Yue Kiln, Tang Dynasty poetry, and Qianlong Era pieces—a blend of items from different periods—were so incongruous that even an amateur like Huo Sining could see right through them. Yet, they oddly fit the taste of foreign friends.
To aid in sales, export porcelain would often be tagged as antiques. Foreigners, who only had a superficial understanding of Huaxia culture, usually did not investigate whether the items they bought were real or fake, as long as they had the right "flavor".
Therefore, crafts with an ancient charm were very popular in the international market, and they were not concerned about the scripts from different periods that appeared on these crafts.
This kind of practice was most common in Jingdezhen because it had the most export porcelain. So Huo Sining also thought it was no surprise. She took one from the bunch, found that the Heavenly Eye did not detect anything unusual, and decided to put the porcelain bowl back in its place without looking further.
Unexpectedly, at that moment, an anomaly alerted Huo Sining that something was not right.
At the edge of the box holding the porcelain bowls, a red scrape caught Huo Sining’s attention. She reached out to touch it, confirming that the mark was undoubtedly a paint imprint.
This puzzled Huo Sining; if these were export crafts, they should have been clean and untainted by paint when packed. Logically, they should not have come into contact with paint at all.
But how could there be paint stains inside this box?
What was more suspicious was that the red paint wasn’t fully dry—the touch even felt slightly sticky, as if it had just been stained not long ago...
Wait a minute! Red paint!
If she remembered correctly, the bowl she had picked up earlier had the words "Qianlong Period Made" stamped in red on the bottom, and it was underglaze!
A lightbulb went off in Huo Sining’s mind, and she suddenly remembered the enamel she had bought in Dashilan not long ago.
Seven bowls were placed side by side, but among those seven, only two were real enamel.
Vaguely guessing something, Huo Sining’s attention returned to the neatly arranged rows of Yue Kiln porcelain bowls.
As she touched each bowl, indeed, the moment her hand met the inside-most bowl, the Heavenly Eye was activated, and a thick purple aura appeared before her, and she even faintly heard the sounds of chimes and bells.
She took out that bowl along with its saucer, turned it over, and there it was—the bottom of the bowl was stamped with words like "Qianlong Period Made" in red paint, and even the poems on the outer wall seemed to be added on the spot.
Unlike the underglaze painting on the other bowls, the paint on this one was still wet; she could easily peel off a large chunk of paint with a scrape.
This shoddy aging technique was effective nonetheless. With so many pieces in this shipment, a slight oversight could cause customs to miss them, and this bowl was indistinguishable from the others—most people wouldn’t notice its unique aspects.
Because they were in a hurry to transport the items out of the country, they didn’t have time for more sophisticated concealment techniques. However, the smugglers well understood the methods of customs inspections and knew that only a portion would be randomly checked. This bowl, placed inconspicuously among the rest, was unremarkable, so even if done carelessly, they weren’t worried it would be detected.
It seemed these illegal antiques traffickers were quite clever. They not only mixed fake items with real ones but also specifically replicated a batch of counterfeits identical to the originals to achieve deception through mixing the counterfeit with the genuine.
If the appraiser was slightly negligent, they might be fooled by the imitations and even dismiss the genuine items as fakes.
Huo Sining couldn’t help but sneer coldly at the corner of her mouth. If she hadn’t noticed the paint stains on the edge of the box, she might have been fooled by this inferior cover-up as well.
The name Yue Kiln first appeared during the Tang Dynasty. Yue Kiln Celadon is known for its delicate texture and thin body walls. The surface of the porcelain has a glossy sheen and shows a grey or dark grey color. Initially, plain designs predominated, but later, relief and carved decorations became very popular.
The Yue Kiln piece in Huo Sining’s hand had a luscious and smooth glaze; the bowl had no superfluous patterns. The celadon shone with clarity like ice, and it was as radiant and warm as jade. The green color with a hint of blue was especially similar to that of tea green.
Therefore, Huo Sining deduced that this tea bowl was likely from the earliest period of Yue Kiln tea ware from the beginning of the Tang Dynasty.
She believed this bowl to be from the Yue Kiln because, under the Heavenly Eye, the concentration of purple qi was exceptionally intense, much more so than what Huo Sining had seen before in enamel and Opal Glaze, proving the tea bowl’s age to be much older than the Qing Dynasty.
According to the requirements of the previous professors, upon finding a genuine piece, it must be submitted to the mentor for further appraisal, but Huo Sining did not do so.
With the characters of Ma Liwen and Feng Yang, they would certainly want to crush her completely. Given this, this Yue Kiln porcelain bowl became the best counterattack!
Ji Kun had made such a boast in front of so many people, even at the cost of losing face to Ma Liwen; of course, she did not want her senior brother to be humiliated.
Knowing Ji Kun as she did, she knew he would relish the opportunity to suppress Ma Liwen on such an important occasion.
If that were the case, she did not mind showing off this time and making those who were waiting to mock her admit defeat.
Fearing she might encounter the same mistake as with the Yue Kiln porcelain bowl, this time Huo Sining dared not be careless. She carefully inspected each piece of porcelain, making sure there were no more antique bowls in the box before she was finally at ease.
Genuine articles were hard to come by, and there were too many forgeries. Those in the trade of cultural relics were not fools; a box would at most contain a single antique, and some, like the box of jade artifacts inspected by Huo Sining, didn’t even contain a single genuine piece.
By spreading the precious cultural relics across different hiding spots, they avoided drawing the attention of customs officers, making it harder for them to be discovered.
The Yue Kiln piece in Huo Sining’s hand was a product of the Tang Dynasty, and there was an eight or nine out of ten chance that it had come from that ancient tomb. The rest of the items were undoubtedly related to the Princess’s Tomb.
It seemed Gu Xu and the others had indeed bet on the right horse. If they had allowed this car to pass through smoothly, the consequences would have been unthinkable.
On the other side, Li Xuanbing and Feng Yang were making rapid progress; everything had been inspected within three hours. What followed was handing over the findings and reporting to the professors. Both had found a number of items in their respective boxes that were suspected to be antiques and had shared their opinions with the professors.
Huo Sining was in no hurry, dilly-dallying as she repacked the other porcelains, leaving only that bowl outside. Then, she went over to listen to the results achieved by Li Xuanbing and Feng Yang.
The part that Li Xuanbing was responsible for included a box of jade artifacts and a box of the Four Treasures of the Study. Among the jade, several imitation ancient jade axes were found with decorations imitating Shandong Longxu culture animal patterns and Western Zhou pellet swirls, artificially aged in color.
Although they were assumed to be crafts, surprisingly, an authentic ancient jade was found among them. Upon investigation, it was indeed Hetian jade from the Tang Dynasty.
Apart from that ancient jade, Li Xuanbing felt unsure about the other items. The very elderly professor reviewed them and rejected them. In the end, she identified only one genuine piece, which left Li Xuanbing feeling somewhat disappointed.