They said I was wagering three months on a love affair, never knowing that this restoration had begun twenty years ago: the night my mother cut open an artery with a shard of broken porcelain, I became the final offering for this celadon. When Lu Chen pressed his gun against the pattern on the base of the vase I had restored, the monitor showed the fetal heartbeat had stopped at 160 beats per minute, exactly the length of time he had kissed me the first time.
