One day in the winter of 1971, when it was snowing heavily in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia, Wang Zhankui, a driver at the Arukorqin Post and Telecommunications Bureau, was carefully driving on a small road in the wilderness.
As a postal worker in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia, he often has to drive through the vast wilderness.
Today the snow was too heavy, and although there were no other cars on the road, Wang Zhankui still drove very slowly. Driving, suddenly Wang Zhankui saw a person lying in the snow on the side of the road in front of the car...
Prove that this is the pearl of the night
Night pearl, ancient name "with the pearl", "hanging pearl", "weeping thorn", legend qin shi huang underground palace with countless night pearls to simulate the starry sky, Cixi before the burial of the mouth is also a night pearl.
Since modern times, the natural night pearl is still a very valuable kind of jewelry, generally worth hundreds of thousands, and rare is tens of billions.
On August 1, 2017, a 2.58-ton extra-large night pearl weighing 2.58 tons was exhibited at the Great Buddha Temple in Jinhu, Jiangsu Province, with an estimated value of 1.6 billion yuan.
One day at the beginning of the century, Li Shiwei of the Tianjin Jewelry Appraisal Center received an old man with a dusty servant, the old man with a northeastern accent, claiming to be from Chifeng, Inner Mongolia, and there was a bead that wanted to be identified.
Li Shiwei, as a jewelry appraisal expert of Tianjin Wei, has seen the world, and he has seen many rare treasures, but as soon as he saw the beads taken out by this old man, Li Shiwei was bright in his eyes.
This bead is the size of an egg yolk, earthy yellow like a mud ball, but the texture is quite hard. Li Shiwei always felt that he had seen something similar somewhere.
The old man interrupted Li Shiwei's train of thought, he said that his name was Wang Zhankui, and the reason why he had traveled thousands of miles to identify it was because this bead was a pearl of night! He wondered if it was worth it.
Li Shiwei tested the hardness and thermal conductivity of the bead, and after reading the results, Li Shiwei told Wang Zhankui a good news, this is indeed a night pearl, and it is a very rare "diamond night pearl".
Wang Zhankui listened a little confused, this bead is earthy yellow in the sun, ah, this is a diamond?
Li Muwei explained that diamonds, or diamonds, do not have to be angular and crystal clear.
The composition of this bead is indeed diamond, but its crystal structure is not the same as that of ordinary diamonds, so it is not crystal clear, but can self-emit.
And Li Shiwei continued to explain to Wang Zhankui that the reason why he attached great importance to this pearl as soon as he saw it.
Because he had seen a very similar night pearl in the Washington Museum in the United States before, and the bead named "Longsdale" was an extremely precious "meteorite diamond night pearl", which fell from the sky.
After further testing, as well as consulting the information and discussing with other experts, Li Shiwei finally believed that the bead that Wang Zhankui took was also a meteorite diamond night pearl.
So the Tianjin Jewelry Appraisal Center issued an appraisal certificate to Wang Zhankui, which was jointly signed by a number of experts, proving that Wang Zhankui's bead was a meteorite diamond night pearl.
Wang Laohan was very happy to get the certificate, and since then he has carefully cared for this bead, really holding it in his hand for fear of falling off, and holding it in his mouth for fear of melting.
However, within a few days, Wang Zhankui received a phone call, and the Tianjin Jewelry Appraisal Center informed him that the certificate was going to be invalidated! What's going on?
It turned out to be one of the experts who co-signed at that time, Professor Xue, after in-depth understanding of the situation, felt that he did not agree with this conclusion, so he withdrew his certification to the newspaper.
Wang Zhankui seemed to have fallen from the sky to the ground at once, his heart was cold, he did not sleep that night, and he did not think about tea and dinner for several days.
He went to Li Shiwei to ask what the situation was, and Li Shiwei saw that Wang Zhankui had not seen anyone for a few days and was haggard, so he suggested that Wang Zhankui go to Beijing to find a bigger institution to check it out.
Li Shiwei told Wang Zhankui that he could go to China University of Geosciences, where there are more equipment and more detection methods. And Li Shiwei told Wang Zhankui that the reason why Professor Xue withdrew the certification was mainly because he suspected that the bead might be artificially made.
To rule out this possibility, infrared detection is required, and Tianjin Jewelry Identification Center does not have infrared detection equipment.
Wang Zhankui then came to Beijing with beads and came to China University of Geosciences to find Professor Wu Guozhong.
Professor Wu Guozhong first put the bead under the microscope for observation, and found no trace of artificial processing. After that, Professor Wu Guozhong conducted infrared testing on the beads.
