Lin Ye, a delivery rider in Luocheng, checks his e-bike tires at five every morning, cooks a bowl of vegetable noodles in his rented room, then shoulders his insulated delivery bag and plunges into the maze-like alleys of the urban village. He makes a living running deliveries, but he also has a knack for sensing the earth beneath his feet. By feeling changes in temperature, humidity, and soil, he can detect the blue clay buried beneath the asphalt, six hundred years old.
In 1987, his grandfather marked three red circles on a hand-drawn map: “Possible underground palace beneath the prince’s estate.” Sixty years later, Lin Ye spots signs of illegal digging while making a delivery, and the locations marked on the map begin to check out one by one. Caught between Xinlian Real Estate’s development machinery, the Four Lame’s underground digging gang, and the mysterious antique broker He Jianqiu trying to recruit him, this “lowly delivery guy” sets off on a race against time, armed with Sister Zhao’s soy milk, Wang the Fatty’s shift schedule, and geologist Zhang Weiguo’s ground-penetrating radar.
From the Prince of Yong’an’s estate in the old streets south of the city to a Tang-dynasty water gate on the western riverbank, the three red circles link the buried memories of a city. This isn’t treasure hunting; it’s protection. His grandfather guarded this same place with a pen, and he guards it with his feet. Together, they’ve protected it for sixty years.
Keywords: Contemporary suspense | Archaeological treasure hunting | The streetwise world | Generational legacy
