My childhood by the Yellow River didn’t last long before I followed my father, who was returning home, back to the city. Grandma’s story, too, gradually faded from my memory as my new life unfolded, until it was completely forgotten. My life became just like that of many protagonists in novels—typical, but not special.

After growing up and going through several professions, I eventually became an ordinary antique dealer. In Shanghai, I made a living by acquiring and appraising antiques for some private entrepreneurs. Life was uneventful, but fairly comfortable.

What I studied in college and the job I was assigned to was electrical engineering—designing the national power grid and power plants—which had nothing to do with my current profession. The reason I entered the so-called niche business of antiques was because of my ex-wife.

My ex-wife was of mixed Tibetan and Han descent. My Father-in-law was Tibetan. My wife received two kinds of education from a young age and had an excellent gift for languages. After growing up, she worked as a Tibetan translator in a government agency. Father-in-law was in the antique business and was quite skilled at it. I flattered him all the time and gradually became interested in these things myself.

Once someone comes into contact with antiques, it’s hard not to be drawn in by their high value, high risk, and high returns. So in my spare time at work, I started dabbling in some small antique deals.

But things didn’t go as I wished. In the second year of our marriage, my ex-wife went with a leadership team to survey the China-Mongolia border. We lived apart for three years. I waited for her for three years, but in the end, she didn’t come back. I heard she got involved with one of the leaders over there. The year before last, she sent me a divorce notice, and I never heard from her again.

Later, my company restructured. For a few months, because of emotional issues, I skipped work and drank heavily, ignoring everything, and got kicked down to a lower position.

I thought about it—everyone there was my apprentice. If I went down to manage them, could I possibly have a good time? So I decided to go into business for myself. At that time, business was tough, and I lost quite a bit. In the end, I figured it was better to deal with what I knew, so I entered the antique trade.

My skills in appraising antiques were partly inherited from my ancestors and partly taught by my Father-in-law—just enough to get by. Before the Liberation, my family was a famous Shanxi merchant family, running a pawnshop. But during the “Great Revolution,” several of my elders suffered terribly. My The Old Gentleman was disheartened and didn’t want me to continue in this line, so he sent me to college. But in the end, I couldn’t escape this fate.

So sometimes, you really have to have a sense of awe toward fate.

The whole thing started in July 1997 at the Nangong Antique Market in Taiyuan.

By then, Nangong had already grown quite large, packed with people, with hundreds of stalls and a dazzling array of porcelain, bronzes, and wooden artifacts filling the view.

The weather was stiflingly hot. I squeezed through the crowd alone, feeling thoroughly out of sorts.

I had already been in Shanxi for over a month, wandering around Nangong every day. I didn’t know what was going on, but nothing was going my way—not even a single item worth a second look.

The business I did was called “antique arbitrage.” The market was in Shanghai, but I spent two months a year in Shanxi. Sometimes I’d go to the countryside to collect antiques, sometimes I’d just tinker around in the market, making a living with my eye for things.

Shanxi is a gathering place of Chinese culture. For underground relics, look to Shaanxi; for above-ground relics, look to Shanxi. Back then, the bosses who ran the Shanxi banks had connections all over the world and were as rich as nations. Large quantities of antiques from all over gathered in Shanxi, making it the center of the antique trade. After a decade of turmoil, most antiques ended up in private hands, so people from all over the country came to Shanxi to hunt for treasures.

So-called “antique arbitrage” means buying antiques in one place and selling them in another to profit from the price difference. In theory, antiques have no practical use—their value depends on the buyer’s personal taste. That’s why our profession is profitable. The price difference between antiques in Shanxi and Shanghai could be more than tenfold.

This time, I came mainly to pick out some bronzes for a client in Shanghai. In recent years, collecting bronzes had become a hot trend, even threatening to surpass traditional porcelain. But after several trips, I hadn’t seen anything that could possibly be genuine—not even a decent fake. Later, I squeezed over to a few stall owners I’d done business with before, handed out a few cigarettes, and chatted for a while before I found out what was going on. It turned out that there was a major crackdown on tomb raiding in Changsha, and for over a month, those “mole” types with good stuff couldn’t get anything out. With no supply, how much could be collected from the local people? Naturally, the market was bleak.

Thinking it over, I already felt a bit hopeless. This market probably wouldn’t recover anytime soon, and I might have to return to Shanghai empty-handed this time.

Pity about this deal—the profit would have been considerable, but now it was all for nothing. That was the least of it; if my reputation suffered, it would be hard to keep my business going in the future.

I wandered through the market, not really looking at anything seriously. Unconsciously, the sun was already moving west. In another thirty minutes, it would be dark. Once it got dark, even if there were good things, I wouldn’t dare look at them, because dusk is when your eyesight is at its worst. At that time, all the fakes come out—too many, too chaotic—and bronze forgeries are extremely convincing. One careless moment, and you could easily be fooled.