[Chapter 410: Treasure Hunting at the Antique Market]
Linton, accompanied by two bodyguards, and Lin Hao, with one attendant, entered the market stall area together -- a group of five. Following Lin Hao's advice, the plan was mainly to browse and soak up the atmosphere rather than make purchases. If they really wanted to buy something, it would be safer to do so in the official shops.
The antique market was indeed vast, bustling with people and overflowing with all kinds of rare and odd items that neither of them had seen before. Fortunately, it was a weekday afternoon -- around 4 p.m. -- which meant the crowd was relatively sparse.
Lin Hao had an interest in calligraphy and paintings. As they walked, whenever they saw stalls featuring such artwork, he would stop to inspect closely. However, each time he shook his head and moved on, clearly disappointed with what he deemed worthless fakes.
With Linton's current abilities, any object could be scanned by his supernatural perception. While determining exact value was tricky, identifying authenticity, material, and even estimating age was something he could pretty much do with certainty. This gave him a huge advantage in treasure hunting, but he would never cheat like that openly. After all, he wasn't planning to buy a bunch of antiques and ship them back to America.
His real goal was to find items helpful for his ability cultivation: objects infused with spiritual energy, special materials, or even mystical artifacts. He trusted that anything ancient and connected to the spiritual world would reveal itself under his scan.
Since they entered the market, Linton had his spiritual awareness fully activated, sweeping over the nearby shops and analyzing every item's material characteristics.
Lin Hao was busy examining paintings while Linton experimented with fine-tuning his perception over the surrounding objects. He quickly realized that while covering the entire market was easy for his abilities, detailed material analysis was another story. His thorough scans could only cover about a 10-meter radius at a time, and identifying each item took time. Doing this for the entire market without spending a month was impossible -- and he didn't have that luxury.
He wondered if there was a faster way.
After several tests, he found an efficient method: since he was searching for spiritual materials related to his cultivation, which were markedly different from ordinary goods, he didn't need to analyze every piece. He only needed to determine whether something held spiritual energy.
Changing his scan focus this way drastically sped up the process. Covering the same 10-meter radius now took just about 10 seconds to complete.
By the time he figured this out, they had already walked through a whole district -- still, neither of them had bought anything.
...
"Director Linton, this place is huge. How about we split up? You can take your time browsing paintings, and I'll wander around to learn some new things," Lin Hao suggested.
"Sounds good," Linton replied. "But I remind you, look more than you buy. You're rich, but don't get ripped off."
"Thanks for the tip. I'm not that easy to fool," Lin Hao assured.
"It's 4:15 now. Let's meet back at the car by 6:30."
---
They parted ways, and without Lin Hao around, Linton picked up his pace, walking briskly past stalls without stopping to look. His bodyguards found this behavior odd -- he didn't look at anything or leave, just walked quickly through the market. But their job was to stay close and protect him, not question what he did.
An hour passed by, and they'd covered nearly two-thirds of the stalls. Linton still hadn't found anything related to his cultivation. While plenty of valuable antiques popped up, none fit his needs.
Just as he was about to finish inspecting the last stalls, a peculiar stone caught his attention.
It belonged to a small miscellaneous goods stand that had a modest collection of stones in different shapes and colors.
One round, teal-colored stone, about the size of a small cereal bowl, had white streaks running across it. When Linton scanned it mentally, he sensed an unusual, faint spiritual energy.
Finally, a find! Excited, he focused more of his spiritual perception on the stone. No doubt -- it held a trace of spiritual energy. Though weak, there was definitely something special about it.
He walked over and picked up the stone, examining it physically. Its surface seemed ordinary, just a regular stone. Whatever spiritual stuff was inside had to be hidden within.
...
"Boss, how much for this stone?" Linton asked the vendor.
The owner's eyes lit up when he saw a foreigner. This could be a goldmine.
Truth was, the stone had been overshadowed by the owner's more colorful and uniquely shaped stones. It wasn't flashy enough, and being a bit large, no one had asked about it in nearly two years since the owner started selling here.
Normally, he'd quickly offload it at a low price -- maybe five times what he paid -- just to clear space and avoid moving it daily. But now, a foreigner was interested, so the vendor launched into a wild sales pitch, hyping the stone as one-of-a-kind, priceless, and basically the best thing since sliced bread. He finally asked for HK$20,000.
The customers around his stall shook their heads in disbelief. What a crook! Charging HK$20,000 for a worthless rock? Their entire inventory probably wasn't worth that much.
Then the surprising part happened.
Linton brushed off the sales talk -- he knew that the stone's real value had nothing to do with its appearance. Without bothering to haggle, he lightly sent a soul-inducing suggestion to the vendor: "Tell me your real price."
"Ten bucks," the vendor replied.
"Ten Hong Kong dollars?"
"Yeah, I got it two years ago for HK$2. It's been sitting here being moved around every day. Ten bucks seems fair to me."
Luckily, after arriving in the U.S., Linton's assistant Meena had converted $10,000 into Hong Kong dollars, and he carried a small amount on him for small purchases. He immediately paid the ten bucks and bought the unremarkable stone.
Only after Linton left did the vendor snap out of his daydream, staring at the HK$10 bill in his hand, feeling like crying. That was supposed to be a mark-up for a foreigner, but when did he become so honest? Worse, the other customers began calling him a swindler, shouting at the unfair HK$20,000 price and haggling mercilessly.
...
With a stone connected to his cultivation safely in hand, Linton's spirits soared. It seemed his visit to the market had paid off.
Unfortunately, his luck ran out. Neither the remaining stalls nor the shops offered anything else of interest.
However, near the end at the jewelry and quartz area, he found some top-quality white quartz carvings -- quartz pendants comparable to what he'd bought two years ago.
Using his soul induction again, the vendor quickly gave a real price: $5,000 each. Realizing he was running low on these particular quartz pendants, he bought all 36 remaining pieces from the shop. Fortunately, the store's POS machine accepted his VISA card, and the $20,000 charge was made smoothly.
After leaving the quartz shop, it was almost 6:30 p.m., so he headed straight to the meeting spot with Lin Hao.
---
When Linton arrived, Lin Hao was already animated, holding a painting scroll -- clearly excited about his find.
Seeing Linton, the assistant contacted the driver.
Lin Hao laughed, "Linton, luck was on my side today -- I snagged a Ming Dynasty calligraphy piece by Zhu Zhishan for just 6,000 yuan. You probably haven't heard of him, but he was a big shot calligrapher from 500 years ago."
Linton scanned the scroll and recognized the material wasn't more than 50 years old at best. Clearly, Lin Hao had been duped with a fake. But seeing his friend's happy expression, he didn't want to burst his bubble and gave a weak congratulations.
"Congrats, that's a great find."
"Thanks! Hey, did you buy anything? Didn't get tricked, I hope?" Lin Hao noticed Linton's bodyguards carrying two shopping bags.
"Just some white quartz pendants to give as gifts. I came all this way, might as well bring back souvenirs."
Linton took a box from the bodyguard and opened it, revealing one of the white quartz pendants. "Help me check if this is genuine."
...
Soon, their car arrived, and they drove back into the city. They treated themselves to dinner.
Declining Lin Hao's invitation for evening nightlife, Linton headed back to his hotel with the day's acquisitions, where a beautiful young woman awaited him.
*****
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