Inherit For Three Thousand Years

Xiao Yao didn't expect to see such an exquisite wood carving boutique in such a small shop specializing in wood carvings, and he was slightly excited.

From the perspective of the carving style, this should be a wood-carved Buddha statue from the Jin Dynasty.

Buddhism in the Jin Dynasty was deeply rooted in people's hearts. Between the 10th and 13th centuries, such large-scale painted statues were made for monasteries in northern China. Many monasteries are vast in size, with gorgeous buildings and scattered gardens, just like palaces.

Based on this, the monarchs of the Jin Dynasty gradually accepted Buddhism as the state religion. Under such an atmosphere, the Buddhist temples, tombs, and Buddhist cultural relics of the Jin Dynasty became more colorful. Such a large Buddha statue is vivid and lifelike, with rich colors and golden colors. It is used in front of the murals of the Buddhist niches in the temple. It is accompanied by other gods and arhat statues. It is brilliant and gorgeous.

The woodcarved Buddhist statues in the Jin Dynasty have a profound influence on the style of the Gupta dynasty in India, and they also slightly reflect the traditions of the Hellenistic era. This image is rich and light, like a breeze, natural and elegant, similar to the latter's statues.

The Buddha has a thick body, topless, and slightly curved waist. It is a non-Han-style statue tradition, which should belong to the foreign style introduced from the Silk Road before the Tang Dynasty. Jin Dynasty statues not only use traditional materials, but also develop a unique style. The face is more plump and round, the expression is meticulously described, and the technique is mature and soft. It integrates the essence of the statue art of the 11th to 12th centuries, showing the extremely high development of art and culture at that time level.

The wood carving in front of you is one of the finest works. It is noble and extraordinary, but it is also quiet and warm. It deeply touches the hearts of the viewers. The wood carvings of the Jin Dynasty that have been handed down to the world are rarely seen such fine works.

In addition, large Buddhist statues of the Jin Dynasty have survived. Most of them are collected by museums, and they are rarely seen by the folks. Among the Jin Dynasty Buddhist statues in the collection, most of them are Bodhisattva statues, and Guanyin Bodhisattva is the most common. Buddha statues are very rare, which highlights the preciousness of this wood carving.

Among the museum's collections, the most famous one is the large-scale Song-Jin wood carved eleven-faced Guanyin statue in the Cleveland Museum of Art. The style of this Guanyin statue is very similar to that of the wood carving in front of me, such as the description of the face, the plump and natural lines, and the lips, cheeks, eyebrows and eyebrows are all very similar. The sculpting techniques of the necks and backs of the two bodies are also similar, with subtle undulations to express the muscles and bones, just like they came from the same craftsman and workshop.

These details may not be important to the layman, but they are extremely critical to the insider.

With the comparison of similar collections in the museum, the value of this wood carving will not be underestimated.

Although this wood carving has been around for thousands of years, there are still some slight mineral colors on the Buddha's body, and it is very well preserved, which is even more commendable.

The market price of such a precious Jin Dynasty wood carving should be around 30 million yuan, while the boss's asking price is only 30,000 yuan. Xiao Yao is indeed lucky to be able to pick up such a big leak.

After appraising this woodcarving statue of Jin Dynasty, Xiao Yao's gaze shifted to the other two woodcarvings.

The other two wood sculptures are the statue of Guanyin Bodhisattva and the statue of Da Shizhi Bodhisattva.

The bodhisattva is in a standing posture, slightly in three bends. Raise your chest with one hand, and hold the streamer with the other. The lower body is tied with a pocket, the upper body is bare, wearing a jeweled ring, the arms are tied with streamers, the eyes are hanging down, the hair is high, and there is a statue of Amitabha on the five-leaf crown of Guanyin.

In general, the five-leaf crown is decorated with aquaria. The face is peaceful and quiet, and the face is magnificent and solemn.

Although the Bodhisattva can be made as a single body, most of them are presented in a paired manner to set off a specific Buddha, that is, "one shop with three statues". Therefore, Guanyin and Dashizhi Bodhisattva are generally located on both sides of Amitabha Buddha. In the past, Buddha Shakyamuni’s side servants were Manjushri and Samantabhadra, while the medicine master Buddha was Sunlight and Moonlight Bodhisattvas.

