I spent seven years there and got a sentence reduction for good behavior.
On the day I was released, I received a mobile phone and got several calls from陌生 numbers.
They were all from some bosses I had worked with before. They tried their best to persuade me to work with them again. Some offered a monthly salary of 100,000 yuan, and others offered 200,000 yuan a month with a car provided...
Most of these calls came from two places:
Panjiayuan in Beijing and Shenyangdao in Tianjin.
After thinking about it at the time, I turned them all down.
It was a mistake for me to enter this line of work in the first place. Even though I got rich overnight, I paid the price—seven years of my life. From a fair-skinned young man back then, I've become a pot-bellied uncle in my thirties now.
The girl I knew back then now has a child old enough to run errands...
With no relatives or family, I was all alone. In the end, I chose to go to Dali.
I bought a small storefront by Erhai Lake and opened a little supermarket. When there's no business, I take walks by the lake and enjoy the sea breeze. Life is quite leisurely.
The supermarket is on Cangshan East Road, next to RT-Mart. If any friends want to visit, I'll treat them to tea.
Wasn't the ancient Shu civilization discovered recently, along with the gold mask that caused a sensation across the country? Well, my way of getting rich was actually related to such things.
It all comes down to two words:
Antiques, tomb raiding.
In the past few years, works like *Ghost Blows Out the Light*, *Grave Robbers' Chronicles*, and *Golden Pupil* were huge hits as movies and TV series. Now that I have some free time, I want to write about the things that happen in this line of work.
I've never seen the Cloud Top Palace or the Qinling Sacred Tree, and I don't have golden pupils. But I entered the antique trade at 16, and I've indeed witnessed many things that ordinary people can't comprehend.
Let me start from the beginning.
I was born in a small mountain village in Northeast China, right next to Mohe. The winters there are so cold they can freeze a person to death.
My grandma raised me. I never knew my parents, and I never bothered to ask their names.
As the old saying goes, there's a special bond between grandparents and grandchildren. I was extremely naughty as a kid—didn't listen to my teachers, had terrible grades, and was always at the bottom of the class.
Back then, the village got us a subsistence allowance, about 80-odd yuan a month, plus some kind of orphan hardship subsidy, over 100 yuan a month. It's no exaggeration to say we struggled to get by.
In junior high, CCTV aired treasure-hunting shows every day, and I was completely hooked. Those people would have ordinary-looking vases and jars that they didn't care about, but then experts would say they were antiques worth tens of thousands—enough to buy a house or a car!
I kept lying to my grandma, saying the school required me to buy study materials. When she gave me money, I'd run to the bookstore and spend it all on books about antiques.
I remember the first book I read was *Fifty Rare Ancient Coins*, published by Mr. Dai—a thick volume.
"Ancient coins" are copper coins, called "purple coins" where I'm from. That book opened my eyes, and I became obsessed with antiques.
I rummaged through everything in our house and even tricked my classmates. Without checking the inscriptions, I'd offer them 50 cents per coin to steal copper coins from their homes and sell them to me.
I lived frugally, never buying dishes at the school cafeteria. Later, I sold a pile of textbooks for seven yuan. I was such a poor student that the teacher just sighed and said, "This kid is ruined. If he doesn't study hard, he'll end up a blight on society."
I scoffed at his words back then. I was dreaming of getting rich—even if I became a blight, I'd be a wealthy one.
In my third year of junior high, the year before the high school entrance exam, I was 16.
Grandma had an accident while shoveling snow in the yard and accidentally broke her leg. The combined cost of medical and surgical expenses was over three thousand yuan.
At that time, our family's financial situation was so strained that we couldn't even come up with six hundred yuan. I remember it vividly—Grandma lay on the kang, covered with a thick quilt, and would cry at night.
My uncle ran several guesthouses in Mohe, a snowy village, and his business was doing quite well. So I went to his place to borrow money for Grandma's medicine.
Although he didn't say anything to my face, I once overheard him in private calling me a jinx and referring to our family as a hopeless case. He said the money he lent us was as good as lost and even told my aunt to keep her distance from us.
That winter night, I stayed outside alone for three hours. Even though I was bundled up thickly, it was useless against Mohe's temperatures of over thirty degrees below zero.
