67: If you still can't understand Chapter 67 after reading it twenty times, then you should have doubts. Do you understand?

Su Huairen slowly withdrew his hand, and Jiang Peiyuan also lowered the arm that had been blocking Su Huairen. The two of them turned their gazes toward Fang Jiye almost simultaneously, their tones reaching a rare consensus.

Jiang Peiyuan spoke first, his tone tinged with a hint of dissatisfaction, "Old Fang, what is this supposed to be?"

Fang Jiye remained unhurried, picked up his teacup and took a sip, his expression calm, "You two are arguing back and forth, wasting time. I'm just seizing the opportunity, what's the problem?"

"Don't you know whether there's a problem or not?"

Jiang Peiyuan glared at Fang Jiye, "You do this every time. Once we've argued enough, you sit yourself right in the middle, letting yourself take all the benefits while we suffer the consequences—"

Su Huairen nodded heavily, "I agree with that."

Fang Jiye set down his teacup, lifted his eyelids, and looked at the two of them calmly, "So, are you saying you don't want Little Hu to examine this tripod first?"

Jiang Peiyuan opened his mouth, momentarily speechless.

Su Huairen picked up his glasses and wiped them twice, also saying nothing more.

Hu Tian stood to the side, watching the three old gentlemen go back and forth. He found it quite amusing, but his face remained impassive as he simply waited quietly.

In the end, it was Su Huairen who first relented. He cleared his throat and said slowly, "Fine, let him look. The object is right there anyway, it's not going anywhere. But Old Fang, your tripod will be last; my item must be examined first."

Jiang Peiyuan immediately looked up, "Why should you go first?"

Su Huairen glanced at him sideways, "Because just now, Little Hu has already appraised the bronze ware and the porcelain, but he hasn't appraised mine yet."

Jiang Peiyuan was so angry he blew his mustache, but unable to find a retort, he held it in for a moment before waving his sleeve and saying, "Fine, you go first, you go first! Whatever!"

The corners of Fang Jiye's mouth tugged upward slightly, but he didn't speak, lowering his head to pick up his teacup again.

Just like that, this silent standoff between the three, with neither side willing to fully concede, finally concluded in a way that could barely be considered peaceful.

Su Huairen took a light brown scroll from the long table beside him, placed it gently on the table, and unfurled it to reveal an ink landscape painting inside.

The painting was not large, on silk, with deep and heavy ink colors. The brushwork for the rocks and mountains was vigorous, and the trees were sparse and well-arranged. In the upper right corner, there was a seal in red, the characters slightly blurred due to the passage of time, though the two characters "Shitian" were faintly discernible.

Su Huairen clasped his hands behind his back and squinted at Hu Tian. His tone was a bit steadier than when he was dealing with the yuhuchun vase, yet it carried an indescribable hesitation, "Little Hu, come take a look at this painting. I've had this piece for quite a while. In theory, everything about it is correct, but there's always one place that makes me feel uneasy, and to this day, I haven't been able to make up my mind. Take a look and tell me your thoughts."

Jiang Peiyuan leaned over to glance at it and let out a huff, "Just this one? Haven't you already looked at it no less than twenty times?"

Su Huairen shot him a glance, "If you've looked at it twenty times and still can't see through it, that's called having doubts, understand?"

Hu Tian stepped forward and leaned over to examine it closely.

The painting was not large; spread out on the table, it was only about three feet square.

Hu Tian leaned in close, his gaze sweeping across the whole piece first.

The moment his gaze landed on it, the Treasure Hunting System had already activated silently.

A thin layer of gray halo covered the surface, neither thick nor light, like an old hue veiled in morning mist, blending with the ink of the painting itself. If he hadn't been accustomed to identifying it, others would never have noticed anything unusual.

Gray.

Hu Tian already knew what to expect.

The system's information slowly unfolded in his mind, clear and detailed: [Item Name: Imitation Landscape Painting by Shen Zhou, Ink on Silk]

[Period: Mid-Republic of China, approximately the 1930s]

[Original Reference: One of the landscape album leaves from Shen Zhou's later years, currently in the hands of a private collector in Suzhou]

[Forgery Method: Uses old silk as a base, treated with a mixture of aged tea water and rust water to create an aged effect. The ink was ground from old ink sticks mixed with a small amount of pine soot to simulate the deep, heavy feel of Shen Zhou's later ink work. The texturing brushwork resembles the original in form but lacks its spirit; the tree layout deliberately imitates the original, but the lifting and pressing of the brush lack genuine power. It is an upper-middle-tier imitation, sufficient to deceive ordinary eyes. The red "Shitian" seal in the upper right corner is a recarving; the ink paste color was artificially aged, and the contour of the seal's edge is slightly blurred, caused by deliberate abrasion.]

[Forger: Shao Henian, a Suzhou native from the Republic of China era, skilled at imitating the ming dynasty Wu School of painting, especially proficient in Shen Zhou and Wen Zhengming. Dozens of his forgeries have entered the market. He disappeared around 1947, and his fate remains unknown.]

[Special Note: In the texturing lines of the rocks in the lower right corner, the forger hid his initials using an extremely fine brush technique. The strokes are blended into the texture of the rocks and can only be discerned by stepping back to view the whole. This was his habitual way of signing, a feature present in all similar forgeries.]

Hu Tian went through this information in his mind, his expression unchanged. He slowly straightened up, casually picked up a magnifying glass from the table, leaned back down, and began to look from the seal in the upper right corner, inch by inch.

