In the shabbiest shop in Panjiayuan, Chen Ji was using an imperial ink stick from the Qianlong era to prop up his instant-noodle bowl.
Nobody knew that this young man, who was always talking nonsense, had once been a legend in the antiques world, missing for five years. He was the only non-Clan member to inherit the Gu family's legacy. He mastered the Heaven's Eye at sixteen, restored a national treasure at eighteen, and made a Japanese appraisal master admit defeat in public at twenty. Then he vanished for five years, living quietly among ordinary people and never showing off his skills. Until a woman in a black business dress walked through the door and slapped a blank check onto the counter.
“Come with me to the antiques appraisal competition. Your opponent is Shen Mingzhe, the man who framed you five years ago.”
Chen Ji pushed the check back. “I don't want the money. I want him disgraced in front of the whole country.”
From Panjiayuan to Christie's autumn auction, from the Forbidden City's underground vaults to the British Museum, he used eyes that could see through anything to distinguish genuine artifacts from fakes. He restored broken treasures with the long-lost Thousand-Thread Technique, unseen for four hundred years, and used a livestream to expose the entire black market in smuggled relics.
He appraised objects, but saw through people's hearts. He restored not only broken artifacts, but a severed legacy.
Jiang Ci's jade bangle, Gu Niansheng's damaged ancient painting, Lin Xiaolu's grandfather's keepsake: three women, three bonds entwined with his fate. But his true opponent lay at the end of every clue. There, a bronze sacred tree, shattered two thousand years ago, awaited his restoration.
