Chapter 089 Huakang Ghost Market

The flower and bird market mentioned by Guo Hai is actually the Huakang Market in Tianzhong City. Huakang Market is on the Health Road, that is, near Jingyu Square, not far away. When he arrived at Huakang Market, Chen Ran knew that Huakang Market is also a farmer's market, which is divided into several districts, including vegetable selling areas, fruit areas, and pets. The largest area is the flower and wood sales area.

Now it happens to be a holiday time. Although it is only after eight o'clock in the morning, there are already people coming and going in the market. Trucks with vegetables or flowers constantly enter the market, which has caused the street to be crowded. Chen Ran and Guo Hai can only squeeze through from one side.

In the sales area of flowers and trees, there are indeed two or three antique stores, one selling calligraphy and painting, one selling weapons, and the other is some stone carvings, root carvings, or wood carvings and so on.

In the calligraphy and painting store, Chen Ran also went in to have a look. There are quite a lot of paintings in the store, but most of them are mainly modern paintings. There are few ancient paintings. Even if there are, they are still copied, or completely modern handicrafts. In the antique collection, calligraphy and paintings are undoubtedly the most difficult to preserve. Naturally, it is impossible for the shopkeeper to keep precious ancient paintings like this. Hang it in the store.

I went around Huakang Market twice, but let Chen Ran find the antique area. At a glance, first there was an antique street, followed by a small yard. The yard seemed to be full of antique shops. Compared with the vegetable selling area or the flower and wood area outside, the antique area is much more pedestrians, or even overcrowded, but this is because they came here. It is impossible for Huakang Market to buy vegetables or flowers and trees to come here early in the morning, and the antique area is different. It is normal for those who play antiques to get up early and be greedy in the dark, especially in many places, there is a morning market.

Morning market is a written statement. In the past, it was also known as the ghost market. The ghost market was formed before liberation. It is a general term for the illegal antique trading market. The ghost market sounds horrible. In fact, it is very simple to escape the attack of urban management, industry and commerce, cultural relics bureaus and cultural inspection teams. This illegal antique trading market It only appears in the morning and evening. As soon as the agreed trading time - mostly at dusk or evening, after the law enforcement department got off work, some vendors of unknown origin came out from everywhere. They occupied the open space on both sides of the street, put down sacks or snakeskin bags, and took out some old goods from it to set up stalls on the spot.

This is a traditional ghost market. The current ghost market has not been like this for a long time, but there are still many rules. The start time of the ghost market is not certain. In some places, it starts after 3 a.m. and usually ends at 7 or 8 o'clock, but in some places, it is normal until * o'clock.

Seeing so many people in the antique city, Chen Ran guessed that the Huakang antique market also formed a ghost market, which immediately made him interested. He had never visited the ghost market.

As soon as you enter the antique area, it suddenly became lively, but the lively is only the stalls in the small yard of the antique area. The formal stores such as an antique street passing by entering the small yard are full of doors and there are not many tourists.

In fact, the reason is also very simple. Now there are roughly three kinds of people who go to the antique market early in the morning to visit the ghost market. One is antique dealers and the other is antique collectors. They have tricky eyes and are sure to take action when they should take action. Third, they are antique enthusiasts. They don't buy antiques or chat. They just regard visiting the ghost market as a kind of fun. Fun, as a hobby of life.

As for tourists, it is rare.

There are a lot of stall-style shops on the floor of the small yard in the antique area. Some nearby people also bring tables and so on, some just put a layer of cloth towels and so on, and even put things directly on the ground. Whether it is a jade finished product or something else, it can be said that there are all kinds of things. .

Chen Ran also had no goal. He shuttled with the flow of people. Guo Hai followed Chen Ran to look left and right. Every time he encountered a lively place, he would join in the fun. After Chen Ran told him that he could only see and never take action, he would no longer care about him.

In front of each stall, Chen Ran will stop to observe. The most sold stalls are still jade pendants or bracelets. These jades are deceptive things at first glance. Let alone the sculptors are basically carved out of fake jade. Of course, such things are naturally very cheap. If you make a price, you can pay ten yuan. If you take it, only tourists will buy it.

In addition to jade, the most are ceramics, which are everywhere on rows of stalls.

Chen Ran just strolls around casually. Only when he sees interesting things will he squat in front of the stall, ask and touch them. Ordinary objects and rough objects that can be imitated at a glance. He doesn't even have the mind to touch these things. He only looks at those that look fine, and if he can't tell whether they are true from false with his eyesight, then Detect it with energy aperture, but there are not many such opportunities. Although this ghost market is lively, there are not many real things.

