Divine Eye Appraisal: Starting with a Lucky Pickup of a Beautiful CEO's Family Heirloom

Wen Zhaoye sat down at the counter and spread out a copy of the communication records left by Qin Fei. The pear wood counter had just been coated with beeswax and had a warm, matte sheen. The paper slipped half an inch off the counter before coming to a stop.

The shop still carries the lingering scent of pine wood from the recent renovations, mixed with the aroma of aged white tea that Sun Bo'an often brews, slowly spreading in the afternoon sunlight.

Beside the stone-cutting table in the corner of the shop, Ma Guoliang was bending down to polish the newly arrived stone-cutting blades. The soft, even sound of sandpaper scraping against the steel made the whole shop even quieter.

His finger hovered over the words "Lin's Cultural Media," stared at them for a few seconds, and then looked up at Sun Bo'an.

Sun Bo'an peeked out from behind the counter. His reading glasses had slipped down to the tip of his nose, but he didn't bother to push them up. His eyes caught sight of the words, and the relaxed expression on his face gradually disappeared.

He took off his reading glasses, rubbed the lenses with the corner of his shirt, and the calluses on his knuckles made a soft, rustling sound as they brushed against the glass. After putting his glasses back on, he turned and bent down to pull a yellowed address book from the bottom of a drawer.

The cover of that notebook was worn white, the edges were curled up like paper that had been crumpled repeatedly, and there was a little dark brown old tea stain on the cover. It was obviously an old item that had been carried around on your person, pressed at the bottom of a drawer, and rummaged through for many years.

"What is this?" Wen Zhaoye asked.

Sun Bo'an didn't speak, but gently placed the address book on the counter and slowly turned the pages with his fingertips.

The page was mostly soaked with tea stains, the edges were brittle, and some of the penmanship had blurred into a light blue, but three lines of text were still clearly visible—the addresses and contact information of the three antique shops under Qian Bohong's name.

Wen Zhaoye picked it up and looked at it once.

The first one is called "Boguzhai," located at No. 35, Zhengjie Street, Antique City, in the provincial capital. The second one is called "Yajixuan," located at No. 42, Laojie Street, in the provincial capital. The third one is called "Zhenbaoge," located on the newly built cultural pedestrian street in the provincial capital.

"Are all three of these stores owned by Qian Bohong?" Wen Zhaoye asked.

"On the surface, it's registered under his cousin Qian Yunlai's name." Sun Bo'an lowered his voice, tapping the three characters "Qian Yunlai" with his finger. "But the actual controller is him. An old friend of mine found this out ten years ago, and since then, that old friend has never appeared in the provincial capital's antique circle again."

Wen Zhaoye sensed the warning in the words but didn't reply. He took the contact list, his gaze falling on the few lines of text. His brow furrowed slightly, and his divine vision activated on its own. The pale golden words, like ink stains soaked in water, slowly rose from the paper.

Boguzhai, Business Registration Number: XXXXX, Legal Representative: Qian Yunlai, Registered Capital: 3 million, Transaction Records in the Past Three Years: 217 Items, Total Amount: 46 million.

Yajixuan, Business Registration Number: XXXXX, Legal Representative: Qian Yunlai, Registered Capital: 2 million, Transaction Records in the Past Three Years: 153 Items, Total Amount: 28 million.

Zhenbaoge, Business Registration Number: XXXXX, Legal Representative: Qian Yunlai, Registered Capital: 5 million, Transaction Records in the Past Three Years: 309 Items, Total Amount: 82 million.

Wen Zhaoye stared at those numbers and silently calculated in his mind that the total revenue of the three stores over three years was more than 150 million.

He took out his phone, opened the memo app, and quickly moved his fingertips across the screen, entering the business registration number, legal representative, and transaction records for the past three years one by one, his movements as swift as counting the numbers on a rough stone.

Sun Bo'an looked at his focused profile, picked up his teacup and took a sip, the tea soup creating tiny ripples in the porcelain cup.

"Qian Bohong has been operating in the provincial capital for twenty years, and his roots are deep. What you have found is just the tip of the iceberg."

