Da Tang Si Zi: My Six Super Rich Little Nuggets!

Chapter 295 Divine Beast, Vajra, and Calabash Brothers

Xiao Yao, carrying his tablet, hopped to the sofa. A dynamic image of a "Rhyton" wine vessel popped up on the screen: "BOSS! This animal head shape has quite a history! It's called 'Rhyton,' which means 'flowing' in Greek. It looks like an animal horn, and there's a hole at the bottom, so pouring wine is like opening a dam to release water!"

Xiao Yao poked the virtual wine cup on the screen. "In ancient times, people used it to pour sacred wine, saying it could prevent poisoning. Drinking it all in one gulp was considered offering wine to the gods. It was definitely a sacrificial artifact!"

Si Zong stroked his chin: "No wonder we often see Hu people holding this thing and drinking in the murals. It's a cultural symbol, isn't it?"

"That's absolutely right!" Xiao Yao's eyes lit up as she pulled up a comparison image of Central Asian murals. "This design was everywhere in Sassanid Persia, and there's even a similar one in an Iranian museum! Tang Dynasty nobles loved these 'foreign gadgets,' and you weren't considered trendy if you didn't display a few at a banquet!" She suddenly lowered her voice, "Did you know? This agate might have been imported from the Western Regions! The banded patterns look like grapevines, and the *Old Book of Tang* even records 'The Great Kang Kingdom presented an agate cup with an animal head'!"

"So this cup is probably from a 'returned overseas student'?" Mr. Si tapped the table with interest.

“That’s controversial!” Xiao Yao spread his hands. “Some say it’s an import from the Western Regions, some guess it’s ‘Made in China’ by Central Asian craftsmen in Chang’an, and others think it’s the result of Tang Dynasty masters learning the craft by stealing it! But it’s precisely this ‘hybrid’ charm that makes us want to combine Xiao Sizi and AR Hu Xuan dance, creating a collision between the ancient and the modern!”

Suddenly, Si Zong laughed out loud and clinked his glasses in the air: "Then let Xiao Si Zi be the cultural ambassador of the new era, carrying the mysterious code to 'travel' back to the Tang Dynasty!"

Holding her tablet computer like it was a priceless treasure, Xiao Yao approached Zhen Zong and exclaimed, "Sister! Look at this Tang Dynasty animal-head agate cup! It's as if the ancient craftsmen had a 'golden touch'!"

Zhen took off her glasses and leaned closer to the screen: "Wow! The pattern looks like a marble cake, layer upon layer, it looks so tempting!"

"Absolutely!" Xiao Yao exclaimed excitedly, slapping her thigh. "This banded agate is even rarer than finding a hidden gem! The craftsman is like a master artist, carving along the grain—the thicker end for the rim of the cup, and the thinner end directly into a beast's head! Look at these lines, they're smoother than Dove chocolate!"

Zhen pointed at the beast's eyes, laughing heartily: "These eyes are so clear, like they're wearing colored contact lenses!"

"That's the brilliance!" Xiao Yao snapped her fingers. "They used a color-matching technique, like 'makeup' for agate, turning the original color into a finishing touch! And that gold trim around the beast's mouth is like a 'beauty filter'! The original color was too dark, like dark circles, but after being inlaid with pure gold, it instantly became incredibly luxurious!"

"I thought it was just for decoration!" Zhen Zong said, raising an eyebrow.

"This gold-plated stopper is the real hidden gem!" Xiao Yao demonstrated the action of pulling out the stopper. "Take it off, and the wine flows out like a waterfall! And look at this spiral antelope horn, it's like putting a fashionable headband on the glass, the design is off the charts! Do you think the ancients secretly took modern design classes?"

Zhen laughed so hard she rubbed her stomach: "Quickly stuff all these ingenious ideas into our Little Rhinoceros Blind Box! Let the spirit of ancient craftsmanship and our AR cutting-edge technology spark something amazing!"

Xiao Yao suddenly slammed the tablet computer onto Zhen Zong's desk, her eyes sparkling: "Boss! I just discovered that the craftsman who made this Tang Dynasty animal-head agate cup is practically an ancient 'blind box designer'!"

Ms. Zhen was so amused that she almost spat out her coffee: "Blind box designer? What makes you think that?"

"Look!" Xiao Yao's fingers flew across the screen. "The art of jade carving emphasizes 'choosing the theme according to the material and crafting the art according to the material,' just like opening a blind box—you design the shape based on the type of material you get! This craftsman touched this piece of banded agate, looked at the pattern, and immediately 'cheated'! He hollowed out the thick end into a cup rim and carved the thin end into an animal head. Even the two raised lines on the rim of the cup are like the decorative lines personally chosen by the universe—a perfect match!"

Zhen leaned closer to the screen, stared at the beast's eyes, and laughed: "These eyes are so clearly blue and green, it's like they've been fitted with surveillance cameras!"

"That's exactly what 'adding the finishing touch' means!" Xiao Yao imitated the way he peeked out. "Look at those beast eyes, peeking at the delicious roasted lamb neck on the next table! And those horns, coiled like chocolate rolls, the muscle lines are even more impressive than the eight-pack abs of fitness instructor Little Bee! And those ears are perked up, it feels like they're about to eavesdrop on our meeting!"

"The gold cap on the beast's mouth is quite exquisite?" Zhen Zong tapped the screen.

"That's a 'beauty enhancement device'!" Xiao Yao exaggeratedly spread her five fingers. "Underneath the removable gold hat is a mechanism for flowing wine, which not only covers up the dark flaws but also maximizes the noble aura of the animal head! This craftsmanship would win an Oscar in the design world even today!"

Zhen leaned back, seemingly lost in thought: "Speaking of which, this treasure might actually be a state gift from Central and West Asia?"

"Definitely a 'top-tier diplomacy'!" Xiao Yao snapped her fingers. "The sparks ignited by the collision of Eastern and Western civilizations, a symbol of wealth and power, would be equivalent to a 'limited edition haute couture' in the world of cultural relics today! If our Xiao Si Zi blind boxes could truly grasp these details, wouldn't they 'go crazy' in the cultural and creative industry?"

President Zhen laughed and slapped the table: "What are we waiting for? Quickly replicate these amazing moves into our designs!"