The result of the infrared detection was that no organic matter components were found in the bead, which meant that the bead was not glued together with any adhesive, and Professor Wu Guozhong concluded that the bead was not artificial, but natural.
But this is not enough to prove that it is what the Tianjin Jewelry Appraisal Center originally called the meteorite diamond night pearl.
To determine whether it is or not, you need to take a sample from the bead to test, that is, scrape a little powder down.
This made Wang Zhankui feel difficult--in case it was detected that this was really a valuable jewel, worth tens of millions, wouldn't the scraped powder be equivalent to hundreds of dollars?
However, if this test is not done, there is no way to know whether it is worth a lot in the end, and Wang Zhankui is caught in a contradiction.
Wang Zhankui did not agree at that time, and took the beads back to Chifeng City. He thought about it at home for three months, at first he wanted to wait, passed on this bead to his son as an heirloom, maybe by the time of his son, the technology was developed, and he didn't need to scrape off the powder to detect it.
But after waiting for three months, Wang Zhankui couldn't hold his breath, and he decided to do this test.
Wang Zhankui brought the beads to Beijing again, this time by Professor Zhou Jianxiong of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, who took the beads and asked Wang Zhankui to go home and wait for the results.
Wang Zhankui then went back to Chifeng and waited for a month, and finally one day, Wang Zhankui received a call from Professor Zhou. Professor Zhou said on the phone: "Lao Wang, I tell you a good news, your bead is indeed a diamond night pearl!" ”
Verify the body
Wang Zhankui finally got good news from Beijing after waiting for a month, and his beads were indeed natural, diamond night pearls. Wang Zhankui was overjoyed and hurried to Beijing.
Professor Zhou Jianxiong gave Wang Zhankui a detailed explanation.
Although Wang Zhankui is not highly educated, but because he is particularly concerned about the matter of this pearl, as the saying goes, there is nothing difficult in the world, only afraid of people with hearts, in the process of running back and forth in Chifeng, Tianjin, and Beijing in recent years, he himself has consulted a lot of mineralogical materials and become a small half amateur expert.
Professor Zhou Jianxiong explained that he irradiated the scraped sample with an electron beam, and if the diamond received this illumination, it would glow like a flash.
In the experiment, the reaction of the sample after colliding with the electron beam is exactly the same as that of diamond, so he concluded that the main component of the sample is diamond.
Wang Zhankui questioned: "Isn't diamond just a diamond, I heard that fluorite and lithium can self-emit light, and diamonds can also emit self-illumination?" ”
Professor Zhou laughed: "The luminous phenomenon is white is the transformation of energy, the night pearl is like a battery, but it is not stored electricity, it is a 'light pool', there are some minerals in nature, after being illuminated by the outside world, the electrons in its atoms will absorb light energy, jump to the high energy level under the stimulation of light, and when the external light ends, these high-energy electrons fall back to the low energy level, and release the energy previously absorbed in the form of light, so the luminous phenomenon is produced." ”
"There are many minerals with this property, and several of them have this property in diamond."
Professor Zhou's explanation made Wang Zhankui's heart fall to the ground, and he thought that he was worthy of being an expert in Beijing, that is, a professional!
But at this time, Professor Zhou's words turned sharply, saying that now all I have proved is that this pearl is a diamond night pearl, and such a thing is not particularly precious!
Wang Zhankui knew that at the beginning, Professor Li Shiwei of Tianjin said that this bead was precious because he thought it was a "meteorite diamond night pearl".
Such a night pearl is rare in the world, and the American "Lonsdale", which is similar to Wang Zhankui's, is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and is preserved in the Washington Museum.
However, Professor Zhou's previous electron beam detection cannot determine whether the bead is produced on the earth or outside the earth, and it is not impossible to detect it further, but with Professor Zhou's equipment here, if you want to judge whether the bead is a meteorite, you have to destroy the bead - this is undoubtedly unacceptable to Wang Zhankui.
But Professor Zhou also said that this bead is indeed very similar to the one in the Washington Museum in the United States, and such a night pearl has not been found on the earth as far as he knows, but it cannot be ruled out that it is the possibility that it was produced on the earth.
To rule it out, you can go to the China Petroleum Exploration and Research Institute, where there is a very advanced "X-ray diffractometer".
So Wang Zhankui took his beads and went to the Petroleum Exploration Research Institute.
I think that When Wang Zhankui saved people's lives in the snow, he was given this bead like a mud pill, although now it seems that this bead is indeed a generous gift, but Wang Zhankui also paid a lot of hard work in order to prove that this bead is valuable.
