Chapter 154: Crazy for Money

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“Is Tang tricolor pottery really worth that much?”

After reading the news, this thought surfaced in Chang Yu’s mind as if by some strange prompting.

He immediately searched online for information about Tang tricolor pottery. What he found nearly made him jump.

Tang tricolor pottery was a type of ceramic popular during the Tang Dynasty. Its basic glaze colors were yellow, brown, and green, and people habitually referred to ceramics of this kind as “Tang tricolor pottery.”

It drew upon the distinctive features of Chinese painting, sculpture, and other traditional arts and crafts, using raised appliqué and incised designs as decoration. Its lines were bold and powerful.

Horses were the most common subject in this kind of pottery, which was why most Tang tricolor pieces circulating on the market were shaped like horses.

Out of curiosity, Chang Yu clicked through numerous antique-auction websites and discovered that genuine Tang tricolor horse figures often sold for astronomical prices ranging from five hundred thousand to one million yuan.

One must not underestimate even the lower price of five hundred thousand yuan. In modern society, that sum still possessed tremendous purchasing power.

In a small city, it could buy a house and provide a person with a stable life for the rest of his days.

It could also buy a luxury car such as a Mercedes-Benz or an Audi at an auto show, allowing its owner to bask in the envious and jealous gazes of everyone around him.

For a well-paid office worker, even after living frugally and saving diligently for an entire year, five thousand yuan would already be a considerable amount.

Five hundred thousand yuan was the sort of sum they would need ten years of pinched living and careful saving to scrape together.

“If only I had a piece of Tang tricolor pottery like that.” Chang Yu could not help sighing. “With something like this, paying off the orphanage’s debt would be as easy as a game, wouldn’t it?”

Suddenly, a flash of inspiration passed through his mind, and Chang Yu understood.

He… seemed to have found a way to make his fortune.

“If I could make something like this too, wouldn’t I become rich?”

At the thought, images seemed to rise in his mind: himself driving a luxury car, living in a palatial mansion, and rolling gleefully every day in piles upon piles of banknotes.

Some mysterious instinct told him that living such a life would not be difficult for him at all.

What was an impossible dream for ordinary people would be as easy as reaching out for him. All he needed to do was dream.

He hurriedly opened the photographs of completed Tang tricolor auctions on one of the websites, determined to memorize every aspect of the piece—the shape, the colors, the glaze, and every minute detail.

Thanks to that cup of peach-blossom wine, Chang Yu’s memory had become astonishingly powerful. Before long, he had memorized the entire outline of the Tang tricolor figure, along with every last detail.

He knew that with antiques, the finer the detail, the more careful one had to be. Often, if even a single detail was not executed precisely enough, the object would be dismissed as a replica.

That entire night, Chang Yu did nothing but browse through photographs of every item displayed for auction on the website.

What he needed to do now was continually deepen the impression these objects made upon him, even though their forms and appearances were already remarkably vivid in his mind.

As the saying went, what occupied one’s thoughts by day would appear in one’s dreams by night.

That was precisely what Chang Yu was doing.

He wanted to spend the day constantly reinforcing his impression of these exhibits, hoping that in his dreams he would be able to reproduce that Tang tricolor figure perfectly.

Before he realized it, the night had grown deep. Unable to hold out any longer, Chang Yu finally fell asleep with his phone clutched tightly in his arms.

In his dream, he arrived at a place that resembled a museum storage gallery.

The room was filled with every kind of treasure imaginable: gold and silver ornaments, antique ceramics, and countless other curiosities.

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Chang Yu shouted and cheered excitedly. He hopped about in an awkward tap dance, weaving among the exhibits like a monarch inspecting his own domain.

His efforts had not been in vain. The method of deepening his memories before sleep really worked!

Anyone who observed carefully would have realized that every exhibit in the room was something Chang Yu had seen on the auction website before going to bed.

He had finally succeeded in materializing all those objects within his dream.

With delighted cries, he hurried to the nearest wooden chest. It was filled to the brim with glittering gold.

He scooped up a handful of gold nuggets and indulged in the exquisite sensation of the metal flowing between his fingers, savoring its weight as it settled heavily in his hands.

Unable to restrain his excitement, he flung the gold nuggets into the air and let them rain down upon his head, shoulders, and chest, as though he were bathing in a golden storm.

“Hahahaha! I’m going to be rich! I’m going to be rich!”

Laughing wildly, he lunged toward the exhibit beside him.

It was a scepter carved entirely from gold. The ruby set into its tip was enormous, flashing a dazzling, brilliant red beneath the lights.

The scepter rested inside a transparent display case, elevated on a red velvet cushion trimmed with golden tassels, displaying its full magnificence and majesty.

It was said to have once belonged to a monarch from European history. That scepter, which had witnessed the rise and fall of an entire dynasty, now lay quietly inside the glass case, waiting for Chang Yu to take it.

Besides the scepter, the room also held yellowed paintings, calligraphy, and ancient manuscripts. The paper appeared old, and every piece was the work of a renowned master. Each could fetch several million, or even more than ten million, at auction.

