Siheyuan: Game of Red Dust

Chapter 27 Trust Store
Li Weidong and his group walked for a while and arrived at the trust store.

This was Li Weidong's first time at the Trust Store, which was filled with all kinds of second-hand goods. Li Weidong and his team walked around and found the furniture section. Li Weidong looked at each one and found that they were all ordinary furniture. He found a salesperson and asked:

"Hello, comrade. I'd like to buy some furniture made of better materials. Do you have any here?"

The salesperson asked, "What kind of material do you need the furniture made of?"

Li Weidong looked at the ticket seller and whispered, "Do you have any red sandalwood? Huanghuali is also fine. I heard that these two woods are good."

The salesperson must have been used to seeing Li Weidong like this, so he wasn't surprised. He said, "I have a set of rosewood furniture. I heard it belonged to a Qing Dynasty prince. He got it a few years ago, and it's now gathering dust in the warehouse. Do you want it? If so, I'll take you to see it."

"Yes, let's go and take a look. If there is no problem, I will buy it." Li Weidong said quickly.

After listening to this, the salesperson took Li Weidong and others to a warehouse in the backyard of the trust store. The salesperson opened the lock of the warehouse and took Li Weidong in.

When we got close to a set of furniture, the salesperson introduced:

"This is it. This set of furniture includes a Luohan bed, a long table, four chairs, an eight-immortal table, four screens, and a pair of four-door wardrobes.

This long table has a panel that is two meters long, eighty centimeters wide, and twelve centimeters thick. It is made of a single piece of wood with no joints, and has a mortise and tenon structure. It is made of old small-leaf red sandalwood, which is very rare.

Small-leaf red sandalwood grows extremely slowly. A century-old piece of small-leaf red sandalwood only grows ten centimeters. How many years would this panel take to grow? Furthermore, there's a saying in the antiques industry: "Nine out of ten red sandalwood pieces are hollow." Nine out of ten pieces of red sandalwood are hollow. This demonstrates how rare this long table is.

Just for this table, Li Weidong would buy all these things. And this Luohan bed is also a rare fine product. The whole set of furniture is made of small-leaf red sandalwood.

When Li Weidong asked about the price, he found out that the whole set of furniture was 600 yuan. Li Weidong paid the money immediately without saying a word.

The salesperson was clearly impressed by Li Weidong's generosity. He'd worked at the Trust Store for years, and this was the first person to pay without hesitation after asking the price, and it was six hundred yuan at that. He was much better than the other stingy people. How could the salesperson let such a wealthy customer go? After all, he also wanted to make some money to support his family.

The salesperson looked at Li Weidong and said, "We have some good stuff here. I wonder if you're interested."

When Li Weidong heard the salesperson say this, he naturally understood what the salesperson was thinking and said with a smile, "Can you take me to have a look?"

Li Weidong and his group followed the salesperson to another warehouse that was smaller than this one, which was about 100 square meters.

The salesperson opened the door to the warehouse, and a musty smell instantly rushed out. The salesperson fanned the door with his hands and said to Li Weidong, "This warehouse has not been opened for a long time, so there is a bit of a smell."

Li Weidong said nothing and nodded to show his understanding.

Li Weidong stood at the doorway and peered inside. He saw a warehouse filled to the brim. In the middle were a dozen or so wooden boxes, some closed and some open. He also saw several sets of furniture, but judging from the doorway, they couldn't compare to the rosewood furniture.

Led by the salesperson, Li Weidong and his friends walked in.

The salesperson pointed to the items in the warehouse and said, "You can choose whatever you want from here. The price is negotiable."

Hearing him say this, Li Weidong knew that this place was definitely not valued by them, which meant that there was nothing good here. However, adhering to the principle of not returning empty-handed, Li Weidong could only carefully select.

In fact, the people in the trust store had long forgotten the things in this warehouse. In their opinion, the things in it were worthless. If the policy did not allow it, they would have sold them as junk long ago.

While most of the items here were worthless, secretly selling them to junk collectors could still generate some income. Therefore, most of the salespeople at the Trust Store had taken items from there to buy things. The higher-ups knew about this and simply turned a blind eye, considering it a benefit for the employees. The valuable items had already been picked out by the experts, leaving only the worthless items. They didn't believe the experts would make mistakes.

After seeing Li Weidong's generosity, the salesperson on duty today wanted to use this warehouse to make some money from Li Weidong, the sucker.

In his opinion, Li Weidong was just a braggart. How could a young man like him know anything about antiques?

In fact, he guessed correctly. Li Weidong really didn't understand antiques.

But Li Weidong has a plug-in. Is it an antique? Li Weidong can touch it and see if there is any gas that can expand the space. Wouldn’t he know whether it is an antique?

Li Weidong walked around the warehouse. Most of the things there were useless, but he also found a few good things, including a few blue and white porcelain bottles and a mahogany treasure chest.

These blue and white porcelain vases were missed for some unknown reason. Perhaps the experts made a mistake, or perhaps they were covered by something and not seen. In any case, they are now a good thing for Li Weidong.

As for the mahogany treasure cabinet, it is just an ordinary treasure cabinet, but I always feel that there are other things hidden in it.

Li Weidong always felt that there was something wrong with this multi-treasure cabinet, and it was very problematic. This made Li Weidong determined to buy it back and study it carefully. If there was nothing, then he would just treat it as spending money to buy a cabinet. After all, he was not short of money now.

After handing over the items he had selected to the salesperson, the salesperson quoted Lin Fei a price of 55 yuan.

Although the price was very high, Li Weidong did not bargain. He wanted to give the salesperson the impression that he was wealthy so that he would think of him first when he needed something in the future.

Sure enough, when Li Weidong mentioned that he had some good stuff to keep for him in the future, the salesperson happily agreed. Not to mention the rosewood furniture, just the things Lin Fei had just made had earned him nearly a month's salary.

Of the 55 yuan Li Weidong paid, 30 yuan had to be handed over to his superiors, and the remaining 25 yuan was his own. This was their internal rule. Otherwise, in this era of planned economy where everything was state-owned and there was no one to protect them, how could they dare to sell things in the warehouse so unscrupulously.

No matter what their internal regulations are, it has nothing to do with Li Weidong. Li Weidong told him where he lived and asked him to find him when he had something good. If the transaction was completed, he would be paid one to five yuan for each item.

If he is not at home, just tell Liang Ladi in the front yard or Wang Jianjun's family in the back yard.

Faced with Li Weidong's request, the salesperson naturally agreed happily.

Li Weidong asked the salesperson to issue an invoice for him, and then while the invoice was being issued, Li Weidong went outside to find two shop assistants.

By the time the salesperson came back to give him the ticket, all the things had already been loaded onto the car.

After talking with the salesperson for a while, Li Weidong and his group left.

After leaving the trust store, Li Weidong gave the key to his house to Liang Ladi and said to him:

"Sister Liang, take these two masters to the courtyard. Here are the keys to my house. Just ask them to help move in, and I'll go back and clean up. The kids and I are going fishing."

Liang Ladi took the key, nodded, gave some instructions to Damao, Dazhuang and the others, said hello to Li Weidong, and headed towards the courtyard with the two bosses.

After seeing Liang Ladi leave, Li Weidong returned to the Trust Store and bought a second-hand fishing rod. This time, he took Damao and the others to Shichahai.

(End of this chapter)