Reborn in a high school classroom in 1994, I stare blankly at the butterfly clip in the ponytail of the girl sitting in front of me.
The sight of my pawnshop going bankrupt in my previous life is still vivid. This time, I have thirty years’ worth of knowledge about antiques and collectibles.
> At a roadside stall outside the school gate, an old woman drinks from an enamel mug. Beside her, a blue-and-white porcelain cup holding down a textbook glimmers faintly.
“Will you take fifty cents for this old thing?” My hand trembles as I clutch the only money I have for lunch.
A Yongle blue-and-white stem cup, a national treasure with only three surviving examples in the Palace Museum. A fourth has been left gathering dust at a secondhand bookstall.
At the black market, I push the cup toward a sinister-looking buyer.
“Kid, can you guarantee this cup is authentic?”
