Unable to hold back, he let out another low curse. Brian Carter first found a bottle of water in the room and gulped down several mouthfuls, moistening his throat that was so dry it felt like it was on fire, before turning to look at the square table. At this moment, on one corner of the 64-page colored xuan paper on the table, there was a mysterious pattern lying flat.

Staring at the pattern and thinking for a moment, he braced himself against the table and used the newly bought scissors to cut out a rectangular border along the edge of the talisman.

There was nothing particularly special to pay attention to when cutting the talisman, as long as the strokes and pattern were kept intact.

He carefully cut out a rectangular border, and when Brian Carter took out the talisman and examined it closely in front of his eyes for a moment, an inexplicable sense of strangeness rose in his heart.

No matter how he looked at it, it really resembled the ghost-catching talismans seen in supernatural movies.

“If it draws out energy this thoroughly, it should work.”

After silently observing for a while, Brian Carter felt a sudden rush of heat in his heart. With a flicker of thought, the talisman he was holding between his fingers flashed like a bolt of lightning and instantly turned into a yellow mist that shot into his eyes.

The next moment, it felt as if his eyes were suddenly immersed in a pool of warm water—warm and moist, yet with a hint of coolness. Brian Carter’s vision immediately became deeper and more profound.

When he looked at the square table in front of him, the wooden material of the table began to become clear and transparent, as if it had turned into glass. Everything was revealed in minute detail under Brian Carter’s gaze.

“Ah!”

X-ray vision—it really was x-ray vision! He had long known about the magical properties of yellow paper, and today he had witnessed a series of strange phenomena. He was also mentally prepared and expectant for the x-ray effect of the [Seeking Text Talisman], but when he could actually see through the table and everything within a meter below its surface, Brian Carter still couldn’t help but cry out in excitement, his eyes filled with exhilaration.

This x-ray vision extended one meter in all directions from Brian Carter as the center—one meter above his head, one meter below his feet. Not only could Brian Carter see through the table in front of him, he could even see through the floor beneath his feet. However, after seeing through the floor, the one-meter range below was just empty air, so he couldn’t see what was in the rooms downstairs.

But Brian Carter didn’t dwell on this. Instead, he propped himself up and walked toward the messy antiques in the living room. The [Seeking Text Talisman] was meant to make it easier to find genuine antiques, after all.

Previously, he was ninety-nine percent sure in his heart that this whole room was filled with fakes picked up after being fooled, but now that he actually had x-ray vision, he couldn’t help but feel a final sliver of hope—what if, just what if, there really was a genuine antique among them?

Might as well take a look!

He bent down, grabbed a calligraphy painting, and glanced at it. The thin paper immediately became transparent before Brian Carter’s eyes. Although the paper was thin, at this moment Brian Carter could clearly see two completely different effects.

That is, the surface of this calligraphy painting was made to look antique, as if it had been stored for over a hundred years and oxidized, but aside from the front and back surfaces, the paper inside was actually new.

Indeed, a piece of paper stored for a hundred years would, just from air oxidation, be worlds apart from newly made paper—the color would be completely different.

And this change would permeate every part of the paper, inside and out.

But this calligraphy painting only looked that way on the surface; inside, it was new paper.

“It really is fake!”

In the past, when Brian Carter appraised antiques, he had to carefully examine all sorts of details to distinguish real from fake, but now, when it came to counterfeits, he had a clear and obvious impression.

He put down the painting and casually picked up a piece of porcelain, only to find himself smiling wryly again. The porcelain was the same—porcelain that had survived for over a hundred years and newly made porcelain had completely different clay colors.

Unfortunately, these fakes were all made to look just like the real thing on the outside, and when buying, he couldn’t exactly smash the porcelain open to check the color of the clay inside, so he was fooled by the nearly flawless imitation.

In just a few minutes, relying on his x-ray vision, Brian Carter dejectedly put down the last collectible, having to admit that all twenty or so items in the room were fakes.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the authenticity of an antique can be judged just by its age and condition. If anyone thinks that, they’re gravely mistaken. For example, with today’s technology, if someone wanted to forge a famous calligraphy painting from ancient times, they could simply find a piece of paper from that era and have a modern person copy and fake it.

If Brian Carter relied solely on the age and condition of the material to judge authenticity, he would be fooled so badly he wouldn’t even recognize his own parents.

It’s not just calligraphy and paintings—even porcelain is like this.

Porcelain from the same era can be both valuable and worthless. For example, the famous Song dynasty porcelain—the most prized are the five official kilns: Ru, Guan, Ge, Jun, and Ding. Folk kiln porcelain from the same period is worth much less.

But regardless of whether it’s from the five great official kilns or folk kilns, if you judge only by the age and condition of the material, they’re exactly the same.

Without the corresponding knowledge and discernment, if you try to judge just by the age and condition of the material, it will drive you crazy.

The only reason he could appraise all twenty or so antiques in the room so quickly was because they were all newly made fakes—low-end counterfeits.