Treasure hunt begins in England

Chapter 6 Beads and Goldfinger
As soon as he entered this shop, Liang En could feel a familiar feeling rushing over his face.

Because he had been dealing with Pierce's antique shop before, Liang En immediately discovered that the style of the entire antique shop looked similar to Pierce's when he entered here, except that the goods were of a higher grade. few.

Different from what Pierce did in the store before, the owner of this store who looked like an old butler wearing a monocle didn't greet the guests, but just quietly waited behind the counter for the guests. buy.

But that's good, at least for Liang En, he also needs a quiet environment to try his skills now.

In this store, if you want to use the things placed in the glass cabinet, you must ask the owner to help you take them out.The things placed outside are for guests to get started.

However, after touching most of the things placed outside, Liang En found that the cards in his sea of ​​consciousness had not changed in any way.

"Is it because the level of these things is not enough, these things don't belong to me, or the direction I'm looking for is completely wrong?" Liang En frowned when he realized that there had been no movement.

But soon, he planned to change his method and buy one or two of these things to test his idea.

More than 5000 pounds in cash is not a small amount for ordinary people, but it can be spent casually in this kind of place.In order to collect as many different types of samples as possible, he quickly came to the outermost shelf of the store.

Most of the items placed on this shelf are not very good-looking items, and many items are even damaged.

"The goods on the shelf are more suitable for collectors who are just getting started." Seeing Liang En walking around the store and walking to the shelf, the shop owner finally spoke.

"The above are mainly some antiques that are not very good in appearance and relatively low in value on the whole. In addition, there are also some modern handicrafts. Although it is difficult to call them good things, for beginners who learn this Saying that is enough."

It may be because of Liang En's age and the way he kept silent when he was shopping just now, but kept reaching out to touch those antiques that were allowed to be touched.Therefore, the store considers him to be an antique lover who loves to collect but has a relatively tight budget.

"Thank you!" After slightly nodding to express his gratitude to the shopkeeper for taking the initiative to explain, Liang En turned his head and carefully looked at the antiques on the shelves. Soon, he found a string of dusty glass beads. interesting.

After silently memorizing the string of beads, he began to search on the shelf.Half an hour later, Liang En came to the counter to pay the bill with the five items he had chosen, including beads.

“An Athens drachma, £1. A Cambridge University library card from the 107s, £19. A rusty medieval spearhead, £80. A necklace of African-style trade beads. , £20. Congolese ceremonial statue, £15."

After counting the five items, the shopkeeper took out a calculator and pressed it, then raised his head and said.

"These things add up to a total of 862 pounds. It seems that you are buying for the first time and you have bought a lot of things, so 850 pounds is enough for me."

After handing over the money to the shop owner, Liang En left the shop with the items in the attached boxes, and then drove back to the small apartment he rented.

Then there was the experiment, but unfortunately neither silver coins, library cards, spearheads nor Congo ritual statues elicited Goldfinger's reaction.

Soon, it was the turn of the string of glass beads to be tested. The first time Liang En picked up the beads, Liang En focused his attention on the so-called African-style trading beads string that he thought was a bit wrong just now.

Trade beads originally referred to glass beads manufactured in Europe from the 17th to the 19th century and sold to Africa for exchange of gold, ivory and slaves. They were the latest industrial products in Europe at that time.

In many parts of Africa, it is both the most popular ornament and the currency that can be circulated.It is also the glass bead mentioned in many books that Europeans used cheap glass beads to defraud the aborigines of their wealth.

But to be precise, this kind of trade is actually a kind of unequal trade conducted by Europeans by virtue of their technological advantages.It's like the fact that the descendants of those guys in later generations sold chips with the same raw material from sand at sky-high prices.

And that shopkeeper is a veteran who can open a shop in the Alfie Antique Market, so it is natural to be familiar with this kind of relatively common antiques, so he won't admit his mistakes in the general direction.

Considering that although the preservation of this string of necklaces is not bad, there are no more expensive varieties in it.So naturally, he sold it to Liang En at the usual price of 20 pounds for a bead in the market.

"Sure enough, even the most knowledgeable scholar has something he doesn't know, let alone a manager of an antique shop."

Liang En recalled some of the books he read when he was in college, and then raised the magnifying glass to carefully observe a light blue glass bead on the string of glass beads.

This glass bead is very similar to other beads, but if you look carefully, you will find that the upper center circle is inlaid on the lower glass bead, rather than being directly integrally formed like other beads.

"That's right, this should be a Chinese Warring States dragonfly-eye glass bead in good condition." After checking it several times, Liang En confirmed the specific identity of the glass bead.

The reason why this glass necklace made in Africa is special is that the glass beads in the necklace use glass beads from the Warring States Period in the East and the 17th century in Western Europe.

As he made his final judgment on the necklace of African-inspired trade beads he was holding, something happened.After seeing a flash of light that only Liang En himself could see, two black iron-colored cards appeared in his mind.

One of these two cards is a previously existing card [Detection (N)], while the other is a new card, [Identification (N)].

[Appraisal (N): No one can be omniscient, and even the most knowledgeable scholars have things they cannot understand. At this time, you need a little help.

Skill card (one-time), consume this card, you can get the specific information of one thing specified by the card owner. 】

After reading the two new cards, Liang En leaned back in his chair, sighed and smiled.Because through this experiment, he finally figured out part of the rules of his cheating finger.

First of all, this golden finger can only work on things that belong to Liang En himself, because he also touched the necklace before paying for it but there was no response.However, further research is needed for the specific situation in this area.

Second, he must be able to recognize what the thing is.Like this time, it was only after confirming the condition of the bead that Goldfinger reacted.

Again, because the inheritance of this gold finger is called a historical explorer, what can resonate with it are things that have a certain historical significance.And the secular price of these things is not too closely related to their historical significance.

For example, this string of beads can be seen as a microcosm of a vast trading network that spanned the Old World and lasted for thousands of years.That's why it can be recognized by Golden Finger.

In the end, although this gold finger seems to be a product of occultism, what is needed does not necessarily have to be related to occultism.At least the statues used in African religious ceremonies didn't respond to it.

(End of this chapter)