I haven't come to Nanxun for many years. I wandered in the ancient town again and watched the familiar and unfamiliar buildings. Qi Xiang felt particularly comfortable and had a long-lost sense of intimacy.

After a long time, Qi Xiang woke up and realized his purpose of coming here. He calmed down, accelerated his pace, and soon arrived at a river dock.

On the pier, more than a dozen small boats lined up, preparing to receive tourists. Qi Xiang glanced at him and approached the principle of proximity and went directly to the small boat closest to him.

The ship owner is an uncle in his forties or fifties. He has a look of wind and frost, his arms are very thick, but his smile is very enthusiastic: "Brother, are you going to take a long way to take a waterway, or are you counting the time to charter a boat?"

"Go to Shanlian?" Qi Xiang asked directly.

"Go." The uncle nodded quickly, even happier. Because going to Shanlian is farther away, it is more profitable than simply walking around the town.

The two agreed on the price, and the uncle immediately took the cushion and slowly rowed. The boat left the river bank slowly and walked away lightly along the Bibo River.

Due to the good wind and the smooth water, the boat speed is naturally not slow.

Qi Xiang leaned in the cabin of the small boat, enjoying the scenery on both sides leisurely, very comfortable and leisurely. However, the good times did not last long. When the boat left the ancient town, the ancient style and charm suddenly changed.

On both sides of the river bank are various modern buildings.

The flat cement roads, neat buildings, and endless streams of vehicles all show that inside and outside the town are two completely different worlds.

The air outside the ancient town seemed to be a little more impetuous, and the situation did not improve until the boat arrived in Shanlian.

Shanlian is also a town with small bridges and flowing water and stone-built river banks in the town, showing the charm of the Jiangnan water town.

In ancient times, the people here have been engaged in the ancient traditional handicrafts of making pens for generations. Almost every family has produced pens and everyone knows how to make pens. The craftsmanship is exquisite and famous all over the world.

According to historical records of that year, the finished product of each Hu pen must go through twelve steps such as pen materials, puduns, water basins, knots, sets, inlays of cow horns, selection of pens, and engraving.

Each process has several small processes, and the entire production process has more than 120 processes, so it is said that Mao Ying's skills are the best in the world, and Shanlian is also known as the capital of Hubi.

To this day, the grand occasion of every family making pens has disappeared.

After all, today is different from the past. In ancient times, brushes were the most important writing tool and indispensable. It was a very huge market with unlimited business opportunities, and naturally formed a huge industrial chain that could maintain the livelihood of the people of Shanlian for thousands of years.

But today, brushes are no longer the main writing tool, and have long been replaced by fountain pens, ballpoint pens, and pencils. Without the market, Shanlian's pen making industry is destined to decline and no longer as prosperous as it was back then.

Fortunately, with the continuous development of Chinese experience, modern people have paid more attention to ancient traditional culture. Especially the art of calligraphy, the unique aesthetic interest is inseparable from the assistance of brushes.

The four treasures of the study have been picked up again by everyone to protect and inherit.

In fact, Qi Xiang feels that protecting and inheriting has positive meanings and negative aspects.

The positive thing is that if the craft is protected, it will definitely not easily die, which is a good thing. The problem is that things that are protected seem to have become niche knowledge and are difficult to promote. This seems to be a bad thing and is more negative.

You must know that anything popular among the masses never needs protection.

If someone said he wanted to protect his brush more than a hundred years ago, it would be a joke. But a hundred years later, let alone the brush, some people even worry about whether they should protect their handwriting.

Because with the popularity of mobile phones and computers, modern people's ability to write by hand is getting weaker and weaker, and they often have the problem of forgetting words with their pens. This is a kind of degeneration and worrying.

Text is the foundation of cultural civilization inheritance, and it is also a great irony that you can't even write words.

Influenced by the ancient style of the town, Qi Xiang became worried about the country and the people. In essence, he was also a scholar. He had similar common problems in small intellectuals, who liked to guide the country, take money from migrant workers, and fuck Zhongnanhai's heart.

Qi Xiang laughed at herself, and after paying to get off the boat, she walked towards a street in the town.

The small streets are very lively. On both sides of the street, shops are lined with flags waving in and out in the wind. Some tourists and tourists shuttle in and out between the shops and buy exquisite crafts.

The handicrafts in each store are naturally mostly brushes.

In each store, the shelves and walls are hung with brushes made of different materials of different sizes. Among them are large-sized large rafter pens and small-sized thrush pens.

The length of the pen is different, and the length of the pen is different.

Speaking of which, when you buy a brush, what you value is no longer its practical function.

On the contrary, many people regard brushes as a gift or souvenir. Traveling here, buying a few brushes back, or keeping them as souvenirs, or giving them to relatives and friends are all good choices and very elegant.

Of course, there are also some people who have a longer-term vision and regard high-quality brushes as collectibles.

