Siheyuan (courtyard house): My name is Shazhu!

The next afternoon, after finishing my work as a restaurant owner, I rode my bicycle to the Military Control Commission in Nanluoguxiang to retrieve my old items, which turned out to be another freebie.

Go to the Military Control Commission and find Company Commander Yue. "Comrade He Yuzhu is here. I told you to take two sacks, and you actually took two. I'll have Mosquito give you two more later."

Please take more. Our old items aren't very useful anymore. The military control committee will be dissolved in a few months, and we don't know what will happen to them then. Take as much as you like.

"It's close to home, I can just go there twice."

"That's true. You asked Comrade Mosquito, and I told him to bring four sacks, regardless of the quantity."

"Company Commander Yue, you're busy. I'll go by myself."

After finding Comrade Hao Wen, opening the warehouse door, turning on the lights and flashlights, He Yuzhu saw these 'old objects' again and noticed that there were differences among them.

Before rushing to find the old items, I gave Comrade Mosquito two packs of cigarettes to build a good relationship.

"Comrade He Yuzhu, take your time choosing here. I work next door. Let me know when you've chosen."

"A little more is fine. We always use 'several' in our registrations, not based on actual numbers. This time, Company Commander Yue reported it."

Watching Comrade Mosquito leave, He Yuzhu felt that it was always better to be polite than not polite, and all politeness was politeness. So, Comrade Mosquito also opened the door to convenience.

The warehouse has accumulated quite a few more old items; they've been raiding the place again lately, playing a game of family scraping.

Starting with porcelain, with intermediate appraisal skills, it seems I have some knowledge of old objects. At least more than 30% of the porcelain can be directly eliminated, either because it looks fake or doesn't look right.

There are 63 pieces of porcelain left, enough to fill four sacks. We can still pick more. The porcelain can fill four sacks, and there are still plenty of other items inside and in the gaps between the porcelain pieces.

Next came the calligraphy and paintings. This time, I finally recognized the artists behind many of the works: Huang Gongwang, Wang Meng, and Zhao Mengfu. I didn't expect to see their paintings here.

I'd heard of their paintings in my past life, but never seen them, and I certainly couldn't afford them. Now that they're free, I'm definitely taking them and hanging one in my living room.

It's a bit of a shame there aren't any paintings by Wu Zhen and Ni Zan, but two paintings by Zheng Banqiao from the Qing Dynasty would be fine too.

He accepted the official paintings by Lang Shining, a court painter of the Qing Dynasty, and the paintings by Shi Tao... He Yuzhu didn't have much time to appraise each one, so he kept the ones that caught his eye at first glance. It didn't matter if he made a mistake.

Half an hour later, another fifty-three paintings were collected, completing the search for calligraphy and paintings.

Opening the five large boxes, one finds mostly small items, but two boxes contain smaller pieces, including seven or eight jade ornaments and two Guanyin statues.

Take three pieces from the ornaments. The jade is Hetian jade, and the quality is quite good. Please take the two Guanyin statues, both made of Hetian jade, which are about 40 to 50 centimeters tall.

Holy crap, is this the famous Xuande incense burner? There are twenty-seven in a box. Are they originals or replicas?

Based on his limited expertise in antique appraisal, He Yuzhu selected thirteen Xuande censers, including three-legged incense burners and three-legged incense burners with lion-shaped knobs and animal-ear handles.

Three-legged incense burner: 6.5 cm high, 13 cm in diameter, weighing 916 grams.

Lion-shaped knob, animal-ear handle, three-legged incense burner: 14 cm high, 6.8 cm in diameter at the mouth, and 8 cm in diameter at the feet.

There are only small incense burners here, no large incense burners over 14 centimeters. It's good that there are thirteen kinds of well-made Xuande incense burners. It doesn't matter if they are high-quality imitations of the "Qing Dynasty" three generations, because some people like them.

