Chapter 60: The Treasures Set Up (2)

  The first village that Xiong Wudai took us to was quite large, about 10 kilometers away from Qing Town. As we drove further, we could see rows of wooden buildings with strong ethnic characteristics. When we entered the village, we coincidentally met a tourist group visiting the Miao Village.

  Out of curiosity, Zhao Haifeng asked and found out that the average cost per team member was less than 70 yuan, which made him feel cheated. After telling Qu Wen about it, Qu Wen just scratched his head and smiled foolishly, saying that since they had already given the money to Xiong Wu, they couldn't ask for it back now.

  "Let's see, maybe Fifth Brother can bring us a surprise."

  Soon Xiong Wu proved with action that Qu Wen's money was well spent, and under his introduction, the three of them smoothly entered the ordinary people's homes, rather than just going to a few designated places for tourist groups.

  After searching for half a day, Qu Wen and Zhao Haifeng found many old objects, most of which were silver ornaments worn by the Miao people. Although they were exquisitely crafted, they could only be considered ordinary folk products, with no high market value.

  Moreover, the relatively recent ornaments are not made of pure silver, but contain a lot of copper components, also known as white copper. The large amount of Miao silver that has appeared in recent years is this kind of semi-copper and semi-silver thing. It looks quite white at first glance, but it's not real silver. After using it for a long time, it will fade, and the weight in hand is also lighter than pure silver, so the value is even lower.

  "Brother Five, let's go take a look at the next village."

  After spending half a day in the first village and being unable to find anything that caught their eye, Qu Wen let Xiong Wu lead them to the next village after lunch.

  Xiong Wu looked at Qu Wen with a surprised gaze. The people he had brought before would have stayed in the stockade for two days, enough to make him earn a fortune. But Qu Wen and his three men only took half a day to search the entire stockade, how could he not be amazed?

  "You've finished looking at this, it's too rough and hard to find what you want."

  If it were someone else, they might have to spend a day or two, but for Qu Wen, with his intuition, as long as the house isn't too big, he can tell if there's anything good inside just by walking around casually.

  "It's okay, Fifth Brother, just pretend we're here on a tour."

  Qu Wen didn't say much, and insisted that Xiong Wu lead the way. About an hour later, the four of them arrived at another village. Since it wasn't a tourist area, it was located in a relatively remote place, and compared to the previous village, it was much smaller. When they saw the car coming, a group of Miao children gathered around, following the car on both sides, shouting and running.

  "Brother Wu, can a place like this have good stuff?" Looking at the simple wooden building outside the car window, Qu Wen couldn't help but ask curiously, this doesn't seem like a great place to find treasures.

  "Don't worry, I won't lead you astray. I've heard that these villages have yielded some good finds in the past, so I brought you here to take a look. If you can find something good, it'll be beneficial for me too." Xiong Wu said as he drove, according to their prior agreement, if there was a transaction, he would receive a 1% commission.

  After being out for most of the day, Qu Wen chatted with Xiong Wu along the way and discovered that apart from being greedy and straightforward, he also had some good points. At least he could think for his clients after taking their money, which was a professional quality that many tour guides lacked. They only thought about how to take money out of your pocket, colluding with merchants in tourist areas to cheat tourists.

  Xiong Wu took the three people to a large wooden building, explained their intention to an old man inside using Miao language, and soon many people came with various items of different sizes.

  "I told the clan head that you're here to collect things, so he informed everyone to bring over any old items they think are valuable, so you won't have to go from house to house."

  It seems that there are often people coming to the village to collect things, and as soon as someone mentions it, all the villagers will consciously move out their old household items. This kind of situation is common in places with many ancient artifacts in the north, where villagers occasionally dig up something on their own land, secretly keep it, without any intention of handing it over to the state, only taking it out secretly when a private collector comes.

  The relevant departments of this country have no solution at all. Compared with the so-called protection of cultural relics, crisp banknotes are more tempting.

  After separating the items brought by the villagers with Zhao Haifeng, apart from two pure silver ornaments, a broken copper drum was relatively valuable. There were even people who brought out several decades-old ***, although they could no longer be used, but looked novel.

  "Old Fifth, is that all? Ask the village elder if there's anything else?" The things brought by the villagers seemed to be unsatisfactory to Qu Wen. He had come from afar, not just to collect folk artifacts. Yesterday, he heard from the bookstall owner about the buried treasure of the bandits, but none of it was seen.

  Xiong Wu immediately turned around and said something to the clan leader in Miao language, but Qu Wen couldn't understand a single sentence.

  The bear turned back and said: "The patriarch said that a few days ago, some people came to take away many things. Now only these are left, or you can go door-to-door yourself."

  After a busy day, not even one decent thing was found, let alone the treasure. Zhao Haifeng also looked somewhat disappointed. He glanced at the sky and said to Qu Wen: "Why don't we split up and search separately? Let's meet back at the car when it gets dark."

  Qu Wen nodded in agreement, thinking that this method was not bad. If they could speed up, they wouldn't have to spend the night in the village. The temperature in the mountains was different from the city, with a huge difference between day and night. During the day, you could still wear a single layer of clothing, but at night, you had to add a thick coat. Moreover, the mountain wind was piercingly cold, carrying a hint of chilliness that didn't feel good.

  "Alright, but I don't know what Fifth Brother means?" Qu Wen turned to Xiong Wu, seeking his opinion, because once he found something good, he would want a commission.

  Xiong Wu did not object after hearing this. Since Qu Wen and the others didn't want to spend the night in the village, he didn't need to insist either. He let the tribe leader call someone over to guide Zhao Haifeng, while he himself went with Qu Wen and Du to the other side.

  As soon as the three of them walked out of the tribal elder's house, they saw a Miao man in his forties, about the same height as Xiong Wu, walking towards them. He spoke to Qu Wen in an extremely low voice, saying: "Young brother, my family has some good things, do you want to go take a look?"

  Upon hearing something good, Qu Wen's eyebrows spread out, and she finally heard some good words, several of them. Although she still didn't know what they were, judging from the other person's expression, it shouldn't be too bad; otherwise, there would be no need to make such a mystery of it.

  "Alright, then bother elder brother to lead the way."

  They chatted casually on the road and learned that the other party's surname was Wu. Because his family was poor, he had not married a daughter-in-law until he was over 40 years old. A few days ago, while digging for medicinal herbs in the forest, he accidentally dug up something that looked good. He thought it could be sold for a good price. If it were an antique said by city people, it might even be worth as much as the money for a daughter-in-law.

  Followed Wu Ge for over ten minutes, finally arrived at his home, the old wooden building emitted a faint musty smell, because it only had one floor, and the design was not reasonable, the light inside was not sufficient, except for the door head and window, other places were almost all black.

  Wu Ge took out a few wooden stools he had made himself from inside, letting everyone sit by the door, where the light was sufficient for them to see things clearly. Then he brought out a large bamboo basket from the inner room, covered with thick cotton cloth on top, and smiled: "It's just these few pieces, take a look, if you think they're good, give me a fair price."

  Brothers, tickets are sold out, everyone wants them! It's crazy!