After dinner, Huo Sining held a small bowl containing several pieces of Wan San Cakes bought from the street, eating and strolling along the water with Gu Xu.
Appreciating the night view, chewing on the cakes, Huo Sining stuffed another piece into Gu Xu’s mouth.
This Wan San Cake was originally made by Shen Wansan’s family for his fleet to use as compressed food while trading abroad. Because the cake was fragrant, soft, thin, and melted in the mouth, it gradually became popular.
Wan San Cake is made with walnuts, sesame, peanuts, pine nuts, and other ingredients, nutritious and filling. The most important aspect is that the cake is fragrant, sweet, and delicious; Huo Sining couldn’t stop eating after the first piece. When she finished the cakes in the bowl, she realized a serious problem: she might have overeaten!
Domestic tourist spots are characterized not only by the crowds but also by vendors selling all kinds of souvenirs.
Huo Sining and Gu Xu walked in Zhouzhuang to aid digestion. Along the way, they saw the souvenir shops and mobile hawkers most frequently.
It was fine to see jewelry and various Yiwu goods, but some old shops claimed to be descendants of Shen Wansan, selling arts and crafts while fabricating lies to describe these items as antiques left by Shen Wansan, deceiving people hoping for a lucky break.
After seeing several of these antique shops, Huo Sining couldn’t help but shake her head.
The items here were all modern crafts, not even from the Republic of China era, yet the shop owners brashly claimed they were heirlooms.
Hearing this, Huo Sining found it laughable.
Though Zhouzhuang is famous for Shen Wansan, the descendants of Shen Wansan are not the ones profiting.
The locals living in Zhouzhuang migrated from elsewhere generations ago. Shen Wansan’s descendants faced large-scale massacres during the Ming Dynasty, with only a few escaping.
When Shen Wansan was exiled to Yunnan, he continued trading along the Tea Horse Ancient Road and established his family and influence there. So, the true descendants of the Shen Family likely reside only in Yunnan.
These antique shops use Shen Wansan’s name to exploit tourists for profit. Fortunately, Shen Wansan passed away long ago, or he would surely feel conflicted about people leveraging his name to earn money.
The antique shops do not guarantee authenticity. The trade relies on keen eye judgment; if someone buys a fake at a high price, it’s their fault for lacking skill. These shops thrive because the rules in this circle protect them.
Huo Sining wouldn’t act as the villain, but she wouldn’t be fooled by these items either and definitely wouldn’t spend money on them.
As they strolled, suddenly an old granny staggered out of a shop at the alley entrance, tightly holding a wooden box, nearly colliding with Huo Sining.
With quick reflexes, Huo Sining steadied the granny, preventing her from falling.
"Be careful, Granny!" Old people are valuable these days, and fearing trouble, Huo Sining cautiously stepped back after steadying the granny.
It wasn’t that she was too indifferent, but the world was . In Antique Street, Huo Sining often encountered these fake accident scenarios; some elderly folks clutching fake items, pretending to fall, then targeting the nearest person for compensation.
Huo Sining had seen elderly folks whose acting skills could rival Hollywood actors, so her first thought was this granny was likely staging a scam.
If the granny really fell, she might pinpoint her, and though Huo Sining had money, she wished to avoid such troubles.
At this moment, a man of about thirty or forty years old stepped out of the shop, spat at the granny, and sneered:
"Your trick is worn out. Everyone claims to be Shen Wansan’s descendant. Do you believe that? I’ll tell you outright; your plate is worthless. Better keep it yourself, maybe after a few generations it could become a family heirloom!"
The granny’s face turned red, she exclaimed, "This really was left by my husband. His family guarded Shen Wansan’s house, this is genuinely Shen Family’s. Boss, take another look, it’s real, I’m not lying!"
"Go away, you think I’m that easy to fool?"
The boss’ face darkened further, and he dismissed the granny like a fly, turning back to the shop.
Enduring the forceful rejection, the granny persisted, approaching and pulling the boss’s sleeve, pleading, "Boss, please show mercy. This plate is genuinely antique. My son is urgently in need of money; please have a heart!"
The boss’s face had soured completely. This antique shop wasn’t a charity. If everyone sold sob stories here, he wouldn’t be in business. He promptly drove the granny away.
Her eyes red, desperate, the granny walked past Huo Sining and headed to another shop.
Soon, she was again pushed out by a shop clerk, "We don’t accept your item here, try another shop!"
Huo Sining observed coldly, suspecting the granny might be staging scams with the shops to exploit tourists’ sympathy and their hope of finding treasures. Yet seeing the granny’s desperate look invoked some compassion, impulsively she said, "Granny, can I see your item?"
The granny turned, hesitating at the sight of the young couple.
"Rest assured, I just want to look. If you don’t want to sell, I won’t force you."
Seeing the wary look in the granny’s eyes, Huo Sining suddenly felt her suspicion was wrong; the granny might not be a scammer, because scammers wouldn’t have such a look.
Reflecting on this, Huo Sining’s voice softened, looking gently at the granny.