Fireworks Beyond the Score

He burned that page of the genealogy.

Jiang Xubai is a mural restoration specialist, the daughter of a carpenter from Yuncheng, Shanxi. In a cross section just one millimeter thick, she can count thirteen layers of workmanship. She can tell what year, which workshop, and whose hand left a layer of dust five hundred years ago.

She took forty-seven samples from the east wall of Yunyan Temple's main hall. Forty-six were modern putty.

Only one spot still held the real thing: 0.15 square meters, hidden behind a pillar, as if someone had left it there on purpose.

The general contractor due to receive her report was Suzhou Pei Traditional Architecture.

Pei Yu handles the accounts. He has a habit when reviewing files: money first, people second, and time last. A 3.86 million yuan "traditional craftsmanship consulting fee" had been paid to a company founded just twenty-two days earlier. Purchases of four traditional materials amounted to less than a fifth of the required quota.

He filed to recuse himself. The reason he gave was "a longstanding personal relationship"...

Cui Xiuzhen, the company's sole shareholder, had cooked for the Pei family for twenty-three years. On the night his grandfather was buried, she had kept vigil in the mourning hall.

The same wall, two different truths. She restored gold; he investigated the price difference on gold; and his family made money from that same price difference.

Eight years ago, they parted at the Nanjing train station. They both said, "You go first," and then neither of them managed to leave. Eight years later, they meet again in a site office. One calls him "Director Pei," the other calls her "Engineer Jiang," and neither is the first to say the other's name.

December 22: the ridgepole ceremony. The Pei family will announce two things: he will be entered into the Genealogy of Craft and become the seventh-generation heir, and he will join the board.

His mother once said these words, to Jiang Xubai eight years ago, and to him eight years later:

"Everything our family gives you is something you'll have to repay."