That morning, Richard received some unexpected good news.
It was a call from Clement.
The old man had mentioned last time that the clearance schedule was irregular. Sometimes a new batch would arrive in a week or two, other times it could take a month or two.
Nearly three weeks had passed since he bought the Sun Seal, so the timing was about right.
After school, he skipped the school bus and jogged directly to Grafton Street.
He arrived at the antique shop and pushed the door open. A copper bell chimed.
The old man was crouching on the floor in the back of the shop. Spread out before him were several wooden crates and cardboard boxes, stuffed with objects wrapped in old newspaper and straw.
"You’re here?" he asked without looking up, his hands busy pulling something out of a wooden crate.
"Yeah."
"Find a place to sit. I’ll be sorting things out for a little while longer."
Richard sat down on a high stool next to the counter, his gaze sweeping over the boxes on the floor.
The last time he came, there was only a small drawer under the counter holding the list of failed auction items.
Today, there were at least five or six boxes of varying sizes on the floor, some of them still unopened.
"It’s the end of the year. Time to clear out the inventory."
Clement was pulling items from a box.
"Stuart’s clears their warehouses every December. Any failed auction items that have been in storage for over two years are liquidated, and the prices are dropped to rock bottom."
He pulled out a porcelain saucer painted with a blue windmill, likely from the Netherlands.
"Most of the stuff in this batch is just ordinary antiques, nothing special.
Porcelain, silverware, old picture frames, candlesticks discarded from churches... The serious antique dealers wouldn’t give them a second glance, but they can still fetch a price in a little shop like mine."
The old man set the saucer on the counter and dusted the straw fragments off his hands.
"But this time, aside from Stuart’s year-end clearance, I also got my hands on some private goods from a few old colleagues."
"Private goods?"
"Retired colleagues. They’ve all accumulated some nice things over the years."
Clement stood up. His knees made a popping sound, and he grimaced while rubbing them.
"A few of these old-timers spent their entire lives working at the auction house, handling tens of thousands of items.
Occasionally, they’d come across an item or two they took a liking to and buy it for themselves at the internal price."
"After retiring and moving, their wives complained the items took up too much space, and their children thought they were worthless, so they asked me to help get rid of them."
He took out something wrapped in velvet cloth and weighed it in his palm.
"Among these private goods, two have special notations."
Hearing this, Richard’s gaze focused on the old man’s hands.
Clement unwrapped the cloth, revealing a bronze badge.
The badge was a size larger than a typical military medal. The front had a relief carving of a spread-winged eagle clutching a bundle of wheat in its talons, with an Emerald embedded in its chest.
"This badge was bought by an old colleague of mine at an estate auction."
Clement placed the badge on the counter.
"The owner of the estate was a retired military officer whose family had been rooted in Yorkshire for three generations.
The exact age of the badge is unknown, but judging by the oxidation of the bronze and the style of the relief, it’s at least one hundred and fifty years old."
Clement tapped the Emerald on the eagle’s chest with his fingernail.
"My old colleague added a handwritten annotation in the remarks column:
’Material of the Green Stone is unknown. Not malachite, not turquoise. Suspected alchemical treatment.’"
Richard leaned in closer.
The panel flickered to life.
The numbers began to climb slowly from their current value, at about the same speed as the Sun Seal.
’This is the real deal.’
He didn’t rush to touch it, continuing to listen to Clement’s explanation.
"This badge sat in my old colleague’s possession for nearly ten years. He just kept it in his study drawer and used it as a paperweight."
Clement shook his head.
"His wife passed away last year. His son is a lawyer in the Imperial Capital and doesn’t want to come back home.
The old man was living alone in a big house and started clearing out his belongings."
"He said these things had been with him for most of his life. It would be a shame to throw them away, but he was afraid they’d be mistreated if he sold them, so he asked me to find a suitable buyer."
As he spoke, Clement fished out an even smaller cloth pouch from under the counter.
The mouth of the pouch was tied with a red string. He untied it and tipped out a ring.
It was a silver ring, its face engraved with a cross and circle—one of the oldest sun symbols on the Western Continent.
It predated the Apollo’s Sun Wheel of the Greeks by several hundred years, traceable back to the time of the Celts or even earlier, to the era of the Giant Stone Array.
"This ring belonged to another old colleague," Clement said, placing it next to the badge.