Before the Song Dynasty, most Buddhist statues in my country were carved in stone or bronze. In 845 and early 846 AD, due to the imperial court banning the Buddha, in addition to confiscating the land and property of the temples, the tax reduction and exemption for the Buddhist monks were also drastically reduced, and a large number of monks and nuns were ordered to return to the vulgar. Therefore, since the middle of the ninth century, the power of Chinese Buddhism has been much less than before. In view of the temple’s accumulated wealth and annual income fell sharply, wood has become the best choice for statues since the end of the ninth century, because it is cheaper than bronze and easier to handle than stone carvings. Before the Song Dynasty, although wooden Buddha statues were also made, they have rarely been passed down to this day. Therefore, most of the Chinese wooden Buddha statues that have survived are from the 10th century.

The two statues in front of me, like most of the early Buddhist stone and wood carvings, should be decorated with fresh mineral pigments. Generally speaking, the robe and silk are mostly orange, blue and green, and the beads are mostly gilt. , The skin is pink or white, and the hair is black or occasionally blue.

In fact, many works still have traces of painted and white putty. Putty can not only ensure the smooth surface of wood and stone, but also make the pigment brighter and clearer. Among the early sculptures in our country, the best preserved original paintings are Buddhist sculptures in Mogao Grottoes, but many wooden Buddha statues from the Song, Liao, Jin and Yuan dynasties still have traces of painting The famous Nanhai Guanyin statue in the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, USA is the best proof.

The two statues in front of you are in the same shape as the statues of the Tang Dynasty.

However, the shapes of the two statues are slightly solid and heavy. For example, the neck is short, the head is small in proportion to the body, and the body is long, and the proportions of the legs are particularly slender. From all indications, this pair of gorgeous The statue should be the work of the Northern Song Dynasty even as early as the Five Dynasties.

Furthermore, the square faces of the two Bodhisattvas are completely different from those of most statues in the Tang Dynasty that look like a full moon, and their crowns and silks from the waist to the elbow are also in line with the styles of the 10th to 12th centuries.

These two statues are more complex than the common styles of the Tang Dynasty, but they coincide with the wood carvings of the Northern Song Dynasty. For this point, you can refer to a standing statue of Bodhisattva Bodhisattva in the New York Metropolitan Collection.

The closest example to these two statues is a painted wood sculpture in the neighboring museum in Fujii, Kyoto. The faces of the neighboring statues are similar to those of the two statues in front of them, but their body shape is slightly thicker, the torso is more plump, and the proportions of the legs are not as long as the statues in front of them. The three net-shaped 璎珞 are similar, and the skirt folds hanging down the legs are also the same. In terms of style and overall appearance, the collections of a neighboring museum are very close to the two statues, which means that the three are probably the products of the same workshop or even the same group of craftsmen.

This is very important and directly determines the value of the two statues in front of them.

In addition to the collections of the neighboring museums, as far as Xiao Yao knows, the British Museum in London also has two wooden sculptures of the Five Dynasties Bodhisattva, and their style is similar to the two statues in front of them, which can be regarded as evidence that the two statues in front of them are dated to the Five Dynasties. However, the difference between the two batches of works is that the wooden sculptures in the British Museum lack specific rituals, and the two bodhisattvas have the same posture of arms, that is, the right arm is hanging down, and the left arm is raised to the chest. It seems that there should be multiple bodhisattvas. A combination of multiple statues in one shop, rather than a simple one shop with three statues. Even so, the figure of the Bodhisattva in the British Museum is slightly longer than the two statues in front of him, and his clothes are almost the same as the drapes hanging down his legs.

There are similar examples of the two statues in front of us. In addition to the collections of the neighboring museum and the British Museum, there are also four wood carvings in the Metropolitan Museum of New York. Two of the examples are a pair of Bodhisattva threatened to serve. They were once identified as works of the Tang Dynasty, but have now been corrected to the Northern Song Dynasty wood carvings dating from the 10th to 11th centuries AD. The third example of a similar Metropolitan Collection is a standing Bodhisattva wearing a net-shaped garland, dating from the tenth to eleventh centuries AD, and the style is in the same vein as the two statues in front of you; the fourth example is a statue of Manjushri, dating back to From the end of the tenth century to the beginning of the twelfth century.

Xiao Yao knows very well that these two statues are the works of the Five Dynasties, but the chronology cannot be based on his cognition alone, and there must be examples to explain in order to be convincing.

With the above examples, coupled with the carbon 14 test, the two statues in front of them are dated to the fifth generation, and no one can refute them.

The carvings of these two statues are extremely exquisite and well-preserved. Coupled with the scarcity of existing statues, the market price of these two statues should be around 70 million yuan.

Coupled with the Buddha statue from the Jin Dynasty, the market price of these three wood carvings has exceeded 100 million yuan!