Wen Zhaoye didn't look up. He typed out the last message and pressed save.

He put down his phone, closed the contacts, and pushed it back in front of Sun Bo'an. His eyes were bright when he looked up.

"No matter how big the iceberg is, you have to start by breaking the top piece. Once you break one piece, the rest will naturally be revealed."

Sun Bo'an paused for a moment, holding the teacup; the tea foam swirled to the rim of the cup before falling back down.

He looked at Wen Zhaoye, then suddenly chuckled softly, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes smoothing out: "You and your father have the same temper, both of you are stubborn and inflexible."

"You know my father?" Wen Zhaoye sat up a little straighter.

Sun Bo'an shook his head, but his gaze drifted to the old locust tree outside the shop, as if he were thinking of something from a long time ago.

After a few seconds, he looked away and pointed to Wen Zhaoye's phone: "Let's not talk about that now. Take another look at the transaction details of these three stores, and we'll discuss it further if there's anything suspicious."

Wen Zhaoye nodded and looked down to open the record he had just entered.

The pale gold text of the Divine Eye unfolded before his eyes, page by page, as he scanned the transaction records, one by one, over the high-priced items.

The "Ming Dynasty Huanghuali Brush Pot" from Boguzhai was further dissected by Shentong to reveal details: the material is Vietnamese red rosewood, soaked in potassium permanganate, and the edges were sanded to create an aged look. The grain was deliberately imitated from Hainan Huanghuali, but the pores were coarser and the oiliness was insufficient, costing less than 8,000 yuan. The "Qing Dynasty Qianlong Blue and White Porcelain Vase" priced at 1.2 million yuan at Yajixuan was originally auctioned off in Hong Kong by a Singaporean collector in 2018. This piece is a high-quality replica from Jingdezhen; the bubbles in the glaze are too evenly distributed, and the blue and white color of the base is slightly off. The "Song Dynasty Ding Kiln White Porcelain Bowl" from Zhenbaoge is even more intriguing. The inscription on the bottom is genuinely from the Song Dynasty, but the body is a modern piece pieced together after firing. The joints are filled with a mixture of old porcelain powder and clay, then aged and polished. Under a magnifying glass, the flaws are virtually invisible.

Wen Zhaoye's fingers slid faster and faster across the screen, his brows furrowing more and more deeply. He flipped through over twenty high-priced items in one go, finding twelve problematic; more than half were inferior goods passed off as genuine. This wasn't just an expert being fooled; it was a blatant, systematic sale of counterfeits.

What weighed heavily on his mind was the huanghuali wood pen holder. The buyer, Zhou Demao, was a retired dentist who had collected things all his life. He spent 880,000 yuan to buy it in order to complete a "five-piece set of Ming Dynasty scholar's objects," which meant he had poured half of his life savings into it.

"If this old man knew he brought home a Vietnamese rosewood, he'd probably be so angry his blood pressure would spike," Wen Zhaoye muttered to himself.

Sun Bo'an, who was behind the counter, overheard this and leaned out: "What did you find?"

"Twelve items are problematic." Wen Zhaoye turned his phone towards Sun Bo'an, his fingertip tapping on the items on the screen. "This Ming Dynasty huanghuali brush pot, 880,000, is actually Vietnamese red huanghuali that has been artificially aged; the Qing Dynasty Qianlong blue and white porcelain vase, 1.2 million, is a fake; and the Song Dynasty Ding kiln white porcelain bowl, 650,000, is a pieced-together item, the base is genuine but the body is fake."

Sun Bo'an leaned closer and examined each item one by one, his face gradually darkening as his knuckles tapped softly against the counter. "More than half of the high-priced goods in these three stores have problems," Wen Zhaoye said, looking up at him. "This isn't a misjudgment; they're deliberately running a counterfeit business. Qian Bohong, under the guise of the association's executive director, is secretly engaged in this kind of shady dealing."

Sun Bo'an took off his reading glasses, wiped them, and put them back on, his eyes now filled with a deep, simmering anger. "What are you planning to do? If we expose him now, he'll have plenty of ways to deny it."