“Protecting treasures across two timelines,” “love of country and family,” “identifying and appraising cultural relics”
A fragment of a manuscript brings to light a family injustice that has endured for eighty years.
A bronze clasp binds the destinies of two generations of treasure guardians.
Shen Yanci, a sharp-tongued modern-day appraisal prodigy, accidentally bids on a fragment of The Secret Manual of Precious Antiquities while trying to clear his great-grandfather Shen Yanzhou’s name of the charge of stealing under his own watch. But the purchase draws him into a deadly pursuit.
Su Qinghe, a cool and reserved restorer, arrives bearing secrets. Her grandfather was a righteous man who guarded treasures alongside Shen Yanzhou all those years ago.
Coded messages lead to four hidden treasure sites.
Amid the flames of war in the Republic of China era, Shen Yanzhou, Chen Shoumo, Gu Mingyuan, and forty others risked their lives to protect the treasures. They faked their deaths and hid the national treasures deep in the land.
In the modern-day investigation, Shen Yanci and Su Qinghe join forces to break the case, expose the hypocritical villains, and reveal the heinous crimes of three generations of the Wei family, who collaborated with the enemy and stole national treasures.
They appraise relics, but what they judge is the human heart.
They protect national treasures and carry on the legacy of Chinese civilization.
“Objects may be lost, but history must never be erased. The nation may be broken, but its cultural heritage must never be severed.”
When the manuscript fragments are reunited and the secret manual revealed, the day the wrongs are righted will also be the day the national treasures return to their resting place and the land is at peace.
