Keeper

In the early summer of the 25th year of the Republic of China, Shen Huaimo, a young appraiser of the Forbidden City in Peking, discovered an abnormality in the writing of the character "Zhi" in a volume of unnamed essays in the dust collected by the Nansan Institute. Scientific testing and document tracing have uncovered a shocking secret: the "Lanting Preface" buried in the Zhaoling Mausoleum of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty is actually a replica that is sufficiently authentic. The original has been drifting in the dark river of history for thousands of years, thanks to the blood relay of "keepers" of past generations. In order to protect the national treasure from being coveted, Shen Huaimo took the post south to Shanghai and met Su Nianyun, the last secret keeper of the Su family. The two pursue each other step by step in the whirlpool of troubled times, from the silk book outside Xue Jingchen's Zhaoling Mausoleum, to the bones of Li Mozhai's wife who traveled south, from Gu Yuesheng's swan song on the stage, to the copper box under Su Bo'an's pomegranate tree - five dusty past events, five layers of protection entrusted by life, pieced together the footprints of a roll of paper that will last for thousands of years. When tracking and plundering pressed closer, they finally chose to return the original to its rightful resting place: inside Xumen, Suzhou, under the pomegranate tree in the Su family's old residence. Paper has a lifespan of a thousand years and can be kept without uncovering it. Those who have protected it with their lives do not need to remember their names, but those words have been written into the wind.