This possibility is too low. I frowned—could it be that William Carter lied to me? Were these two things not obtained from the same place? But judging by William Carter's appearance, he doesn’t seem like that kind of person.

The main way I judge whether someone is a swindler is by looking at how they do things. If William Carter were a seasoned con artist, he definitely wouldn’t mix up items from two different dynasties and then make up a story, nor would he bother giving me this bronze piece. I believe what he said is probably true. As for what’s really under the Yellow River—whether it’s an ancient tomb or not—I need to think more about that.

I thought of that old professor. His surname is Li, and I heard he’s also in the archaeology field. I figured, if there’s a chance, I could ask him to take a look at this bronze piece and see what’s going on with it. I just don’t know if he’d be willing to consult for me, since he doesn’t seem to think much of us two businessmen.

Young Master saw how obsessed I looked and thought I was crazy about antiques, so he mocked me: “Go on, keep looking. Best if you could eat it.”

“Get out!” I said. “This is called sharpening your knife before chopping wood. You have to keep practicing—know what I mean? Even us junk collectors have to study our trade at all times, or else our eye for things will get worse. The more real stuff you see, the less likely you are to be fooled by fakes.”

Young Master said to stop looking, and asked if I had any plans now that things had come to this point.

I knew he was worried I wouldn’t be able to find William Carter’s house and would just go back, so I said that we’d already spent a lot of time on this trip, and it would be a shame to go back empty-handed. We should definitely look around and see if we could pick up anything.

Only then did Young Master relax. I told him that tomorrow we’d first go check out the Huangsha worksite, follow those three researchers, and try to find William Carter’s address there. If we really couldn’t find it, then we’d go down below. In places like this, there might not be much from the pre-Qin or Han dynasties, but there’s definitely plenty from the Yuan, Ming, and Qing.

Young Master nodded and said he’d follow my lead. We chatted for a while longer, and I taught him some basic knowledge about acquiring antiques.

I figured that after this trip, I’d really have to go into hiding, and wouldn’t see Young Master for at least two or three years. If he really wanted to open an antique shop, with his current skills, he’d lose so much even his grandma wouldn’t recognize him, so I told him everything I knew.

Actually, I don’t have much experience collecting things in the countryside either. Counting my very first time and the time a few years ago with my father-in-law, this is only my third time. But Young Master doesn’t know that.

But collecting antiques is really just like collecting junk—you can’t treat antiques as antiques, you have to treat them as junk. As for techniques, there are only one or two, and they’re already well known. Antique collectors have a habit of “bundling” purchases: I’ll actually buy something worthless, then say I don’t have spare cash, and the owner will say, “Let me give you change.” I’ll refuse and just pick up something else to make up the difference. That’s how it works.

That “extra” might be a broken porcelain bowl for feeding the dog, or an old wooden box, or a clay jar for pickling cabbage. What we really want is that item, but if you try to buy it directly, people will get suspicious—why pay so much for a piece of junk? It must be a treasure.

Farmers are honest, but not stupid. When the time comes, they’ll just refuse to sell, and there’s no way to reason with them. Once, I met a young woman and took a liking to her family’s Eight Immortals table. After talking for ages, I let something slip, and she immediately refused to sell. I admitted my mistake and asked how much she’d sell it for. She said, “One million, not a penny less.” I almost fainted from anger. I just laughed and said, “One million? You should sell it to aliens.”

Later, I went back, and the table was still there, with a tag on it: one million. That family became a real holdout.

There’s another method: buy everything in the house. Go to someone’s home, and for whatever reason, buy all the junk you can, including the thing you actually want. Once, I saw someone use a sneaky trick. He wanted a bowl—Hongwu underglaze red. If you try to buy just that bowl, the owner will know something’s up. If you try to buy all their bowls, they’ll also be suspicious—why buy used bowls? So he brought a dozen or so bowls himself and sold them at the owner’s door for one cent each. The lady of the house saw that and thought it was basically free, so she bought them all and replaced all her old bowls. Then he said, “You don’t need your old bowls anymore, right? I’ll take them out and throw them away for you.” The lady thought he was a real good Samaritan. Who knew her treasure had already been swapped out right under her nose.

So, there’s not much theory to this—it all depends on your wits. As my father-in-law says, it’s about how much “bad water” you have in you. In this respect, if Young Master wants to learn from me, he’s got a long way to go.

We chatted for a while, and it was almost midnight. We were both tired from the journey, so we each went to rest.

Early the next morning, Old Cooper came to wake us up. We didn’t have much luggage, so we carried everything on our backs and set off with him.

The Huangsha factory isn’t on the edge of town, but closer to the mountains, in a place called Longtan. It’s a small village. Old Cooper said the mountain road is a bit far, so we’d need to take a tractor and then walk.