Chapter 187: Astonishing Professor Wu!

Hearing this, Lin Fan sneered inwardly. The fish had finally taken the bait.

This was precisely what he was waiting for!

"What a coincidence, I happen to have an interest in cultural relics myself, which is why I came here to visit. As for my level of expertise, I wouldn't dare claim to be number one, but I can at least tell at a glance whether these artifacts are genuine or fake."

While smiling cheerfully on the inside, Lin Fan maintained a completely solemn expression on the outside.

After all, he had prop cards that allowed him to cheat; his expertise could easily outclass even Professor Wu.

"My goodness, what a braggart. Telling at a glance whether something is real or fake? Do you think you're the Monkey King with fiery golden eyes? Your boasting is getting more and more ridiculous."

Fang Jinyuan rolled his eyes in disdain, genuinely suspecting that something was wrong with Lin Fan's brain.

Even Jiang Yunxi, standing beside him, regarded Lin Fan as a mental patient and sneered, "The attendants here are all professionals trained by Professor Wu. If even they can't tell, wouldn't these people be nothing more than mere decorations? Pretending to understand when you don't and acting like a fool—out there, half of every ten artifacts you buy might be fake, but that is never the case here."

"Nothing is absolute! Today, I insist on putting it to the test!"

Naturally, Lin Fan intended to contradict her at every turn.

His goal was to thoroughly slap Fang Jinyuan across the face.

With that thought, he spent another one hundred thousand wealth points to redeem a "Master Card" prop.

[Ding! Deducted one hundred thousand wealth points to redeem the primary Master Card prop. Selected skill: Cultural Relic Appraisal!]

[The prop card takes effect immediately with a duration of two hours. If the host wishes to extend the duration, it will cost one million wealth points!]

[Wealth Points: -100,000. Current Wealth Points: 3,014,700,000]

Even though the system mall had already upgraded to level two, it was still possible to redeem primary props at the lowest cost.

Intermediate Master Cards had no limit on the number of redemptions and could be exchanged daily with a duration of six hours, but they cost five hundred thousand wealth points.

Moreover, following the system upgrade, the redemption prices had doubled.

As for the advanced Master Card, its redemption price reached a staggering ten million!

However, using an advanced Master Card would grant the user permanent possession of that skill.

For instance, if he spent ten million to acquire the cultural relic appraisal skill now, he would permanently possess it from then on, becoming a true master appraiser.

In contrast, primary and intermediate Master Cards only granted temporary possession of a skill, which would be completely forgotten the moment the time expired.

Lin Fan simply felt that such complex skills were redundant for him; there was no need to redeem intermediate or advanced versions when the primary one was far more cost-effective.

As professional knowledge regarding cultural relic appraisal flooded into his mind, Lin Fan swept his gaze around the surroundings.

Finally, inside a glass display case a few meters away, he spotted a black-and-red gold-inlaid black elephant jade carving.

This jade carving was roughly similar in shape to the white elephant jade carving he had successfully bid on, but it stood only fifty centimeters tall, making it half the size.

Unlike the other, however, this black elephant jade carving was solid and carved entirely from black-and-red agate. On the elephant's back sat a pavilion made of pure gold, and numerous gemstones were inlaid into the elephant's legs, eyes, and rear, making it look even more imposing than the white elephant jade carving.

Yet, the value of this black elephant jade carving surpassed even the white elephant one, reaching a staggering seventy million!

The reason he could tell there was something wrong with this black elephant jade carving was twofold: first, based on the appraisal skills he had just acquired, the more identical a cultural relic was to another, the higher the probability of it being a replica.

Second, he truly could tell at a glance that there was a problem with this black elephant jade carving.

The material appeared to be artificial agate rather than pure natural stone!

According to the detailed introduction on the glass display label, this black elephant jade carving was sculpted entirely from natural black agate in its entirety.

However, Lin Fan could clearly see that the material was artificially manufactured, which proved that this jade piece was a counterfeit!

After double-checking to ensure the artifact was indeed fake, he declared righteously, "This black elephant jade carving is a fake!"

"What?!"

His declaration, however, shocked everyone around him, including the attendant.

"You bragging fraud, you really do love making shocking statements! Do you have any idea what your words imply? They imply that Professor Wu is a swindler!"

Fang Jinyuan sneered, seemingly hitting upon a way to make Lin Fan utterly lose face and become the laughingstock of everyone present.

With that, he suddenly raised his voice, lifting his chin to shout at everyone in the room, "Come and look, everyone! This fellow is actually spouting sheer nonsense here, claiming that this black elephant jade carving is a fake!"

By repeating this twice, he successfully drew the attention of everyone in the vicinity.

To be fair, there were very few visitors on this floor anyway, amounting to perhaps forty or fifty people in total.

"Everyone! This guy actually claims that this black elephant jade carving is a fake! This is clearly a blatant disregard for Professor Wu! Do you know who Professor Wu is? By uttering such words today, he is directly challenging Professor Wu's authority!"

Fang Jinyuan gestured wildly, pointing at Lin Fan and ranting nonstop.

His tone was so loud it sounded as if he were holding a megaphone, eager to summon every single person within the entire estate to come and watch Lin Fan make a fool of himself.

Yet Lin Fan remained unfazed, simply watching his performance quietly.

Lin Mu, on the other hand, felt extremely constrained being watched by so many people of high status, and could only put on her mask and hide silently behind Lin Fan.

She had no idea what kind of stunt Lin Fan was trying to pull.

When Fang Jinyuan finally finished his tirade, Lin Fan calmly and leisurely replied, "If you don't believe me, why don't you invite a professional over to appraise it and find out?"

At this, the attendant also stepped forward and said, "Sir, you cannot just say whatever you like. Ninety percent of the collectibles here have been personally authenticated by Professor Wu and other experts. If it were fake, it would certainly not be displayed here. You must take responsibility for your words, otherwise, you are merely maliciously causing trouble."

Before the voice faded, Fang Jinyuan chimed in loudly, "I knew this fellow came here today just to stir up trouble! How could Professor Wu possibly fake something so valuable?! It's completely obvious this guy holds Professor Wu in contempt... Just a moment ago, he was even boasting that he could acquire everything here with a wave of his hand at an auction. To a wealthy person like him, these treasures are nothing more than dirt."

Hearing this, Lin Fan could finally no longer hold back his anger and retorted, "You really are talented at creating something out of nothing. When did I ever say such a thing?"

He had not expected this fellow to embellish the story and fabricate falsehoods to such a degree.

It inevitably reminded him of that foul-mouthed Wang Minglou.

By this time, the onlookers were also pointing and whispering at Lin Fan.

"Sigh, isn't this fellow Number 155, the one who just bought the white elephant jade carving for eighty million? Why is he suddenly claiming this black elephant is fake now? Is there something fishy going on?"

"Why does this guy look somewhat familiar to me? As if I've seen him somewhere before?"

"None of that matters. What matters is that he actually dares to question Professor Wu. Professor Wu's museum has been open for several years now, and until today, no one has ever dared to claim the artifacts here are counterfeits. To think he's the very first!"

"If this isn't handled carefully, it might even alert Professor Wu, and then we'll have a good show to watch! I really wonder where he gets the guts to challenge Professor Wu. Could he actually be a professional, or perhaps an undercover agent sent by the relevant authorities?"

For a moment, everyone began to harbor doubts about Lin Fan's identity.

Fang Jinyuan even demanded that he be thrown out immediately.