Su Huairen stood to the side, hands behind his back, his eyes tense, staring at him without a word.

Jiang Peiyuan had originally stood far away, but now he couldn't help but shift half a step forward.

Fang Jiye set down his teacup and lifted his eyes.

Hu Tian paused at the seal for a moment, the magnifying glass moving slowly over the two characters "Shitian," and then he spoke, his tone steady, "Let's talk about the seal first. This red seal is a recarving. The wear on the edge of the seal wasn't caused by natural use; it was artificially abraded. The marks are too uniform. A seal that has actually been used for hundreds of years should have wear concentrated at the corners, but this one is almost identical on all four sides. The aging technique isn't crude, but it doesn't stand up to close inspection."

Su Huairen's brows twitched slightly, but he didn't speak, just listened quietly.

Hu Tian moved the magnifying glass down, turning to the rock section on the left side of the painting, "Now look at the texturing. In his later years, Master Shitian's brushwork primarily used the centered tip, with a seasoned, blunt feeling in the lifting and pressing, as if the brush hairs were slightly splayed and then gathered, and the edges of the ink would naturally bleed. The texturing in this painting looks like it at first glance, but every stroke is too clean, too restrained. The brush tip is always tight; it lacks that loose, seasoned quality. It is an imitation, not an original creation."

Su Huairen let out a soft breath this time and said in a low voice, "I noticed this too. This is the only place I had doubts."

He paused, "Just these two places?"

Hu Tian did not answer immediately.

He slowly straightened up, stepped back two paces, placed the magnifying glass back on the table, and stood there, looking at the entire painting again from a distance in a nearly casual manner.

The image slowly unfolded in his eyes; the rocks, trees, and negative space, with layers upon layers of texturing lines intertwined to form that scene of mountains with perfectly balanced shades.

Then, in the texturing lines of the rocks in the lower right corner, he saw those few strokes as thin as gossamer.

If one only looked closely, those lines would be nothing more than ordinary texture patterns, blending into the grain of the rocks with no trace to follow.

But stepping back, scanning with an overall perspective, the direction and strength of those lines were subtly different from the surrounding texturing. Put together, they were unmistakably two cursive characters—Henian.

Hu Tian's mouth moved, and he pointed to that spot, his tone still calm, "The third place, in this patch of rocks in the lower right corner, the forger left his name."

As soon as these words were spoken, Su Huairen looked up sharply, a look of genuine astonishment appearing in his eyes for the first time, "What?"

He almost subconsciously took a large step forward, leaned in close, and stared at the spot Hu Tian pointed to, looking repeatedly for several breaths, unable to speak for a moment.

Jiang Peiyuan also leaned in, frowning, "Where? Why can't I see it?"

Fang Jiye set down his teacup, stood up, walked to the table, and looked down for a moment. Remembering that Hu Tian had just stepped back two paces, he suddenly nodded slowly and said in a low voice, "Look from further away."

Jiang Peiyuan stepped back two paces, his gaze falling back onto it, and after looking carefully for a few seconds, he said slowly, "…It really is. Henian!"

Su Huairen straightened up and remained silent for a long time.

The way he looked at Hu Tian was already completely different from before.

There was shock, a bit of disbelief, and a kind of thoughtfulness he himself hadn't realized.

After a long silence, he finally spoke slowly, his voice lower than before, "I looked at it back and forth twenty times, but I never found the seal or the hidden characters in the rocks, these two suspicious places."

He paused, "Little Hu, how did you see it?"

Hu Tian's expression was calm; he just said casually, "Looking from a distance, there were a few lines in the rock textures whose direction wasn't consistent with the overall texturing. When put together, they looked like characters, so I took a closer look."

Su Huairen stared at him in silence. A moment later, he didn't press further, just sighed very lightly and cast his gaze back onto the painting.

He hadn't expected this "Landscape Painting by Shen Zhou" to actually be a forgery. Although he had doubts before, he had thought his judgment was wrong. Now, Hu Tian had found solid evidence to prove it was a forgery.

Director Zhang, who had been standing to the side without making a sound, was now completely stunned in place.

He had seen Old Su appraise countless famous paintings and antiques, and had seen countless so-called appraisal experts come and go like a revolving door in this room, but this was his first time seeing someone like Hu Tian.

Three points, three suspicious points, layer upon layer, each explained with reason and evidence. As for the hidden characters in the rocks at the end, Old Su had looked at it back and forth twenty times and hadn't found them, but Hu Tian just stepped back two paces and pointed it out so casually, pointing with such certainty and without hesitation.

Director Zhang calculated silently in his heart that if it were him looking, he might not even be able to spot the clues in the first seal, let alone those two cursive characters hidden in the rock textures.

He pursed his lips, his gaze falling on Hu Tian and unable to move away.

The two students standing beside Su Huairen were also dumbfounded at this moment.

Qian Siyuan had been under Su Huairen's tutelage for five years and prided himself on having the sharpest eye among his peers. He had also leaned in to look at the painting carefully earlier, but only after his teacher's reminder did he notice that the texturing was slightly too neat. As for the other two points, he hadn't even frowned; he hadn't noticed them at all.

Standing there now, the expression on his face was hard to tell whether it was admiration or embarrassment. The two emotions were mixed together, leaving him unsure of where to look.

As for Sun Qiming, who specialized in porcelain, he hadn't been able to see any problems at all. Just now, when Hu Tian mentioned the hidden characters, he had stepped back and looked for a long time before barely making out the outlines of those two characters. At this moment, only one thought was spinning repeatedly in his mind.

Just who is this guy?