The basic shape of the Xuande censer of the Ming Dynasty is an open mouth with a square or round lip, a short and thin neck, a flat drum-shaped belly, and three blunt conical solid feet or split hollow feet. Bridge-shaped ears, shaped ears, or animal-shaped ears are placed on the rim. The inscriptions and reign marks are mostly on the bottom of the censer and are similar to the marks on Xuande porcelain.

In addition to copper, precious materials such as gold and silver are also added, so the furnace has a particularly fine texture and is dark purple or blackish brown in color.

Ordinary furnace materials undergo four refining processes, while Xuande furnace materials undergo twelve, resulting in a finer and purer texture, like a baby's skin. Gilded or inlaid with gold leaf, Xuande furnace materials gleam, giving them an extraordinary feel.

There were many snuff bottles and dozens of other antique items. He Yuzhu really didn't know anything about snuff bottles, so he went to pick out jade pendants and other items first. There were quite a few jade pendants, jade bracelets, and various other jade artifacts.

This time, He Yuzhu was selecting jade pieces based on their material, rather than being overly concerned with whether they were 'new' or 'old'. In a short time, he had picked out 116 different types of jade pieces from a box and a half.

Since the main focus is on selecting the material of the jade, the possibility of making a mistake is not high. He Yuzhu is still somewhat confident in judging the quality of the jade.

Turning back to select snuff bottles, it's okay if you don't know much about them; just pick the well-made ones—they're probably, likely, from the imperial court. I haven't specifically studied snuff bottle authentication.

As for the various antiques inside, He Yuzhu didn't take any. He didn't want to handle other people's antiques.

There were also six small bowls inside the box, very exquisite, with incredibly realistic dragon patterns on them. I'll take them. In previous dynasties, the status of someone who dared to use a dragon-shaped bowl was self-evident.

He Yuzhu started packing the sacks. Sure enough, four sacks weren't enough. Two sacks were enough to hold twenty-seven pieces of porcelain, leaving thirty-six pieces unpacked.

The other small items fit perfectly; I'll take them back first and deal with them next time I come back. I told Comrade Mosquito, but he didn't even look at me, just waved and said, "Let's go."

After the first shipment (to a secluded location, placed in the system space), I retrieved two sacks containing twenty-five pieces of porcelain. The rest I simply took away; they didn't need to look at them, which saved me the trouble.

He took less than a hundred more small items, all of which He Yuzhu felt were optional after he had picked them out. Why not take them when there was a good opportunity?

After saying goodbye to the mosquitoes, I went out to pack up the sack and went to work. I still had to pick up He Yushui after get off work.

Having retrieved the old items, the matter with the Japanese is officially over. There's no need to think about it anymore. Now, focus on increasing your cooking experience points. Winter, around the Lunar New Year, is the fastest time to gain experience.

In one week, the fourth senior brother went out to take on jobs nine times, more than once a day, and was basically not at the restaurant at noon.

While his fourth senior brother was making money at breakneck speed, He Yuzhu had another opportunity to increase his experience points.

With He Yuzhu around, Master Qi Tianfu started to 'become lazy'. He didn't have much work to do, so they taught him how to do it and watched him cook.

Three days later, Qi Tianfu found He Yuzhu's cooking increasingly appealing. He noticed that He Yuzhu's cooking was bolder, with more varied flavors and heavier salt, which customers actually enjoyed. Qi Tianfu wanted to learn from He Yuzhu.

What Qi Tianfu didn't know was that He Yuzhu had already discovered this problem: people from Yanjing, or rather northerners, have a stronger palate than southerners.

His master valued using spiciness to make a dish stand out; once the food was spicy, the guests basically didn't care about the saltiness or savory flavor. He Yuzhu, being a native of Beijing, understood their tastes even better.

Reduce the spiciness and increase the salty and umami flavor. The locals of Yanjing (Beijing) generally don't have a high tolerance for spiciness. This is not the era before us, when there are many people from different places and a lot of mobility.

The master's cooking method is still very suitable two thousand years later.

He Yuzhu was very focused on cooking and did not notice his master's unusual reaction. He continued cooking according to his own ideas and did not have time to pay attention to others.