Wu Yanzhou was a down-and-out young man doing odd jobs in an antique shop. After helping a mysterious elderly drifter, he unexpectedly received a dull gray jade cicada. The cicada fused with his eyes, awakening his “Spirit Eye of the Abyss,” which let him see through uncut stones, identify the age of antiques, and perceive the “treasure light” and “baleful energy” clinging to objects.
From then on, he entered the world of antique appraisal, where danger and opportunity went hand in hand. He made his first fortune by spotting a Qing-dynasty “gray pottery paperweight” at a night market, only to attract the attention of a local gangster. To get out of trouble, he entered a stone-gambling den. With his Spirit Eye, he chose a “dead stone” everyone else had dismissed, and it yielded a rare “purple-eyed” jadeite. He shot to fame, but also drew even more covetous eyes.
He discovered that the jade cicada was connected to a lost “Antique Appraisal Sect,” and that he wasn’t the only “Spirit-Eyed” person in the world. A foreign smuggling ring disguised as a group of refined merchants laid traps ahead, while heirs to an antique-appraisal clan with a century-old legacy saw him as a challenge. Wu Yanzhou had to rely on his wits and Spirit Eye to grow through bargain hunting, stone gambling, and antique appraisal, building up wealth and connections while uncovering the secrets behind the jade cicada and exposing a conflict over ancient artifacts that had raged for a thousand years.
A worthless stone marked at three thousand in a gambling den yields Imperial Green with a single cut.
A “forgery” hanging in a museum conceals an authentic painting by Tang Bohu.
With those eyes, he finds so many bargains that every major auction house blacklists him, the Palace Museum’s experts come to seek his advice, and collectors around the world start questioning their own sanity.
Until the mysterious stone coffin, the headliner at an underground auction, is opened. Lin Mo’s pupils contract: the woman lying inside looks exactly like the “her” who has haunted his dreams for three years…
