Riding the wind of rebirth

At the end of the banquet, when everyone came out of the hall, the waitress who had just served everyone with Director Liu in the Jiangsu Hall of Gome appeared at the door again, holding an exquisite gift box in her hand.

Deputy Director Duan took the gift box and handed it to Zhou Zhi: "I just heard from General Manager Yao that Mr. Zhou is also very knowledgeable about our Suzhou embroidery and likes this round fan of Concubine Zhaojun. I am still able to do this, so I will give it to Mr. Zhou to express my gratitude for his strong support for our work. The other three are still in the exhibition room of the provincial department. I will send them to you after I return."

"Thank you so much." Zhou Zhi was not pretentious, knowing that this was the norm nowadays: "I have several more custom-made jade pieces next year, so I'll continue to ask Master Zhu, Master Lu, and Master Zhang for them."

"What kind of jade artifact is it?" Zhu Qinghong was immediately delighted.

"Master Zhu, please continue to make antiques." Zhou Zhi said, "I will customize a sword for Xiao Miao in Longquan, suitable for girls. I want to imitate the white jade accessories you carved last time and make a set of Nanhong. The rest of the antique pieces can be created as you like. I will only give suggestions and will not interfere with your creative ideas."

"Master Lu and Master Zhang, you know I am doing research in Liangshan now. The Yi people have a great hero who created the world, named Zhige Alu. I want to use his image as the subject to create a work."

"Is it a relief or a three-dimensional sculpture?" Lu Man and Zhang Mingyu were both very excited. In fact, the most difficult thing in creation is to find the subject matter. This kind of minority subject matter is also one of the special conditions for selection in the jade carving competition, similar to the extra points in the college entrance examination. If Lu and Zhang can get this extra point, then winning a gold medal will basically not be a problem.

Among the three, only Zhu Qinghong is a true master. His full title is Master of Chinese Arts and Crafts, who was evaluated in 1993. Although Lu and Zhang are also called masters, their real level is arts and crafts researchers, which is half a step away from being masters.

If they can win the Hundred Flowers Award again, both of them will have won the Hundred Flowers Award three times, and twice in a row, which will definitely be beneficial for the subsequent work of selecting masters.

"Three-dimensional carving is too costly." Zhou Zhi decided to bring out two more nationally recognized masters: "Let's do bas-relief carving. I have a piece of 95% Yutian material with a more beautiful shape, about kilograms, with a slight red tint on the surface, but not as red as a date. It's a bit like... a more ruddy skin color."

The 95 Yutian material in the previous life was badly wasted, because the discovery of the ore vein was very close to the expiration date of the discoverer's contract. In order to bring the jade material down the mountain before the end of the contract, the contractor finally used explosives to take the ore down. This resulted in a shortage of large pieces of 95 Yutian material, with broken pieces accounting for the vast majority.

Now that Zhou Zhi took over in this life, he of course could no longer do things this way. With sufficient time and a reliable team, Zhou Zhi's requirement for Xia Mili was "make it as big as possible". In the end, a total of eight tons of ore were mined, mostly large pieces. The largest piece weighed one ton. In a few decades, the value of this piece of material alone would be as high as tens of billions.

However, Zhou Zhi was reluctant to use those large pieces for carving. The better the quality of the material, the more careful the processing had to be. In many cases, once the jade was cut, its value would actually decrease, especially for large pieces, which would not work even with master-level craftsmanship.

There is a rule in the jade carving business, that is, the work and materials must be matched equally. Zhou Zhi felt that being able to give a piece of 95 Yutian material weighing about kilograms to Lu and Zhang for processing was already enough face.

Lu Man and Zhang actually thought so too. "I just don't know what kind of image Zhige Alu has in the legend." "It's not too complicated. Legend has it that he was born from three drops of blood dropped from the sky by a dragon eagle on a girl named Pu Meiliyi. Later, he became a figure similar to Houyi in Han legends. He eliminated many demons and monsters, conquered many poisonous snakes and beasts, tamed thunder and lightning, and used his magic bow and magic arrows to shoot down five of the six suns and seven moons in the sky, leaving only one sun and one moon. From then on, people lived a happy and beautiful life."

"Huh?" Lu Man and Zhang Mingyu had never heard of this story before and found it both novel and interesting.

"When I go back, I will give you the story of Zhige Alu and some images of Zhige Alu that I have created so far as reference." Zhou Zhi smiled and said, "He has many stories and they are all very magical. It is not difficult to make the picture full of novelty."

This is enough to say. With the subject matter and the story, plus top-notch materials and craftsmanship... the smiles on Lu Man and Zhang Mingyu's faces are just like the Farewell My Concubine with fish maw added to the dish.

The next thing to discuss is the issue of keeping the "One Hundred and Eight Dragon Sons" on display. Zhou Zhi understands the rules very well. Just like the customized white jade sculptures, they have been traveled around Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and South Korea, and have not yet returned to Zhou Zhi. Lin Wanqiu kept them to celebrate the opening of Tianxin Silver Shop's branch in the capital, to attract customers to visit, to increase popularity and at the same time to show strength and connections.

As a gold medal winner of the Hundred Flowers Awards, "One Hundred and Eight Dragon Sons" naturally could not escape a similar fate.

But this kind of thing is beneficial to Zhouzhi itself. High-end handicrafts, as well as famous paintings and cultural relics, are displayed at important exhibitions or auctions. They are also recognized by the industry, have an orderly inheritance, come with their own reference prices, and let potential customers know that such things exist in the world.

Therefore, when an auction house produces an auction catalogue, in addition to introducing the artwork, the accompanying text must also specifically state how many important exhibitions the artwork has been through, how many auctions it has participated in, the reference price of each auction, etc., as a necessary means to increase the value of the artwork.

"One Hundred and Eight Dragon Sons" is made of new materials, so it is naturally impossible to have the same opportunities as the previous Hetian jade carvings. However, based on the title of Sugong's new material gold medal work alone, it is inevitable that it will be exhibited in relevant units in Jiangsu and Shu provinces.

As the origin of the raw materials of Nanhong, the autonomous prefecture is bound to participate in the exhibition. However, such city-level exhibitions cannot increase the value of the works.

By this calculation, it will take at least a few months before this work can return to Zhou Zhi's hands.

There are many nouveau riche who only know how to spend money to achieve good results, and it is very difficult to communicate with them. There are also those bigwigs who will hide their works in safes immediately after they are customized, and never show them to anyone. For example, several wealthy people from Hong Kong and Macau that Zhou Zhi knows have such tempers.

Zhou Zhi is also an insider in the industry, and certainly not someone who doesn't understand the business. This can also help him expand his network in this area, so he agreed to Deputy Director Duan's request to stay, which also made everyone feel relieved. (End of this chapter)