Shen Yanqiu found a young woman outside his family’s auction house. She was wearing a Ming dynasty ruqun and opened with, “Is this Yingtian Prefecture?”
He thought he’d picked up trouble. Later, he realized he’d picked up an appraisal cheat.
Su Linlang, a young lady from Gusu in the fifteenth year of the Chongzhen era, was struck by lightning and sent to 2026. She can date porcelain more accurately than machines and authenticate paintings and calligraphy faster than experts. The only problems are that she can’t use a phone, ride the subway, or see a vending machine without calling it “Boss.”
The Zhao family’s antique shop sent over a fake painting to test her, and she exposed it with a single sentence. At a night-market challenge, four fakes and one genuine piece, she publicly made them eat their words. Then, when her opponent panicked and cornered her in an alley...
Shen Yanqiu charged in with an iron pipe, carried her to the car, and said quietly, “Don’t go out alone again.”
Su Linlang asked him why. He said, “You still owe me 143 yuan for the high-speed train ticket.”
Later, Su Linlang discovered that the last page of the little character book he’d made for her said: “Don’t go back to the Ming dynasty.”
Theme: Uprooted from their own era, a person finds a way to take root in a new world through their craft.
