Synopsis
Other people appraise antiques with their eyes. Chen Qiao does it by touch.
After eight months as an apprentice in Panjiayuan, he has never told anyone that when he touches a genuine antique, he can see its previous owner’s memories. Three seconds of images, at the cost of a splitting headache.
One day, his master buys a batch of old goods from a demolished residence for five hundred yuan. While sorting through the fourth box, Chen Qiao touches a bronze incense burner. A vision flashes before him: beneath the light of a kerosene lamp, a man in a long robe is sealing up a hole in the wall. A charred scrap of paper falls from inside the burner. Eight characters are written on it: “The item is safely hidden. Do not worry or search.”
The next day, someone comes to the shop asking about the incense burner.
Chen Qiao decides to keep it and investigate for himself. Following the hasty clues in a notebook, he traces the trail from Panjiayuan to an abandoned warehouse in Tianjin’s former British Concession, from Old Xu’s stall in the ghost market to the moon gate of an old residence in Liulichang. The further he follows the clues, the more he realizes he is searching for more than a trove of cultural relics that vanished eighty years ago. He is also looking for the person who hid them. And that person has the same ability he does.
[Antique appraisal + Republican-era mystery + superpowers + tracing lost cultural relics. Grounded, no System or golden fingers, slow burn]
