Some antique enthusiasts sighed at this extravagant behavior and strongly condemned it. In the end, Leo picked up the two painting scrolls, holding them vertically, and smashed them onto the table with force.
“Boom! Boom!” Two crisp sounds rang out, and one end of one of the fallen scrolls broke open, revealing something inside.
A sharp-eyed person hurriedly picked up the broken scroll from the ground and slowly pulled out something that resembled a rod.
Because the diameter of this rod was nearly the same as the inner diameter of the scroll, it was impossible to feel anything inside by shaking the scroll. The only way to discover it was by breaking the scroll open.
This rod appeared to be made of a very fine and special material, not ordinary wood.
Leo took the it from the person’s hand and then broke another scroll, retrieving another one from it. He handed both to Mr. Tyler and said, “Mr. Tyler, could you please help appraise these two items? Are they worth anything?”
As they saw Leo holding the two cylindrical wooden objects, Mr. Tyler’s expression underwent a rapid change. He quickly took them and began examining them closely with a magnifying glass.
The onlookers held their breath, their eyes fixed on Mr. Tyler’s hands, awaiting his appraisal.
The man who had sold the painting remained unimpressed, thinking they were just two broken pieces of wood. How valuable could they be?
“This is… agarwood!” Mr. Tyler exclaimed.
Agarwood!?
The crowd was initially stunned, then collectively astonished. How could people in the antique world not know the value of agarwood? “An inch of agarwood is worth an ounce of gold,” making it as precious as gold in ancient times. In the present day, it was even more valuable.
Mr. Tyler brought the two agarwood pieces close to his nose and sniffed them carefully. He said, “These two agarwood pieces are at least a thousand years old, and their fragrance hasn’t diminished. They are incredibly fragrant and rich in resin. The quality is exceptional. If I’m not mistaken, these two agarwood pieces should be White Phoebe.”
Phoebe was a type of agarwood. Qinan was the crème de la crème of agarwood, surpassing even regular agarwood. In the past, it was considered as valuable as gold, and in the present era, it was even more precious.
It was a transformation of agarwood and required extremely strict conditions to be produced.
It was considered superior to agarwood in terms of fragrance. Since 2000 years ago, it had been the most important material for imperial sacrifices, prayers, Buddhist rituals, and indoor incense.
It and matured agarwood were originally coexisting organisms, but a qualitative change in oil occurred during the refining process, resulting in a completely different substance from agarwood.
The formation of Phoebe agarwood was incredibly complex. It was a type of agarwood that was produced when an ant or wild bee built a nest inside a hollow agarwood tree, and their secretions, such as ant acid, nectar, or bee honey, permeated the agarwood oil, gradually being absorbed by the living agarwood tree’s resin glands.
The probability of this rare transformation was extremely low, and the involvement of insects made it even less likely. Furthermore, the formation process was excruciatingly slow, taking hundreds or even thousands of years of aging to produce Phoebe agarwood.
It could be classified into different colors, such as white, green, yellow, and black, with white Phoebe being the rarest and most precious.
When Martin heard that these two cylindrical wooden objects were actually Phoebe agarwood, his previous frustration was swept away, replaced by uncontainable joy.
In the current market, a gram of Phoebe agarwood powder had been inflated to astronomical prices, so the value of these two rolling rod-like objects could be easily imagined.
Mr. Tyler handed the two Phoebe agarwood pieces back to Leo and said with a smile, “These two agarwood pieces are of extremely high quality, belonging to the top-grade category of Phoebe. Leo, if you didn’t discover it inside the scroll of this painting by accident, I have to say, your luck is truly extraordinary.”
Mr. Tyler felt that this young man in front of him was becoming more and more mysterious. The process of discovering these two agarwood pieces seemed to be a well-thought-out plan, one step leading to another.
First, he bought the painting from the man, then publicly tore it apart to reveal the scroll inside. Next, he pretended to be angry and smashed the scroll, exposing the hidden agarwood.
If all of this was planned by Leo, then his eyes were truly amazing.
Mr. Tyler even had a whimsical thought in his mind: could Leo possess X-ray vision?
As the original owner of the painting, the man’s face had turned the color of a pig’s liver. Now, he deeply regretted.
In the eyes of the onlookers, Leo had simply been lucky. He spent money on the painting only to reveal the hidden treasure inside.
“Fools have their own luck; that’s what they mean. I’ve witnessed it today.”
“If I had known there were two agarwood pieces hidden inside that painting, I would have been willing to buy it for twenty million.”
“You’re just being wise after this. Even if you bought the painting, you wouldn’t have discovered the hidden agarwood!”
After sighing and lamenting, the onlookers began to feel a mixture of envy, admiration, and jealousy towards Leo, thinking that they had missed out on Leo’s luck.
Martin squeezed next to Leo and carefully examined theagarwood pieces in Leo’s hand. Then he turned to Mr. Tyler and asked, “Mr. Tyler, are these two cylindrical wooden objects really White Phoebe agarwood?”
Mr. Tyler nodded and said, “Although I haven’t delved deeply into agarwood, I do have an eye for identifying agarwood types.”
“Leo, you’re truly my lucky star!” Martin’s excitement overflowed as he held onto the agarwood pieces. In his eyes, Leo was no longer just a son-in-law; he was like his own son!
Sophia’s beautiful eyes remained fixed on Leo, and deep within her gaze, there was a sense of contemplation and astonishment. She couldn’t help but think that Leo’s luck was unbelievably good.