At the Petroleum Exploration Institute, Professor Wu, who was in charge of the test, explained to Wang Zhankui: "This gem, it is all crystals, mineral atoms form a surface network, the surface network is stacked layer by layer, forming a structure like a wafer biscuit, and the spacing between this layer and the layer, like the fingerprint of this mineral, can reflect its identity and life." ”
"Our X-ray diffractometer is observing this spacing... All in all, if your bead can shoot six diffraction rays and can corroborate the diffraction data of the American 'Lonsdale', it means that you are a meteorite like Lonsdale. ”
Wang Zhankui handed the bead to the experimenter with a nervous mood, this time he did not wait long, the result came out quickly - his bead is indeed a meteorite diamond.
Therefore, after the triple detection of infrared, electron beam and X-ray, it was determined that Wang Zhankui's night pearl was natural, diamond, and meteorite.
In July 2007, a number of experts, including Professor Wu Guozhong, jointly signed and issued an appraisal certificate for the bead.
According to the market valuation at that time, this night pearl was worth 25 million US dollars, that is, about 200 million yuan!
A wealthy Hong Kong businessman learned the news from nowhere and was willing to pay 200 million yuan to buy this night pearl from Wang Zhankui.
It is reasonable to say that Wang Zhankui's family is not rich, and now that he has this treasure, he will definitely make a fortune. However, Wang Zhankui did not sell it, and in the end he chose to donate the bead to the Buddhist Society of China.
Why? In fact, this is related to the origin of this bead. In Wang Zhankui's words, donations to the Buddhist Society are also considered to be returned to their original owners.
Saving people is given
Time back to 1971, that winter Chifeng was surprisingly cold, in a goose feather snow day, Wang Zhankui, who was then the driver of the Arukorqin Post and Telecommunications Bureau, found a frozen person on the side of the deserted road in the suburbs on the way to deliver the letter.
Wang Zhankui was startled, and quickly got out of the car to check, only to see an old man lying frozen there, already frozen and delirious.
Wang Zhankui was a veteran, he did not hesitate, first took the snow to rub the old man's hands and face, after seeing that the old man was a little more awake, he quickly carried him to the car and pulled him to a nearby friend's house.
Grassland pastoral areas are also common to this situation, and this old man has been at Wang Zhankui's friend's house for a night. The next day it eased up.
It turned out that this old man was the abbot of a nearby Buddhist temple, because his Buddhist temple had been burned down by fire not long ago, so he went to another temple nearby, but unexpectedly he got lost in the snow, walked around, and finally froze in the snow.
If Wang Zhankui had not passed by, the old abbot was afraid that his life would be in danger, so he was very grateful to Wang Zhankui, and while saying words of gratitude to Wang Zhankui, he took out a yellow cloth bag the size of a soap box from his arms and forced it into Wang Zhankui's hand.
Wang Zhankui opened the skin and inside was a very delicate box carved from bone, with two rubies on it.
Wang Zhankui originally wanted to shirk it, but the old man was very insistent, and Wang Zhankui accepted it and casually carried it in the pocket of his military coat.
After that, Wang Zhankui and the old man separated, and Wang Zhankui did not pay attention to the small box, so that he forgot to take it out after returning home.
Until more than twenty years later, once Wang Zhankui collected a bunch of miscellaneous things that had not been used for many years, and as a result, he turned out this small box from a down jacket, and Wang Zhankui had nothing to do that day, he suddenly wondered, what exactly was in this box?
This small bony box is very delicate, it looks like it should be a jewelry box, and when it is opened, it is filled with wax, and the wax vaguely seems to be sealed with something.
Wang Zhankui then found a tool and carefully peeled off the wax, and finally, an earthy yellow, egg yolk-sized bead appeared in front of Wang Zhankui's eyes.
What is this? Like a mud ball, but the texture is quite hard, Wang Zhankui looked at it for half a day, and concluded that this was a rounded stone, so he casually threw it in the fish tank and did not care about it.
As a result, when Wang Zhankui got up and walked by the fish tank in the dark that night, he was startled.
In the fish tank, the bead actually glowed green in the darkness, which was a pearl of night!
Wang Zhankui quickly fished it out. Wang Zhankui then thought that the boxes containing this bead were so delicate, and they were also studded with rubies, how could this bead be a stone?
Wang Zhankui came to Tianjin to identify what kind of treasure this bead was, so he met with Li Shiwei.
bibliography:
WEN Jiru,KANG Xia,LV Jurui. A newly discovered natural nocturnal pearl of phosphate rock. Bulletin of Mineralogy, Petrology and Geochemistry, 2006
CCTV "Into Science: The Legend of the Night Pearl"