Seeing the Wei family elder's change in attitude, Yan Yang and Min Ziqiong's eyes widened in surprise.
Especially Yan Yang.
He understood his friend too well.
Normally, he was curt with everyone, possessing a naturally grumpy face.
There was only one exception.
That was when he saw extremely rare antique calligraphy and paintings!
So, people in the circle teased him, "He's fonder of antiques than his own father."
He felt no shame, but rather pride, even giving himself the nickname "Wei Hua Zi" (Wei the Art Connoisseur).
Meaning, son of antiques and paintings.
Upon seeing the Wei family elder's expression, Yan Yang immediately understood: this old fellow must have seen something good again!
But, what had he seen?
It seemed like there weren't any rare antiques in their villa!
When they were buying it, they had sent him the list to ask for his opinion, and all he said was: "Don't pollute my eyes with this garbage."
Yet now, the Wei family elder was acting uncharacteristically, staring intently at the camera.
Had he taken a fancy to a piece of furniture or ornament in the villa?
Could it be that they had gotten a bargain when they bought it, something that looked worthless on the surface but was actually an extremely rare treasure?
Yan Yang, full of suspicion, looked around.
His gaze moved from the east corner to the west corner, and from the west corner to the north corner...
After scanning the entire living room, he couldn't find anything that looked particularly valuable.
"Well, Elder Yan, actually, it's here..." Min Ziqiong finally couldn't stand it and quietly reminded Yan Yang.
Yan Yang then suddenly realized that he had misunderstood!
What the Wei family elder was staring at intently was not his living room?
It was Ying Chen's hand!
More precisely, it was the palm of Ying Chen's hand! m..oΓg
Inside Ying Chen's outstretched palm, a bead the size of a cherry emitted a soft milky white light.
Within the bead, something seemed to flash, as if light was penetrating it.
"What is this?" Yan Yang asked curiously.
"I don't know."
Of everyone in the room, only Min Ziqiong would give him some face and respond.
Ying Chen and the Wei family elder, no matter how much he chattered, would absolutely not utter a word if they didn't want to.
"It looks like a pearl, but it has a bit more luminescence than a pearl. Could it be a night-shining pearl?"
"But night-shining pearls of this size don't seem to be worth much, do they? It's said that night-shining pearls the size of a dragon's eye have some collector's value. Empress Dowager Cixi had a night-shining pearl in her mouth when she was buried. It was much larger than this..."
Yan Yang muttered to himself, using his limited knowledge of antiques.
As he was speaking enthusiastically, the Wei family elder on the video call finally couldn't hold back.
He glared fiercely at Yan Yang through the screen.
"Shut up if you don't know! Don't spout nonsense and mislead people!"
"What is a night-shining pearl? How can it compare to this?"
"This thing is... is..."
Yan Yang and Min Ziqiong had prepared themselves to listen.
Unexpectedly, the Wei family elder suddenly choked up at this point!
Even he couldn't say what this thing was!
"Old Wei, this won't do! You don't even know the name of this thing, yet you're so sure it's valuable? Look at you, you look like you want to pluck out your eyeballs and put them in front of it, staring at it day and night..."
Yan Yang finally found an opportunity and immediately taunted.
"Hmph! I'm just not sure if this thing is what I think it is. I need to check some references, after all, that thing has only ever existed in textual records, and no surviving works have ever been seen."
The Wei family elder put on his reading glasses and took a thick bound book from the bookshelf behind him.
"I remember it being in the Qin section, but I forget exactly where."
"Wait a moment."
As the Wei family elder spoke, he flipped through the book word by word.
Ying Chen remained silent, as if he had long expected this, and leisurely sat back on the sofa, waiting for the Wei family elder to finish his research.
Time ticked by.
More than an hour passed.
The moon had already risen, hanging high in the night sky.
Yan Yang and Min Ziqiong were getting impatient, and Nannan was already dozing off.
Finally, the Wei family elder found it.
"Found it, found it! It should be it!"
The Wei family elder shouted excitedly.
Then he looked up at the camera again: "Eh? Where's that bead? Take it out quickly. The book describes two wondrous properties of the bead..."
While the Wei family elder was still trying to explain the two wondrous properties of the bead, Ying Chen had already tossed the bead into the air.
As the bead slowly ascended, a ray of moonlight from outside the window shone through it, illuminating its surface.
Then, a miraculous scene occurred.
Within the bead, a bright moon appeared!
It was as if the moon in the night sky had been absorbed into the bead, lifelike and vivid.
And it also emitted a pure moonlight outwards!
At the same time, four small seal script characters slowly materialized in the air.
The seal script characters flowed and shifted, lingering for a long time.
At the end of the four seal script characters, there was a pattern resembling a seal.
There seemed to be characters within the seal as well, eight of them.
This scene couldn't help but stun Yan Yang, who had just claimed it was worth less than a night-shining pearl.
The Wei family elder in the camera stood up excitedly: "Just like this, just like this!"
"Those four characters are—Qin! Zhi! Ming! Yue!"
"Not a single character is wrong, perfectly correct!"
"I never imagined that this Qin Dynasty Moon Tassel Bead, which only existed in textual records, would actually exist in the world!"
"Legend has it that the Moon Tassel Bead was created when Emperor Qin was admiring the moon. He had a sudden whim, wanting to put the moon into a glass bead. So, he ordered his craftsmen to make one immediately. But how could the moon be put into a glass bead? The craftsmen were collectively stumped."
"If they didn't do it, they would die; if they did it, they had no idea how. Just as the craftsmen were worried, a Daoist priest from the palace learned of the matter and helped them. Thus, the Moon Tassel Bead, which showed the wondrous scene of 'a moon within the bead' when exposed to light, was officially born."
"Furthermore, the moon within the bead would project four characters into the sky: Qin Zhi Ming Yue. This means it was made by the Great Qin, a private item of Emperor Qin."
"Although based on these points alone, the Moon Tassel Bead is already priceless, there is one more aspect that makes it even more precious and rare in the present day!"
"That is..."
The Wei family elder spouted saliva, speaking with great enthusiasm.
But he paused at this point.
He was being coy.
Yan Yang immediately became anxious: "Old Wei, continue speaking! It's too unkind to keep people in suspense at a time like this!"
The Wei family elder smiled smugly and instructed Yan Yang: "Zoom the camera in a little, to a point where the seal pattern can be clearly seen."
"The seal?" Hearing these two words, Yan Yang suddenly seemed to recall something, and his entire body was struck by lightning, leaving him frozen in place.
"No way? No way?"
"No one has seen it for so long, it's impossible that we two old guys would see it by such a coincidence?"