No. 8 Orphan of the Imperial Capital

  The grandeur of the imperial capital is self-evident. Everywhere is filled with an internationalized metropolitan atmosphere, high-rise buildings stand like towering tombstones, and the busy crowds are like columns of marching ants, neat and orderly but hollow and numb.

  Eileen Chang once said: Life is a beautiful fur coat, but it's full of lice.

  Cities are also living, no matter how magnificent the city is. When night falls, it will always reveal a heartbreaking fatigue. The elderly with hesitant steps, the drunkard with bewildered eyes, and the men and women who are at a loss, all make this city appear vastly different from daytime.

  The village in the city, the stinky ditch under the neon lights and the children playing beside it, make this world-renowned metropolis seem somewhat hypocritical and pretentious.

  Wang Jian leaned against the door of a garage, gazing up at the unclear stars in the sky, eating a steamed bun with pickled vegetables in his hand, and thinking nothing. The dozens of yuan he had brought with him had long been spent, and now all he had of value was the set of carpentry tools he had brought with him, and perhaps the old Nokia mobile phone he had picked up from a trash heap when he was in college, which still worked but looked out of place in this era.

  The private garage behind him is now Wang Jian's home. Inside, there was only a table picked up from the street and a sofa made from a pile of trash that he had transformed into a bed.

  Wang Jian was able to find a place to live, which is also quite legendary, after all, this is a high-end community, even the garage, the monthly rent will not be less than three hundred, looking at Wang Jian's financial situation, unless he sells his kidney, otherwise this less-than-ten-square-meter place is absolutely something he can only aspire to.

  However, Wang Jian was smart and had been here for two days. During these two days, he didn't rush to find a job, but instead searched for rental ads around high-end neighborhoods and visited them one by one. If the landlord showed disgust, he would turn around and leave; if they looked kind, he would continue to communicate.

  Moreover, he didn't even consider the urban villages or those cheap alleys, because the people living there are barely scraping by themselves. On the other hand, it's in these upscale neighborhoods worth hundreds of millions that you'll find the wealthy elite who treat money like dirt.

  Wang Jian's goal is clear, those empty nest elderly people, they may not care about money, but more of a spiritual accompaniment, and Wang Jian is not prepared to rely on rent, just want to let them commute for a few months.

  After twenty-seven encounters, Wang Jian finally met a retired professor who was enjoying his national allowance as a high-ranking intellectual. He agreed to let Wang Jian pay the rent in installments, but required that Wang Jian accompany him to play chess when he had time and occasionally read aloud to him.

  Wang Jian naturally agreed. As for talking about books, Wang Jian was not afraid at all. Anyway, the old man only cared about whether someone would talk to him, and didn't care what they said.

  "Kid, I've come for revenge!"

  Just as Wang Jian's eyes were getting blurry and he was about to fall asleep, the landlord appeared in front of him with his chessboard and two small stools, a fierce look on his face, like "I won't rest until I've beaten you to death", but looking just like a mischievous kid.

  "Stop messing around, you'll lose again and your sons and daughters will have to give me their houses and cars."

  "No way! Hurry up! I don't believe it, I can even beat a little runt like you who hasn't even grown out his hair yet!"

  "Old man, if you lose, just admit it and don't scold others."

  Although that's what he said, Wang Jian still smiled and assumed a fighting stance, rolling up his sleeves. After taking the small bench, Wang Jian beckoned to the old man with his finger. The old man naturally handed over a bottle of Coke from his pocket, along with a small bag of fried peanuts.

  "I'm telling you, if I don't win against you today, I'll be living a dog's life for the rest of my life."

  "Don't talk so big, you stinky chess basket, and you still beat me, what a joke."

  As they spoke, the chess pieces had already started to fall. Although the old man was almost eighty years old, he was still very spirited and was known as the Chess King of the neighborhood. None of the elderly men and women in the entire neighborhood could beat him, but today he was defeated by Wang Jian, that little rascal, and lost face in front of several other old men. He felt like something was stuck in his chest, so after dinner, despite his boss's dissuasion, he insisted on going to play three hundred rounds with Wang Jian...

  About half an hour passed, and the old man suddenly slammed the chess pieces to the ground, took a mouthful of beer with a huff: "This can't be played like this!"

  Wang Jian shook his head and swished his tail, humming a little tune: "I've already given you half of the empire."

  The old man's complexion was extremely poor, with an unyielding look, just like a kindergarten big class king who had lost a fight, anyway, no matter how you looked at him, it was completely inconsistent with his age.

  However, the old man soon recovered and smiled as he pulled out a deck of poker cards from his pocket. Wang Jian's eyes also became sinister.

  "Let's try something different."

  Half an hour later... the old man overturned the table, and thoroughly discovered that playing these things with Wang Jian was simply a kind of self-abuse, losing seventeen games in a row, ten of which were miserable defeats, not even getting out one card.

  "I told you, if you're betting money, even your house is mine."

  Wang Jian had a smug smile on his face, leaning against the wall with a grin, drinking cola and eating peanuts, feeling extremely radiant. After waiting for about ten minutes, the old man's temper subsided, and Wang Jian slowly put away the poker cards, rearranged the chess pieces, and looked at the old man:

  "Are you coming or not?"

  The old man gruffly replied: "Get out of here!"

  But after finishing speaking, the old man raised his head and looked at Wang Jian: "I just saw that you can still do carpentry?"

  "Alright, next time you want to buy some furniture, I'll give you an 80% discount."

