Chapter 6: President Liu! You Poor Soul

"Cough, cough!" Liu Bin cleared his throat twice, then said, "Look, officers, I purchased all these items through legal channels. I didn't steal them."

The official from the relevant department waved a hand and continued, "Mr. Liu, please remain calm. Tell us about the antiques you have purchased."

Liu Bin nodded and brought out several boxes. As he opened them one by one, they were revealed to be antique items from various periods and made of different materials.

The official examined them closely, then turned his gaze toward Cheng Ziqiu.

"Teacher Cheng, what is your take on this?" one of the officers asked.

Cheng Ziqiu habitually adjusted his glasses and pointed to a piece of blue-and-white porcelain in a box. "The aging techniques used on these items are essentially the same. The only differences lie in the attempts to mimic the specific styles of different dynasties."

"Are you saying my treasures are all fake? And that they were all forged by the same person?" Liu Bin stared intensely at Cheng Ziqiu on the screen, as if he wanted to crawl through the internet cable and give him a piece of his mind.

Faced with Mr. Liu’s growing anger, a message came through from the production side of the live stream.

"Ziqiu, he is a man of some standing in S City, show him some respect."

"Understood!" Cheng Ziqiu replied in a low voice, but his next actions were anything but polite.

"Now look, sir, didn't you come to me to have your treasures appraised? Do you know more about this than I do?"

He truly hadn't expected it! He really hadn't expected him to be so blunt.

"The authorities are here right now. If there's a problem, we solve it. What is the point of just trying to evade it?"

As if he felt the fire wasn't burning hot enough, Cheng Ziqiu added another remark.

Just then, a dozen virtual yachts flashed across the screen. The person who gifted them was... Tingquan!

"My god, when did Tingquan join?"

"I was too busy watching Teacher Cheng roast him, I didn't notice!"

"Gifting so many yachts—does Tingquan share the same opinion as Teacher Cheng?"

"Likely so."

"Thank you for your support, Teacher Tingquan." Cheng Ziqiu adjusted his glasses and replied politely.

"Tingquan! Let me tell you, don't you try to fool me!" Liu Bin continued to seethe with rage.

However, Cheng Ziqiu did not continue the confrontation with him.

"Officer, could you explain the situation?" Cheng Ziqiu asked, turning to the police officer on the line.

"We suspect Mr. Liu Bin is involved in a major case of manufacturing and selling counterfeit goods."

"At present, there are over a dozen victims, and the total amount involved is in the hundreds of millions. If it is confirmed that Mr. Liu Bin is also a victim, the amount involved will increase further."

"Officer, I think it would be better for you to meet and confirm these details in person," Cheng Ziqiu suggested.

"We will be heading there to confirm," the official replied.

"What! Don't play games with me, I am..." Liu Bin wanted to state his own status, but he quickly remembered that the official had already addressed him by name earlier. Could it be that they had been monitoring him for a long time?

"Mr. Liu Bin, we have been observing you for quite some time. Please stay where you are and do not move; we are on our way."

The two officers in the live stream stood up and saluted.

"Teacher Cheng, if necessary, we would like to invite you to serve as an appraisal consultant in the future," one of the officers said.

"No problem. Assisting the police in their work is my duty and responsibility."

"Mr. Liu, let's leave it at that for now. We are ending the connection."

Without waiting for Liu Bin to respond, Cheng Ziqiu cut the line.

Realizing that time was running out, Cheng Ziqiu was about to give his closing remarks when the floor director spoke up: "Teacher Cheng, the number of viewers in the live stream has exceeded one hundred thousand. If it keeps growing like this, we'll hit the trending list."

"How about this, Ziqiu, connect with two more people and then end the stream."

"Understood."

"Alright, we can only express our regrets regarding Mr. Liu's situation," Cheng Ziqiu said to the camera.

"But then again, given Mr. Liu's current situation, it is a good thing that the authorities intervened in time. Otherwise, looking at his state, I fear he would have just kept buying."

Cheng Ziqiu summarized: "A dozen people were swindled out of hundreds of millions, but Mr. Liu alone seems to have lost hundreds of millions himself."

As soon as he said this, the viewers responded one after another.

"Calling him 'Mr. Liu' is too generous; he's a total sucker."

Cheng Ziqiu also felt that the title of "sucker" was quite fitting for Mr. Liu Bin.

"Alright, without further ado, let's connect with the next viewer."

Soon, an object that looked like a dull, rusty hoe appeared on the screen.

"This is..." Cheng Ziqiu sat up straight the moment he saw the item. He stared at the screen for a long time before speaking again.

"My friend, this is a knife-shaped currency from the Qin Dynasty!"

A hand in a white glove appeared on screen, picking up the knife-coin and moving it closer to the lens.

"It's about eighteen centimeters long. There is no doubt it is a knife-coin," Cheng Ziqiu said in a deep voice.

"This item originated in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. It can be considered one of the earliest forms of currency," Cheng Ziqiu explained. "Although it isn't extremely rare, to have one preserved this perfectly, as if it were just unearthed..."

As soon as Cheng Ziqiu finished speaking, the camera shifted, and the background changed to reveal a pile of freshly dug-up earth.

"Holy cow, is this really like 'The Mystic Nine'?"

Some viewers started posting in the chat, though others quickly countered.

"Have you ever seen a tomb raider show off their findings so brazenly?"

"What's the big deal? Didn't someone just come on here asking for help earlier?"

"Hello, Teacher Cheng, this is the S City Third Archaeological Team."

Finally, a voice came through, introducing itself in a very official manner, as if they were so accustomed to such introductions that it had become second nature.

But the live stream chat room exploded instantly.

"Holy cow! My vocabulary is poor, so I'll just use a plant to express my current state of mind."

"It was one thing to appraise treasures and find a tomb raider asking for guidance, and another to uncover a forgery ring, but now we've even brought in an archaeological team!"

"My god! What kind of luck does the streamer have?"

"No, it should be called professionalism. Otherwise, why would the archaeological team connect with him?"

"Exactly, exactly! The streamer's appraisal skills must be so professional that he attracted the attention of the archaeological team."

After all the viewers had their say, Cheng Ziqiu only had one sentence.

"So you are professionals. I wonder what the purpose of connecting with me is? Surely you aren't here to have me verify the authenticity of this knife-coin!" Cheng Ziqiu joked.

An archaeological team asking someone to appraise the authenticity of an artifact at an excavation site—that was no different from a mint asking someone to identify which banknote in a machine was a counterfeit.

"No, no, no. We can confirm that this knife-coin is genuine, dating between the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods and the Qin Dynasty, but..."