"He specialized in appraising silverware and jewelry. When he retired, he picked a few items for himself from the clearance pile. This ring was one of them."
"The appraisal tag reads, ’Silver ring, origin unknown, circa seventeenth century, symbol on face is a suspected religious or Guild marking.’"
Clement rubbed the cross-and-circle symbol on the ring’s face with his thumb.
"The second notation was one he added himself.
He wrote a sentence in the remarks column: ’Silver purity is abnormally high, exceeding the standard for silverware of the period.’"
Richard diverted half his attention to the panel.
The Ether seeping from the ring was slightly faster than the badge, about 0.015 per minute.
"How much for both?"
Clement pulled out a handwritten price list from under the counter.
"The badge. My old colleague’s cost was two pounds. I’ll sell it to you for three."
"The ring. Cost was one and a half pounds. I’ll sell it to you for two."
"Five pounds for both."
Five pounds.
Richard mentally calculated his cash reserves.
Thirty pounds in prize money from the Cicero Cup, minus the train ticket, the shoes and coat for Evelyn, the Oil Lamp, the Sun Seal, daily spending, and money for the household, plus his accumulated tutoring income... he still had over twenty pounds on hand.
Five pounds wasn’t a small sum, but it was within his budget.
"Deal."
Clement nodded and tore a receipt from his ledger.
Richard took his wallet from an inner pocket, counted out five one-pound notes, and placed them on the counter.
Clement took the money and handed him the receipt.
Richard folded the receipt and put it in his pocket, then glanced at the still-unpacked boxes on the counter and the floor.
"Mr. Clement, among these ordinary antiques, are there any that you think will be difficult to sell?"
The old man, who was locking the money in a metal cashbox, looked up at his words.
"What are you asking that for?"
"I’d like to buy one or two more things," Richard said frankly.
"You incurred costs for shipping and favors to get these private goods from your old colleagues.
The profit margin on failed auction items is already thin, and this private channel is likely more about maintaining relationships than making money."
"If I buy a few more ordinary items, it can help you break even on this whole lot."
Clement’s hand paused on the lid of the cashbox.
"Kid." The old man closed the lid of the cashbox, and the latch snapped shut.
"How old are you?"
"Almost seventeen."
"So you’re sixteen." The old man shook his head.
"You don’t need to worry about these things for me."
"But—"
"I worked at Stuart’s for thirty years," Clement interrupted him.
"The nest egg I’ve saved up over those thirty years is enough to keep this little shop open until the day I die."
He tapped the surface of the counter with his finger.
"The shop is small, and the location isn’t great, so the rent is only twelve pounds a year. I can afford it. The cost of goods fluctuates each quarter, but I know what I’m doing."
"The private goods from my old colleagues—yes, the shipping and favors are costs.
But when those old-timers asked me to handle their things, they weren’t expecting to make any money in the first place."
Clement got up from his chair, walked around the counter, and stood before Richard.
The old man was shorter than Richard by half a head and had to tilt his face up to look at him.
"When I said I was going to invest in you, I meant it."
"An investment means I’m staking my capital on you, waiting for you to become valuable so I can get my principal back with interest."
"It doesn’t mean I expect you to start paying back the debt right now."
He extended a finger and poked Richard in the chest.
"The most important thing for you to do right now is to spend your money where it counts most."
"Spending five pounds on two items with special notations—that’s spending your money where it counts.
"Spending another few pounds on some vases, old jewelry, or bronze candlesticks just to let them collect dust at home—what’s that called? That’s called being a sucker!"
Richard opened his mouth but was left speechless.
Clement clapped him firmly on the shoulder.
"If you really want to help me, then focus on your studies and walk your own path."
"Once you’ve established yourself in the Imperial Capital, if my two grandsons ever run into trouble, you helping them out a bit would be more useful than you buying ten pieces of junk from me now."
Having said his piece, the old man turned and went back behind the counter to rummage through his clutter.
The newspaper lining the bottom of a box rustled. The old man had his back to him, showing only the top of his graying head.
Richard stood frozen in place, clutching the two cloth pouches, momentarily at a loss for words.
"What are you still standing there for?" the old man’s impatient voice called from behind the counter.
"It’s getting dark. Hurry home and get some dinner."
"...Alright."
Richard put the two pouches into his schoolbag.
"Mr. Clement, thank you."
"Get lost, you little brat."
The copper bell chimed as the door closed behind him.

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