Old Dreams of Chang’an: Official Jilang

Suzhou’s plum rain season always brings a dampness that seems impossible to shake. Jika Sha stood in the courtyard of the Song Feng Tang workshop, the scent of paulownia, catalpa, and aged lacquer lingering around her. She held a silver folding caliper, her fingertip pressing firmly against its markings. Fine raindrops peppered her navy-blue business suit, forming tiny circles, but she barely noticed. Her gaze was fixed on the pile of guqin parts awaiting inspection on the worktable in front of her, or, more precisely, the bridges for a banana-leaf-style guqin.