You are all ruby-red porcelain, while I’m the chipped cup.
Three-and-a-half-year-old Chengcheng sits on the restoration table, swinging her legs, a chipped white porcelain cup in her arms.
Mu Qinggui opens the old restoration studio her grandfather left behind, intending to settle his affairs and leave. The child on the table looks up at her:
“You’re back. Grandpa waited three years for you. You came back too late.”
Every antiquity has memories. Chengcheng only has to touch something to know whether it hurts. A cracked porcelain bowl, a broken key, a Yixing teapot, a jade pendant: Mu Qinggui restores them, and Chengcheng tells her, “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
But at the center of the restoration table sits a piece of ruby-red porcelain covered with blue cloth, which her grandfather spent his whole life trying and failing to restore.
Chengcheng says, “He’s waiting for you to fix it. He can only leave once you’ve finished.”
Mu Qinggui doesn’t know that every layer of ruby-red glaze she restores brings Chengcheng one step closer to a secret.
Fix it, and Chengcheng may disappear.
