To be honest, on the day I received the notice of layoffs from the city museum, I squatted at the door and ate cold buns. I felt that my life was broken like shards of pottery. Who would have thought that three days later, I would be facing a bronze box that had just been fished out from the bottom of the river and was still dripping with muddy water. My hands were shaking so much that I couldn't hold the tweezers steady.
There are no treasures in the box, only a dead branch and a piece of silk cloth painted with patterns of birds and animals - it is said that an "anonymous collector" appointed me to restore it. No one else has my luck.
When clearing dead branches, the tip of the needle accidentally touched a small nodule. The lights in the studio flickered suddenly, and a wind carrying the scent of grass and ancient earth blew past out of thin air. What's even more frightening is that the dead branch trembled in the palm of my hand, like a sleeping heart being awakened for a moment.
That night I began to have strange dreams: I dreamed of a one-legged bird wailing in the fire, and dreamed of a green snake coiling around a mulberry tree reaching the sky. Every time I wake up, the color of the dead branches becomes more vivid. After searching all the information, I could only find the correspondence from "The Classic of Mountains and Seas" - the one-legged bird looked very much like the legendary "Bifang".
The dead branches later even emitted a faint buzzing sound. I tried to copy the square pattern on the silk cloth. When I finished the painting, the eyes on the paper lit up. The pothos beside the window moved automatically without wind, and its leaves pointed towards the night sky.
The phone suddenly lights up with a text message without a number:
"The direction of the tenth branch has been found. Be careful of the false gods' ears and eyes."
I looked at the dead branches and the green leaves pointing into the distance, and smiled bitterly: I'm afraid I won't be able to quit this job.
