19: Find a buyer

The cover of this copy of "Journey to the West" consisted of a piece of cardboard wrapped in a hand-drawn style sticker, which covered the exterior and folded over the inner edge.

No matter how Ye Su looked at it, he felt that this sticker had been applied later and was not from the same period as the paper inside the book.

"It's probably tucked inside this cardboard."

Ye Su didn't bother wondering what kind of situation the stamp's owner had encountered that would force them to hide it within the cover of this book.

Following the edge of the cover, Ye Su began to pick at the outer sticker, slowly prying open the cardboard underneath.

"Damn, was the quality of things back then always this good?"

He didn't know how long the sticker had been on, but there wasn't even a sign of the adhesive failing; it was as if it had grown onto the cardboard.

Convinced that the stamp was inside, Ye Su didn't dare to be too rough.

He was also worried about whether the stamp could really remain intact under such conditions.

When checking the price of the [british penny black] online in the early hours of the morning, Ye Su had already learned that the price difference between a damaged and a pristine specimen was astronomical.

If he accidentally tore off a corner, twelve thousand would go right down the drain.

"Hmm?"

As he peeled away the cover bit by bit, Ye Su suddenly noticed that the cardboard used for the right cover had been sliced open in the middle.

Prying the cardboard apart under the light, Ye Su saw a stamp housed in a philatelic sleeve, stuck to one side of the cardboard.

"Found it!"

Ye Su tore the cardboard open and sure enough, found a stamp inside featuring the profile portrait of Queen Victoria, with all four edges intact.

He quickly took out his phone to look up [british penny black] stamps that matched this price range. After carefully comparing the information on the stamp, Ye Su confirmed that it was a standard edition [british penny black] from plate 2-11.

According to the prices he found, the value of a mint [british penny black] of this edition generally fluctuated between twelve thousand and fifteen thousand.

For a stamp like the one in his hand, which even had the margin paper perfectly preserved, the price could go up by another twenty or thirty percent!

"Doesn't that mean I could sell it for at least fourteen or fifteen thousand?"

Of course, Ye Su also knew that to get the top price, he would have to find a collector directly.

Clearly, there were no rich guys in Ye Su's social circle willing to spend over ten or twenty thousand just to buy a piece of paper.

If he sold it to those antique shops, the system's suggested selling price of twelve thousand wouldn't be much of an issue.

"Such a tiny piece of paper is worth twelve thousand?"

Not knowing the taboos of stamp collecting, Ye Su didn't dare take the stamp out of its philatelic sleeve. He could only carefully pinch a corner with a tissue and hold it up to his eyes to admire it properly.

"I don't get it."

Ye Su considered himself a bumpkin; no matter how he looked at it, to him, this was just a piece of paper.

If not for the system's reminder, Ye Su wouldn't even have bothered picking it up if it were lying on the side of the road.

As for the [british penny black] (VR) or the "Whole Country is Red" stamps he saw online in the early hours, which easily cost eight figures in RMB, that was completely beyond Ye Su's comprehension.

But it didn't matter if he couldn't understand it; Ye Su only needed to know that the stamp in his hand was indeed worth over ten thousand.

"I'll list it on the platform first and see if I can find a direct buyer to make a few thousand more. If no one asks, I'll just have to head over to Xiguan and see if any antique shops will take it."

After carefully taking a few photos of the stamp and listing it on the second-hand trading platform, clearly stating the information he had found, and filtering out those extreme lowballers, Ye Su put the stamp away.

The cover of "Journey to the West" had been torn beyond recognition. If he used it to keep the stamp, it would look suspicious whenever he pulled it out.

So, Ye Su sandwiched the stamp between his ID card and bank card, then carefully tucked it into a compartment in his wallet.

"Done, time to sleep!"

He had been tossing and turning all night, and it was already past five in the morning; the sky was almost getting bright.

Even a stamp worth over ten thousand couldn't fight off Ye Su's sleepiness at this moment.

Hiding his wallet under his pillow, Ye Su fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

...

"Huh, he's selling something again."

After buying something from him last time, Chen Xinyi had casually followed Ye Su's account.

As it turned out, after waking up today, Chen Xinyi saw that the app had pushed a notification about Ye Su to her.

"What is he selling now? Could it be another gift for some girl that he couldn't give away, so he's reselling it now?"

Over the past few weeks, Chen Xinyi had proactively flirted with Ye Su several times, but whenever it reached a critical moment, Ye Su would start playing dumb, which drove her crazy.

In the past, she was always the one leading others on; she never expected that one day the tables would turn and she'd be the one being led on by a college student!

If one were to say that Chen Xinyi's previous flirting with Ye Su was because she coveted his body and family background, wanting both material and emotional satisfaction.

Then, the reason Chen Xinyi was pestering Ye Su now was more due to her competitive nature.

With no shortage of simps around her, Chen Xinyi clearly couldn't accept the fact that despite being so proactive, she couldn't even win over a college student.

"Hmm? Why is he selling a stamp?"

Watches, bags, necklaces...

Before opening the app, Chen Xinyi had guessed several things Ye Su might be selling, but she never imagined that Ye Su would list a stamp.

"Fifteen thousand? What kind of stamp is that valuable? Could he have been scammed?"

Driven by curiosity, Chen Xinyi searched according to the information Ye Su had posted and discovered that this tiny little stamp was actually worth over ten thousand!

"No way, would someone really spend over ten thousand to buy this kind of thing? With that money, it would be better to buy the latest iPhone."

She complained, but Ye Su's appeal to Chen Xinyi had risen to another level.

"He's still in college, yet he could buy his girlfriend a ten-thousand-yuan watch, and now he can produce a stamp worth over ten thousand; his family background must be incredibly good."

Chen Xinyi naturally assumed that the stamp Ye Su was selling must have been given to him by his family.

Otherwise, how could a little boy toy like him, barely in his twenties, have anything to do with such things.

"He must have listed the stamp on the second-hand platform because he couldn't find a buyer himself."

Chen Xinyi curled her lips: "Then let big sister help you. Let's see how you can refuse big sister this time."

Chen Xinyi took a screenshot of the app interface and sent it to Ye Su.

[Young Master Ye, are you trying to sell this stamp?]

...

After tossing and turning for so long in the middle of the night, even his biological clock for 8 AM classes couldn't wake Ye Su up.

By the time he woke up and saw Chen Xinyi's message, it was already nearly eleven o'clock.

"Hmm? It's this woman again. So, she's not giving up just because she couldn't get a piece, huh?"

Ye Su opened the message and discovered that Chen Xinyi was contacting him to ask about the stamp.

Ye Su wasn't surprised at all that Chen Xinyi could see the stamp he had listed; what puzzled him was why she was asking about it.

"Could she be wanting to buy it to give to some elder, like a sugar daddy or something?"

While thinking this, Ye Su replied to Chen Xinyi with a message.

[You're interested in stamps too? Doesn't look like it.]