Beiping, 1944. Liulichang.
Shen Mo is a shop assistant at Boguzhai. He is quiet and reserved, but his eyes can distinguish truth from forgery across a thousand years. All he wants is to look after his elderly mother and live peacefully in the hutongs.
That is, until Lin Wan moves into Tongfuli. This gentle schoolteacher’s father was murdered by the Japanese, and every night she writes anti-Japanese leaflets, wielding her pen like a gun. A painting titled Fishing Alone on a Cold River puts her in the eye of the storm: hidden inside it is a map of Japanese military deployments, intelligence her father paid for with his life.
Shen Mo means to stay out of it, but steps in front of her when she is followed and offers her a bowl of hot fermented mung bean juice when she has nowhere to go.
“You’re in too much danger on your own.”
“Then will you stay with me?”
From that moment on, the master appraiser returns to the world, not for the country, but for her.
At dusk, deep in the hutongs, someone waits for daybreak.
The writing is pretty good 👍