I’m Zhou Mingyuan, a Palace Museum artifact restorer. I earn eight thousand yuan a month, and my livestream has three hundred followers.
Late one night, while livestreaming a “Forbidden City exploration” in the Qianlong Garden, I accidentally dug right through the floor tiles with my trowel.
There was a secret chamber below. In it was a coffin, and sitting inside the coffin was a man.
He wore a Ming-dynasty prince’s robe and glared at me. “Insolent! Why don’t you kneel before Your Highness?!”
Thinking it was a dream, I shoved the camera in his face. “Folks, we’ve got a living Ming-dynasty prince! Follow me, and next time I’ll teach him how to use Douyin.”
The livestream went wild.
His name was Zhu Zaiyu, Prince of Zheng in the Ming dynasty, sealed away for six hundred years. He couldn’t use a phone, didn’t understand traffic lights, and thought elevators were some kind of demon.
But he knew everything: how to authenticate artifacts, mechanical engineering, astronomy and calendars, and lost Ming-dynasty techniques.
He glanced at a vase worth three hundred yuan. “Xuande blue-and-white porcelain. Worth thirty million.”
He took on a national treasure the Palace Museum couldn’t restore. “I was there when this was fired.”
From then on, my livestream audience skyrocketed from three hundred to thirty million. Zhao Heting, the villain, wanted to steal his magical artifact. International capital was after his secrets. And five other “sleepers” remained sealed away, waiting for us to rescue them.
They said, “Capital can buy anything.”
The prince replied, “What belongs to me is not for sale.”
I asked him, “Why did you choose to stay?”
He said, “Because your era is better than mine.”
[Livestream Chat Version] (A new Tomato Novel feature, can be used)
[Little Zhou] I dug up a living Ming-dynasty prince while livestreaming at the Forbidden City
[The Prince] Insolent! Why don’t you kneel before Your Highness?!
[Little Zhou] Folks, he’s alive! Follow me, and next time I’ll teach him how to use Douyin
[Chat] He’s alive! Followed!