Although there is still a big gap between this gain and Xiao Yao's expectations, the time this morning was not wasted in vain.

The shop owner didn't know the true value of the three statues, so Xiao Yao finally packaged the three statues for 30,000 yuan.

Coming out of this woodcarving shop, Xiao Yao went to a few more shops, but there was no big gain until noon. In the next hour, he only picked up a piece of ancient jade from the Han Dynasty worth more than 3 million yuan.

After a few bites at noon, Xiao Yao gave up the idea of ​​picking things up in the antique market and started to try the second plan.

His second plan is to go to the jade market to gamble on stones.

Xiao Yao had already consulted with someone in advance about the shops where he could bet on stone. He went to the door one by one according to the address he had obtained in advance.

Facts have proved that with his existing plug-in, it is no problem to make a lot of money by betting on stones, but it seems unrealistic to want to increase his wealth by a large margin. At least the jade market in the magic capital is not realistic. Maybe he went to a domestic jade distribution center, or simply went to Myanmar, his idea can be realized.

Although his plug-in is very powerful, there is not much value in the rough jade stone. The lucky thing that a piece of glass can appear when a piece of rough jade stone is cut at will can only appear in literary works.

He went to 5 stores in a row in the afternoon, but he only found 7 pieces of high-value rough jade stones. If all of them are sold, these 7 rough jade stones should be able to bring him more than 60 million yuan in income.

Judging from the practice in the afternoon, it is certainly possible for him to make a small fortune by betting on stones, but if he wants to greatly increase his own fortune, this plan is also undesirable.

Unless he has a chance to go to Tengchong or Myanmar in the future, his plug-in may bring him a lot of wealth and achieve his too ambitious and idealistic goals.

But that was a plan for the future after all. During the time in the magic city, the plan to increase one's fortune by betting on stones was obviously not feasible.

The first two plans are too far apart from his imagination, and he can only put his hope on the third plan now.

Xiao Yao asked Tian Ye to collect information about the rental of old houses. He was going to take the time to go around these old houses for rent.

Old houses are rarely sold, but many are rented out.

After making an appointment with the real estate agent to see the house in the morning, Xiao Yao took Tian Ye to the agreed place.

What he is going to see soon is a garden house on Wuyuan Road, with a construction area of ​​about 500 square meters and a monthly rent of 120,000. It is said that there is a garden of 200 square meters and two fixed parking spaces.

Of course these are not the main ones. There is only one piece of information that really made him interested in this garden house, that is, this garden house was built in 1938.

There are still many old houses in the magic city. Some of the owners of these old houses were business tycoons during the Republic of China, and some were celebrities from all walks of life. During the period of the Republic of China, there were frequent wars and no permanent homes. During the period before the founding of the People's Republic of China, the owner of each old house did not know how many times it changed.

Because of the war, it is inevitable that a small number of properties that are not easy to carry are stored in a small number of old houses. Generally speaking, the original owner will take all these properties after life is stable. But if the original owner had an accident, those hidden belongings would become unowned.

In the next few decades, some of the less tightly stored ones must have been found by the later owners of the old houses. But there is always a part of it that is tightly hidden, and it is very likely that it is still hidden somewhere and has not been discovered.

Xiao Yao's goal is the hidden treasures in the old houses that have not been discovered.

For others, this is simply an act of finding a needle in a haystack, which is simply unrealistic. But for Xiao Yao, who has a plug-in, whether there are any hidden treasures in the old bungalows that have not yet been discovered, he only needs to turn around to find out.

If it hadn't been for such an idea suddenly, Xiao Yao really didn't know, it turned out that Modu still had such a place.

The road he is now stepping on is narrow, a road that is rare in the capital without public transportation. It is connected to Changshu Road at one end and Wukang Road at the other end. It takes less than ten minutes to walk from the beginning to the end.

A Urumqi road passes through the middle, and the east is full of city gas, with cigarette and paper shops, rice noodle shops, and real estate agencies lined up along the street.

Tian Ye introduced that a few years ago there was an open-air vegetable market here, and it is said that you can buy high-end food that is not common in general vegetable markets.

Walking on Wuyuan Road is like walking on an arched green-shaded promenade, and the breath of tranquility and laziness comes to your face. Except for the grocery store at the entrance of the lane, the simple and simple barber shop and other small shops, Wuyuan Road is full of residential buildings. Garden houses, high-rise residential buildings and new-style lanes are mixed with different architectural styles and ages.

However, even the newest house here has a sense of history compared to the ever-changing demons.