  "What kind of job are you planning to find? It's not hard for a skilled worker like you to find a job."

  "Wang Jian thought for a moment: 'Teacher.'"

  The old man spat out a mouthful of beer and gave Wang Jian a strange look: "Passing on the traditional Chinese craftsmanship?"

  "I'm telling you again, I graduated from a normal university major."

  "Well, you're pretty miserable too. What kind of teacher lives in a garage and eats mantou?"

  Wang Jian shrugged indifferently, looked up at the stars and smiled faintly: "It will get better."

  "But you're quite stubborn, I invited you to dinner at my place and you refused. This bun of yours could fly all the way to the Spratly Islands."

  "Bitterly hard to bear."

  The old man's eyes rolled around in a circle, then he slapped his forehead and looked at Wang Jian with sparkling eyes: "Can you fix furniture?"

  "It depends on the extent of the damage."

  "It's just an armchair, left to me by my dad, with a broken leg."

  "What material."

  It was unclear whether it was because the thing was very valuable or something else, but the old man looked around in a circle before leaning into Wang Jian's ear and whispering: "Agarwood."

  Wang Jian's heart skipped a beat as soon as he heard the two words: "Your ancestors were emperors, right?... Treating that thing like a chair?"

  "Kid, I knew you had taste. Come on, come on, follow me."

  The old man was like a kid who had picked up something cheap, not even wanting the chess pieces anymore, pulling Wang Jian and running upstairs, where he looked like a 70 or 80 year old with a frail body, but his legs were very nimble.

  He said as he walked: "If you can really fix it, this job may have a future."

  Wang Jian raised his tone and said "Huh?" What does it mean?

  "I have a younger brother who is now the director of the Education Bureau. When we divided the family property, we each got one chair. At that time, he was being sneaky and gave me the broken one. I didn't blame him for it, but he couldn't get over this hurdle and has been avoiding me all these years. Later, his house caught fire and the chair was burned. I was going to give him mine. As people age, external things become less important."

  Wang Jian was stunned for a long time before slowly saying: "That fire burned at least two thousand ten thousands."

  The old man raised an eyebrow: "You need to add another zero."

  Wang Jian's liver trembled at that time...

  The old man's home is just above Wang Jian's garage, it's a duplex, the old couple lives in nearly two hundred square meters. If converted into money, this location, decoration and area, without at least four or five million, it can't be bought down, and more importantly, the old man seems to be a collector, all kinds of shareholders are placed at home, and with Wang Jian's pricing, although there are not many genuine products, but the few genuine products that are already priceless.

  Finally, the old man took Wang Jian to the attic, lifted a layer of canvas, and revealed the extremely precious agarwood-made armchair below. Wang Jian's eyes lit up at that moment.

  The old carpenter once said that agarwood is absolutely a rare item, whether it's ancient or modern. Not to mention that it's almost extinct now, even in ancient times, only the wealthy and noble families or imperial households could have it. Now, this throne chair Wang Jian has seen, although the pattern on top is just a common cloud dragon pattern, but this dragon is a five-clawed golden dragon, which can only be owned by an emperor. The historical value alone is impressive, not to mention that it's also made of agarwood.

  To know that a string of agarwood beads can sell for at least 400,000!

  "You go ahead and fix it, if you can't fix it, it's okay. I've asked many people already, including a few masters, but none of them could do it. If you can fix it, no matter how much money it costs, it's fine."

  Wang Jian simply hummed and dove into the luxurious chair, carefully studying the texture and material of the broken part.

  Wang Jian found that the wood grain of this agarwood was extremely uniform and had a high density. When he held it in his hand, he could tell that the chair alone weighed at least 100 catties. The carvings and lacquer work on it were also very fine and smooth, with a clear Ming dynasty style. The fragrance was very strong and refreshing. Moreover, unlike ordinary agarwood, this piece did not have many uneven holes. Wang Jian could almost be certain that this was the best piece of agarwood in the world, even if one leg was broken off, its value would still be beyond his imagination.

  However, the more it is like this, the greater the pressure Wang Jian feels, because this material is too heavy and ordinary bonding methods will not work. Moreover, to match this material and texture, a lot of effort is needed.

  So he simply stood up, sighed, re-covered himself with the cloth, and turned his head towards the old man.

  Before he could even speak, the old man hastily asked: "What? Can't be fixed?"

  Wang Jian did not commit: "Too troublesome, no materials now. Come back tomorrow, and I'll let your son buy you tung oil, flour, eggs, as well as gypsum powder and bone powder. The bone powder must be from cow bones and dog bones, the others I will handle."

  The old man listened to Wang Jian's professional words, and his eyes lit up immediately. He repeatedly agreed and even sent Wang Jian a set of bedding when he was about to leave. Wang Jian didn't show any courtesy at all, hugged the quilt and turned around to leave.

  After he left, the old man dialed his son's phone with a trembling hand and repeated Wang Jian's words in a commanding tone, finally instructing him to bring his uncle together tomorrow.

  After Wang Jian went downstairs, the first task was to dig earthworms... At first, he dug alone, but as he dug, many little kids from the neighborhood followed him to dig together. In about an hour, Wang Jian got over a hundred of them, then he put these earthworms in a small bucket and ran back to the old man's house to grab a bottle of strong liquor, and just like that, he soaked the earthworms in it.

  After finishing everything, Wang Jian let out a long sigh, took a bath in the public toilet of the residential area, and lay back comfortably in his small garage, lit a cigarette, waiting for tomorrow to carefully deal with that super treasure that might never appear again.