There was also exquisite blue-and-white porcelain, smooth and translucent jade pendants, ancient and imposing suits of armor, and long swords with perfectly straight blades.

The collections in the room came in every style and from every region and category. They had been placed together without regard for origin or classification, seemingly chaotic and disordered. Yet in truth, some unique pattern lay hidden within the arrangement.

And there, too, was the Tang tricolor figure he had been longing for.

“So this dreaming ability can be used like this? How did I never realize it before?” Chang Yu’s eyes shone as though a door to an entirely new world had opened before him.

“I’m going to pack up every treasure in this place and take it with me. With all this, wouldn’t my net worth soar into the tens of millions—or even the hundreds of millions?”

“Once I wake up, I’ll probably be the youngest multi-millionaire in the entire H City. By then, buying one of the islands on the Songjiang River won’t be difficult at all.”

“But here’s the problem: how am I supposed to take all this with me?”

He surveyed the room, trying to find a cloth sack or a leather trunk in which he could carry away the treasures.

To his disappointment, aside from the gold and silver ornaments, valuable antiques, and jade, the room contained nothing resembling a sack or trunk.

“This is bad.” Chang Yu’s face turned green with anxiety. “Without something to carry them in, how am I supposed to take these things away? Am I supposed to hold them in my hands?”

“I suppose that would work—but only if my hands were big enough to hold everything at once.”

Looking at his own hands, barely larger than steamed buns, Chang Yu could only let out a helpless, bitter laugh.

As he struggled to decide what to do, his eyes happened to fall upon his clothes, and suddenly he had an idea.

“I’ve got it!” he shouted joyfully.

The sight of his shirt and trousers had given him inspiration. Since there were no bags in the room for him to use, why not make some himself?

At this critical moment, Chang Yu no longer cared about losing face. Without a word, he stripped off his clothes and trousers, tied the cuffs and trouser legs shut, and with a few simple adjustments turned them into two crude but spacious bags.

“I really am a clever little genius.”

With his backside sticking out and clad only in a bright red pair of oversized underpants, Chang Yu wore the smug expression of a nouveau riche fool.

He sprang toward the Tang tricolor figure he had been dreaming of and scooped it up in one motion.

Next came the glittering scepter. Carved entirely from gold, it was extraordinarily heavy, and its weight filled Chang Yu with genuine excitement.

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“Good heavens, it’s so heavy! How much gold must there be in this thing?”

“And that enormous, beautiful ruby—who knows how many wealthy ladies it would make shriek with delight!”

Chang Yu stared greedily at the gold, silver, and jewels in the gallery, looking like a pauper who had never seen money in his life.

Dancing with excitement, he stuffed one treasure after another into his makeshift bags. His fingers moved so quickly that they left trails of afterimages.

Apart from the larger objects—armor, weapons, enormous bronze vessels, and the like—which he could not carry, he took everything that would fit: the gold nuggets from the wooden chest, exquisite blue-and-white porcelain, smooth and translucent jade pendants, and ancient paintings, calligraphy, and manuscripts.

“I’m picking it up! I’m picking it up! I’m picking up everything!”

This was genuine money-picking, and under such overwhelming temptation, Chang Yu displayed an energy and enthusiasm he had never shown before.

Before long, both of his homemade bags were filled to bursting, and only then did Chang Yu reluctantly stop his treasure hunt.

In the end, he had still been unable to take all the exhibits with him.

There were simply too many treasures. His two enormous bags could never hold them all.

Although he had failed to carry away every treasure in the room, Chang Yu was perfectly satisfied with the two bulging bags of loot he had managed to secure.

When that familiar pulling force descended upon him, Chang Yu clutched both bags tightly.

Everything inside was his fortune, his very life. His life!

The familiar force began tugging at him.

Several times, he felt the same dizziness and weightlessness as before, as though he were experiencing the final moment of consciousness before his mind vanished.

Yet each time he opened his eyes, he was astonished to find himself still inside the cramped gallery. He had not returned to the real world at all.

“What on earth is going on?”

Chang Yu furrowed his brow, his face full of confusion.

This was the first time he had ever remained trapped in a dream and been unable to return to reality.

In the past, after experiencing that dizzying sensation of weightlessness, he had awakened directly in the real world. He had never encountered a situation in which he remained stranded within the dream.

Before, he had always been carried away successfully the moment that pulling force appeared. Why was it unable to take him away this time?

He wanted to search for the cause of the accident, but the cruel reality no longer allowed him to waste time.

He could clearly sense that the force surging through his entire body was gradually weakening each time it appeared.

“The strength of this pulling force is declining as time passes.” Although he found it difficult to believe, Chang Yu still reached that conclusion.

In other words, if this continued, the pulling force might disappear completely.

And if that happened…

Would it mean that he would ultimately be unable to return to the real world?

Would he remain forever in the world of dreams, trapped inside this prison he had created himself, unable to escape?

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