[Modern Urban Life, Antiques, Appraisal, Business Rivalry, Suspense, Comeback, Treasure Hunting]
The night a bronze cauldron suddenly spoke, Gu Zhao’s hand trembled around his restoration knife.
“Zhao, the key to the Spirit Wardens is in the first piece of jade you restored.” The voice was unmistakably that of his master, who had been missing for three years!
Only then did he realize that the books he had read growing up, The Exploitation of the Works of Nature and Eight Discourses on the Art of Living, were actually the Spirit Wardens’ “secret manuals for awakening spirits.”
So what if he was just an apprentice at an old shop?
With his golden finger, the power to “awaken all things,” he finds spirit-fragmented ancient jade at flea markets and brings sentient porcelain vessels to light at auctions. And in his clashes with black-market dealers and heiresses from powerful families, he uncovers a system of guardianship concealed for a thousand years. When the last “Spirit Sovereign”-class artifact awakens, he stands at the pinnacle of the industry and smiles. “The rules of this trade? They should be rewritten by someone who can bring antiques to life.”
