Super Zoo

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In these days, Huiya and the others spent their days frolicking in the hills behind the house, mainly honing their hunting skills. They often brought their catch to Suming. Sometimes it was a small wild rabbit, sometimes half a large field mouse, and even wild fruits.

These things weren't of much use, though they were pretty good for barbecuing, so Suming had been eating game frequently and was starting to get a bit tired of it.

The copper piece before him was dirty and looked like a piece of junk, inedible and unsellable. He had no idea where the pack of dogs had found it.

Suming took the copper piece into the pavilion, turned on the tap to wash off the mud, and under the light, he could see that it was an arc-shaped object, covered in rust with some indistinct patterns on it. It looked like a fragment, possibly a small part of a vessel.

"Did you pick this up from the back hill?" Suming chuckled and asked Wang Cai.

Wang Cai, with his tongue out, nodded his head, and Suming muttered, "It's not an antique, is it?" before casually placing the fragment on a table.

How many antiques could there be in the world, that a few dogs could just stumble upon them? Besides, there are plenty of counterfeits around these days, and even modern furniture often imitates ancient styles. Finding a piece of what looks like ancient bronze in the mountains isn't all that rare.

After playing some online games, he went straight to bed.

Early the next day, just as dawn began to break, he heard scratching noises on the door panels, followed by creaking sounds. Suming rubbed his eyes and got out of bed, opening the pavilion's door.

"I'm going, did you guys move the junkyard over here?"

Suming was startled by the sight. Piled in front of the pavilion's door were mounds of mud-stained broken porcelain bowls and rotten copper vessels, with the wolf dog brothers holding a tattered cloth-like item in their mouths, standing guard in front of this pile of junk, wagging their tails vigorously at Suming.

It was then that Suming felt something was off.

There were no households in the hills behind the house, so where had they found so much rubbish that seemed to be everyday items? On closer inspection, the 'tattered cloth' the wolf dog brothers were holding looked like a piece of clothing.

Suming took the tattered cloth from the mouths of the wolf dog brothers. A putrid smell hit his nose immediately, along with a foul stench. He held his nose, shook it out in the wind a couple of times, and unfolded it to find that it indeed looked like an ancient robe, with strange embroidery patterns on it. However, the garment was severely decayed and its original appearance was indiscernible.

Seeing this item, Suming suddenly became a little unsettled. Luckily, the zoo was not open yet, and there wasn't a soul near the pavilion. He hurriedly moved the broken dishes and pots, along with the tattered clothes, into the pavilion.

If it had been just one or two pieces of porcelain, or a few broken copper pieces, it wouldn't have been surprising. But a pile as big as this was quite abnormal. Especially since they all obviously had been dug out from the ground, which was suspicious!

It should be noted that the hills behind his house were a branch of the Qinling Mountains.

The Qinling Mountains are considered one of the cradles of the Huaxia nation, the "greatest dragon vein." Since ancient times, numerous ancient cities have been established around the Qinling Mountains, with many emperors and generals choosing to locate their tombs within them.

Even if not belonging to emperors and generals, the countless large and small towns built along the mountains meant that there were many ancient tombs in the Qinling, and due to the rugged terrain, most areas have remained untouched and rarely visited by man to this day. So, the appearance of mysterious items would not be unusual.

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Wildman Su Meng was discovered in the Qinling Mountains.

Suming's heart suddenly skipped a beat, fearing that this group of dogs might have desecrated someone's tomb!

At his age, he had seen plenty of novels and movies about tomb robbing and immediately thought of tomb exploration adventures.

However, the act of tomb robbing, as thrilling as it sounds, is actually not as interesting as it is depicted in the novels.

The more he interacted with Zhao Yun, the more Suming understood that so-called 'tomb robbing' was in fact a dangerous and rather dull activity. Not only was there a significant safety risk, but it wasn't as profitable as one might imagine.

Firstly, the majority of tombs were buried underground, and after several hundred years, the accompanying burial items would have been mostly damaged beyond recognition. The appearance of antiques is very important; for example, items from the Ming Xuande period, a complete piece and a damaged or even shattered one, would have a price difference as vast as the heavens and the earth. Take this pile of 'junk' for example, almost entirely in fragments, such quality items wouldn't fetch more than a few pennies, even if they were antiques.

Secondly, tombs of lower status didn't contain many valuable items, and those few high-class tombs, belonging to emperors and high-ranking officials, might contain some quality items, even so-called 'divine national treasures' like the Simuwu Ding or gold-threaded jade clothes.

But such items are priceless; their true value is impossible to estimate. Yet, if you try to sell them surreptitiously, it's hard to find buyers. In the end, you might only get a few million, all the while risking execution. Experience exclusive tales on empire

Those auction-level items like the twelve zodiac animal heads can sell for billions, but they're mostly driven by speculation.

Once, Zhao Yun told him about a group of professional tomb robbers who had unearthed several tombs from the Ming and Qing Dynasty times. The accompanying burial items were relatively abundant, adding up to dozens of pieces, but they only made one or two million at most. Eventually, they were caught and sentenced to over fifteen years each.

Suming, even by simply staying safe and doing nothing, could earn tens of millions a year; it simply wasn't worth it for him to deal with relics for a few millions and risk going against the entire nation and losing his head.

Zhao Yun was the best example. He managed a museum and could easily sell off national treasures if he wanted, but Zhao Yun would never do such a thing. The simple reason was that he could make far more money through legitimate business than through crooked means.

Looking back at the pile of items, Suming was also unclear about what exactly they were. The so-called antiques were just his guess, and they could very well be a bunch of useless modern replicas.

"Let's go, take me to the place where these items were found and let's have a look."

Suming was preparing to follow the wolf-dog brothers to the back mountain when his phone rang. It was Zhao Yun, who said there was some business with the distillery that he wanted to discuss with him and asked if he had time to come over.

After thinking it over, Suming reasoned that if there really was an ancient tomb, he had no experience and going there recklessly would be too dangerous. Moreover, his current prospects were bright, and he had neither the need to rely on selling relics for money nor the desire to commit a crime for a few 'cultural relics.' His greatest wish was merely to go on an adventure for fun if an ancient tomb was indeed discovered.

So he simply took a bag of 'trash' and drove to see Zhao Yun, deciding to leave further actions pending until after the appraisal.

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PS: There's more to come!