At this moment, Chen Ran was attracted by a booth. In fact, this booth not only attracted him. In addition to him, many people will stop and look when they pass by, but most of them just ask and shake their heads and leave. There are many people who are interested, but very few people really buy it.

This stall sells a very strange thing. Although it is strange, everyone has heard of it, which is a long-lived lock.

The Long Life Lock is a unique ornament of Chinese people. Even overseas, as long as it is in the area where Chinese gather, you can see this kind of ornament. This may be the significance of the collection of the Long Life Lock.

The long-life lock is also called the "name lock". It is a decoration hanging on children's neck in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. According to superstition, as long as this ornament is worn, it is not only for decoration, but also for the purpose of ward off evil and blessing. Therefore, many children have hung this ornament from birth until adulthood.

In China, the custom of wearing a long-life lock is very widespread. In ancient times, from the princes and nobles to the sons of the Li people, they would wear long-life locks after birth. This can be proved by its materials. The selection of long-life lock is very wide. Valuable materials include gold, silver, ivory, jade, coral, tortore, etc. Ordinary copper, iron, and even wood, stone, etc. can be used to make.

On this booth, it is roughly estimated that there are at least two or three hundred long-lived locks, including gold, silver, copper, jade, ivory, wood carvings, stone carvings, coconut skin carvings, etc., which look extremely spectacular.

However, it is obvious that if this thing is placed in the downtown, it will definitely attract the attention of many children and women, but in this antique market, it is still the time of the ghost market. Although it can also attract people, there are not many people who really buy it.

After all, at this time, there are still many people turning around in the ghost market, and the stall owner has collected so many long-lived locks in front of them, which must have studied it. No matter which material is carved, it will not be sold cheaply, and there is no omission to pick up. There are not many people who know how to lock their lives.

Chen Ran is not interested in the long-life lock. He is just interested in the long-live lock of jade carving and ivory carving. Just as he was observing with an ivory carved long-live lock, Guo Hai also ran over. When he saw Chen Ran actually looking at the long-live lock, he couldn't help joking: "Aran, you wouldn't think about it so early. Do you want to buy a long-lived lock pendant for your son?"

Chen Ran ignored him, put down the ivory carving long-life lock in his hand, and picked up another jade carving long-life lock. Long-life lock has been gradually accepted by collectors over the years. With the collection of long-life locks becoming more and more popular, many imitations have appeared in the market.

Chen Ran remembers that in the antique essay diary written by a collector he read, there is such a sentence to distinguish the long-life lock. At present, there is only one way, that is, if you see two identical locks, it must be false, because the previous long-live locks are all handmade, even if they are the same. It is impossible for a craftsman to make two identical lock pieces.

"Aran, if you buy it, choose one for me. I'll take it back to you, Aunt Yun. She will definitely be very happy." Guo Hai squatted down and put his arms around Chen Ran's neck and became interested in the long-lived lock in front of him.

Chen Ran turned around and stared at him and said angrily, "Aunt Yun is so happy that it's time to urge you to find a daughter-in-law!"

Guo Hai immediately went out of his way as soon as he heard it. Isn't he looking for himself to suffer?

Putting the long-life lock in his hand on the stall, Chen Ran stood up and was ready to leave. Just as he was about to leave, the stall owner suddenly stopped him: "Wait... little brother, what's your name?"

Chen Ran was stunned and then nodded. Guo Hai called his name just now, and it is not surprising that the stall owner will know.

"Yes, what's wrong?" Guo Hai also looked at the stall owner strangely.

The stall owner is a middle-aged man about 40 years old. He is thin and weak, with a pair of eyes a little small. He looked at Chen Ran and smiled happily, "Little brother, wait a minute. I have an ivory-carved long-life lock here. Do you think you are interested?"

Chen Ran didn't say anything, but looked at the stall owner, which was also a little strange. What does this ivory life lock have to do with his name? The stall owner seemed to know that he would be interested...

The stall owner smiled and stood up and opened the box in which he was sitting. There were really a lot of things in it. There was a cylinder kettle, a porcelain teacup, and the rest were a pile of old things that looked very simple.

The stall owner searched in this pile of miscellaneous things, turned out a long-life lock from time to time, looked at it, put it into the box, and then found another long-lived lock. The long-lived lock he took out was still carved ivory.

Chen Ran looked at the stall owner's box and there were many small things in addition to the long-lived lock. These small things must have been collected by the stall owner himself at the beginning of the ghost market.

Thinking of this, Chen Ran took a step forward and flew out of an energy aperture to detect it to see if the stall owner had received anything good...

Who knew that the scene of his exploration immediately stunned him!