Young and impulsive, my uncle's words shattered a young boy's self-esteem into pieces.
Clutching the borrowed money, I swore to myself: "I, Xiang Yunfeng, will make something of myself no matter what!"
Later, I dropped out of school. Strictly speaking, I don't even have a junior high school diploma—I'm considered an elementary school graduate.
Out of the three thousand yuan, after covering Grandma's surgery and medicine, 753 yuan remained. I secretly kept this money.
Not only did I collect copper coins, but I also went to neighboring villages to buy porcelain and silver dollars from people.
Most villagers only believed silver dollars were valuable. When it came to porcelain like vases, bowls, and plates, they largely didn't understand their worth and didn't pay much attention to them.
I spent every day reading books and watching antique appraisal shows, gradually developing a basic eye for valuables.
I bought a pair of late Qing Dynasty foreign-blue porcelain feather dusters for 100 yuan, several Republic of era pastel-painted lady salt cellars for less than 200 yuan, and three mid-Qing Dynasty folk kiln blue-and-white bowls for 180 yuan. Unfortunately, all three bowls had chicken scratch cracks and hadn't been well-preserved, with significant crack lines running through them.
I had saved a small bag of copper coins, about two hundred of them. Most were from the Song and Qing dynasties, with the most common being Daoguang, Guangxu, Qianlong, Huang Song, and Yuanfeng. These coins were abundant in the market, and I knew they weren't worth much. What satisfied me the most were three Yongzheng coins in excellent condition. I knew Yongzheng Tongbao could fetch some money, but at the time, I didn't know exactly how much.After buying all these things, I spent over five hundred yuan in total. I had only 240 yuan left to my name. The average monthly wage back then was just a little over three hundred yuan.I was on good terms with a female classmate at the time, and she did me a favor by lending me two large 30-inch suitcases. There were eleven porcelain pieces and a small bag of copper coins in total. I carefully wrapped them layer after layer with quilts and blankets, afraid they might break, and also stuffed a lot of foam around them. In the end, they filled two large suitcases and a backpack.My grandmother couldn't understand what I was doing. She said I was neglecting my proper work and that she had raised me for nothing. My uncle-in-law found out about it, and soon most people in the village knew as well. Many pointed fingers at me behind my back.Facing disdain and bearing the weight of others' misunderstanding, I left Mohe on the morning of the seventeenth day of the twelfth lunar month, carrying my belongings with me.At the time, I thought people in Beijing were the wealthiest. Since I had collected antiques, it made sense to sell them to Beijingers. Moreover, I had long yearned for Panjiayuan, that place of legend.There was no direct route from Mohe to Beijing. I had to take a train to Siping first, and then transfer from Siping to Beijing West Station. The entire journey was over two thousand kilometers and took more than fifty hours. To save money, I chose the cheapest hard seat.I carried two large suitcases and a heavy backpack on my back. My hair was greasy, and my clothes were shabby. Passengers at the station occasionally pointed at me and whispered among themselves. I had never traveled far from home before. This was my first time on a train, and I was alone.After buying the train ticket, I had less than a hundred yuan left. If I couldn't sell my items, I wouldn't even have enough for a return ticket, let alone food. Meals on the train were expensive, and I didn't dare spend money. I kept refilling my cup with hot water. When I was truly starving, I bought a bag of mahua for four yuan.As a country boy visiting Beijing for the first time, everything seemed new to me. Even the security scanner at the station was a first-time sight. Though I was young, I wasn't afraid of strangers and dared to talk to people. I asked how to get to the Panjiayuan Antique Market. The ticket seller was very kind; she told me to take the subway and even explained how to transfer.From Beijing West Station, I took Line 9 to Liuliqiao, transferred to Line 10, and got off at Panjiayuan Station. Fortunately, I have a good memory and didn't get lost too much. Back then, the subway fare was a flat two yuan, and as long as you didn't exit the station, no one bothered you.After getting off the subway, the sidewalk was paved with anti-slip bumps. Dragging two large suitcases with a heavy backpack on my back was exhausting. After crossing Huawei Bridge, I finally saw the golden horizontal monument standing outside the north gate: "Panjiayuan Secondhand Market.""Finally, I've arrived…"