Qi Xiang is also a former antique dealer and is quite familiar with this phenomenon.

In fact, the collection of brushes is also a project that has gradually emerged in the past decade. Because many years ago, there was a saying in the industry that was called "Old Mo is like treasure", and Old Mo is like grass."

In the industry, no matter in ancient and modern times, everyone cherishes and attaches great importance to the elegant play of the study. However, there is one exception to the stationery, that is, the brush.

As we all know, after using the brush for a long time, the hair on the tip of the brush, which is the so-called blackspot, will gradually become bald. If the brush is bald, it means that this piece is useless.

Generally speaking, it is definitely thrown away directly. A literati with some interest will dig a hole and bury the waste pen, leaving behind a good story about the pen tomb.

However, in recent years, the collection has been very popular. In the era of collecting the whole people, antiques and antiques such as porcelain, calligraphy, painting, jade, etc. cannot satisfy everyone's increasing interest in collecting.

In this case, it is naturally imperative to add some collection items. Some collections that were not valued are gradually rising and rising.

Brushes are one of them. The ancient brushes that were not very valuable were immediately popular.

Over the past decade, Ming and Qing brushes, which were originally worth only a few hundred or thousands, were immediately worth a hundred times the price. In the auction hall, many transaction records have been broken and even sky-high prices of millions have appeared.

A small pen, and it is just made of ordinary bamboo materials, can even sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars with a bald pen tip. This is really unexpected and shocking.

The main reason is that the bamboo pens were regarded as elegance and a symbol of gentlemanship by the world in ancient times, and were generally loved by everyone.

In addition, with the vigorous development of bamboo carving art in Ming and Qing dynasties, bamboo carving brushes have also become an important field of bamboo carving art. Carving patterns such as landscapes, flowers, and women's objects on the circumferential outer walls of the pen tube can fully reflect the talents of bamboo carving masters

Finally, there is another relatively important factor, which is that because bamboo pens are easy to be damaged and not easy to preserve, the bamboo pens that can be passed down to this day are rare.

Bamboo pens that are rare are precious, have cultural connotations and are interesting naturally become the object of collectors' efforts to collect.

As more people pay attention, the prices will definitely rise all the way. Some rare imperial pens from the Ming and Qing courts sold a sky-high price of millions, which is not very abnormal.

Anyway, in Qi Xiang's opinion, he can't afford those brushes that cost millions of dollars, so he doesn't have to worry about them at all...

Qi Xiang was very leisurely. After coming to the streets of the town, she turned around and quickly entered a relatively remote shop.

There were no customers in the store, only a shop in her forties, lying comfortably on a bamboo and rattan rocking chair, blowing a fan in front of her, and dozing off with her eyes closed.

"Ahem!"

Seeing this, Qi Xiang immediately coughed to remind him.

When the store owner heard the movement, he didn't open his eyes and stood up, smiling and said, "Boss, welcome, what are you interested in?"

"Shopkeeper Wu, I haven't seen you for many years, don't you know me anymore?" Qi Xiang smiled, very friendly.

"Huh?" The shopkeeper was stunned for a moment, blinked his eyes, and looked at Qi Xiang intently. At first glance, he felt familiar and hesitated: "You...you are not...oh, Xiao Qi!"

The store owner slapped his legs and said happily: "Xiao Qi, you are Xiao Qi..."

"It's me right." Qi Xiang nodded with a smile: "Shopkeeper Wu, it's rare that you still remember me."

"You have helped me a lot, how could I forget?" The store owner smiled and said, "Didn't you go to Jinling to develop? Now, as soon as you leave, the business in my store suddenly became much deserted."

"Shopkeeper Wu, you are joking." Qi Xiang waved his hand and said, "No one knows that your store is not a store opening business, and no matter how deserted it is, it will not affect your income."

"Haha, that's right..." The shop owner didn't deny it, and then called out: "Xiao Qi, come and sit down. It's rare that you have time to see me. How are you doing in Jinling?"

"It's okay, it's okay." Qi Xiang sat down obediently.

"It's not me that Jinling is a big city, but the pressure is also great." The store owner's expression was very serious: "If you feel uncomfortable living there, just come back and help me..."

"Shopkeeper Wu, I've received your wish." Qi Xiang was a little moved and said with a smile: "One day I'm really at the end of my life, and I'm definitely not polite to you."

"You boy..." The shopkeeper patted Qi Xiang on the shoulder and chuckled: "You won't be so miserable."

"It's hard to say about this kind of thing."

Qi Xiang never said anything and was very skillful in greetings with the store owner.

After chatting for a few words, the store owner asked directly: "Xiao Qi, if you come here this time, is there anything else besides seeing me?"

"Shopkeeper Wu, your eyes are really as bright as a torch." Qi Xiang smiled and explained his purpose...
Chapter completed!