and began to report the progress without waiting for Xiao Yifei to ask.

"Leonard, I'm not looking for you for the seal today."

"Do you have something you want to buy again?"

"I haven't wanted to buy it yet. Leonard, we can't sign a confidentiality agreement for this matter. Can I believe you will keep it confidential?"

Thinking of the surprise of signing a confidentiality agreement last time, Leonard was also not calm:

"Xiao, do you want to take care of our business?"

"No, it's because I found an oil painting that is suspected to be "The Gravel Worker."

Leonard was completely shocked:

"The Gravel Worker? How could this be possible? Wasn't it ruined by bombing? Could it be a fake? Xiao, where did you get it?"

"I cannot disclose the specific source, but I got the information from the seller from Sosby. I came to the door and bought it for 100,000 euros. Now I need you Nagao to carefully identify it for me."

"Xiao, this matter is not easy to operate."

"I know, but I will never disclose the seller's information. I hope that you and your appraiser will not disclose the existence of this oil painting, nor will you disclose that I have something to do with this oil painting."

"Xiao, I have only taken over the oil painting department for half a year. In the oil painting appraisal department, there are only two people I really trust. I can transfer them, but I don't know if they can identify Courbet's oil paintings."

"Okay, then you can transfer them over. I trust you, but they both need to sign a confidentiality agreement."

"no problem."

"Leonard, I really hope you can keep this secret because when I went there, I saw that there were other oil paintings in my hand. I didn't want to be leaked, I also hoped to buy other oil paintings."

"Don't worry, I know."

"As long as you keep it confidential, you will definitely benefit in the future."

Leonard called and walked over and said:

"They can arrive in the afternoon, but such oil paintings cannot be used for machine identification."

"It's okay, let Pierre have a headache."

"Then you have to be careful that he will say it."

"Don't worry, I have a way to prevent him from talking nonsense."

Xiao Yifei said there was a way, but in fact he knew in his heart that this matter must not be able to pin his hopes on the character of that old bastard.

In the afternoon, two appraisal experts from Nagao arrived in Paris and signed a confidentiality agreement and saw the oil painting.

"Curbet?"

"The Quarryman?"

The two of them shouted in surprise at first, and then said in unison:

"How is this possible? Isn't it ruined?"

After waiting for a second, he said in unison:

"Is this a fake?"

Leonard said with a wry smile:

"It depends on you to identify whether it is a fake."

The two of them immediately leaned over, their faces pressed against the canvas, so close that they could lick the oil painting as long as they stick out their tongues. The two experts looked at them very carefully. After "licking" the oil paintings once, they looked at each other, shook their heads, and then put their heads on the canvas.

Finally, more than an hour later, the two experts got on the chair with a terrifying expression on their faces.

Leonard couldn't wait to ask:

"How is it? What's the result of your identification?"

An expert thought for a long time and said:

"No, I still have to see."

Hi, isn't this a waste of human expression?

Another expert shook his head:

"It's hard to say, I didn't see any fake anyway. Whether it's the overall style, details, or even the brushstrokes, they look very much like Courbet. If we didn't know that "The Quarryman" had been destroyed in World War II, we would have thought it was the authentic work."

Another expert came up and scanned the oil paintings and said in an uncertain tone:

"Maybe this is the original one."

"How is it possible? It has been destroyed by the war. This is just a very, very similar fake."

The expert who thought he really retorted in a weak tone:

"Maybe the one that was destroyed by the war is a fake? Anyway, no one knows the authenticity if it is destroyed?"

After saying this, the expert who was looking at fake couldn't say it:

"That seems to be OK if you say that."

"Why would you explain it? Where can you tell there is a falsehood?"

"I can't see it."

Leonard waited for the two of you to talk for a long time but couldn't make a conclusion, so he could only ask directly:

"Then are you sure it's an authentic or a fake?"

After thinking about it, the two said:

"There is no conclusion, we can only say that there is no place to be found for fraud."

This German guy's speaking art is also good: he couldn't find any fakes, but he didn't say it was a genuine one.

"However, we can sample small amounts and take them back to the laboratory for testing to see if the pigment components, canvas fibers, etc. are in line with the times."

"This painting cannot be revealed."

These two people obviously also know the consequences of this painting if it is leaked, and there is a constraint on the confidentiality agreement:

"We know that we will take samples at the corners and we will do our own experiments."

"Well, when will we be able to give a conclusion?"

"We will set out to Stuttgart immediately and do experiments overnight. We will be able to draw conclusions at about 5 a.m.."

"Okay, you guys go."

The two experts rushed back to Stuttgart immediately after taking samples, and Xiao Yifei also wanted to prepare to ensure that old man Pierre would not talk nonsense.

Xiao Yifei had never thought of the easiest way, which was to kill the old man. But this old man was a little famous. If he slaughtered him before buying the beast head, the follow-up of the two beast heads would be very complicated and easy to play with. If he slaughtered him after buying it, but he paid all the money, would it be interesting to kill him again? Moreover, he was still a little hesitant to let Xiao Yifei end a person's life so easily. He planned to see if his method was effective, and if it didn't work, he would talk about slaughtering him.

After finally waiting for the lights to come on, Xiao Yifei drove to the Eiffel Tower. After enjoying a meal at the newly opened Eiffel Tower 58 Restaurant, Xiao Yifei took the duck boat on the Seine River like an ordinary tourist to enjoy the night view. It was after 11 o'clock in the evening. Xiao Yifei drove a turn and drove into an underground parking lot, which has a gun shop, and its shooting range is also the underground training range of the Paris Highway Police.

The French are very romantic. No one is at work at this time, and there is no one in the parking lot. Xiao Yifei used an electric excavator to open the door of the gun shop, snatched a few pistols and a bunch of bullets, saw that there were shotguns next to him, and he took one and left the gun shop in less than 50 seconds.

Xiao Yifei took back the excavator, got out a motorcycle, blew the accelerator, and drove out of the parking lot. He turned three times and two times, took back the motorcycle near a park, ran around the taxi, threw out the first car, and slowly returned to the hotel.
Chapter completed!